Knights of the Black and White (64 page)

She shook her head. “No one can tell me. It depends Complicities

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upon too many things other than winds and weather, which are of course the most important of all. He could be here in a week, or a month, or half a year. Only one thing do I know with certainty: when he arrives, we shall be wed. That is why there was so much cloth fabric in evidence here when you came in. My women are working at all hours to prepare my new clothing. What are you people doing in the stables?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, taken aback by the swift change of subject.

“I have received reports that you and your fellow monks are involved in something within your stables, something nefarious, it seems, and although the reports vary, I am satisfied that I know what is going on.”

Her words hung in the air, and St. Clair could hear his heart thudding in his chest. She was watching him closely, scanning his face for some hint of what he was thinking, and he schooled himself to show nothing as he tilted his head slightly to one side. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I do not … What do you believe is
going on
, as you say?”

“Digging. You and your brethren are digging in the earth, in the foundations there, in search of some treasure buried there long ages ago.”

“Wha—? What would make you even suspect such a thing, my lady?” He felt himself almost breathless.

“Information! I told you, I have heard reports that something is going on.”

“Aye, and I have no wish to contradict you, but you also said that those reports conflicted with each other, 620

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did you not, and that you had therefore drawn your own conclusions on what they said?”

“I did. What are you saying?”

He spread his hands far apart. “Simply that I would like to hear these conclusions at which you have arrived.

May I ask that of you?”

“I spoke of treasure, Brother Stephen. I now believe that you and your brotherhood have somehow acquired secret information—ancient knowledge of some kind—and are using it to lead you towards some great discovery.”

St. Clair froze. His mouth went dry, his tongue cleaving to his palate as the words thundered in his head. All his convictions about the integrity of his brethren turned to ashy powder in his mouth, so that he barely heard Alice as she continued.

“I can only interpret that to mean that you are all apostate, ignoring and defying the sacred vows you undertook so recently, in the hope of unearthing riches that rightfully belong to others.” She stopped, eyeing him and pursing her lips. “This is the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Brother Stephen. Everything herein, above and below the ground, belongs to my father the King. Whatever treasure you seek belongs to him, no matter where or when you find it, and no matter whether or not he knew of it before you found it. But I suspect that means nothing to you, does it? When you and your associates uncover these riches, this treasure that you seek, you intend to abscond with it, abandoning all your duties and responsibilities.”

St. Clair could barely think, his mind was reeling so.

They had a traitor among their tiny number. Who could it Complicities

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be? In a daze, he began to summon up the faces of his brother knights, gazing at each of them in his mind, trying to see some weakness, some hint of treachery.

“Answer me! Is that not what you intend?”

He blinked and focused his eyes on the princess’s angry face. “Forgive me, my lady, but what is it that you think we intend to do?”

“You are going to steal the treasure and make off with it. But I will not allow it.”

“Make off with it? Make
off
with it? With
what
, my lady? We are monks, not brigands.”

“Hah! Then I give you back your own words of moments ago, sir, when you were condemning the atrocities committed by priests and clerics. Am I to imagine, in the light of what I now know, that monks are different?”

“But we are, my lady! Do you not recall? A new order, different from any other.” Despite the angry edge to his voice, St. Clair was growing confused, because the sole denunciation he was hearing here centered upon the theft of treasure, of portable wealth. There was nothing of secret societies or underhanded plotting or treachery; nothing that bore directly upon the Order of Rebirth, or of which he truly needed to be afraid. Nothing, in fact, that threw any light at all upon the extent of the woman’s knowledge of what was truly going on in the stables. He rose to his feet, but kept his tone moderate.

“Tell me, if you will, my lady, what you propose to do with this information and what you need from me in regard to it.”

“I intend to denounce your activities to my father.

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And also to the Patriarch Archbishop, since it was to him that your brethren swore their original false loyalty.”

“Denounce us? Do you really believe that we are hatching treachery?”

“How else am I to believe?” She sat straight backed, glaring at him accusingly. “Your conduct has left me no other choice, and my own conscience permits me no other course of action. Ever since I became convinced of what you were doing, I have been unable to sleep, fearful of being the direct cause of the deaths of nine monks who have shown themselves to be heroic in some ways.”

She was lying, he knew, protesting her helplessness too much. There was no doubt of it in his mind. The woman who had so shamelessly abducted him was not the kind of woman who would suddenly be overcome by a crisis of conscience such as she was claiming now. He changed tack.

“Only nine of us, my lady? What of the sergeant brothers?”

“No, not them.” Her denial was emphatic. “The sergeants are innocent of all complicity in this. I know that beyond question, for I have become sure—as sure as I now am of the perfidy of the nine knights—that the lesser brothers know nothing at all of what has been going on beneath their feet. The guilt in this lies squarely with you knights, all of you nobly born and therefore able, by birth and knightly training, to distinguish right and wrong even before you took your sacred vows.” She stopped for a moment, frowning at him. “How could you do such a thing, after the events and the realizations Complicities

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of your earlier life, those things you spoke so bitterly about such a short time ago?”

He resisted the urge to challenge her with his own knowledge of her former conduct, but he turned away from her instead and looked about the silent, sunlit room, nodding as though considering what she had said, and then he sighed and sat down again, looking directly at her.

“Tell me then, my lady, if I may ask so boldly. How did all this—what did you call it—this nefarious activity come to your notice?”

He knew from the way she blinked at him that she had not expected the question, but she rallied quickly. “At first?”

“Yes, from the earliest moment.”

“I know not. Not precisely. I have been told it all grew out of perfectly innocent observations from some of the local merchants who supplied the temple garrison … and supplied fodder and equipment to your stables. They were the first to notice that there was one area into which they were never permitted to wander.”

