Knights of the Black and White (23 page)

“The people who issued these instructions you bring us have no idea of what Jerusalem truly
is
. This is a city being reborn as we speak. We sacked it in our first campaign, and you may think you know what that means, but let me assure you that you do not. We destroyed the city, and we destroyed its people, wading knee deep in blood on the day the city fell to us. We killed everyone who lived there … everyone we could find, that is, for a few, a very small few, escaped. Then, for the next ten years, the city lay abandoned, a stinking charnel house.

Only a scattering of people lived there until a few years ago, when King Baldwin realized that this was the center of his kingdom and it was not even strong enough to close its gates to brigands.

“Since then things have changed. The city is being repopulated, and that was not a simple thing to achieve. It is isolated, close to no other fortified bastion, and it has no port to serve it other than Joppa, thirty miles distant.

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Baldwin began by bringing in Syrian Christians from the lands across the Jordan, offering them land and houses for their families, and somehow he found men to rebuild and extend the city’s northern walls. But he had to feed them, too, and Jerusalem has never been rich in farm-land. So he abolished all taxes on food being brought into the city, and at the same time imposed heavy taxes on all food going out. He made it possible, in other words, for a stable citizenry to live here again.

“That does nothing, however, to change the fundamental fact that Jerusalem is landlocked and poor. It has no reason for existence other than as a religious center, to receive the pilgrims who flock to it to visit the Holy Places. And therefore it offers no means of concealing the kind of activities demanded by these instructions you have brought.

“But leave that, for now, and think about this. Were we able to gather all our brethren together by some miracle, we could simply start to dig. No difficulty there.

The ruins of the temple are clearly evident, unconcealed and plain to see, and abandoned these thousand years and more. It is never used for anything, other than being the base on which the famed al-Aqsa Mosque was built by the Muslims. Have you seen the mosque yet?”

De Fermond shook his head. “No, my lord. As I said, I am but newly arrived. I visited the city but briefly, then went down to Jericho, looking for you.”

“Ah, well, in that case you might have seen it, but you would not have known it for what it was. In fact, however, it is no longer a mosque. It is now the official resi-

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dence of the newly crowned King of Jerusalem, Baldwin le Bourcq, the second King Baldwin to hold that rank.

And thus, the King’s palace sits atop the ruins of the temple far beneath.

“But then, you see, to make matters more difficult, that temple is really
Herod’s
temple, even while everyone assumes it to be Solomon’s. Not so. It isn’t Solomon’s at all. The ruined temple visible here was built by Herod a thousand years ago, and it was completed just in time to be destroyed when the Romans finally grew sick and tired of Hebrew rebellions and unrest and decided to kill all the Jews and destroy the troublesome Province of Judea once and for all. I have been told the temple that is there now was never used for proper worship, that it was destroyed before it could be completed. I have also heard that it was built atop the site of Solomon’s Temple, but we have no means of proving or disproving it today.”

He eyed de Fermond again, one eyebrow slightly raised and a mocking little smile on his lips. “Even so, had we the proof that Solomon’s Temple is really there, there would be no great difficulty entailed in excavating it. We would simply apply for permission to King Baldwin—he is the King of Jerusalem and, as such, he owns the city and the temple. I have no doubt that permission would be swiftly granted. Most particularly so when we inform him of the treasure for which we are searching.”

“But—”

“Ah yes, the ‘but.’ But we can tell no one about the treasure, can we? It must be secret, sacrosanct, as are our operations. So we must excavate the temple in secrecy, 212

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somehow accommodating the fact that it sits atop a hill within the city, and we must do that while maintaining the secrecy of the very existence of our own brotherhood and Order, all of this in full view of a surrounding city full of people, and without raising any suspicions or curiosity, even among our own knightly but uninitiated comrades, as to what we are about.”

