Standard of Honor

by Jack Whyte

  St. Clair inclined his head. “You obviously believe what you are saying, so it would be churlish of me to doubt you further. When will this all take place?”

  “As soon as I can arrange it. Today is the fifteenth day of May. I will have to consult with some others of the brotherhood before I can commit to a specific time, but immediately thereafter, if I can gather sufficient bodies.”

  “So how long will that be?”

  “Tomorrow. Almost certainly we will be able to proceed by tomorrow night.”

  André nodded. Inductions always took place at night. “Will I be able to visit my father before I leave?”

  “No, because you cannot leave here now until you are a sworn Templar. But Sir Henry may visit you here, if he can find the time. If we induct you tomorrow night, you will be gone the following day, so you had best send word to him to visit you tomorrow. And mind you warn him to say nothing to the King.” He paused, and then added, “Forget that. I will see to it myself. Is there anything else troubling you? You look … worried.”

  St. Clair shrugged. “The ceremony, I suppose. The Raising. I have no idea what to expect. Is it complex?” He looked decidedly relieved when he saw the veteran Master of Novices sit back on his stool and grin at him.

  “It is a secret ceremony, Master St. Clair. You know that. But it is no Raising. Accept my word on that, if you will, and rest assured that there is nothing complex or meaningful about it.” Justin stood up from his stool and crossed to a cupboard against the wall, where he opened a door and removed a flat-bottomed flask and two horn cups. He poured two generous measures of the golden liquid the flask contained, then stoppered the flask and closed the door on it again. He carried both cups to the table. “Honey mead,” he said, handing one cup to André. “God created it for moments like these.” They both sipped appreciatively and Justin sat down again.

  “Remember where this ceremony sprang from, first of all. In the beginning were the nine Founding Brothers, and all of them were brethren of the Order, the sole Order in existence at that time—the Order of Rebirth in Sion. Through their own efforts, the founders completed the task set them, the unearthing of the Order’s treasures, and thereby achieved the rebirth for which it had been named. Thereafter, it became simply the Order of Sion, although its work, unlike its rebirth, is far from complete.” He sipped again. “Of course, when they returned to Europe with what they had found, they succeeded in impressing, and in terrifying, everyone in the upper levels of the Church, so that, in their scramble to placate the brothers and to ensure that they maintained the secrecy surrounding what they had found, they heaped praises and plaudits on the men who called themselves the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ but were known to everyone else as the Knights of the Temple Mount. And soon recruits began flocking to the standard, demanding to join the order of the new knighthood, as Saint Bernard had called it.

  “And thus was born the Order of the Temple. But none of the recruits now flocking to the Temple Mount were brethren of the Order of Sion, and the secrecy of the original nine brothers was well known, although since it was secret, none knew what it entailed. And so, purely in self-defense and for the protection of the brotherhood, Hugh de Payens and his eight friends dreamed up a new ritual that would satisfy the people clamoring for admission and for the trappings of secrecy and arcane rites. They decreed that all initiations would be held at night, in darkness, and they coined new ceremonies out of nothing, ceremonies that have since become entrenched and almost hallowed in observance. Ninety years of use has made them seem portentous, but they began as nonsense, and nonsense they remain.” He hesitated. “Mind you, having said that, I have no wish to dismiss all my Templar brothers without respect. They may not be literate or well schooled in social manners, but many of them, including even the Temple Boars, devote their lives and their vocations to the pursuit of sanctity, albeit in the churchly, Christian sense. And that is greatly admirable, even in the eyes of those of us who see their error from our own ancient and privileged viewpoint. We can see them as misguided, but we cannot think of them as foolish, since their sincerity is undoubtable and their error one that has consumed the world.

  “You, Brother, have been sufficiently fortunate to be Raised in the Order of Sion, and you have had to work and study diligently to achieve each step in your progression to your current status. You will find none of that work, or anything to resemble it, within the Temple. The rites you will experience are largely meaningless, and the only work a man need do to progress through the ranks is military—training and fighting. You are already adept in those areas, and so believe me, you need have no fear about the initiation rites. By the time you enter the Chapter Chamber for the ceremony, you have passed every test set you and your acceptance is assured. The ritual in the Chamber is merely a confirmation, for the benefit of the Temple congregation. There will be other rites you may attend from time to time, whenever opportunity arises, but those, too, will be secret and concealed within the Temple’s secrecy, shared only by our brethren.”

  He raised his cup in salute, and André answered him, then both of them drained their cups of the sweet, fiery liquid, after which Justin belched loudly and rose to his feet.

  “And now I have to start making arrangements. I will send one of the brothers to your father, inviting him to be here tomorrow at mid-afternoon and warning him to say nothing about it to anyone at all, including the King. Will he be bound by that, think you?”

  “He will, Brother Justin, he will.”

  ANDRÉ ST. CLAIR was in the tilting yard of the castle the next afternoon and had been there for an hour, training hard, hacking and swinging his broadsword against an upright post until he began to believe that he might never be able to raise his arms again, when he was approached by a sergeant brother who told him that Brother Justin wanted to see him immediately.

