Knights of the Black and White

by Jack Whyte

  Since the early beginnings of knighthood, there had been little love lost between churchmen and the warrior class, and the differences between the two estates had widened since then. The knights of Christendom, only nominally Christian at the best of times, knew no containment and nothing of moderation, and they had no fear of reprisals for anything they did, since reprisals, when all was said and done, entailed fighting, and fighting was the be-all and the end-all of their existence. There were countless thousands of them, each a law unto himself, and until Pope Urban had conscripted all of them to free the Holy Land from the grip of the infidel Muslim, they had threatened all of Christendom with utter anarchy.

  Nowadays, the Holy Land was filled with knights, few of whom bore any resemblance to Christians in the traditional sense, removed as they were from any vestigial remnants of the civilizing influences of wives, families, and social responsibilities. They were warriors all, and savage in the way of warriors. Many of them were guilty of heinous crimes, both at home and in Outremer, and most of them were still so ungovernable that until the formation by Warmund de Picquigny of the new order of warrior monks in Jerusalem, no sane person would have believed that such a thing would ever be possible. Until the Patriarch Archbishop took that unprecedented step, no cleric had ever been permitted to bear weapons, let alone take human life. The fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” was unequivocal, and its application universal.

  Warmund de Picquigny, however, had viewed things from a different and greatly troubled perspective: that of a senior prelate faced with the apparently hopeless task of protecting an entire patriarchy against destruction by a hostile, anti-Christian presence that surrounded it. Spurred by urgent and unrelenting need, he had applied some moral definitions of his own that were both radical and innovative, bluntly stating that men sworn to the service of God must, by definition, have a Christian duty to defend their God and His works against faithless unbelievers who sought to destroy His servants in His earthly kingdom. The Patriarch had, in effect, propounded a justification for creating a new breed of churchmen, making it not merely forgivable but laudable for priests and monks to fight and kill other men in the name of God and His Holy Church, and it was clear that, as Patriarch Archbishop of Jerusalem, he saw neither cynicism nor hypocrisy in such a blatant warping of rules, criteria, and interdictions that had existed for centuries in order to suit the political exigencies of the moment.

  Count Hugh, as Seneschal of the Order of Rebirth, had, on one level, been involved with the new order of knight monks from soon after its inception. At another, secret level, however, he had been one of those responsible for making the entire thing possible, in order to further the designs of the Order of Rebirth, and he had clearly seen the advantages to having a young knight of St. Clair’s caliber within his camp. Sir Stephen St. Clair had quickly been taken into the Count’s household and enrolled as a potential entrant to the Order, under the Count’s personal sponsorship, and he had responded so favorably and enthusiastically to his tutors that he was Raised to full membership in a remarkably short time. A bare three years later, carrying the Count’s own instructions as Seneschal, he had been dispatched to Jerusalem, to join the brethren of the fledgling order of knight monks.

  Now an admired and honored veteran of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ, who were looked up to by the entire populace as champions of the holy faith, St. Clair frequently found himself shaking his head in rueful disbelief and reflecting on the irony of their situation.

  That he and his eight brethren were not Christian was the single biggest secret of their fraternity, and they guarded it, literally, with their lives, for they would all be condemned to die instantly were the truth to become known or even suspected. Each man among them came from a Christian family, and their parents and siblings were all Christians, as were their servants and associates, the sergeant brothers who supported them and bore the brunt of their patrolling duties. The nine knights themselves, however, had relinquished Christianity when they were Raised to the Order of Rebirth.

  Even the contemplation of that, after so many years, still had the power to astonish St. Clair, for that single act of relinquishment had been, for him and for each of his brethren, the most momentous and far-reaching commitment of their lives, and it was one that none of them could have accepted had it been presented to them in any other way. They had not been asked to abjure their former religion, nor to condemn it. Instead, surrounded by the warmth and trust of their nearest and dearest friends and relatives, some of them sponsors, all of them brethren, and knowing that each one of them had taken the selfsame route in earlier years, the neophytes had simply learned that there were other, older traditions of enlightenment than the Christianity that was pre-eminent in their world at that time, and that they and their ancestors had sprung from one such tradition. That their particular tradition was firmly rooted in Judaic principles was an anomaly that surprised most of the newly Raised members, but they soon came to accept that, after a millennium of careful nurturing and close attention to the content and form of its official Lore and rituals, the Order’s fundamental Jewishness was no more surprising, and no less Jewish, than the origins of Christianity itself.

  Stephen St. Clair had been unwilling to concede that understanding without a struggle, and he could still remember, almost verbatim, the discussion that had triggered his conversion, although it had, in truth, been more of a forceful argument than a measured debate and it had left him—or so he had thought at the time—unconvinced. Now, as his body settled into the easy, driving rhythm of shoveling rubble into the carts for disposal in the crevasse, he thought about it again, and it was still the foremost thing in his mind when, many hours later and bone-weary, he lowered himself to the boards of his cot, only to toss and turn for much of the night, remembering that far-off afternoon clearly and unable to find sleep in spite of his tiredness.

