Standard of Honor (35 page)

“Wait until you enter the temple and are shut off among people whose every thought is alien to all that you know and believe. Wait until you find yourself floundering among the pig-headed ignorance and unquestioning stupidity you'll find within the ranks you are about to join, where the knights all firmly believe they are God's chosen and the world's elite—and many of their sergeants think the same way—and you will not
be able to breathe a single word about the truth you know: that their sacred and secretive Order was invented by the brotherhood to which
you
belong, to safeguard
that
Order's sacred secrets.

“Your entire existence in their ranks will be a lie, and you will have the salt of that rubbed into your awareness every time they wake you in the middle of the night to pray in a ritual that holds no truth for you. You will know better, but you will have no other option than to comply and to observe their false rites, and you will never be able to say a word in protest or complaint. Now that, I suggest to you, might cause you some real difficulty. And that, unlike the minor business with your father, represents the real cost of belonging to our brotherhood.

“Fortunately, of course, your isolation will not last forever. As soon as you have passed all the tests and met all the qualifications for achieving full membership, the strictures surrounding you will be relaxed and members of our own brotherhood within the Temple ranks will see to it that you are assigned to duties in which you can be used to best advantage.”

He grinned again, squeezing St. Clair's shoulders in his hands. “But I promise you, albeit I have never been inside a Temple gathering, your next few months are destined to be sheer misery.”

“Aye,” André sighed. “I have been warned about all that already. But I want to thank you for the obvious delight you have taken in reminding me of what lies ahead.”

“It does lie ahead of you, André, but by the time we reach Outremer, it should be over and you'll be back in the world of living men. Now get you to bed and sleep well, then rise and greet tomorrow's day bright eyed. They say it's going to rain, so it will be a long, wet pilgrimage to Vézelay, and we'll endure great misery before we find comfort again.”

THE MORNING SUN ROSE DAZZLINGLY
above the snowy peaks of the Alps in the eastern distance, illuminating the great banner of the Order of the Temple that stood proudly alone, reflecting the blinding rays back from the crest of a hill that overlooked the fields surrounding the town of Vézelay. The banner did not flap in the light breeze, as did some others in the throng below the hill; it hung rigid, weighted along its bottom, from a bar at the top of an enormously high pole, allowing its equal-armed, eight-pointed red cross to stand out stark, challenging, and unmistakable against the pure white of its field, proclaiming the Order's pre-eminence. Beneath it stood its formal guard of ten armored, white-clad knights, and around them, covering the entire hilltop and neatly laid out in regular, rectangular patterns, lay the campsite of the Order's personnel: knights and sergeants of the Temple, the majority of them new and untested, recruited only recently to fill the Order's depleted ranks after the tragic losses sustained in Outremer.

More than a thousand fighting men were drawn up in formation there, on the downward slope of the hill in front of their foremost line of tents, and fewer than one
hundred of those had ever been involved in a real battle. The knights among them, fewer than six to every score, wore plain white surcoats, emblazoned not with the black cross of the Temple but with the brilliant red, long-bodied cross of their mission to regain the Holy Land. The remaining men, the Sergeants of the Order, wore the same red crosses over surcoats of plain brown, save for a scattering of senior sergeants who wore distinctive black surcoats signifying their rank.

Below and in front of the Templars, the remainder of the armies of Christendom seethed and eddied like fields of grain in a high wind, save that no field of grain, even when rich with wildflowers, could ever show such a profusion of colors. They completely filled up the fields that stretched away towards the little town of Vézelay, which was hidden in the distance by a forest of tents and pavilions. To the right of the watching Templars, the ranks of Richard Plantagenet's followers stood banked, block after solid block of them, horse and foot, interspersed with formations of the King's crossbowmen and archers, who were easily distinguishable by their drab colors and their lack of formal armor. Within that host, the individual colors of the various divisions could be discerned in places among the surrounding welter: the wine-red standards of Burgundy stood firmly alongside the dark, rich blue of Aquitaine, and the greens and gold of Anjou and Maine were visible behind those, as was the black and crimson of Poitou, along with the blue-and-white stripes, pale greens, and yellows and reds of Brittany and Normandy and, of course, the golden lions of St. George's England
on their crimson field, flapping above all the others on a gigantic silken banner and supported by no less a churchman than Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, who had personally levied three thousand Welshmen, mainly archers, to join Richard's host.