“We are a closed community, my lady. No one who is not of our order is permitted to pass beyond our outer precincts.”

“I know nothing of that, never having been there, but that is what I was told, on sound authority. It was observed that there is a locked and guarded doorway that no one other than the knight monks themselves is ever permitted to pass through.”

“That is true. Such a door exists. It is the entrance to 624

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our living quarters and our chapel. None may enter there save our brethren.”

“Ah. Well, it was noticed, and the matter was brought to my attention soon afterwards. I was reluctant to believe anything of what I heard at first, and so, mindful of my duty to my father, I sent people of my own to observe what they could and report back to me.”

“I see. And what did they report to you?”

“That they had seen … things that were inexplicable.

And thus I decided to approach my father the King and advise him that something … something untoward was happening.”

“So this discovery was recent?”

“Recent enough. That is why you are here.”

“And why
am
I here, my lady? Why would you summon me? If, as you suspect, there is something clandestine going on in the stables, then I must be one of the perpe-trators. Why would you bring me here instead of denouncing me immediately to the King and to the Patriarch?” St.

Clair was watching her closely, attempting to read her eyes, and he was amused, despite all his apprehension, to realize that he was, beyond belief, enjoying himself. Somehow, in realizing that he was clearly not to be seduced on this occasion, he had been able to rally resources he had not known he possessed, and had begun to feel that the situation might not be as bleak as he had feared. Seeing a flicker of uncertainty in her expression, he pressed on.

“Tell me what it is you want to know. What kind of treasure are you so convinced we seek? I promise you, I have heard nothing of hidden hoards of gold, but I will Complicities

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answer your questions openly and truthfully, as well as I may.”

She hesitated, and he held his breath, knowing that this would be the moment of no return. Her first question would be as instructive as it was probing. Finally, he saw a stiffening of her lips and braced himself.

“You are digging—there, in the stables. The noises have been heard, and you are using the chips of stone you unearth to build walls inside the cavern. What treasure are you searching for?”

His heart leapt exultantly and he wanted to spring to his feet and shout with relief.
What treasure are you
searching for?
The question liberated him as suddenly as if she had cut a taut rope.
What treasure are you searching for?
No mention of the Order of Rebirth, no nuanced phrase leading deeper into where he could not go. The simplicity of the question spoke of greed—greed and curiosity—nothing more, nothing less. It also meant, and far more significantly, that no brother had betrayed his trust, and that the princess had nothing more than suspicions on which to base her claims.

He felt a surge of liberation so enormous that he had to brace himself to permit no slightest hint of it to show on his face or in his eyes. Instead, he pretended to frown, as though befuddled, and then he allowed his face to clear, and surrendered to the urge to laugh aloud, venting his pleasure and incredulity.

“Treasure, my lady,” he said through his laughter, making no attempt to disguise his feelings now. “We seek the treasure that all men of God are sworn to seek—the 626

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treasure of His enlightenment, through service and through prayer.”

“Do you dare to mock me, sir, here in my own house?

Explain yourself and this unseemly mirth.”

St. Clair threw up his hands. “Lady, forgive my laughter, I beg of you. It is born of relief, not mockery, for now I see what you have been fretting over. My brothers and I have been laboring underground, as you suspect, and have been doing so for years, but what we do has nothing of the illicit or seditious in its nature.

We have had the blessing of your father the King on our labors since the outset. But—but you spoke of the
foundations
of the stables. The stables have no foundations, my lady. They sit upon the solid rock of the Temple Mount, and that is what we have been digging.

And you will quickly see, if you but stop to think of it, that there can be no treasure hidden within solid rock.

May I explain?”

“I think it would be wise.” The chill in her voice reminded him of icy alpine winters in his native land. He cleared his throat and made a show of collecting his thoughts.

“We are a new order, as you know, my lady, and bound by vows to poverty in our way of life, and new as we are, and zealous, we have imposed new disciplines and penances upon ourselves in all we do.”

“Continue.”

“The stables—our quarters—are adequate to our needs, for the time being, but some of our brethren ini-

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tially thought they were too comfortable, with their natural profusion of straw and the warmth generated by our horses. Comfort and luxury are both conducive to sloth and indolence, and injurious to discipline and asceticism.

Would you not agree?”

The princess glanced around her luxurious chamber, and if not quite mollified, her voice was less frigid when she spoke next. “I might, were I that way inclined. Go on.”

“Well, several of our brotherhood decided among themselves, long before I came here, that it would be right and fitting were they to dedicate themselves to creating a truly monastic dwelling in the living rock beneath their feet, each man carving out his own cell in time, and offering the hard work and discipline of doing so to God, in recognition of His greatness and bounty. And that is the digging that has been brought to your attention. Brother Hugh sought and received permission from your father before the work began, and King Baldwin was gracious enough to accord his blessing on the work.”

The princess was now wide eyed. “But— Then why all the secrecy?”

“There is no secrecy, my lady. At least, there was never meant to be. But my brothers live in close-mouthed discipline, praying often but seldom speaking among themselves, let alone communing socially with people outside their own small circle. And so I suppose the silence simply grew, over the years, and became ingrained. But there is neither mystery nor nefarious behavior involved. I confess, you had me profoundly disturbed there for a time, 628

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wondering if I myself had been blind to something. I shall give thanks tonight, before I sleep, that I was mistaken—and, if I may dare to say so, that you were, too.”

The princess slumped suddenly and settled back against the rear of her couch, staring at him through slit-ted eyes, and her new posture reminded him again, for the first time since this strange conversation began, of the ripeness of her body beneath her garments. He gritted his teeth slightly and stared off into the distance beyond her shoulder, grimly refusing to allow his eyes to rest on her form.