Knights of the Black and White

ONE

Trapped and helpless in her swaying carriage and surrounded by battling, screaming men, Morfia of Melitene had no wish to believe that her life was about to end, but she was too pragmatic to doubt the reality of what was happening to her. It had already happened to her escort, Sir Alexander Guillardame, and now he sprawled inelegantly in front of her, face down on the seat opposite hers, the blood and brains from his shattered head all over the skirts of her gown, the stench of his loosened bowels filling the tiny space of the box in which she was confined. He had been the second of the two young knights in the carriage with her when the attack began, both of them lolling at their ease, their helmets on the floor by their feet and their chain-mail cowls thrust back from their heads as they made pleasant conversation, earnestly trying to amuse and divert her on the long journey. But then had come a commotion of some kind and the vehicle had lurched, swayed, and tilted dangerously to one side, its panicked horses pulling it off the road and then coming to a halt as the screams and shouts of angry, frightened men sprang up from every direction.

Before any of the three people in the carriage could even begin to comprehend the sudden change, they had heard the thunder of hooves as a large group of horsemen—Morfia had been too confused and frightened at the time even to wonder who they were—arrived among them, and before she had time even to ask what was happening, her two knightly escorts were scrambling towards the carriage door, blocking each other’s movements in their haste and fumbling for their weapons as they went, their helmets forgotten on the floor.

Antoine de Bourgogne threw open the door and leapt out first, unaware that he had grasped his lady’s arm for leverage as he thrust himself forward. Momentarily aware of the fleeting pain of his wrench-ing grip, Morfia watched him land on his feet and fall straight to his knees, his hands clawing at the impossibly long spear shaft that had transfixed him as he jumped. As he toppled forward, her view of him was cut off by the bulk of young Alex Guillardame as he, too, fought for balance in the cramped doorway of the swaying carriage. She then heard a short, violent ripping noise that ended in a solid, shocking impact that reminded her, incongruously, of the sound of an axe hitting a tree stump, and then had come a choking grunt from the young knight as he spun quickly back from the door to face her, his entire face ruined, his skull blown apart by the force of the iron crossbow bolt that had struck the peak of his unguarded forehead.

As her eyes widened in horror, the dead knight kept turning, spun perhaps by the impetus of the missile that had killed him, pulling the door shut again with his sagging weight so that the heavy curtains blocked out all sight, but not sound, of what was happening outside. Petrified, Morfia watched as the dead man’s knees finally gave way and he toppled slowly towards her, the liquescent mass of what had been the contents of his skull spilling from his head to fall with a wet, slapping sound. Only then did she react in horror, screaming and kicking out with both feet in the violence of panic and outrage. Her feet, close together, struck Guillardame’s shoulder with great force, and the impact thrust him upright again and turned him around, so that he fell away from her this time, face down onto the bench where he had been sitting moments earlier. She heard the liquid gurgle as his anal sphincter gave way, and then had come a period of time about which she remembered nothing.

When her senses returned to her, the fighting outside was still going on, and she felt herself overwhelmed by panic once again. This time, however, her presence of mind had returned to her sufficiently to allow her to fight off the waves of helplessness and look about her for some means of defending herself.

The hilt of Guillardame’s dagger was right in front of her, thrusting up from the belt about his waist, and she grasped it and pulled it free just as her carriage was rocked violently by a heavy impact that sent her reeling against the side of the vehicle. As she sprawled there, arms spread in the angle of the corner but still clutching the dagger in one hand, an arm came through the window across from her and wrenched the curtain from its mounting, revealing the leering, black-toothed face of the man who had leapt up onto the carriage and was now assessing her, savoring his prize.

