Knights of the Black and White

FIVE

For a time after that, life was idyllic for the three young men of the triumvirate. The two who were married lived in utter contentment, their wives the closest of friends, and Hugh, the unwed third, was more than satisfied to be able to work as hard as he wished on his studies of the Order of Rebirth without the distractions his now-preoccupied friends would normally have caused him.

The idyll came to an end on a day in May 1093, when Godfrey and Payn came to Hugh’s quarters together, looking decidedly ill at ease. Hugh saw at first glance that something was seriously wrong, and he immediately set aside the book he had been studying and stood up.

“What has happened? What’s wrong?”

Godfrey and Payn looked at each other—guiltily, was Hugh’s first thought—and neither one appeared to have any wish to answer him.

Godfrey sank onto a bench against the wall by the window. “They know,” he said.

“Who knows, and what?”

Payn cleared his throat. “The girls, Margaret and Louise. They know about the Order.”

“They what?”

“They know about it,” Godfrey muttered. “They’ve been talking about it, discussing and comparing their ideas, and they came right out and asked us about it, about what we do at the Gatherings.”

“In God’s name …” Hugh was barely able to speak, so profound was his shock. “What have you two done? How could you forget your oaths like that? Were they not awful enough, the dreadful penalties you undertook to suffer for betraying them?”

“We have done nothing, Hugh. We forgot nothing and we have said nothing. Neither one of us has as much as breathed a single word to anyone outside our Lodge. Believe me, we have asked each other everything there is to ask since we learned of this, and neither one of us has as much as whispered a word of anything to do with the Order.”

“Yet your wives know of it.” He waited, seeing only misery in their faces. “When did you discover this? How long ago did they ask you about it?”

“Today,” Godfrey said, meeting Hugh’s eye directly. “This afternoon, no more than an hour ago. We came to you immediately.”

“And what exactly did they ask you?”

Payn looked bewildered. “I … I don’t know … I can’t remember. I felt such horror when I realized what they were saying that I was struck dumb. All I can remember thinking is, They know. How could they know?”

“I felt the same way.” Godfrey was shaking his head, gazing into nowhere and frowning. “I didn’t think about anything else once I had recognized what Louise was saying … and I don’t really remember now exactly what she did say.”

“Then let’s approach this from another side. What did you tell them in the first place?”

“Tell them? Have you not heard a word we said? We didn’t tell them anything, Hugh. I certainly didn’t, and I believe Payn when he says he didn’t. But that’s not important—even although it is. What we need to know is what we should do now.”

His head still reeling, Hugh looked from one to the other of them, his lips pursed. “Well, at least that’s easy to answer. We go to my father and ask him what’s to be done. He will know, and he’ll know what to do about the two of you, too. But we had better go now … Did it occur to either one of you to warn your wives to say no more of this, to anyone?”

“Of course it did,” Godfrey snapped. “We were appalled, but we were not rendered completely witless. They won’t talk of it to anyone else, because we commanded them to say no more and they know how angry we are.”

“Very well then, now let’s make my father angry, too. Fortunately he is here. I saw him less than an hour ago, just about the time your wives were questioning you. Come on, then, let’s go and find him.”

Baron Hugo was in the smithy when they found him, supervising the shoeing of his favorite saddle horse. The beast was in its prime, but it had fallen on a treacherous slope the previous month, injuring its front right fetlock, and had been under the farriers’ care ever since. It had been judged able only that morning to return to its full roster of duties, and when Hugh and his friends arrived they saw immediately that the Baron’s attention was all for the horse and its new set of shoes, and he could barely conceal his impatience at their interruption, so that when he stumped off to a corner where they could speak with him in private, they followed him with unconcealed apprehension.

He listened to the first part of what his son had to say and then held up a hand, demanding silence. He looked at each of the three young knights in turn, then beckoned them to follow as he led them across the cobbled courtyard to his own chambers, where he dismissed the majordomo and his cleaning staff, then closed the doors securely behind them before waving to the three younger men to be seated. When they were all sitting, looking distinctly uncomfortable, the Baron cleared his throat and hooked a stool with his foot, dragging it closer to where he could sit on it, looking down at them.

