Knights of the Black and White

by Jack Whyte

  De Montbard simply stared at him, unmoved. “Do you have something you wish to say, then?”

  “No …”

  “Nor do I, so may we proceed? Together then, on three.”

  They heaved, steadily, and their combined strength produced not the hint of a movement, as though they were attempting to lift the solid floor, and they released at the same moment, their breath exploding from their lungs.

  De Montbard wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “A thousand years is a long time, I suppose. Moving parts might stiffen up over that long a period.”

  “Principles of leverage,” St. Clair said, staring down at the ankh.

  De Montbard stood up and stretched hugely. “Principles of what?”

  The younger man sat back on his haunches. “Brother Joachim, an elderly monk I knew in my boyhood, had a great love of the ancients—Archimedes and Euclid and Pythagoras and their mathematics. I remember him saying something about being able to lift up the world if he had a large enough lever. He used to talk about the laws of force and energy, and how there is a correct way to move anything. I think if we squat, knee to knee and face to face, and lift straight up together, using our leg muscles instead of our arms, we might do better.”

  “Let’s try.” De Montbard moved immediately into position, and both men reached down between their feet to grasp the handles.

  “I just thought of something, something you said last time we were here.”

  De Montbard raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

  “It was about this being over when we find the treasure. It won’t be, will it? Finding the treasure will only be the beginning.”

  De Montbard tilted his head to one side, a smile beginning to form on his lips. “The beginning of what, Stephen?”

  St. Clair shook his head. “The beginning of whatever comes next, I suppose. I don’t know, and I would not care to guess at what that might be, but I have no doubt that something is inevitable. I may be no more than a simple soldier monk, but I am not stupid. All those jars over there contain something, André, and whatever it is, it must be enormously valuable and of great significance to have been hidden so carefully a thousand years ago. That is an entire millennium, as you said—fifty generations of fathers and sons. And all that time, our Order has been dreaming of finding this place and its contents. But a length of time like that is meaningless to any ordinary man. We cannot grasp the reality involved. We can barely recall our grandsires, two generations removed from us, so we cannot begin to comprehend the thought of ten generations, let alone fifty.

  “And now it appears that after all that time, this hoard, whatever it contains, is to become unhidden. We have unhidden it. Whatever it is, Brother, whatever this treasure may be, or may comprise, I hope you will not insult me by saying it is going to remain a secret, for even I can see that it is far too important.

  “And so I am wondering, what then will happen to the Order of Rebirth in Sion? Will it remain secret as it has always been, or will it, too, and all of us, come forth into the light of day, brandishing what we have found?”

  De Montbard held up his hands, palms forward. “Too deep for me. I swear to you, Stephen, I have no idea. Those things lie far beyond my capacity to influence, or even to interpret. This much, however, I can promise you: whatever we find here, today, tomorrow, or whenever, will have to be catalogued and recorded, meticulously, before a word of what we have found leaves these tunnels. Depending on what we unearth here, that single task alone could take months and perhaps even years to complete. But it will have to be done. And that we do it is important beyond credence. We must record our findings, in every detail of our discovering them.” He grinned again, his teeth gleaming and his features seeming to waver in the flickering torchlight. “But we may find nothing more than those jars. So, what say you, shall we try your leverage idea?” He waited for St. Clair’s nod of agreement, then grunted. “So be it. Ready, then? One … and two … and three!”

  They unfolded slowly, straightening and straining in unison, glaring straight forward into each other’s eyes, their thigh and calf muscles locked and trembling with the strain they were exerting, and slowly, so gradually that they could only sense it rather than actually feel it, they wrested a degree of yielding from the ankh that lay between them. A moment later, with no lessening of the pressure they were exerting, they felt another shift, this one tiny yet unmistakable.

  “One more,” St. Clair gasped, his face crimson with sustained effort. “Heave!” This time, however, nothing happened, and it was de Montbard who gave the signal to desist and rest for a while. They had wrested a small amount of motion from the stone, an acknowledgment that movement had been designed into the device, and so they took time to recover from their efforts before trying again. A short time later, with not another word spoken between them, they took their places again and straightened up together, using the full strength of their thigh and leg muscles to push against the force that kept the ankh immobile, and something yielded without warning; the cross-arm they were pulling against rose suddenly, perhaps half a foot, and then stopped. The shift was accompanied by an indistinct yet solid percussive sound, strangely hollow seeming, and that was followed by a brief and muffled barely audible noise, as though of grinding stones, that appeared to come from directly beneath their feet. Even as St. Clair heard it, his mind was registering what had happened to the ankh.

  “Straight up,” de Montbard said. “It came straight up.”

  St. Clair had been thinking exactly the same thing, because his expectation had been that the ankh would rise out of its carved niche like a lever, the handles swinging upward and pivoting upon the fixed point that was the lower extremity of its shaft. But that had not happened at all. Instead, the cross-arm of the device had popped free and risen vertically, exposing a rod beneath that vanished into the earth below.

  “What was the noise? It sounded like something broke off and fell underground.”