Morfia pushed herself upright and gripped the dagger more tightly, preparing to launch herself at the fellow the moment he made any attempt to pull open the carriage door or come closer to her, and her breath caught in her throat as she saw his clawed fingers reach for her, even although she knew he could not possibly touch her from where he was. And then, more quickly than it took her to realize what had happened, he was gone, bludgeoned away and ripped backward into death by a trio of small, heavy, spiked metal balls attached to chains that smashed into his head and shoulder with lethal force. She saw the balls strike. One of them crushed the side of his face, another his cloth-bound head, and the third hit high on his shoulder, but they hit as one, producing only a single violent crunching sound. She felt another surge of nausea, but fought it down, grimly determined to do whatever might be necessary to save her own life from then on, and then she saw a gauntleted, mail-clad arm beneath a bright blue surcoat, reaching in to grasp the pillar of her door, and the carriage lurched yet again as another man transferred his weight to her wagon and thrust his head into her window.

He was a young-looking man, wearing a flat metal helm over a hood of mail that framed a deeply tanned face with a short-cropped dark beard and blazing blue eyes that went wide with shock when he saw her gazing at him. He hung where he was, face to face with her for long moments, then turned away and looked back over his shoulder at what was going on behind him.

“Your horses are dead, my lady,” he said, not quite shouting at her, “so I can’t take you away to some place safer, and it’s too dangerous here to risk your life on my horse’s back, so I will stay here and watch over you for a while. Jubal!” This last was a bellow, accompanied by a sweeping wave of the arm to attract another’s attention, as her savior released his hold on the door and dropped to the ground, his back to her. “Jubal!” It obviously worked, for as she moved forward to look down at him, the knight cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted, “Here, to me, with three others!”

He turned back to where the Queen had approached the window and was gazing out at the carnage surrounding them. The fighting had moved away, but there were still knots of men fighting, it seemed, wherever she looked.

“My man Jubal will be here directly, my lady, and he will see that you are kept safe until we have finished here.” The man came hurrying up as the knight spoke, followed by three others, all of them identically dressed in plain brown fustian over serviceable mail. The blue-coated knight turned to him. “See to the lady, Jubal. Keep her secure. I’ll be back.” He glanced back at the Queen and raised a knuckle to his helmed forehead, then swung away and caught his horse’s reins. A moment later he had mounted and was spurring towards the now distant fighting.

Morfia felt empty inside, as though her vitals had been scooped out without warning; her mouth was bone dry, her tongue stuck to its roof. She tried to swallow but could not, and as the first stirrings of reaction welled up in her, the man called Jubal muttered something to his three companions and stepped forward to pull open the door of her carriage. His eyes went wide as he saw the bloody corpse, and his nostrils wrinkled as the smell reached him.

“Ugh!” he grunted, waving a hand in front of his face, “We’ll have you out o’ there, milady, right this minute. Take my hand and I’ll help you down.”

Born and raised in Armenia, Morfia had never been to France, but she had been married to a Frank for many years now, and something in the way this man spoke sounded strange to her ears, although his speech was fluent and authoritative. She guessed that he was not originally from France. She grasped his proffered hand, feeling the thick ridges of sword-worn calluses on his palm and fingers and reflecting, almost unconsciously, that she had never in her life taken the hand of an underling so gladly or willingly. She stepped through the door and balanced on the step there for a moment, trying not to look at the body of young Antoine de Bourgogne on the ground, kneeling obscenely forward and prevented from falling by the broken shaft of the spear that had killed him. Feeling the nausea flicker at the back of her throat again, she closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and then opened them again and stepped down. The big man beside her kept a firm hold of her hand until he was sure she would not fall, and then he released her. His three companions stood with their backs to her, facing outward at different angles, their swords in their hands, shields braced on their free arm.

“Ector, where are the horses?” Jubal’s voice was quiet, but filled with tension, his eyes moving constantly as he squinted into the distance, anticipating a direct attack. The man he had spoken to raised his shield arm and pointed off to their left, where a knot of four horses stood together, ground-tethered by their trailing reins.

“Aye, right. Well, we’ll just walk over there and get them. Keep your eyes skinned. This would not be a good place or a good day to die, so let us take pains not to do that. Milady, are you able to walk with us, across to those horses yonder?”