“So,” he said, after a silence that seemed endless to the three, “if I am correct in my understanding of what you have told me, your wives asked you about what you do at the Gatherings, but you do not recollect exactly what it was that they asked you?” The Baron’s demeanor was remarkably calm, Hugh thought, for a man who had just discovered betrayal among his own family, and he admired his father’s control even as he tried to gauge the fury that must be simmering and bubbling beneath that calm exterior. From the corner of his eye he saw his two friends nodding their heads.

“And you are both convinced that they are aware of, or that they at least suspect, the existence of our Order. You also believe absolutely that neither one of you said anything to either of them, at any time, that might have been intemperate, or ill considered, careless, or indiscreet?” Again both men shook their heads. “Well then,” Hugo continued, “if neither one of you said anything you should not have said—and I believe you when you say you did not—how, then, could your wives have come by whatever information they have? Can you tell me?” He swung to look at his son. “Can you?”

“No, Father.”

The Baron grunted. “Then I will tell you,” he growled. “Because I know where their information probably sprang from. Your mother probably told them.”

Hugh was aware that his jaw had dropped and he was sitting gaping, and he closed his mouth as his father said, “Think about it now, all of you, and think with your minds this time, not with your guts. Think about it logically and reasonably, and then accept what your intelligence tells you it means. The truth is there, right under your noses, and you are going to have to accept it and learn to live with it. I had to come to terms with it when I was your age. All of us have to, at one time or another, and for some men it is very difficult.” He looked from face to face, but none of his listeners stirred. They sat stunned, and he spoke into the silence, aware that they would hear him now as never before.

“Our way of life teaches us to believe that women are less than we are in most things. They exist to bear our sons and to make our lives more comfortable and more pleasant. Is that not true? Of course it is, if you are a man. Women, however, tend to see things differently, through eyes and from strange viewpoints that men can never know. They believe they are more clever and more humane than men are, and from their point of view, they may have reason on their side to a great extent. They are certainly clever, in their own obscure ways, and they have little patience with our ways. They think of us, without exaggeration, as children who never grow up and never mature, despite the grayness in our beards and the wrinkles on our faces.

“Here is the truth, gentlemen, and whether you like it or not, you cannot change it: very few of our confraternity are wed to stupid women, and fewer yet are married to women who do not spring from the Friendly Families. And the Friendly Families, according to the Lore of our ancient Order of Rebirth, have been holding regular Gatherings for more than fifty generations. Fifty generations, my young friends, not merely fifty years. Can any of you truly believe that, in all that time, our women, our wives and mothers, sisters and cousins, have been unaware that their men are involved in something to which they are not privy? They know all about the secrecy surrounding what we do, and about the dedication and effort brought into being around the time of the Gatherings. They see, even if they do not acknowledge, the changes being wrought in their sons’ lives and activities as they approach the age of eighteen. Any man who believes that a son’s activities can be completely hidden from his mother is a fool. The most important knowledge they possess, however, is that whatever is involved, it is a thing for men, ancient beyond antiquity, in which women have no place and no involvement. They know that, and they accept it. Some accept it more easily and readily than others, and there are always the occasional few who, in their youth, seek to discover more than they are permitted to know. Those, fortunately, are very few, and eventually they are all discouraged by our total silence. Then they resign themselves to the realities of life.

“But never be tempted to believe they know nothing. That would be the worst kind of folly. They know. And we know they know, even if we never mention it among ourselves. But their knowledge is as close held as is our own. They never speak of it among themselves, to any great extent. They know, somehow, that it concerns an ancient trust of some description, and they are content, and even proud, that their men, their families, are strong enough and true enough to have earned that trust and to be worthy of it. And thus, in their silent knowledge, our strength grows the greater. Your young wives will learn that truth now, just as you are learning it, and you will see, no more will be said of any of it.”

The Baron looked around at his three young listeners, and then smiled. “I would ask if you have any questions, but I know that it is still too soon for questions. What you all require now is time to think about what you have been told. Go then, and think.”

“I HAVE A QUESTION.” Godfrey sat up straight as he made his announcement. It was the same day, and the sinking sun was throwing elongated shadows across the grass in the meadow where the three of them had been lounging under a tree, their backs propped against a sloping, mossy bank for the previous hour and more, thinking deeply and saying little.

