Standard of Honor (82 page)

“What was that about?” André asked.

“A summons. I am to meet Ibrahim tonight at our place of stones. He has something for me, probably a message to pass along to de Sablé. D'you want to come with me?”

“Do I? Of course I do. But I don't understand what happened there. How did old Omar know where to find you, and how did he know you were you, from so far away?”

“There are not many places I could be, if you think about it. And he knew me by my clothes.”

“Be serious, you lying Scots heathen, and tell me the truth,” André exclaimed, for Alec Sinclair was dressed exactly as he himself was, identically to everyone else in the Templar community, in the white surcoat bearing the red cross of the fighting knights.

Sinclair grinned. “He knew me when I raised my hand in the air the first time. No one else would normally greet him that way. If they wanted him they would wave to him, or beckon him over. Then, when I lowered my hand, he counted to ten and I raised my arm again, confirming that I had understood his message, which is that Ibrahim will expect me tonight, or by noon tomorrow at the latest if I have difficulty tonight.”

“And how did you understand the message? Tell me that.”

His cousin made a moue, shrugging slightly. “The urgency is in the fact that Omar came out here to find me. Had it not been urgent, he would not have come but simply waited until we saw each other in the camp. The fact that he wore what he was wearing tells me that Ibrahim has something to pass on to me from his people. Omar has two kufiya head coverings, one black, the other white. When he comes to me wearing the black, it is simply to inform me I must meet with Ibrahim as soon as it becomes convenient. When he binds the black kufiya in place with a white band, it denotes some urgency and requires a more prompt response. The white kufiya, on the other hand, means that the meeting is urgent, and the black binding holding it in place told me Ibrahim has a message to
pass on. It is really very simple. The code was developed years ago. I'm told it goes all the way back to the days of the first Templars, to Hugh de Payens.” He looked up at the sky, gauging the height of the sun.

“It's nigh on mid-afternoon. We had better return to camp right now. I will have to meet with de Sablé briefly, to inform him that we are going and that he should expect a communication from Rashid al-Din. While I'm doing that, you can requisition fresh horses for us and have them saddled, and pick up some oats for the nose bags—enough for three days, in case we run into any difficulties. We'll need three days' rations, too, against the same possibility.”

“What about clothing? Will we wear armor or local dress?”

Alec Sinclair made the Islamic gesture of sala'am, touching breast and forehead in salutation. “One of the greatest advances made by the original forces who came here from Christendom long ago, before you and I were born, was the discovery that the people of these parts knew better than any newcomer ever could know what was best to wear in desert conditions. We will travel as locals and be undisturbed. When you are ready, bring everything to your tent and set up your squadron deputy to cover for you. I'll meet you there. No point in flaunting our preparations under the noses of my fellow staff officers.” He glanced up at the sky again. “Let's say, in one hour.”

André nodded. “Fine, but don't forget, you have to tell me what you found in Cyprus.”

“You won't forget it. How then could I? We'll have plenty of time for that along the road.” They set spurs to their horses at the same moment and struck out for camp, not even bothering to collect their makeshift target.

ANDRÉ ST
.
CLAIR RODE
into the final phase of his life as a Temple knight with absolutely no anticipation of what lay ahead of him when he stepped into the stirrup and swung his leg across his horse's back, but as he would hear a thousand times in the life that lay ahead of him, it is not given to man to know the details of his destiny, and what is written may only be known when it has come to pass. What had been written for him before that afternoon had already come to pass, but he had not yet been informed of it. That task, the passing on of information and knowledge, had been given into the custody of his friend and cousin Alexander Sinclair.