  FIVE

  What Stephen remembered most about his uncle, Sir William St. Clair—and it amused him, as always, that this should be the first thing to spring into his mind even after so many years—was that he seemed too young to be an uncle. Uncles, Stephen had always supposed, were on a par with fathers, members of an older generation and therefore beyond the understanding of young men of his age. This particular uncle, however, had been his father’s youngest half-brother, born to Stephen’s aging grandfather and a new, young wife who had replaced Stephen’s long-dead grandmother. And the truth was that Sir William St. Clair deserved to be remembered and respected for much more than his astonishing youth, for he was the natural successor to his own father, the austere and distinguished Sir Stephen St. Clair who had landed at Hastings with William the Bastard in 1066.

  More than any of his several brothers, William possessed and used all his father’s attributes—his massive stature and strength, his charm and wit, his intelligence, and his unparalleled skill with every imaginable weapon. He had ridden to the wars against the Seljuk Turks in Outremer at an early age and had earned himself a fearsome reputation for valor and prowess, before being struck down by a Seljuk arrow in a minor battle near Damascus, after which he had lain out in the desert for a day and a half before being found by Cedric, his loyal attendant, who had brought him home to Christendom after a long convalescence.

  Their journey from Outremer had been long and slow, and they had landed eventually in southern France, where William had made his way to Champagne, to visit his seldom-seen cousin Count Hugh, arriving by coincidence just in time to attend the Raising of his never-before-met nephew Stephen, who was no more than three years his junior. William had every intention of returning home to England eventually, he said, but for the time being, he was content to remain in France, eating and drinking in the sunshine and building the strength back into his huge body.

  Stephen liked him from the moment they met, and he knew the liking was mutual, although at first he had found his uncle’s natural exuberance and his outspokenness to be disconcerting. In his soldieri
ng days, he had quickly learned that the best way to deal with the constant shouting of his fellow knights was simply to keep to himself as much as he could, and once his companions had uncovered his disapproval of them, he had had no difficulty in keeping to himself constantly. He had no desire to avoid his uncle William, however, and so he soon grew inured to the loudness and ebullience, finding it oddly pleasing after a while.

  On the day of the argument that had made such an impression on Stephen, Sir William had taken a blow from a practice sword on his injured shoulder, and he was still pale and pinched about the mouth when Stephen walked in to where he was sitting with the Count, sharing a jug of wine in front of a roaring fire. It was already late on a wintry afternoon, and an unusually cold day for that part of France. Two hours yet remained before dinner in the great hall, and normally Sir William would still have been out in the practice yards and the Count would have been busy with his clerics, tending to accounts. Sir William’s shoulder injury had changed all that, however, and both men were enjoying the respite from routine. The Count waved Stephen to a chair near the fireplace, inviting him to help himself to some wine, and when the younger man refused and remained standing, the Count tilted his head sideways and asked, “What’s wrong? You look unhappy. Did you wish to speak with me?”

  Stephen shrugged. “Yes, my lord, but it can wait. I did not know you were with Uncle William. I’ll come back later.”

  “No, we will talk about it now, because I suspect it has something to do with your studies on the Order, and if that is the case, then William’s opinions will be every bit as valid as mine. Is that what this is about?” He saw Stephen’s nod and responded with one of his own. “So be it, then, what are you worried about?”

  “It’s … it is difficult to …”

  “No, it’s not. It never is, once it boils down to being truthful. You’re simply afraid of it. Come on, spit it out.”

  “I’m having difficulty believing what I’ve been told about Saint Paul.”

  Neither of his listeners showed even the slightest sign of surprise, and the Count barked a laugh. “And so you should, after a lifetime of being taught to revere him. What you are hearing now, from us, sounds like blasphemy. Having difficulty with that merely proves that you are alive and thinking properly.”

  “Aye, well …”

  “Well nothing, lad. Accept it. What you are learning now, within our Order, is the truth, written down in the beginning and unchanged in more than a thousand years. Everything you’ve learned about such things until now, on the other hand, is the manufactured truth, as perceived by the men who built the world’s Christian community.”

  “But Saint Paul is the greatest saint in the Church’s calendar.”

  “Aye, he is. But that makes no recognition of any possibility that the Church might be in error. And devout and dutiful Christians dare not wonder whether Paul might be the greatest saint of the Church only because he appointed himself to that position.” He paused, watching Stephen, then asked, “Do you know who the Maccabees were?”

  “Er … They were Jews … No, I don’t know.” “

  And what about the Seleucids. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it will, once you have learned a bit more. The Maccabees were the hereditary high priests of the Jewish temple before the advent of the Seleucids and the Romans.” The Count turned to his cousin William. “Why don’t you tell him about the Seleucids. But keep it simple.”

  Sir William spoke to Stephen, inclining his head in the direction of the Count. “He never stops testing, this one. Very well, but before I begin, know this, Nephew. This difficulty you are having is not new. We have all known it, suffered the same fears, felt the same uncertainties, experienced the same reactions. Every one of us within the Order of Rebirth has had to grapple with this doubt, the very question you are debating now, so you are not alone. Bear that in mind through everything we tell you here. Do you understand me?”