Hugh tilted his head and looked up at Godfrey from beneath an arched eyebrow. “For my father? I have no idea where he might be by now.”

“No, not for your father, for you, because you’re the one who has been studying all the lore.” Godfrey was frowning, no trace of his usual levity present in his gaze.

“Ask away, then. I’m still a tyro but I’ll answer if I can.”

“What do you really think about all we’ve learned?”

Hugh remained motionless for several moments, his eyes closed, and then he pushed himself up and around so he could see Godfrey clearly. “What kind of a question is that? Are you asking me for my opinion of all we have learned since we were born? If that’s what you mean, then let’s fetch our practice swords and go to it right here. Better a healthy sweat than wasting an afternoon wondering about nonsense.”

“No, that’s not what I meant at all … I’m not sure what I meant, Hugh, but it’s important. What …” Godfrey’s face twisted in a frustrated grimace. “I know what I want to ask you, but I don’t know how to put it into words properly. Let me think about it for a moment.”

“Think for as long as you wish. I’ll wait.” Hugh lay back and closed his eyes again. Payn had not stirred.

Some time later, Godfrey tried again, “I wonder about what you believe.”

Hugh did not even open his eyes. “How could that interest you in any way? Why should it? What I believe is in my own mind.”

“Oh, come on, Hugh, don’t be tiresome. I’m asking for your advice because I don’t know what I believe.”

That opened Hugh’s eyes. “How can you not know that? That may be the silliest thing I have ever heard you say, Goff.”

“It’s not silly at all. You know me, Hugh. I am obedient to my elders and superiors in all things. And I believe whatever I’m told to believe—always have, since our first days in Brother Anselm’s classroom, when we were all tads. After all, there was no option, was there? The Church tells us we have to believe what we are told. The priests tell us we’re not clever enough to understand anything about God and His teachings without their help. They are God’s interpreters, and only they are qualified to explain His mysteries, His words, and His wishes to us. It was always that way, and I always believed them. Until very recently …”

He sat staring into the distance for a while before he continued. “Now I don’t know what to believe … and I don’t know why I don’t know. When I joined the brotherhood and was Raised and learned about the Order’s origins, and about our ancestors being Jews and our Friendly Families springing from the priesthood of the Essenes, I had no difficulty with what I was learning, new and different as it was. Somehow, I managed to keep the two information sources separate. One was ancient history and the other was life today. I am amazed now, I admit, by how long I was able to keep doing that. But in the past few months I have lost my way. Everything is confusing now—the Church’s teachings and the Order’s, and how they fit and how they don’t—and it has all been swarming in my mind so that now I don’t know what I should believe. I have two sources of information, each appearing to be equally credible, each claiming supremacy, and each asserting itself as the One, True Way. And yet neither one of them makes complete sense.”

He fell silent for a moment, and then added, in a strangely flat, emotionless voice, “Help me, Hugh.”

Hugh opened his eyes and shifted his head slightly, looking up at his friend, but before he could say anything, Payn, whose eyes were still closed against the sun’s brightness, added, “Yes, help him, Hugh, for the love of God, because then you’ll help me, too. If Godfrey is as confused as he claims, I can but think him fortunate, since I myself am not confused by it at all … I am utterly blind and deathly ignorant on exactly the same matters.”

Hugh looked in amazement at Payn, who opened his eyes and spread his hands in a silent shrug.

“What should surprise you about that?” Payn said. “You know me well, my friend, better than any other. I am a knight, and that is all I wish to be. I am a warrior by birth, a fighter—a brawling, ignorant lout—and happy to be one. I have no time, and no wish, to fill my life with the kind of mystic, smoke-shrouded things that excite you … all this mummery about the secrets and mysteries within the Order. To us it’s all babble and bluster and we don’t understand a word of it.”

“Crusty’s right, Hugh.” Godfrey was nodding solemnly. “We don’t know what to believe, but we both believe that you know what’s right, and if you tell us what that is, we’ll believe you.”

Hugh had abandoned any pretense of laziness soon after Godfrey launched into this astonishing plea, and now he sat straight-backed and pale-faced, gazing at his two friends from wide, unblinking eyes. He made to speak, but although his mouth opened and his lips moved, nothing emerged. He pushed himself to his feet. Godfrey glanced worriedly at Payn and then spoke up again.