It was close to the fourth hour of the afternoon by the time they left the camp behind them and struck out into the open waste of the desert. Six weeks had passed since the fall of Acre, and Saladin and his forces had withdrawn long since, southward towards Jerusalem and the cities along the coast, which meant that much of the danger of travel in the vicinity of Acre had been removed. Nevertheless, they rode in silence for the first few miles, each of them scanning the horizon from time to time simply to be sure that they were not being observed or followed. Then, after perhaps two hours of riding, and just as the sinking sun was approaching the last third of its daily
journey down the arching sky, they breasted the highest of the dunes they had been traversing and saw, on the horizon ahead of them, the broken, serrated edge that marked the beginning of the field of boulders that surrounded their destination.

“You know,” St. Clair said, breaking the silence that had held between them since they set out, “my mind has been returning to this place ever since the first time I saw it, because it reminded me of something, and I have just remembered what it is.”

Alec twisted sideways in the saddle to look at him quizzically. “This place
reminded
you of something? You mean here among these dunes, or the rocks ahead of us?”

“Pardon me, I meant the boulders there. The field of stones.”

“Aye, that's what I thought you might mean. Well, that surprises me, because I have never seen anything to resemble it before, and I have been around for ten years longer than you have. What could it possibly remind you of?”

“Another place … a field of stones.”

“Tell me about it, this place. Where is it?”

“In France, to the south of Paris, just east of the main road to Orléans. It is a place called Fontainebleau, and I cannot remember how I came there, but I found myself there one day in a magnificent forest that stretched around me for leagues in all directions, and there in the midst of it, just as here, I found a field of giant stones like these, smooth and rounded boulders of a size to stagger the mind. Boulders everywhere, dwarfing puny
humanity and towering all around in silence, merely
there
, to strike awe into the beholder …”

“Just like this field here.”

“Aye, but nothing like it, for the field of stones in France stands in the forest, so that everywhere, as far as the eye can see, the stones compete with trees, merely to be seen, though winning in most instances. There are no pathways there, no simple means of moving among or between the stones, save perhaps the occasional game trail, worn over hundreds of years by passing deer. And yet, among the deepest, largest, thickest groves of trees, there are glades to be found, and in one of those glades stands a cave … a cavern very much like your cave here, in that it has been formed from clusters of great stones, piled one atop the other and eroded by weather and the local climes for thousands upon thousands of years. It is deep and dry, completely sheltered from the wind and rain. Very similar to your place here, yet utterly different.”

Sinclair remained quiet for a spell after this outflow, then reined in his horse and looked thoughtfully at André. “We have established that Sharif Al-Qalanisi was your tutor in the Arabic tongue, as he was mine. But tell me, what else did he teach you? Did he lead you into the ways of philosophical thought?”

“Aye, he did. Do you have a reason for asking that, or was it merely a fortunate guess?”

“No guess, Cousin. This instance you have described is exactly the kind of mirror-image likeness that would have fascinated Al-Qalanisi. Now what, think you, would
he have asked of you, knowing that you have seen the parallel and recognized the paradox?”

“I am not sure I have recognized any paradox, Cousin.”

“Nonsense, of course you have. Two fields of stones, identical each to the other in their content, yet set worlds apart in their appearance, the one in arid desert and the other in a forest of white-barked trees and pale green leaves, the one denying the very appearance of life in an eternity of lifeless sand, the other celebrating the driving thrust of life teeming around and between singular lumps and globules of stone like spores of moss among heaped piles of gravel. And between the two of these, you are the sole link. There is a message concealed there, somewhere. What think you Sharif Al-Qalanisi might have made of such a puzzle?”

St. Clair looked sideways at his cousin, tipping his head to one side. “I have no idea. Let me think about it for a while, and if I can respond to it at all, I will.”

Sinclair made no response, and for the next while they plodded steadfastly and silently towards the looming line of boulders that marked the edge of the field of stones, but on the very edge of the area, before they could draw close enough to enter it, André St. Clair drew rein, and his cousin reined in beside him.

