Knights of the Black and White

by Jack Whyte

  Hugh de Payens stood just inside the door, holding it open as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadows of the interior after the brightness of the early afternoon outside. St. Omer, Bissot, and Montdidier sat gazing at him from the brightly lit table by the window, and behind them, on a couch against the wall where he had been lying in semi-darkness, Gondemare was raising himself on one elbow. De Payens noticed the absence of St. Agnan and de Rossal, but before he had time to ask where they were they crowded through the door at his back, requiring him to move into the middle of the room, where they all began to throw questions at him.

  “Enough, in God’s name! Listen to yourselves, like a pack of old women. You can’t all talk at once if you seriously want answers. Give me time to take off my cloak and lay down my weapons and catch my breath and I’ll tell you everything. But I am not going to stand here like a street huckster and be shouted at. St. Agnan, find Ibrahim and ask him to bring us some food and drink, if you will, and the rest of you, sit down around the table like civil creatures.”

  De Payens took a few moments to rid himself of his long, sheathed sword and the belt that held the dagger and the scrip at his waist. Then, when he had stripped off his long outer garment and the flowing headdress that he chose to wear instead of an iron Frankish helmet, he moved to seat himself at the head of the table, where he waited for St. Agnan to return from his errand. No one spoke to him in the interim, but every eye in the room was on him, trying to detect some hint of what he had to tell, and as soon as all six of them were assembled, he spoke, wasting no time on preliminaries.

  “He said yes. We will have our permission.”

  He waited for the first outburst of approval to die down, then quelled the last of it by simply raising one hand. “It will not happen today or tomorrow. It might take a year to achieve, perhaps even longer. But it will happen. The Patriarch wants it to happen.”

  “How? What did he say?” This was St. Agnan, eager as always.

  “He outlined what he wants, and made it very plain, although he approached it with some subtlety. In fact, had we not taken the pains we did to suggest exactly what we wanted from him, I might have thought he had come up with the idea himself. Certes, he himself believes he did, and that is the finest result we could have won.

  “He was waiting for me when I arrived, and his secretary, Bishop Odo, led me right into his presence, in the small room where he works daily, not the audience chamber where we were received yesterday. He then dismissed Odo and followed him to the outer door to check that he was gone from the anteroom before we began to talk.”

  “Odo would not have liked that,” St. Agnan growled. “I had the feeling yesterday that he is the kind of fellow who likes to know everything that’s going on everywhere.”

  “Aye, he was not happy, but Warmund de Picquigny is not a man to be crossed lightly.

  “Anyway, as soon as we were alone, the Patriarch reminded me of what I had said about being willing to assume a task like other monkish orders, should someone wish to assign us one that seemed appropriate, and he revisited my comments about the misfortune of not having such a thing as an order of warrior monks, although he did not dwell on any of that. Instead, he talked then about the problem of brigandage on the roads, and the escalating threats to the safety and welfare of pilgrims to the Holy Places. Of course, he knew that we are all familiar with the situation and understand it to be a chronic thorn in the side of the administration of the kingdom, but he went to great lengths to explain, and to justify, why the King is unable to do anything about the problem, contentious as it is. And he went to even greater lengths to make sure that I was fully informed about his own responsibilities as Patriarch and Archbishop, which make him nominally responsible for the safety of the entire Church in Jerusalem, including the priests and clerics who administer the daily affairs of the Church, and the pilgrims who entrust themselves to the authority and supervision of the Church within the Holy Land—”

  His eyes widened, and he sat up straighter and looked at each of his friends around the table. “Do you know,” he continued in a voice tinged with wonder, “it has but now occurred to me that he spoke invariably of the Holy Land. Not once did he call this place the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the name Outremer never arose in our conversation, and only now does that lead me to see that our Patriarch perceives his position, and his responsibilities, as having nothing even remotely to do with King Baldwin, or with the King’s ambitions for Jerusalem, or his visions of the kingdom as a civil state. Our Warmund de Picquigny has eyes only for the religious reality of Jerusalem—the Holy City in the Holy Land. As far as he is concerned, nothing else has any significance, and the King and his nobles are mere nuisances, interfering with the conduct of the Patriarch’s ecclesiastical affairs.”

