Knights of the Black and White (26 page)

“Then nothing is likely to be done.” This was Archibald St. Agnan, his voice sounding plaintive, and de Payens turned to look directly at him.

“That is correct, nothing … for the time being, at least. There is simply nothing in place—no suitable armed force—that would serve the required purpose without disrupting other things, perhaps fatally, so until such an entity comes along, nothing will be done.”

“And the pilgrims will keep on dying.”

“Aye. I fear so.”

Payn Montdidier spoke up. “What’s this plan you spoke of, Hugh? You said you had a plan to enable us to excavate the temple, did you not?”

“I did.”

“And does it have any bearing on this matter of the pilgrims?”

“It might. It could.”

“How so? Come on, man, tell us how we can do the impossible, on two counts.”

Hugh scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not sure we 240

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can, but didn’t you enjoy chasing those brigands yesterday? I know I did, and I would do it again right now, if I could. But do you realize … have you even thought about what we did?” He saw the blankness on their faces.

“We
outfaced
them. We frightened them off, and had there been twice as many of them as there were, it would have made no difference. What we did was so unexpected that they had no means of counteracting it, and so they turned tail and ran. That may have been the first time in years that anyone—
anyone
in Jerusalem—has shown any fight or willingness to strike back at these animals. But we did it. We drove them off, and that sowed the first seeds of what is now in my mind. The rest of it grew from there.”

“Come on then, Hugh, tell us what it is! Or will you keep us here all night, wondering?”

De Payens made a moue and dipped his head to one side. “That
is
it. I thought we could provide the group for the pilgrim task, or at least the beginnings of a group.”

St. Agnan came back at him immediately. “You’re dreaming, Hugh. Even were that a thing we wanted to do, Cherbourg would never give me leave to quit his service for such a purpose—to go charging off into the desert to protect unwashed, unimportant pilgrim nobodies while he himself has real work for me to do. I’ll wager none of your lords would, either. Why should they? We are honor bound to do our duty to our liege lords obediently and patiently, and our allegiance is lifelong.”

“I have thought about that,” de Payens responded Awakenings

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quietly. “And I think about it still. How long have you been in service to the Lord of Cherbourg?”

“Since before the Pope launched the first war, so that’s twenty years.”

“And don’t you think you have served him sufficiently?”

“Who––the Pope, or Charles of Cherbourg? And sufficiently for what? You are sounding strange, Hugh.”

“No, with respect, I disagree, Archibald. On the contrary, I am tired, I am weary, and I have been given a set of instructions that seem unachievable, so I am looking for alternatives. I have been thinking of retiring.”

St. Agnan glowered at him. “What does that mean,
retiring
? You mean withdrawing your services from Count Hugh? You can’t do that. None of us can. We are bound for life by our knightly vows.”

“Which may be superseded by higher, more solemn vows.” That earned a stunned, uncomprehending silence that lasted until Montdidier spoke up.

“More
solemn
vows? You mean … as in clerical,
priestly
vows?”

“Aye, although I was thinking more of monastic vows than priestly ones. I thought I might become a monk.”

He looked around at their gaping faces and broke into a broad grin. “I told you it seemed insane to me at first, did I not? Well, now it might seem insane to you for a while, but bear with me and listen. I don’t yet understand all the ins and outs of what I might be proposing here, but there is something inside me telling me I’m thinking along the right lines. Listen, now.”

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He stood up from the table and began to pace, letting the thoughts spill from his lips as they occurred to him, and using his hands in broad gestures to emphasize his points, ticking them off on his fingertips as he made them.

“Two men, remember—a King and a Patriarch Archbishop. Both have the same concerns—an urgent, pressing need to restore order, to safeguard the roads, and to protect the pilgrims traveling in ever-increasing numbers to this holiest of lands—and neither one can solve them.

The King will not—cannot—strategically give up a single knight to serve in this regard, and the Archbishop, as a cleric,
has
no fighting men of his own that he can use to relieve his own embarrassment.