  He found the Master of Novices where he had left him the previous day, huddled over the long work table in his own room, and the moment he set eyes on him he knew something had gone wrong.

  “What?” he began. “What is it? Has de Troyes vetoed your idea?”

  The look that Justin threw at him then was part anger, part puzzlement. “What are you talking about? No, de Troyes has vetoed nothing. Everything there is in hand, to this point. But your father will not be coming to visit you.”

  “Why not? He said he would be here by mid-afternoon.”

  “Aye, he did, but that was before the madness erupted in the city.”

  “What madness? What is going on?”

  “You did not know? No, clearly you did not. Well, it is nothing unusual. Your liege lord has merely remembered once again that he hates Jews, and so they are turning the entire city upside down, rooting them out wherever they are to be found.”

  “Rooting who out, Jews? There are no Jews in Limassol.”

  “There are Jews everywhere, Master St. Clair, if you wish to look closely enough, but this persecution of them is a crime in the eyes of God. Something triggered this latest madness sometime before noon, but I know not what it was. I know only that Richard was incensed to hear of it and ordered the arrest of every Jew in Cyprus. And since he believes Isaac Comnenus is a Jew, he has turned out his entire army and assembled them on the beaches between the city gates and the harbor, preparing to hunt him down. It truly is a madness. Anyway, as Master-at-Arms, your father is involved in the midst of it all, but he found time to send word here and to wish you well in the event you do not see him before you depart for Acre.”

  “How did he know I am going to Acre?”

  “I had my man tell him, in explanation of why you wished to see him today.”

  “So why are you angry about that?”

  “Angry? I am not angry. I am merely frustrated not to be able to find some of the people I wanted to have present at your ceremony tonight. We can proceed with it, so be prepared an hour after dark, but there will be five, perhaps six people missing whom I wanted to be there. Ah well, we will talk after
wards. And tomorrow you will leave for Acre on a fast galley, one of the Temple’s best, bearing dispatches for the senior Temple officer there who is at this time, I believe, the Marshal himself, a knight of the Languedoc who shares your given name, André. He is André Lallières of Bordeaux. Do you know the name?”

  “No, should I?”

  “I thought you might. He is one of us, Raised on the same day I was, and his family is one of the originals. Be ready for tonight. You will be summoned by two knights.”

  “What must I wear?”

  “Exactly what you are wearing now. Your virgin’s shroud. They’ll take it from you and you will be dressed formally after the induction. Now go and leave me to do what I have to do between now and then.”

  The rest of that day passed with a slowness that St. Clair could not believe, but pass it did, eventually, and he was waiting impatiently as soon as darkness fell over the city.

  Eight hours later, at daybreak on the seventeenth of May, he stood on one of the wharves in the harbor, flanked by two knights whose finery was less new and striking than was his. He wore the full white surcoat and red cross, brilliantly new and unused, of a fully fledged Temple knight. It covered a suit of mail so new that it was as stiff as the equally new and heavy knee-high boots that encased his feet and legs. The mailed hood encasing his head felt strange and constrictive, but the helmet he wore over that felt solid and comfortable. His own sword, the gift from Richard, hung at his waist, and behind him stood his personal attendant, a sergeant brother assigned to him that morning for the duration, whose primary duty was to keep both Sir André and his personal armor, equipment, and weaponry in prime condition and ready for battle at any time. André stretched himself and flexed his shoulders beneath the unaccustomed tightness of his mailed hauberk. He had not worn a full mailed suit since joining the novitiate, and as he watched the approach of the boat that had been sent for him, he wondered how long it would take him to grow used to it again.

  The boat bumped against the wharf close by his feet, and André turned to his two companions and bade them farewell as his attendant passed the two chests that held their possessions into the boat, then climbed in after them. Brother Justin, unusually splendid in a fresh white surcoat and burnished mail, wished him God speed, and the other knight, Etienne de Troyes himself, hung a rigid leather cylinder containing dispatches around André’s neck, then drew himself erect in a formal salute and wished the new knight every success with his mission in the Holy Land. The little boat was pushed off from the wharf and began to steer towards the galley that would carry André St. Clair and his dispatches into Outremer.

  EIGHT

  Kreeee …

  The distant, high-pitched scream drew André St. Clair’s eyes upward to where the hawk hung impossibly high above him, visible only as a floating speck against the flawless blue of the morning sky. Motionless then, his neck tilted sharply backward, André watched it drift silently on whatever currents were sustaining it up there, lifting and wafting it on a cushion of air pressed gently but firmly against the spread of its wings. As he watched, holding his breath, the black shape altered and then swooped down and around in a great arc, until the wings began to beat again, bearing the creature easily upward to its previous height.

  “How big do you think that thing is?”

  The voice came from behind him, and André shook his head. “Difficult to tell,” he answered. “There’s nothing up there to judge it by, not even another bird. It could have wings as wide as your arms’ span, seen from here, or it could be less than half that size and only half as far away as we think it is.”

  “D’you think someone might be controlling it?”