  He became aware of the blank looks on his listeners’ faces and cleared his throat. “Aye, well … He asked me then to give him my own personal opinion about what might be done—what needed to be done—about the situation on the roads, and I did not have much to say. But I told him of our little escapade of two or three nights ago, when we chased the brigands out into the desert, and that led me to speculate on how little actual armed force might be required to halt the depredations of these people. I opined, and he agreed with me, that the difficulties are expanding, and the bandits are prolif-erating in numbers, simply because they are encountering no opposition at all. That would change rapidly, I told him, if only someone could field even a tiny force of determined, disciplined invigilators to patrol the roads. The mere threat of their presence, I said, once that presence was established and expected, would probably reduce the number of such incidents dramatically.

  “And then, having said that, I said no more.”

  A soft knock sounded at the door, and de Payens waved a warning hand, silencing everyone as the innkeeper himself opened the doors wide and stepped inside, ahead of a pair of grinning servants carrying a stretcher of food slung from their shoulders and another, this one a giant, who carried an enormous copper tray laden with potables. The talk dwindled into triviality as the servants fussed about, setting out the food, and after they were alone again, none of the knights paid any attention to anything other than the food in front of them: fresh-baked bread, still warm, with fresh-made, creamy goat cheese; a dish of olives glistening with oil and herbs; three kinds of fresh fruit; hard cheeses of several kinds and shapes; two cold fowl and a number of dried sausages. No one spoke again for some time, until the food had been depleted and they sat back, belching softly in satisfaction.

  Eventually, it was Rossal who brought everyone back to the subject at hand. “Hugh,” he said, “there is something I do not understand. You said you believe the Patriarch favors your request, and that it suits all his personal purposes, but that it might take a year or more for him to be able to put it into effect. I thought the Patriarch of Jerusalem has all the spiritual power in Outremer that the Pope in Rome enjoys throughout Christendom. Is that not true? And if it is, why would it take so long for him to make it possible for you to do what you wish to do?”

  De Payens wiped his chin and rinsed his mouth with a draft of chilled grape juice before he answered, and even the least attentive of the others could see that he was thinking carefully about how he would respond. Eventually, however, he sat back and stroked his beard. “Nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems, Roland. What to us may seem a simple matter of logic, cause and effect, is seldom seen as such by those whose concern it is to keep the world’s affairs proceeding smoothly.

  “Warmund of Picquigny, even although he is Patriarch Archbishop of Jerusalem and therefore spiritual leader of his flock in Outremer, is none the less constrained to live in harmony with his temporal coequals. He could go straight ahead and do as he wishes, secure in his awareness of superiority as God’s representative here in the Holy Land, but by doing so he would probably alienate—needlessly—every king, every count, and every other nobly born man of power and means within his own dom
inion. That would be stupid, in my opinion, and if you but think on it for a moment, I have no doubt that you will agree with me. There is an ancient saying, from the New Testament, that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That is a very simple truth, except that, in its self-avowed weakness, the flesh can sometimes be brutally strong, and that is what the Patriarch has to consider.

  “He could turn around tomorrow and issue a decree, backed by the absolute power of the Church, that one knight in every three, for example, must be seconded to the Church’s affairs for the duration, answerable only to himself as the Church’s senior representative here in the Holy Land. He could do that, beyond any trace of doubt, for he has the authority, in theory at least. And the chances are that many of the lords would submit to it, in the belief that God speaks directly through His representatives here on earth. But there would be many others who would balk at it, interpreting his idea as an unwarranted intrusion by the Church—or by cynical churchmen—upon their legal and justifiable affairs. That entire realm of perceptions, beliefs, and interpretations is a quagmire into which no sane and forward-thinking man would ever wish to blunder, for once that refusal has been evoked, and the bit of disobedience is firmly clamped between the teeth of the rebels, who is to say what mutinies might follow or how long it might take to resolve the differences stirred up?”