“Now, in addition to this nuisance, there is another element, added but recently to the cauldron but already raising difficulties of its own. The King and the Archbishop both want to encourage settlement here in the kingdom, for reasons obvious to anyone who sees the need for economic growth.”

He stopped, and waited until they were all looking at him again before he continued, in a changed voice.

“Look, I know none of this interests any of you. It is the kind of petty, bothersome detail we prefer to leave to those who find pleasure in such things, providing they leave us free, in turn, to live our lives and follow the dictates of our knightly code and our conscience. But hear me out in this, for it concerns all of us, and in several different ways, so we have to pay attention to it
now
. We
must
, this once, if never again.

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“The Kingdom of Jerusalem, both Church and state, needs to encourage settlers if it is to grow and thrive. It needs farmers and merchants—citizens—not merely soldiers but people who produce the food and materiel that people like us need in order to survive.

“But those settlers, peaceable farmers in the main, will not come here until they know they can come in safety.

They will not bring their families, their wives and children, into a dangerous, untamed land. Anyone who would seriously expect them to do that is living in a fool’s paradise. And yet, even knowing that, the King will do nothing, claiming his hands are tied.” He paused, his gaze moving from man to man.

“Now, bearing all that in mind, suppose for a moment that I were to go to Archbishop Warmund de Picquigny, saying that I myself, along with several of my oldest companions, all veterans, all greatly honored Warriors of the Cross, have grown tired of fighting and campaigning, sickened by the continuing savagery and slaughter we have seen and known, and that we have decided accordingly that we would like to withdraw ourselves from active military service, do penance for our sins, and embrace the monastic life.

“Among the seven of us, only two have left wives and children in Christendom, and neither one of those expects, or is expected, to return. Furthermore, all of us, without exception, have come to love this country more than the one that gave us birth, because this Outremer has nurtured and inspired us for two decades now, and so we can think of nothing better or more desirable than 244

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to withdraw from worldly things by swearing binding monastic vows and living out the remainder of our lives here in this Holy Land that has become our spiritual home, in prayer, peace, and solitude. How would he respond, think you?”

“He’d have you locked up for a madman,” St. Agnan growled. “You’re a knight, a soldier. You’re not fit to be a monk. That’s as clear as a white patch on a black cat.”

A few of the men smiled at that, although uncertainly, and de Payens looked from face to face among them, awaiting their responses. Montdidier coughed and shuffled his feet, then coughed again.

“Ridiculous as your story sounds, Hugh, he might be tempted to permit it … save that it would be of no use to him.”

Hugh glanced at St. Omer, raising one eyebrow quizzically, then looked back at Montdidier. “Explain that, Payn.”

“Well, the only reason I can think of for him to listen to your tale at all is that we, you and your friends,
are
all veteran knights. He could use our skills and experience.

But then, if we became monks, as you suggest, our fighting skills would be lost and useless to him. Monks are forbidden to fight, even verbally, among themselves, although they do that all the time. But to fight with weapons, as we do? That’s anathema.”

“That’s right, Crusty. Anathema. That is exactly correct. Were he to accept us as monks, all our prowess, our training, our disciplines, and our skills would be useless to him. We would be no more useful to him than are the Awakenings

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Hospital knights.”

“But the Hospital knights are very useful, Hugh.” St.

Omer’s objection was immediate. “In their own way, doing what they do best, they are invaluable.”

De Payens smiled. “Aye, that’s right, too, Goff. They are, are they not? You know that better than any of us.

And the Archbishop knows it, too. He also knows that the foolish people of Jerusalem are expecting the monks of the Hospital to fight like knights.”

Godfrey sat blinking for a few moments, then asked,

“What are you saying, Hugh?” His voice was quiet enough to make everyone else sit forward, watching his mouth. “You sound as though you might be talking sense, but everything you say comes out as a riddle.”