“Hugh, we’re not asking you to sin, or to betray anything. This is very straightforward. Among the three of us, you are the one who knows most about this kind of matter. All we’re asking you to do is tell us what you think, what you believe, based upon what you’ve learned since you joined the Order. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Hugh’s voice sounded different to his own ears, husky and throaty. “That’s all? You’re asking me to be your priest, your spiritual guide, to direct you towards salvation. I can’t do that, Goff. I don’t know where salvation lies, even for myself.”

“That’s not true, Hugh.” Payn’s voice was urgent. “All we are asking you to do is talk to us, about what you think might be true. We believe the people we know within the Order, and we believe what they tell us. But we cannot understand any of it, once we move outside the ritual rooms. The Order is a secret world, Hugh. Out here, in the real world, among people who are not of the Order, we don’t know who to trust … who to believe.”

Hugh de Payens stood there in the meadow, his back to the sinking sun, and looked at his two friends through new eyes, seeing the doubt, confusion, and misery in their faces.

“I have to walk,” he said. “I can’t think, standing here. Walk with me, and we’ll see what comes into my mind.”

Some time later, on the edge of a fast-flowing brook, he stopped and stood, his friends beside him, gazing down into the still waters by the bankside, searching for trout. “You asked me what I believe, but what I heard you asking me to do was to tell you the truth. That’s why I was angry at first … because I don’t know what the truth is. Everything I believe might be completely wrong.”

He turned away from the water then, and looked at each of his friends in turn. “So,” he continued, “I am going to tell you what I believe. But I absolutely do not want either one of you to think, under any circumstances, that I’m convinced that what I tell you is the truth. Do you understand that? I am not telling you the truth, because as God is my witness, I do not know what the truth is, or even where it resides.”

He waited until each of his friends had nodded in agreement, and then he walked away from them without looking back, allowing his next words to trail back over his shoulder.

“I believe in Jesus,” he began. “I believe he lived and was crucified. But I do not believe he was the physical son of God, not now. I believe he was crucified for his political activities against the Romans and their allies—Herod and his clan. I believe he was a fighter in the cause of a free and unified Jewish nation, free of foreign occupation, and free to worship their own God in their own way. I also believe, because our Order has convinced me by showing me evidence—and not simply telling me about it and ordering me to believe—that Jesus was a member of the priestly sect known as the Essenes, whom some called Nazoreans, and that they formed a community that they called the Jerusalem Community, a brotherhood of what we would call monks today—a community of dedicated souls living in isolation and in voluntary poverty, practicing chastity and self-denial and striving to make themselves worthy in the eyes of their God, who was a stern and vengeful God with whom they held a covenant, an understanding that they would live their lives in strict commitment to His expectations … Do you want to ask me any questions about any of that?”

He walked on in silence, waiting, and when nothing came from behind him, he began again. “I believe that Jesus was crucified and died. And after his death, his brother James, whom men called James the Just, continued to head their commune until his death. James was murdered on the steps of the Temple, and his death—far more so than the death of his brother Jesus—caused insurrection and rebellion, leading directly to the last Jewish war against Rome, when Titus destroyed the Jewish nation and those few who survived the destruction were scattered to the ends of the earth.”

He stopped suddenly and turned on his heel to look back at them. “That is what I believe, and none of it should surprise you, for you have heard it all before, from your sponsors and tutors in the Order. We have evidence, within our Order, for all of it, but it might not all be true. Or it might be totally false, its interpretation lost over the centuries since our families first came here, after their flight from Jerusalem. In my own heart and mind, however, I believe it. But now comes the hard part. And it’s the part, I know, that causes all the grief you feel over this.”

He started walking again, more slowly this time, and his companions walked on either side of him, their heads bent.

“All our families, all of them who do not belong to the Brotherhood of the Order, are Christians, and that is what makes this all so difficult, because I also believe that the Christian Church, as it exists today, is built upon a myth created by the man called Paul. Paul was a gentile, we all know that, but nobody really knows today what a gentile was. Do you know, Goff?” Godfrey wrinkled his nose and shook his head, and Hugh smiled. “Well, a gentile was anyone who was not a Jew, and to the Jews, that was all that mattered. I believe that Paul was a friend of Rome, which is a spy, in the pay of the Empire, and I believe that he was an opportunist of the first magnitude. He never knew Jesus—although he knew the brother, James, and James knew Paul, and disliked and distrusted him.