  “I thought the same, but I think we are unlikely to find out easily. This handle does not appear to have any more travel left in it.” De Montbard was pushing at the handle as he spoke, and it seemed to be rock-solid. St. Clair grunted in disgust and pushed himself to his feet, tilting his head back to look up at the other ankh scratched into the face of the altar, but de Montbard was still pulling and pushing at the handle they had raised from the floor.

  “I think you may forget about that, my friend,” St. Clair said. “It is not about to move again. We may have to come back to it with mauls and pry bars, to dig up the flagstones and let us see what is underneath, although I suspect it is solid earth and nothing more.”

  “No, it sounded hollow,” de Montbard said quietly, gazing down at the shape in the floor. “It makes no sense, but that noise we heard sounded hollow to me.”

  “How did you know the altar was here? And the ankh?”

  De Montbard looked at him. “I was told. Our oldest records deal with it and they described the layout of this chamber perfectly. I never saw those records, but I spent time with a number of the Order’s most learned men, absorbing from them everything I could learn about this place before I was sent here. I knew the layout, and I knew the content. Unfortunately, the records that we have give no indication of anything beyond referring to the ankh, and that very obliquely, as the key, so even that reference is not assured. It seems clear, in retrospect, that the survivors of what befell here had no concept of how long they might be gone after they concluded their work. They must have thought they would return within their own lifetimes or those of their children, and that their knowledge would enable them to open the vaults they had so carefully concealed.” He smiled, wryly, and clapped his hands together, looking about him. “As you said earlier, no ordinary man can visualize a thousand years …

  “The chamber is truly ancient. I know you know that, speaking of a millennium, but it is even older than you may think. It was built before the Temple of Solomon was even designed. Everythi
ng about it, its shape, design, construction, all of it, is Egyptian. It was built in the earliest days of the return of the Hebrews from their bondage in Egypt, and its sole purpose was to house and conceal the temple treasures. It had two entrances, according to our records, and we’ll find them as soon as we begin to examine the place more fully, but I suspect we will find that the passages leading to them from outside have been blocked off and sealed, completely hidden from view on the far side. The people who used this place last had no desire to leave any part of it accessible to looters.”

  “Obviously,” St. Clair said quietly, “and they were successful. When will you begin opening the jars?” He took a torch from one of the braziers and walked away towards the nearest row of the clay jars around the altar to the right of where they were, and de Montbard watched him go until he passed beyond the vertical edge of the altar, evidently counting rows, but moments later his voice came back from the darkness.

  “André, come and look at this.”

  Intrigued by St. Clair’s tone, de Montbard straightened up, took a torch of his own, and followed the sound of the other man’s voice to find him standing rigidly, illuminated by the torch he held and staring fixedly back towards the altar. A glance to see what he was looking at was enough to freeze de Montbard into immobility as well. He saw the dimly lit shape of the flight of steps that rose to the altar table. He knew it was different, but he could not at first see how.

  “I don’t know what made me look,” St. Clair said quietly. “I only saw it from the corner of my eye at first, and we’re not close enough to be sure of anything yet, but …”

  “The bottom steps are missing.”

  But as they drew closer and their eyes adjusted, they could see that was inaccurate, because the steps were not missing. They had moved, but they were still there. The bottom portion had merely sunk down into the floor, on some kind of pivot mechanism, revealing an entrance that had not been visible before, and the steps that had formerly stretched up towards the sacrificial table above now led downward into a deep, dark space beneath the great altar. The two knights stood looking down into it for what seemed like a long time until St. Clair said, “That explains the noises we heard. Are we going down there?”

  De Montbard cleared his throat before he spoke. “We are, but I think we should take at least one fresh torch apiece before we do. It doesn’t smell bad, but the air might be foul in there.”

  Holding their torches high and carrying another spare apiece, they made their way slowly down the steps into the space beneath the altar, and stepped forward cautiously, surprised by the size and extent of their discovery, a long, high-ceilinged, rectangular chamber stretching to both sides from the foot of the stairs. St. Clair’s immediate impression was that the shape of the place mirrored the dimensions of the altar above and included its hollow height, for the ceiling was at least a score of feet above their heads. He raised his torch even higher and saw that the walls on each side of him, right and left, were lined with stone shelves all the way up to the ceiling, cubic stone boxes, open at their sides, and each a good arm’s length, shoulder to fingertip, in height, width, and depth, most of them crammed with exactly the same kind of jars that were ranged on the floor of the Hall above, save that he could see a few chests or cases among them.

  De Montbard stood rapt, his head moving from side to side as he scanned the ranked tiers, while St. Clair looked instead at the length of the chamber, trying to estimate the total number of boxes. The gallery was long, and narrow in proportion to its length, and he counted eighteen boxes at floor level on the unbroken wall facing them. He multiplied that by the seven layers from floor to ceiling, doubled the result to accommodate both sides of the gallery, and then subtracted three tiers for the space occupied by the stairs at their back. He was only slightly surprised at the total of 231 boxes.

  There were brackets all along both walls, at head height, to hold torches of the kind they had brought with them, and de Montbard grunted, then reached up and placed his torch in one of them before turning back towards the entranceway.

  “Torches,” he said, his voice echoing in the confined space. “We’ll need more light. Help me load the rest of these sconces, then let’s see what’s in here.”