De Payens shrugged. “Not if you marshal your thoughts from a different direction. Warmund de Picquigny, the Patriarch Archbishop of Jerusalem, has all the power here in Outremer that the Pope possesses back in Christendom. He can make kings, counts, dukes, and knights, and he can make and unmake bishops. It follows, therefore, that he can make monks.”

“Well of course he can. No one is disputing that.”

“Imagine warrior monks, Godfrey. Fighting monks.

Veteran
fighting monks who would answer to Warmund de Picquigny alone, as their ecclesiastical superior. Think you that thought might intrigue him?”

This time the silence was profound, reflecting the un-thinkable tenor of what de Payens had suggested, and he allowed it to hover palpably above all of them before he continued. “Think about it seriously, lads, and forget 246

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about all the rules that would tell you a thousand times why this could never be. The times today are different, demanding different measures, different directions, and different solutions to different problems. So imagine, if you will, fighting monks, religious warriors bound by vows, answerable only to the Patriarch. Not to the King, and not to feudal lords. Were we such monks, we could then dedicate ourselves to patrolling the roads and protecting the pilgrims, ridding both Warmund and King Baldwin of their greatest headache. And being bound by the vow of poverty, we would not require to be paid—merely supported through the charity and alms of the Church.”

“Fighting monks?” Archibald St. Agnan’s scornful tone expressed all their skepticism. “Fighting
monks
? That is ridiculous, Hugh. Who ever heard of such a thing? It’s as logical as copulating virgins.”

This time no single man smiled in response to St. Agnan’s rough humor, and de Payens nodded. “That is true, Archibald, but you are a knight, so you should know better than any cleric that logic has little place in the middle of a fight—and make no mistake, a fight is what we are discussing here. We are about to become engaged, like it or not, in a fight for our ancient Order’s very survival, and to win it, we will have to fight the battles of the Christian Church, protecting its pilgrims, certainly—and I see nothing wrong with that—but upholding and appearing to endorse its hegemony, and defending the existence of this Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, even though that entails a breakdown of sense and logic.”

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He fell silent for a count of five heartbeats, then said,

“Listen now, all of you, and hear what I am saying. No one has ever heard of fighting monks
because there has
never been such a thing
. But that idea will stop being ridiculous as soon as the first order of fighting monks is created to confront circumstances extraordinary enough to warrant such a thing. Warmund de Picquigny has the power and the authority to do that, and I believe the circumstances in force here are extraordinary enough to warrant that.”

“But why would we even think about doing such a thing, Sir Hugh?” This was Gondemare again, and de Payens smiled at him.

“It would provide us with the means of obeying our orders from the Seneschal.”

“What?” St. Agnan’s tone was skeptical. “You mean about excavating the temple? We all agreed that’s impossible. How can it be less so now?”

De Payens was ready for him, his answer spilling out almost before the question was complete.

“Because we are considering becoming penniless warrior monks, my friend. Once we become that we will have horses, but we will lack the wherewithal to provide feed and shelter for them—and for ourselves, be it said.

And so, as partial payment for our services, we will ask leave of the King and the Archbishop to install ourselves and our mounts in the old stables above the temple ruins.

“Warmund de Picquigny will not object to that, I promise you, having gained our military skills for his own ends. Nor will the King object to having a reliable force 248

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of knights quartered in his own grounds. And once we are installed in the stables, we can begin to dig, in safety and in privacy. That should solve our most immediate problems for a while, at least.”

“Hugh, you have the mind of a Pope,” St. Omer growled. “That is brilliant, my friend.”

“Aye, you might well be right,” St. Agnan said, “but do we have to become monks? I know but little of how monks are made, but I mislike the idea of taking monkish vows. How much of that would we have to endure, were we to go ahead with this?”

“Three, Archibald, no more. Poverty, chastity, and obedience.”

“Swear me to chastity? Never!”

De Payens winked at St. Omer. “Come, now, St. Agnan, and be truthful,” he challenged the big knight.