“I believe, absolutely, that Paul somehow heard mention of the Raising ceremony practiced by the Essenes of the Community. He could never have witnessed it, for the Essenes’ rites were practiced in secret and Paul was twice an outsider—a gentile and uninitiated—but I believe most certainly he heard of it, and he misunderstood everything he heard, except the most important part—the outline of the premise involved. He took the idea of resurrection that had been practiced in secret for centuries by learned men, and from it, and around his gross misunderstanding of it, he built an edifice that now rules the world in which we all live. He even invented a name for it after a time. He called it Christianity, based upon the Greek name he eventually dreamed up for the man Jesus—the Christus.

“Then, once he perceived the success of his message and could see where he might go with it, he stripped it, his fundamental idea, of everything Jewish that might be offensive to the Romans, and he constructed his new religion with great skill to appeal to Roman tastes, traditions, and superstitions, incorporating most of the favorite myths of Rome, and of Greece, and of Egypt, and all their gods.

“He took the story of the virgin birth, for one thing, from several sources. Mithras, the Roman soldiers’ god, for example, was born in a stable, delivered of a virgin. And Horus, the god-son of Isis and Osiris, was born of a virgin, too, and destined to die to expiate the sins of mankind. Paul named Jesus the Son of God in that tradition, and cited his resurrection as the sign of his divinity. Paul the saint made Jesus the Christ an immortal. But the most blatantly untrue thing he did was to deny James’s existence as Jesus’ brother by denying his existence and transferring the power of the founding bishop to Peter the Rock.”

“Tell us about this Mithras,” Godfrey said. “I’ve never heard of him.”

Hugh smiled. “Not surprising. He was a very powerful god in his day, the Lord of Light, worshipped by most of the soldiery of the Empire as the Soldier’s God, but he was soon absorbed completely into Christianity and disappeared. Even the Cross that Christians revere today was his—the white, four-armed cross of Mithras, and it was an ancient symbol even before Mithras. It certainly was not the Cross that Jesus died on.”

“What are you saying?” Payn sounded scandalized. “Are you telling us you don’t believe Jesus was crucified?”

“No, Crusty, I am not. Jesus was crucified. There is no doubt in my mind of that. But he was crucified on the only kind of cross the Romans used, which was a simple T shape, with no upright above the crossbar.”

Once again he looked from Godfrey’s face to Payn’s. “Now that—all that I’ve said about Mithras—is true. That evidence exists, and although it has been hidden from casual sight by the Church, they cannot destroy it, much as they might like to. It is historical fact backed by incontrovertible and indestructible evidence.”

He looked squarely at each of his friends in turn, then twisted his lips into a grimace before continuing, his tone and demeanor more serious than at any time since this had begun.

“But that’s all ancient history and Mithras does not concern us here, so to answer your questions as fully as I may, I will say this: I have become convinced, simply from reading what exists in our Order’s Lore, that there is not one of the godly or miraculous events attributed to Jesus that was not in existence, and being marveled at, centuries before he was born, from the curing of lepers to raising the dead.

“The Jesus who lived in Galilee and died on the Hill of Skulls was a man—a patriot and a rebel. But he was not Jesus the Christ, because, as I said, the ‘Christ’ part of that name—the Greek Christos, or Savior—did not exist until Paul invented the name long after the man Jesus was dead … That, too, I believe.

“Most of all, however—and I think this is what you were asking me—I believe that the world has been led astray by men—ordinary, venal, and self-centered men—claiming to represent God and growing rich in wealth and worldly power in doing so. The evidence of that is everywhere, and a man does not have to be a saint to see it. The Church that Paul founded contains nothing today—a millennium later—that has not been created and propounded and promulgated by men, all of them claiming to have access to the ear of God, and most of them having no slightest resemblance to anything that might in any way be thought of as godly, pious, or holy, let alone Christian. They preach and pray about godly and Christian virtues, but few bishops or priests today even bother to conceal their venal worldliness. I believe—and I know, as do you two—that most people are aware of that, even although they dare not—dare not—speak of it to anyone. Despair walks the world today, my friends, and it wears clerical robes. But I believe, too—and more than anything else I believe this—that our ancient Order, the Order of Rebirth in Sion, contains the seeds of salvation that will one day cleanse the world and bring God back truly into the lives of men.”