  They quickly brought down more torches from the Hall and, minutes later, the interior of the gallery now brightly lit by half a score of flambeaux, they stood side by side, examining the rows of boxes lining the walls.

  “More jars,” St. Clair murmured. “These people must have had a manufactory making nothing but clay jars.”

  “They’re not all jars,” de Montbard said. “Let’s open some of those wooden chests.”

  The first contained loose pieces of jewelry, some of them barbarically ornate, others delicately made, and all of them reflecting the dancing light from above. They were in no order at all, appearing to have been simply thrown into the chest, and after a glance at them, de Montbard turned to open a second, larger chest that proved to be full of gold coinage, also piled loosely, with no attempt having been made to put the coins in any kind of order. St. Clair glanced over and saw silver pieces gleaming in places among the golden coins, but his attention had been seized by one particular piece of jewelry in the open chest at his feet, and he reached down to pull it free of the other pieces with which it was entangled. It was a glittering necklace, a circle of heavy, woven gold wire from which depended a selection of splendid stones in blue and green, strung on a web of finer gold wire and designed to grace the breast of some wealthy woman. The green stones were rectangular lozenges, long and narrow, but the blue jewels were teardrop shaped, smooth and polished, and the gap where one of them was missing was plainly evident. He knew that the missing piece was the very stone he had found in the tunnels above, and he wondered who had stolen it originally, for there was not the slightest doubt in his mind, seeing the necklace, that someone had stolen it, a thousand years earlier. But then, his curiosity strangely satisfied, he dropped the necklace back into the chest, closed the lid, and turned to see what else de Montbard had found.

  The other knight was hauling heavy vessels around, pulling and pushing them this way and that to see what was behind them, and St. Clair, recognizing nothing about them, asked what they were. Montbard’s curt response—“ceremonial vessels”—meant nothing to him, but he could see that whatever they were, the vessels were in no way precious. Many of them were made of polished stone, some green and some brown, but the majority appeared to be of bronze, and they all looked clumsy and awkwardly formed, so St. Clair left his companion to whatever he was doing and turned his attention to the other boxes lining the walls.

  “More than three quarters of this is jars like those upstairs.”

  De Montbard straightened up. “I had noticed that. I think what’s in here is the most valuable material—the rest of it, upstairs in the main hall, is probably less important.”

  “Important? To whom? What do the jars contain, Montbard?”

  De Montbard shrugged. “Have you seen me look into any of them? We’ll find out later what they hold, but my guess is that they contain parchment scrolls, tightly bound and sealed inside the jars with wax to protect them against time and dampness. I believe we will find they are the recorded annals of the priests who left them here.”

  Disappointed, despite having guessed at something of the sort, St. Clair sighed and looked around him again. “And what about those things there, the ceremonial vessels, what are they for?”

  “They would have been used in temple rites. Some of them are probably unimaginably ancient.”

  “But they’re made of stone.”

  “Aye, most of them. Stone or bronze.”

  “So they are worth nothing.”

  “No, not if you wanted to sell them in the souk. Why would you even say that?”

  St. Clair grinned wryly. “Because it’s beginning to look as though the vaunted treasure that our Lore speaks of is less than might have been expected. So far, one case of j
eweled pieces and one more of gold and silver coins. Hardly a massive hoard of wealth.”

  De Montbard looked him in the eye, smiling. “That is only because your expectations are born of your experience, my young friend. Treasure, to you, should be treasure in today’s meaning. Bear in mind, the churchmen who concealed this trove were not Christian churchmen as we know them. This hoard, as you call it, was buried by the priests of the original Christian Church, the Church that admired poverty and preached the virtues of owning nothing of value.”

  “Then what about the gold there, and the jewels?”

  “Two boxes so far—as you say—out of all of this collection,” de Montbard answered. “They were probably collected in the temple, as offerings in lieu of sacrifices. We will never know where they came from or how they were gathered, but proportionally they amount to next to nothing. King Baldwin will be happy to accept all of it, in return for allowing us to keep what is left.” He placed one hand flat on the side of the jar nearest to him and patted it gently. “This is our Order’s treasure, Stephen, here in these jars. And perhaps …” His voice trailed off and he moved away towards the far end of the gallery, where he stood staring at the blank wall.

  “And perhaps what?”

  “Does it not strike you as being odd that this wall should be plain and unused, where the other walls are honeycombed with storage cells?”

  “Odd? No, I think not. Why should it be odd? This is an end wall.”

  De Montbard grimaced. “Wrong, Stephen. Disabuse yourself. There is a secret here, somewhere … Do you see any ankhs carved anywhere?”

  “No.” Stephen’s response was emphatic. “And before you ask, I know there are none because I’ve been looking for decorations of any kind, merely out of curiosity. There are none. Why would you think there might be?”

  De Montbard had knelt down on one knee and was peering at the bottom of the wall. “Because, my youthful friend, there ought to be. There is more in here than meets the eye. I am convinced of that.” He stood up again and turned away from the wall, his gaze traveling all over the chamber. “And yet there is nothing,” he continued, speaking to himself as much as to St. Clair. “Nothing at all.”