  Stephen nodded.

  “Excellent. Now listen closely. We have evidence—and you will soon see it for yourself—supporting all of what you are about to hear, and it was all written down more than a millennium ago. The Seleucids were a very powerful dynasty, a line of kings directly descended from one of Alexander of Macedon’s generals, and they ruled Syria for hundreds of years.”

  “Alexander of Macedon. You mean Alexander the Great?”

  “Aye. What do you know of him?”

  “He was Greek. Conquered the world three hundred or so years before the Christ was born.”

  “Aye, he was Greek. So were his generals, who divided up his empire when he died. Macedonians, all of them—Hellenic. One of them was Ptolemy, who took over Egypt and founded the dynasty that bred Cleopatra, and another was Seleucus, who founded the dynasty that ruled Asia Minor and Sicily for hundreds of years, intermarrying and diluting their Hellenic blood with the Arabs to produce a bastard race. Nothing wrong with that, as the Romans proved.

  “But then these Seleucids whelped a fellow called Herod—called himself ‘the Great’—who made himself king of the Jews after marrying Miriamne, the last princess of the Maccabees. He then wiped out the remainder of the Maccabean royal family and proceeded to spawn an entire brood of his own, the most famous of whom, from our viewpoint, was Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee. The Herod clan itself, and everyone associated with it, became known as Herodians, and the Jews—especially the fanatically nationalist Jews, the Zealots—detested them all, for being gentiles, of mixed, unclean, and non-Jewish blood. Herod’s biggest sin in the eyes of the Jews, however, was that he replaced all the Maccabean priests of the temple with priests of his own—the Pharisees. The Jews—the real, devout Jews—saw that as the worst kind of sacrilege: unclean gentiles and false priests defiling the temple.”

  He paused as though seeking something inside him, then went on. “You will find it easier to understand much of this, Nephew, if you understand this one thing: false priests defiling the temple may not seem like much of a sacrilege to us today, but that is because we are accustomed to seeing Christian churches defiled by ungodly priests, and to thinking of churches—all of them, from basilicas to cathedrals to small chapels—as the house of God. By that we mean they are places of prayer and worship, places in which we can gather to pay homage to God.

  “But the Jews believed no such thing. They had only one temple. It stood in Jerusalem, and it literally was the house of God. Jahweh, their God with the unutterable name, lived right inside it, in the Holy of Holies, which was why there was so much ritual involved in approaching the place. People who entered there were entering, in fact, into the presence of God Himself. He was there, in the Holy of Holies. He did not live in Heaven, or in Paradise. He lived among His chosen people, in the temple they had built to house Him. And so when Herod appointed his own priests, Seleucid priests, to tend the temple, and then invited the Romans to oversee their safety, he outraged everyone who took the slightest pride in being Jewish.

  “So there you have the political lines that were drawn in Judea at the time of the Christ’s birth. In power, you had the gentile Herodians, under Herod Antipas, backed by the armies of Rome, and against them, beneath them but all around them, the Jews—the Hebrews and Israelites—seething in half a hundred sects and factions, most of them awaiting the Messiah, the Jewish King who would free them, and all of them screaming for independence, self-rule, and freedom from the Roman overlords. Their viewpoints and some of their activities may have varied wildly, but for all intents and purposes they were united as a single movement to throw off the foreign chains that bound them.” He squinted at young Stephen. “Did you follow everything I said there?”

  “Aye, I did, I think.”

  “Good. Now comes the next level of understanding.” William glanced at the Count, raising his eyebrows. “Do you want to continue from here?”

  Count Hugh smiled and shook his head. “No, you are doing remarkably well.”

/>   “Right.” William pursed his lips for a moment, considering his next words, then launched himself. “It’s difficult to make this brief, but I said all the Jewish sects were united in a movement, and so they were, although there’s no single name for it. But we know it was revolutionary, because it ended up in a revolt against Rome and the destruction of the Jewish nation.

  “Be that as it may, this … movement was characterized by its opponents, the Pharisees and their Herodian allies, as a Messianic and therefore a warmongering movement, aimed at overthrowing the Jewish authorities and establishing a revolutionary nationalist government. The Herodians, in consequence of that, represented themselves to the Romans as the forces of peace and order, dedicated to maintaining the status quo and the stability of the Jewish state. And since the status quo was pro-Roman, the die was cast accordingly.

  “But it was more convoluted that that—far more complex.” Sir William was frowning, concentrating hard upon what he was attempting to say. “There was more involved in the movement than simple patriotism in the Roman sense. To the Romans, patriotism was, plainly and simply, a love of their homeland, Rome itself. But to the Jews, far more was involved. Their patriotism involved the love of God, and of God’s chosen people as an entity, and of their homeland—God’s homeland. And that’s what gave rise to all the trouble that followed.” His voice faded away, and Stephen, impatient, prompted him.