Opposite this panoply, ranged on the Templars' left, were the forces of Philip Augustus and his allies. As befitted the dignity of a French King, Philip's own royal standard, the golden fleurs-de-lis on a sky-blue field of the House of Capet, appeared to be at least as large as that of his English ally, and behind it were clustered the colors of his own major allies and vassals, comprising the flower of the nobility of Christendom. The brilliant colors of Stephen, Count of Sancerre, were prominent there, as Richard had foretold they would be, more than a year earlier. So were those of Count Philip of Flanders, and Henry the Count of Champagne, nephew to both kings, accompanied by an entire cavalcade of lesser French nobility. The German Louis, Margrave of Thuringia, had lent his stature to the French King's use, as had a huge number of knights from Denmark, Hungary, and Flanders. And there were bishops everywhere among the throng on both sides, many of them clustered in prayer in a vast gathering between the two armies, but many, many more among the armies themselves, armored over and beneath their vestments and accoutered for war, hungry for the blood of any Saracen foolish enough to come within their reach.

André St. Clair sat gazing down at the spectacle from a knoll at the front edge of the Templar formation, several
horse lengths ahead of the leading rank, with his immediate superior, Brother Justin, the Master of Novices, on his left side. Justin was a scowling, grim-faced veteran who stank like rancid goat cheese. St. Clair was two horse lengths away from him, but the acrid smell of the older man threatened to take his breath away every time he inhaled. Brother Justin was flanked on his own left in turn by their expeditionary force's taciturn commander, Etienne de Troyes, whose austerity and utter lack of tolerance for public spectacles like this were legendary. De Troyes was what his brethren in the Order of Sion called a Temple Boar—
un sanglier Templier
. He did not belong to the Order of Rebirth and had, in consequence, no knowledge or suspicion of the Order's existence.

One of the most highly ranked Templars in all the Frankish territories of what had been Gaul, de Troyes, like so many others of his ilk, was utterly intolerant of everyone and everything that was not a part of his world, and within that narrowly circumscribed world there was but one entity of any significance: the Order of the Temple. Anything that interfered with his intense dedication to the Temple and its priorities was not to be tolerated. On this occasion, however, much as he disliked the restraint, Sir Etienne could not disdainfully dismiss the goings-on below and absent himself. He was the Master of the Temple in Poitou, which made him the senior officer of the Order present in Vézelay that day, and he had thus a responsibility to observe all that happened. The Temple neither owed nor accorded fealty or allegiance to any temporal king or lord. Its loyalty and
fealty lay wholly with the Pope in Rome, and its representatives were here this day as the Pope's personal emissaries, although they would fight with both of the Kings below against the common Saracen enemy.

Brother Justin had designated St. Clair a courier that morning, against the need for someone to carry dispatches to, or gather information from, anyone in the armies below. The designation was extraordinary, everyone knew that, since St. Clair was a mere postulant to the Order, admitted a mere two days earlier, but Justin was taking blatant advantage, and to no one's surprise, of André's filial relationship with the Master-at-Arms below. At their backs, bound by the discipline of the Order's training, the Templar ranks were utterly silent, the only sounds they made emanating from the restless movement of horses that had been standing still for too long. By contrast, the noise from the army massed ahead of them was chaotic, a low rumbling of a hundred thousand voices overscored by louder, sometimes strident shouts of command, unintelligible from this distance, and the constant braying of trumpets and horns. André's horse stamped and whinnied, sidling closer to Brother Justin's mount and fighting against the rein when André, almost revolted by the man's stench, tried to bring it back.

“Where is your father? I can't see him.”