  “I doubt it.” St. Clair kept his eyes on the distant bird. “Most falconers will keep their birds hooded until they spot a quarry and release them only then, directly to the hunt. They are wild things and will return to the wild if they are given sufficient opportunity, no matter how well trained they may be. That’s why the falconers are so jealous of them. They do not enjoy seeing their precious killers flying around loose for any great length of time.”

  “Speaking of time, it is nigh on noon and it looks as though we have been played for fools.”

  St. Clair broke his gaze from the hawk and stood up in his stirrups, stretching his arms high over his head and counting aloud slowly to twenty. He then bent his elbows and held his arms horizontally, keeping his head steady as he twisted slowly from one side to the other several times, pulling each elbow as far back in its turn as possible, grunting gently with the exertion. That done, he rolled his head with greatly exaggerated extension, three times to the right and three more to the left, and only then did he gather up his reins and respond to the other man’s comment.

  It was the thirtieth day of May in the year 1191, and he had been in Acre now for ten whole days, during which he had sent out inquiries about the whereabouts of his cousin, Sir Alexander Sinclair, explaining who he himself was and offering a substantial reward to anyone who could arrange a meeting between the two of them. He had had no qualms about doing so, and no fears that anyone might challenge his right to conduct himself as he saw fit. The letter he carried from Etienne de Troyes had explained succinctly to the Temple officers in command at the siege of Acre that St. Clair was in Outremer on a special mission for the Temple and must be accorded full cooperation and any assistance he requested. Now he half grinned and spoke over his shoulder.

  “We have not been played for fools, Harry. I may have, but you have not. You are here at my invitation, to keep me company, and there is nothing foolish in that. Unless, of course, you feel foolish for accepting the invitation. Our host may have simply been delayed by something unexpected. That happens to us all, from time to time.” He was grinning as he swung his horse around to where he could see the man at his back, but Sir Harry Douglas was in no mood to return the grin. He sat frowning, disapproving of everything involved in this excursion, which he believed unauthorized, into needless danger.

  Long before dawn that morning, telling no one about their departure or about where they were going, they had left their fellow knights encamped at the oasis they called Jappir, a mere hour’s ride from the siege lines around Acre. They had ridden inland from there and were now deep inside hostile territory, more than three leagues from where they had set out, and facing a landscape that Harry could never have imagined before he set eyes upon it that morning. They were surrounded by an ocean of rocks, a vast plain of smoothly rounded boulders of all shapes and sizes, some of them as large as houses, some as large as castles, and others, the pebbles of the scene, merely as large as hay wains or peasants’ huts. Any one of these could conceal an entire group of men, and Harry and André had not eyes enough between them to keep sufficient watch. It was all Harry could do to resist the temptation to keep his horse moving constantly so that he could scan the horizon without pause.

  Harry kneed his horse forward and rode slowly around the cluster of massive stones that crowned the tiny hilltop, the highest point for miles. There appeared to be no more than six of them in the grouping, but they occupied the exact center of the small hilltop and were piled together as though gathered and set in place by a giant. They were also high enough to be visible from miles away, the tallest of them towering far over Harry’s head, a tapering, sand-sculpted monolith more than twice as high as he was on his horse’s back.

  “Laugh if you want to, St. Clair,” he said quietly, his eyes probing the horizon, “but I don’t like one wee bit of this. I think you’re mad to be here, and I am even madder to have come with you. I enjoy your company and you can be a droll whoreson at times, but this, this is insanity. There could be legions of fleabags out there right now, watching us from behind every stone in sight, even taking aim at us, and we would never even see them before we died. Let’s move on, in God’s name. That way, even shut in on all sides, we can at least entertain the illusion that we might be able to run between the rocks and save ourselves.”

&
nbsp; André St. Clair shook his head gently. “I have no doubt you may be right, my friend. And God in His Heaven knows that your abilities to maintain the sanctity and integrity of your own fragile and cowardly skin are legendary. But I believe, nonetheless, that it would be an error to leave so soon. The man we are here to meet might, as I said, have perfectly valid reasons for being late.”

  “You call this late? He has slipped by several hours beyond late.”

  “One hour, Harry, one hour at most. No more than that. We arrived early.”

  “Well, I’m glad at least you didn’t name him Sinclair.”

  André looked at him quickly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “This fellow, he could be anyone. Might even be a Muslim bandit, hoping to take you for ransom. We have no proof that he’s the man you seek.”

  “No, we have not. Nor have we proof that he is not. So we will wait. And with the grace of God, we shall see.” He tugged at his reins and nudged his horse towards the edge of the hilltop, and Harry moved forward to join him, gazing out at the eerie sameness of the countless stones in this strange stretch of desert. St. Clair arched his back again, raising his bent elbows to shoulder height, then pressing them backward. “Master Douglas,” he said, “I intend to climb down from this saddle now, to stretch my legs and wait in comfort for a spell. You should do the same. But in the meantime, think of something different to talk about … something pleasant and positive.”

  Douglas said nothing, but both knights swung down from their mounts and busied themselves in loosening their saddle girths to give their horses a brief respite.