He allowed what he had said to reverberate with his listener, then continued. “Tell me, my friend, without compromising your loyalty to the Seneschal, or to the Councillors who compiled these orders and imposed upon him to send them—for I cannot believe Count Hugh would be the originator of such stupidity—have you any ideas about how we might approach this task you have defined for us? If you have, upon my oath, I will bare my head and bow to you, and I will resist the temptation to tell you to go home to the idiots who sent you here and bid them to come and see for themselves what they are so stupidly and arrogantly demanding.”

Fermond stood without speaking, his cheeks flaring with color, and de Payens grasped his upper arm. “Understand me, my friend, I know you are not to blame in this. You are merely the messenger. But tomorrow night we will be back in Jerusalem, and the day after that, I will take you and show you the Temple Mount. You will see instantly, the moment you set eyes on it, that the men who sent you here with these demands have never seen or imagined the reality of what they would have us face.”

The flush on Fermond’s face had given way to a pallid Awakenings

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waxiness. “Are you saying, Sir Hugh, that you will not obey the commands of the Council?”

“Not at all. I am saying that it does not seem possible that anyone, including the Seneschal and the Councillors themselves, could achieve the task set for me and my brethren here in Jerusalem. But your instructions were that I am to attempt to devise a means whereby I can achieve the objective you have described, is that not so? I can promise you I will obey that order faithfully. I will examine everything that I can imagine, in seeking a way to obey the Seneschal. I have no idea how long it will take, but if Count Fulk of Anjou comes here within the year, I will have something to show him—even though it be only the outlines of the plans I have considered and rejected. How long will you remain with us?”

Fermond shook his head. “I cannot remain at all, other than to deliver certain messages that are my charge. Immediately after that, I am bound for Cyprus, to meet with several of our brotherhood there.”

“Then I will wish you well on your journey, for these are ill times for travelers, and I suspect you will not be journeying among a great company.”

“No, but if God is with us, I will survive to deliver my tidings.”

FIVE

“Clearly, God was not with us in this matter, at least.”

The news of Gaspard de Fermond’s

death had been delivered mere moments earlier, and these were the first words spoken since the announcement. Arlo had brought the word from the marketplace, where he had received it from a knight he knew, who had been told of it by another knight, who had known de Fermond and had recognized his mutilated body where it had been found by a roadside, less than two leagues from the city gates.

Arlo was still standing where he had delivered the news, and Godfrey St. Omer was sitting slack-jawed at the table, clutching a loaf of bread in both hands, stilled in the act of tearing it apart. Hugh pushed himself up 214

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with both hands on the tabletop and walked away towards the open window, sucking in a great breath.

St. Omer’s voice was uncertain when he spoke. “What do you mean, Hugh, God was not with us in this?”

“Those were almost the last words de Fermond spoke to me, three days ago. He said he must travel next to Cyprus and I told him to be careful—”

“Cyprus?”

Hugh spun around, impatient with St. Omer’s slowness. “Aye, Cyprus. He had tidings to deliver there, from Count Hugh to … certain people of the Count’s acquaintance, I know not whom.” Hugh barely caught himself before he blurted out the truth, forgetting that Arlo was present, and although he did not as much as glance in the man’s direction, the slightest twitch of one of Arlo’s eyebrows revealed that he had caught the minor hesitation and had interpreted it correctly. “He said that the messages were important and that if God was on our side, he would be kept safe until such time as he fulfilled his mission. I hope he died quickly.” He made the sign of the cross and looked around for verification of that from Arlo, and was surprised to see that he had left.

“Another death on the Holy Roads.” St. Omer’s voice was low and rife with disgust. “It really is becoming unbearable.”

Hugh turned back to him. “No, Goff, not unbearable.

People will bear it because they must. The only alternative is to remain at home forever and go nowhere. No one can stomach the thought of that. No amount of terror will keep people from traveling—at least, not for long.”

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St. Omer had finally broken the bread and now dipped a portion into a small bowl of olive oil and chewed it for a while, his eyes fixed on some midair point ahead of him. Then he drew a deep breath and continued. “I saw you with him three days ago, up on the Temple Mount. What were you doing up there?”

