Standard of Honor (65 page)

“We need to keep you here, from this time on, beyond Richard's reach, and that could be but a temporary respite at best, since he may yet come looking for you as your liege lord. We can hope all his attention may be absorbed in the coming days by this Isaac Comnenus nonsense, but the only truly effective way to keep you beyond his reach is to induct you formally into the Temple as a knight.
To that end, I will call upon some of the brethren to assemble as soon as may be.”

“You mean to induct me alone, without the other novices? How can that be done?”

“By speed and stealth, born of necessity. And not only can it be done, it can be done quickly. We have reason and motive. All we need now is a sufficiency of knights to conduct the ceremony.”

St. Clair grimaced. “Reason and motive. Is merely saving me from the King's clutches, in the matter of an escapade of which we cannot speak, sufficient to provide both of those? How will you justify this to others?”

“Easily. First of all, the King has nothing to do with this. Be clear on that from the outset and bear it in mind from now on. I told you that your cousin appears to be alive and well, but that several of his fellow Templars might dispute that. Sir Alexander, not for the first time, is causing grief among his fellow Templars, challenging their standards at times and scorning them at others. He was ever a prickly man, your cousin, prickly and unyielding in his righteousness, but he was seldom wrong, a fact that, while it reflected well upon his name, did little to endear him to his less uncompromising peers. But now he has come back from captivity among the Saracens pouring out allegations of incompetence and corruption within the Templar hierarchy, along with other ideas that do little to endear him to his fellows, and when they challenged him on what he was saying—challenged him very bluntly, I understand—he vanished again, into the desert. The other Templars
over there now say he has been suborned and seduced by Saladin and his ungodly beliefs, and they want him stripped of his rank and membership in the Order, and then banished, excommunicate.”

“Sweet Jesus! Can they do that?”

“Aye, if they see a need for it. They are Christian monks—men of God and thus entitled to punish wrongdoing or dereliction of duty mercilessly. They can do it, never delude yourself on that.”

“How long has he been free? Was he ransomed?”

“No. According to what I read, he was set free in an exchange of prisoners. But be all of that as it may, he has information that we of the brotherhood gravely need, information that he was sent out there to gather years ago, and it has been many years since any of the Council of the brotherhood have had direct dealings with him. Alexander Sinclair trusts no one at face value and never has. Now we have someone to send to him, from within the Temple, whom he will be inclined to trust instinctively. You and he were friends once, so he will trust you more easily than someone he has never met. Therefore you will be the one promoted and dispatched to bring him back into the Order, where he may be examined by his peers of the Temple. That will, at least, be the ostensible purpose underlying your induction and rapid dispatch to Acre—the requirements of the Temple and your duty to meet and execute those requirements, involving a special dispensation and a rapid induction and promotion predicated upon your family connections and your former friendship with Alexander Sinclair.

“Whether you can convince him to return and be judged, of course, remains to be seen. Your real objectives, however, when all is said and done, will have nothing to do with the Temple,
per se
. Your true task will be to reestablish communications between him and the Governing Council of the brotherhood, and to effect the recovery and transfer of the information Alexander holds for us.”

“And that information consists of what?”

Justin grinned, a vulpine, leering twisting of his uncomely features. “If I could answer that, Master St. Clair, there would be no need to send you all the way to Acre in such a rush, would there?”

“Hmm. What about the vows—where will I take those?”

“Two of them you have taken already, with merely minor differences. You'll simply repeat them. I'll be the one to lead you through that part, so I will put the words in your mouth and you will merely respond. These are illiterates, for the most part. No one who is not of our brotherhood will notice that the wording of the first two vows is different.”

“I have no concerns over those two. It's the third of them that concerns me.”

Brother Justin raised both eyebrows. “The vow of chastity? But you have already made your choice on that matter, with your decision to spurn the two Queens. Soon now, in a mere matter of weeks, you will be in Acre—or outside it—and believe me when I say you will find little there among the daughters of the Faithful of
Allah to threaten your chastity. Added to which, of course, will be the incentives to chastity provided by the Rule of the Temple itself … No, you will take your vows in the course of the admission ceremony, and you may never even think of them again thereafter. De Troyes will officiate, as senior member of the Order here in Cyprus.”

“De Troyes? He is not a member of the brotherhood.”

“No, he is not, thank God. He is exactly what we require in this instance, in terms of probity and credibility. Not even Richard Plantagenet will dare challenge the acting Master of the Temple here in Cyprus. Le Sieur de Troyes is
un sanglier du Temple
, a Temple Boar, with no interest in life other than the Temple and its form and rituals. That is why he will officiate at your induction, because once I have explained the situation to him he will see, immediately, the need to ship you off in order that you may remove the very real danger to his beloved Temple that your cousin seems to represent.”

“How can you be sure he will believe everything you tell him, without question? We have little to go on, save hearsay.”

“Hearsay and imagination, Brother André, and you must never underestimate the power of imagination. Men like de Troyes have none of it. Their lives are barren and arid, tied to the daily trivia of humdrum existence. They live in a world without colors, so that when they meet someone like you or me, with the power to talk persuasively and to draw and describe sweeping pictures with our minds and
voices, they are easily gulled. By the time I have finished talking with Etienne de Troyes, he will believe your cousin is a bigger threat to the Temple than Saladin himself, and he will begrudge the time it takes to initiate you in the Temple Knighthood, so great will be his need to see you on your way to Acre. Then, while the enthusiasm is still upon him, I will send him to King Richard with the tidings of your promotion and departure.”

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.”