  No one spoke in response to that, until St. Agnan asked, “So what will happen next?”

  De Payens spread his hands. “I have no idea. First, the Archbishop will have to convince the King that what he is proposing—this idea of using us as a counteractive invigilator force—has self-evident merit. On that point, I anticipate he will have little difficulty. The King is in dire need of an alternative solution, to divert some of the heat from his own skillet. This that we are offering might well be exactly what he is looking for.

  “But it is not the King who concerns us most. He has a keen mind and can be trusted to look to his own advantage. Unfortunately, much the same can be said of the very people to whom we owe our feudal allegiance. They, too, are never without an eye to their own advantage, and in this instance there is nothing, in any part of this proposal, that redounds to their benefit. They lose on all fronts, because they are the people who have to absorb the loss—the permanent loss, without compen-sation—of our services. Those are the people whom Warmund de Picquigny will have to convince of the soundness of his thinking in this matter, and I have no slightest idea of how he might approach that task. I do know, however, that I wish him well of it.”

  He thought for a while, then nodded his head emphatically. “That is all I have to say. I believe that what we have petitioned will come into effect. I have no knowledge of what will be entailed, in the final reckoning, other than that we will become Christian monks, supported out of churchly funds, and that we will bind ourselves by the same solemn vows that bind us, for the most part, already, and that we will hold ourselves accountable primarily, albeit purely on the surface, to Warmund de Picquigny, the Patriarch Archbishop.”

  St. Omer raised a hand. “Did you remember to ask about the stables?”

  “Of course I did, and the Archbishop agreed without the slightest hesitation. The stables will be ours, from the moment King Baldwin concurs and our plans achieve reality. He did not even pause to consider my request before granting it. And why should he? Those stables have lain abandoned and unused for hundreds of years. And now he sees them being put to good use, in a manner that will cost him and the King nothing. So mote it be.”

  His companions joined him instantly in the ancient benison of their Order. “So mote it be.”

  MONKS OF THE MOUNT

  ONE

  Trapped and helpless in her swaying carriage and surrounded by battling, screaming men, Morfia of Melitene had no wish to believe that her life was about to end, but she was too pragmatic to doubt the reality of what was happening to her. It had already happened to her escort, Sir Alexander Guillardame, and now he sprawled inelegantly in front of her, face down on the seat opposite hers, the blood and brains from his shattered head all over the skirts of her gown, the stench of his loosened bowels filling the tiny space of the box in which she was confined. He had been the second of the two young knights in the carriage with her when the attack began, both of them lolling at their ease, their helmets on the floor by their feet and their chain-mail cowls thrust back from their heads as they made pleasant conversation, earnestly trying to amuse and divert her on the long journey. But then had come a commotion of some kind and the vehicle had lurched, swayed, and tilted dangerously to one side, its panicked horses pulling it off the road and then coming to a halt as the screams and shouts of angry, frightened men sprang up from every direction.

  Before any of the three people in the carriage could even begin to comprehend the sudden change, they had heard the thunder of hooves as a large group of horsemen—Morfia had been too confused and frightened at the time even to wonder who they were—arrived among them, and before she had time even to ask what was happening, her two knightly escorts were scrambling towards the carriage door, blocking each other’s movements in their haste and fumbling for their weapons as they went, their helmets forgotten on the floor.