He saw the doubt and bafflement in his listeners’ eyes, and he smiled. “Well, lads, you asked me, and I have told you, and now I can see you are obviously more confused than you were before, wondering about what you have learned that contains the seeds of salvation. Well, believe me when I tell you that you have learned it. You simply have not yet recognized what you have learned. But listen to me now, both of you, and I’ll take you as far towards the light as I can go, because I myself can see it only hazily.

“Think of this. The Church tells us Jesus spoke of himself as being ‘the Way,’ and that he told others ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.’ He asked them to follow him and that he would show them the Way, and he believed that, utterly and without doubt. But we in our Order believe he did not say it as the Son of God. He said it as an Essene, because it was part of his daily life, and the other Essenes of his community spoke the same way, because they believed that man carries God within himself, and that the Way to find God is to search within yourself.

“Now, if you think long and hard upon what that means, you might realize it means that you can talk to God in your own mind, and in your own prayers. And if you can do that, what need have you of priests? Think about that for a moment, and about what it means to our churchly fathers. If a man can talk to God in his own mind, and pray in the security of his own bosom, what need has he of priests, or of a Church—any church?”

He stopped then and remained silent, watching St. Omer and Montdidier as their faces showed what they were thinking, and he smiled more widely as he saw the conviction dawning in their eyes.

“You see it now? You see where our Order’s power will someday lie? One day, our Lore—the knowledge that we have in our possession—will dictate and demonstrate the truth, incontrovertibly, that men have usurped God’s covenant with mankind and placed the world in jeopardy while they pursue their own earthly power. It will come to pass, I promise you. There is no doubt in my mind.”

“When?” Payn’s voice was taut with urgency, but Hugh could only shrug.

“That I cannot tell you. We can do nothing to promulgate the solution yet, for we have no proof of what we know, and absolute proof will be demanded—demanded loudly and angrily by every corrupt priest and bishop in the world—as soon as we cast off our secrecy and speak out. But we have our Lore, and that Lore instructs us to return to Jerusalem one day, to find and recover the treasury of written records hidden there in ancient times by our forefathers, the founding fathers of what are now the Friendly Families. Those records—the written history of the Jerusalem Assembly served by the man Jesus and his brother James—will show the true beginnings of what would become the Christian Church, although Jesus and his companions called it simply the Way—the spiritual life, lived every moment of every day in the eyes of God and strengthened by the knowledge of the covenant between Him and the men who worship Him … I believe that, too.”

“Is there a map?”

Hugh turned to St. Omer. “A map?” He laughed. “I have no idea, Goff. There might be … I don’t know much more than you do, and I’ve mentioned nothing of the mysteries in what I have said. Everything I have told you, everything I’ve talked about, is common knowledge. I’ve simply been more patient in finding things out and piecing things together than you two have.”

“Then when will we go? D’you believe we will?”

Hugh shrugged. “I believe someone will, someday. We three might be long dead by then, but I believe someone will go and find the treasure, and once that’s done, the world will know salvation—from the clutches of the churchmen, if nothing else.”

“And if we had the chance? Suppose we were to have the chance—the ability to sail off and search for this treasure—would you go?”

“Is that why you asked about a map?”

“Of course it is. Would you go?”

“I would. Before the words were out of the mouth of the person asking me. Do you think me mad enough not to go?”

Payn Montdidier crossed the two paces that separated him from Hugh and wrapped an arm about his friend’s shoulder, holding out his free hand to Godfrey St. Omer, who moved quickly to join them.

“If you go, we’ll be there with you. You see? That wasn’t difficult at all, what you told us, was it? And yet it was exactly right. I feel as if all the priests in Anjou had been sitting on my chest and you just kicked them all off. Now I can breathe again. What about you, Godfrey?”

Godfrey St. Omer’s smile spoke for him.