“I have had an astonishing thought,” the younger cousin said, “one that might never have occurred to me had we not come here today, and had you not provoked me into thinking about matters I would never otherwise consider. Two fields of stones as you say, Cousin. Each
radically different from the other, and yet each the same. The one, from my young manhood, from my youth, holds memories and echoes that resonate inside me, loudly enough to be painful. It appears rich and green, lush and full of promise. The other, an alien place that holds no images for me, no memories, no echoes, is a place of grays and dull, hard browns. Sere and lifeless, it is full of inert, obdurate stones and shriveled, dried-out remnants of what might, at one time, have been dreams worth the pursuing.

“On the one hand, my boyhood. In a green and pleasant land, bestrewed with promises and lushness. Plants grow everywhere I look, but all the plants are trees, with pallid, sickly leaves. No flowers, no edibles, and only trees … with roots all gnarled and dry, twisted and set in their growth, and surrounding, choking, covering nothing but stones, boulders that defy all pressures in their endurance.

“And on the other hand, my manhood, in a harsh and arid desert place, where boulders stand in profusion, as in France, but unobscured by growth, their surfaces wind-scoured and polished by the blowing sand. No flowers, no edibles, and not one twisted tree attempting to confine one standing stone within its roots.

“Two seeming truths, apparently similar. But only one is genuine.”

A long silence elapsed before Alec Sinclair asked his question. “Which one?”

André St. Clair turned his head slightly to look him in the eye. “You tell me, Cousin, for I have no idea.”

And both men laughed and kicked their horses into motion, riding in companionable silence once again. When next one of them broke the silence, it was again Alec Sinclair who spoke.

“We still have to decide what we intend to do next. Richard is planning to march south within the week, along the old coast road, to engage Saladin and take Jerusalem, defeating the Saracens once and for all. He has already made the dispositions for the line of battle— Templars in the vanguard with the Turcopoles in support, then Richard's native levies, his Bretons, Angevins, and Poitevins. The Normans and the English will come next, guarding the battle standard, and the French will form the rearguard, with the Hospitallers and the local Outremer forces supporting them. You and I have to decide upon a course of action for ourselves before that all begins.”

“You're making no sense, Cousin. The Templars will form the vanguard, so that is where we will be.”

They rode in silence again for a spell until Alec exploded, “Damnation, there's no other way to tell you this. It won't come out without being spat! When I was in Cyprus I made a journey to Famagusta, to visit your father's grave, as I promised you I would. I found it without difficulty and prayed there for his soul to rest in peace, but when I returned to Limassol I heard a tale that I could not believe, and so I set out to investigate. There is a Jew there called Aaron bar Melel. Do you know of him?”

“No, I know no Jew of that or any other name, certainly not in Limassol. Should I?”

“Yes, you should. I was given his name by an associate— an agent of Rashid al-Din who has lived in Limassol for years, as a spy. He asked me about my own name and how it differed from the name St. Clair, with which he was familiar. When I explained that the former Master-at-Arms had been my uncle, the man became very excited and told me his version of the story of what happened to your father. When I refused to believe what he said, he told me how to find this man Aaron, and I went looking for him the very next day. He was not difficult to find … Do you remember telling me about the purge being carried out against the Jews a few days before you left Limassol?”

“Aye, I remember. It cost me a last visit with my father.”

“Aye. Well, this Aaron was one of the Jews being sought, along with his entire family, his wife, son, and daughter. I met his wife and saw his daughter. She is beautiful. His son is dead, killed during the purge. He was fourteen years old. But Aaron, his wife, Leah, and his daughter were rescued and concealed by a Frankish knight. The Jew named him, calling him Sir Henry St. Clair, Master-at-Arms to England. He rescued them before the troubles broke, according to Aaron, but I have no idea, because Aaron himself did not know, how your father found out about all that was about to happen in advance. Nor do I know what happened to the boy—but Sir Henry had them smuggled out of Limassol, to a fishing village farther along the coast where they remained until they heard that Richard had set out again to come here. At that point, they
returned home to Limassol, to mourn their son and rebuild their lives.