  Antoine de Bourgogne threw open the door and leapt out first, unaware that he had grasped his lady’s arm for leverage as he thrust himself forward. Momentarily aware of the fleeting pain of his wrench-ing grip, Morfia watched him land on his feet and fall straight to his knees, his hands clawing at the impossibly long spear shaft that had transfixed him as he jumped. As he toppled forward, her view of him was cut off by the bulk of young Alex Guillardame as he, too, fought for balance in the cramped doorway of the swaying carriage. She then heard a short, violent ripping noise that ended in a solid, shocking impact that reminded her, incongruously, of the sound of an axe hitting a tree stump, and then had come a choking grunt from the young knight as he spun quickly back from the door to face her, his entire face ruined, his skull blown apart by the force of the iron crossbow bolt that had struck the peak of his unguarded forehead.

  As her eyes widened in horror, the dead knight kept turning, spun perhaps by the impetus of the missile that had killed him, pulling the door shut again with his sagging weight so that the heavy curtains blocked out all sight, but not sound, of what was happening outside. Petrified, Morfia watched as the dead man’s knees finally gave way and he toppled slowly towards her, the liquescent mass of what had been the contents of his skull spilling from his head to fall with a wet, slapping sound. Only then did she react in horror, screaming and kicking out with both feet in the violence of panic and outrage. Her feet, close together, struck Guillardame’s shoulder with great force, and the impact thrust him upright again and turned him around, so that he fell away from her this time, face down onto the bench where he had been sitting moments earlier. She heard the liquid gurgle as his anal sphincter gave way, and then had come a period of time about which she remembered nothing.

  When her senses returned to her, the fighting outside was still going on, and she felt herself overwhelmed by panic once again. This time, however, her presence of mind had returned to her sufficiently to allow her to fight off the waves of helplessness and look about her for some means of defending herself.

  The hilt of Guillardame’s dagger was right in front of her, thrusting up from the belt about his waist, and she grasped it and pulled it free just as her carriage was rocked violently by a heavy impact that sent her reeling against the side of the vehicle. As she sprawled there, arms spread in the angle of the corner but still clutching the dagger in one hand, an arm came through the window across from her and wrenched the curtain from its mounting, revealing the leering, black-toothed face of the man who had leapt up onto the carriage and was now assessing her, savoring his prize.

  Morfia pushed herself upright and gripped the dagger more tightly, preparing to launch herself at the fellow the moment he made any attempt to pull open the carriage door or come closer to her, and he
r breath caught in her throat as she saw his clawed fingers reach for her, even although she knew he could not possibly touch her from where he was. And then, more quickly than it took her to realize what had happened, he was gone, bludgeoned away and ripped backward into death by a trio of small, heavy, spiked metal balls attached to chains that smashed into his head and shoulder with lethal force. She saw the balls strike. One of them crushed the side of his face, another his cloth-bound head, and the third hit high on his shoulder, but they hit as one, producing only a single violent crunching sound. She felt another surge of nausea, but fought it down, grimly determined to do whatever might be necessary to save her own life from then on, and then she saw a gauntleted, mail-clad arm beneath a bright blue surcoat, reaching in to grasp the pillar of her door, and the carriage lurched yet again as another man transferred his weight to her wagon and thrust his head into her window.

  He was a young-looking man, wearing a flat metal helm over a hood of mail that framed a deeply tanned face with a short-cropped dark beard and blazing blue eyes that went wide with shock when he saw her gazing at him. He hung where he was, face to face with her for long moments, then turned away and looked back over his shoulder at what was going on behind him.

  “Your horses are dead, my lady,” he said, not quite shouting at her, “so I can’t take you away to some place safer, and it’s too dangerous here to risk your life on my horse’s back, so I will stay here and watch over you for a while. Jubal!” This last was a bellow, accompanied by a sweeping wave of the arm to attract another’s attention, as her savior released his hold on the door and dropped to the ground, his back to her. “Jubal!” It obviously worked, for as she moved forward to look down at him, the knight cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted, “Here, to me, with three others!”

  He turned back to where the Queen had approached the window and was gazing out at the carnage surrounding them. The fighting had moved away, but there were still knots of men fighting, it seemed, wherever she looked.