“He wanted to see the temple.”

“And was he thrilled with it? There’s nothing there except those old stables, and no one has used those in a hundred years.”

“He wanted us to dig there.”

St. Omer’s eyes widened. “He what? He wanted us to
dig
? Knights?”

“No, not knights … brothers of the Order.”

“Hmm …” A short silence as he considered that, then, “Dig where? In the mountain?”

“Aye, but downward, into the ruins of the temple—beneath them, in fact. He brought word from the Council that I am to call the brotherhood together—all who are here in Outremer—and devise some means of excavating the temple and finding the treasure our Lore tells us is buried there.”

St. Omer sat silent for a few moments longer, then shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Aye, our Lore tells us there is treasure hidden there, Hugh, but it is
lore
, nothing more. There is no demonstrable truth to it. It is legend, tradition. We do not even know for a certainty that the ruins of Solomon’s Temple underlie Herod’s.”

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nonetheless, Goff. I have been thinking about it ever since de Fermond mentioned it, and I don’t think it can be done … But I now have to think seriously about doing it, so I would appreciate your doing the same.”

“Oh, no.” St. Omer raised a hand in protest. “Do not place that on me, Hugh de Payens, because you have just defined the impossible. It might be your task to achieve it, and if so, you have my warmest sympathies, but it is not my responsibility in any way, and I have no wish to share in it.”

“Then damn you for a parasitic ingrate, after all the pain and effort I’ve expended on your behalf, nursing you back to health with my own gentle hands.” The tone was nowhere near as caustic as the words themselves, and neither man said anything else for a few moments until Hugh resumed. “Seriously, Goff, there must be a way we can do something … make an effort, at least.”

St. Omer sighed. “Aye, there might well be, as you say, but I couldn’t even begin to guess about where we should even start. How many of the brethren are there in Outremer nowadays?”

“I have no idea. Damnation, de Fermond might have known that. I should have asked him.”

“Too late now. What about sending Arlo out to look for tidings of the Friendly Families? Would that be possible?”

“Aye, if he’s willing to go. It’s not the kind of thing I would normally ask of him, because it might involve a lot of travel, and we all know too well how dangerous it is 218

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out there. But Arlo has been my eyes and ears ever since I withdrew from the world, so he might know those things already. Let’s ask him.”

Arlo came back at Hugh’s summons and listened to the question, then nodded and counted off names on his fingers as he recited them. “Archibald St. Agnan. Gondemare of Arles. Payn Montdidier. Roland de Rossal. Geoffrey Bissot. And you two, of course.”

“Payn? Montdidier’s here in Outremer?”

Arlo shrugged when he saw the look on Hugh’s face.

“He comes and goes, or so I’m told.”

“Who told you, and why didn’t you tell me?”

“Archibald St. Agnan told me, and you were in one of your solitary spells at the time … It was years ago. I forgot about it after that, thinking that if Payn wanted to see us, he would come by. He never did.”

Hugh blinked at that, but said nothing more about it because he had become acutely aware that he had asked about members of the Friendly Families, and every name Arlo had mentioned belonged to one of the brethren of the Order. He cleared his throat. “Those are the only names you know, of all the Families in Outremer?”

“No.” Arlo’s face betrayed absolutely nothing of what he was thinking. “With the exception of Payn, those are the names of the only members of the Families who came asking after you, time and again, while you were … being private. I judged them to be the names you would be most interested to hear of.”

“Aye, indeed.” Hugh flashed a sideways glance at St.

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not all of them. Archibald and Payn most obviously, of course. Geoffrey Bissot, too. And Gondemare—although I have never met the man, I like what I have heard. And this Rossal fellow, who is he?”

“Another newcomer … if seven years here still counts as newly come. He came looking for you as soon as he arrived, and however much I would not permit him to come near you, he kept coming back, hoping to meet with you. Since you showed no interest in meeting him, I left you to it.”