Morfia nodded, still not quite able to speak, but she was feeling stronger by the moment. The four men surrounded her, and they began to walk in a tight knot towards the horses, and Morfia was both pleased and surprised to discover that she was still clutching Guillardame’s dagger. She was less pleased to discover that the skirts of her gown were plastered against her legs, cold and wet, rubbing heavily and unpleasantly against her thighs as she walked, and remembering what it was that had landed in her lap, she forced herself not to look down. No matter how steadfastly she tried to ignore the sensation after that, however, her imagination was engaged by it, and she could actually feel the glutinous mass of bloody matter slipping slowly down towards her knees, until her imagination flashed a picture into her mind and she could bear it no longer. With a moan of disgust, she dropped to her knees, her stomach heaving, and pulled the clinging fabric away from her skin with both hands, dislodging the mass of unpleasantness there and then scrubbing at the stained cloth with handfuls of sandy soil while her four escorts stood gazing steadily down at her.

When she had finally stopped retching, the man called Jubal stretched out his hand wordlessly and helped her to her feet. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and began walking slowly but steadily towards the horses. And as she walked, secure among the four thickset men surrounding her, she set her teeth grimly, reminded herself who she was, and began to reconstruct her normal persona.

She was Morfia of Melitene, now Morfia of Jerusalem, wife of the most powerful man in Outremer: Baldwin the Second, newly crowned King of Jerusalem, who until only a year earlier had been Count Baldwin le Bourcq, lord of the County of Edessa, far to the north of Jerusalem and close to the Armenian city of her birth. The first King Baldwin of Jerusalem had been the brother of Geoffroi de Bouillon, the Champion who had led the victorious Frankish legions in the First Expedition to the Holy Land, and he had ruled for eighteen years, after which, when he had died without an heir the previous year, the kingship had gone to Morfia’s husband, his namesake and closest relative.

Morfia had married her Baldwin in 1102, soon after he had become Count of Edessa, and had since borne him four surviving children, all of them daughters. The eldest, Melisende, had been born in 1105 and was now fourteen, and the youngest, Joveta, had not yet reached her seventh birthday. Morfia had been a good and loyal wife and mother, and she had greatly enjoyed being the wife of the widely admired Count of Edessa, but no one had been more surprised than she when they offered the kingship to Baldwin on the death of his cousin. And now she was Queen of Jerusalem, consort to an inexperienced but determined King whose realm was being threatened by an alliance of the same Seljuk Turks the Franks had defeated in 1099. Her rank and title were very new to her, and she was acutely conscious of the responsibility that went with them. And now that she had begun to believe she would not be required to die that day, she felt a determination swelling in her to force her husband to do something about the disgraceful situation on the roads of his kingdom.

They had reached the horses, and as Ector and another man gathered up the animals’ reins, Morfia looked about her at the carnage that surrounded them. She had set out on this journey with a large escort, more than twice as large as she would normally have taken, purely because Baldwin had insisted on it. Her destination had been al Assad, an oasis less than ten miles from the city, where King Baldwin I had maintained a pleasure house for his own use and for the enjoyment of friends and visiting dignitaries, and where her own best and oldest friend, Alixi of Melitene, was currently awaiting her. She and Alixi had known each other all their lives, their fathers both Armenian noblemen, as well as trading partners and comrades since their own boyhood, and Morfia had named her second daughter, Alice, in honor of Alixi. She herself had been confined to bed for several days after Alixi’s recent arrival, suffering from an ague of some kind, and, unwilling to be seen at less than her best, she had decreed that her friend and several other guests should go ahead of her to the oasis and enjoy themselves while they awaited her there.

The oasis at al Assad had always been a safe place in the past, justifiably famed for its beauty and tranquility, but a credible report had come to the King, on the morning of the day before Morfia was to leave to join her friends, that bandit activity appeared to be strongly on the increase in the region surrounding the oasis, although there had been no activity indicating brigands at or near the oasis itself.

Morfia, cured of her ailment and quietly determined to enjoy the next few days away from the demands of her children, had laughed at Baldwin’s concern when, after reading the report on the brigands, he immediately began to fret over her travel arrangements and her safety. Her patience wearing thin after a few hours of listening to his fretting, however, she had begun to grow angry at what she saw as his silliness, until, in a burst of fury that astonished and silenced her, the King had decreed that either she would take a greatly increased escort with her or he would place her under open arrest within the palace.