Ignoring the frowning presence of their field commander on his left side, Brother Justin had spoken brusquely from the corner of his mouth, without moving his head, and in response, unaware of what might be permitted him in this situation, André leaned
forward in his saddle and turned his head very slightly to his right, to peer down the slope to where the standard of St. George waved over a churning mass of brightly clad bodies, human and equine, that made nonsense of any attempt to discern order.

“He's there somewhere, Brother Justin. He will be in the thick of it, among the throng. Has to be. He organized this whole thing on King Richard's side— protocol, procedure, order of precedence, everything— so he must be in there somewhere.”

As St. Clair spoke, Etienne de Troyes uttered a disgusted curse. His patience with the distant proceedings was exhausted. Sawing savagely on the bit, he swung his horse around and sank his spurs into its flanks, spurring it up the hill, his entire body radiating the intensity of his displeasure. Brother Justin watched him go from the corner of his eye before he breathed out and spoke again, in what passed for his normal voice.

“The Marshal is plainly not pleased with what's going on down there. Nor should we be, I think. We can see everything there is to see, except those things we want to see—and that includes action—but do we understand any of what's going on? The only thing I can recognize with any certainty is that huge, unholy cluster of bejeweled bishops in the middle yonder, between the two armies, waiting to play their part in this mummery. If even half of those prating, pathetic whoresons are allowed to pray at us, we'll all die of old age before we ever get off this hill.”

St. Clair was astonished to hear such words from the mouth of the Master of Novices, but he had the good
sense to betray no reaction. Despite that, however, he felt a need to say something, and so he cleared his throat. “Little fear of that, Brother Justin. Richard Plantagenet is in charge down there. He has no more affection for high priests than his father had. Those bishops will all pray, but they will pray together when the time for prayer arrives.”

The Master of Novices grunted but made no other response, evidently having remembered that he was speaking to the merest nonentity. But then he added, unexpectedly, “Aye, they will, like as not. The Archbishop of Lyon will lead them—and the Abbot of Vézelay will assist.”

They were interrupted by the clattering of hooves as one of the senior knights, whose name André did not yet know, rode forward and reined in on Brother Justin's left, speaking to him as though St. Clair did not exist.

“What's happening down there? De Troyes is angrier than a wet cat.”

“I know he is, but nothing's happening. He simply can't stand the waste of time. It would make a saint angry. There's a hundred thousand men down there, and they're all due to leave this day, but they are up to their armpits in bishops, panting to pray again.”

The other knight hawked and spat. “These past three days have been a bishop's dream—one endless, sweaty Mass with panoply and chanted prayers and roiling clouds of incense. But enough's enough. Now it is time to pack up all the tents, load all the wagons, marshal the armies, and strike out on the road.”

He turned his head, his eyes taking in St. Clair but dismissing him instantly as of no import, and nodded to
the Master of Novices. “You mark my words. We'll either be off this hill and on the road by noon today, or Richard Plantagenet will stand excommunicate.” His voice sank to a cynical growl. “And with Holy Mother Church relying on him to lead this entire campaign, exterminate Saladin and his Saracens, and win the Holy City back for Rome, excommunication would appear to be unlikely.”

“De Chateauroux!” The voice cracked from the heights behind them like the sound of shattering rock, and the knight beside Brother Justin straightened up with a jerk. “Shit! Keep an eye out. See if you can detect any movement between the camps. Anything at all! Here, Brother Marshal!” De Chateauroux shouted an acknowledgment and pulled his mount into a dramatic, rearing turn, setting his spurs to it before its front hooves reached the ground, plainly having no wish to draw the displeasure of de Troyes.

From the corner of his eye, André saw Brother Justin turn to watch the other man leave, then swing back towards him. “You stay here,” he snarled, “and if you see anything change down there, any movement of any kind by a large group, send for me at once.”

André heard him clatter off in pursuit of de Chateauroux, but made no effort to watch him. He already felt conspicuous sitting where he was, a mere postulant, not even a novice, yet clearly being accorded preferential treatment. He had noticed no signs of resentment from any of his fellows, but he was shrewd enough to anticipate that it might be there somewhere,
hidden beneath a veil of seeming indifference, and he had no wish to make matters worse by appearing to gawk or to preen.