She had bowed to his anger, swallowed her own, and taken the larger escort. And now they lay scattered everywhere around her on the rock-strewn sand, inert piles of bloody rags that were twisted, unnaturally sprawled men, the majority of them dressed in the heraldic colors of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were others among them, it was true, brigands identifiable by their clothing and weaponry, but even a woman who knew nothing of fighting could see plainly that the attackers had suffered far less in the assault than had her defenders. Now, as she scanned the battlefield, she saw that the fighting appeared to be over. The last of the enemy had vanished or been killed, and most of the men she could now see converging slowly on the spot where she stood with Jubal and the others were unknown to her. She saw a few of her own men among them, but the others, with the exception of two knights in blue surcoats, all wore the same plain brown fustian tunics as Jubal and his three companions, and she turned towards Jubal, frowning.

“Who are you men? I have never seen any of you before. Where have you come from?”

Jubal turned to gaze at her, his face expressionless. “We are from here, Lady, from Jerusalem. We were on our way home, at the end of an uneventful sweep, and we saw you by the merest chance from over yonder.” He pointed to a low ridge in the middle distance, perhaps three miles from where they stood. “We saw sunlight reflected off your weaponry and stopped to look, and then, because we were looking down from above, we saw the others approaching you from behind your backs, over there.” He pointed in a different direction. “We knew you could not have seen them, and we knew, from their numbers, that you would need help, and so we came. But they reached you long before we could.” He shrugged wide shoulders. “Nevertheless, we arrived in time to save you, milady, so that is a blessing. Here comes Sir Godfrey. He commands us.”

“But who are you?” Her voice was brittle with tension, and he looked at her in surprise, as if she ought to know who they were.

“I am Jubal, milady, of the Patriarch’s Patrol.”

The Patriarch’s Patrol! She had heard the name, of course. Everyone had, by this time, although she had heard of them first from Baldwin. The name had originally been pejorative—a slur bestowed disdainfully in jest at the very outset of things, when the word first emerged that the Patriarch Archbishop had acquired the services of a small band of veteran knights, to whom he had granted the privilege of taking monkish vows in return for dedicating their lives, service, and fighting skills to the Church in Jerusalem in the protection and defense of pilgrims and travelers.

It had been cause for great hilarity at first, this matter of knightly monks or monkish knights. The Knights of the Hospital were healers, not fighters, their “knighthood” granted simply to give them status for the purpose of raising funds for their work. But these newcomers were being spoken of as fighting monks—military clerics! The initial mirth had swelled when it was learned that there were only seven of these foolish people in the beginning. Seven elderly knights—for in this instance, the term “veteran” had been taken instantly by everyone to mean venerable—undertaking to patrol and pacify all the roads in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The mere idea was ludicrous.

Everyone agreed, however, that there was a grave need for something to be done, for the most recent and outrageous incident had seen a daylight attack on a large party of pilgrims and other travelers almost within sight of the city walls of Jerusalem. A huge band of marauders had killed in excess of three hundred pilgrims and taken more than sixty prisoners to be held for ransom. The King had steadfastly refused to become involved in seeking retribution, claiming, as he always had, that pilgrims and travelers were no concern of his and that common sense dictated that he needed to keep all his forces where they would do most good in the event of an invasion by the Seljuk armies that were massing on his borders. The Patriarch had been, everyone agreed, at his wits’ end, and most people conceded that he had then acted out of desperation in this matter of the veteran knights, clutching at whatever straws he could see bobbing on the surface of the waters. But still, people said disparagingly, seven elderly men …

And then reports had begun to drift in from the desert roads, amazing, awe-stricken tales of small bands of efficient, fearsomely skillful mail-clad warriors wreaking havoc on any brigands foolish or unfortunate enough to come within their ken, then ruthlessly hunting down and exterminating those who thought they had been fortunate enough to escape retribution.

The activities of the brigand bands had quickly become less scandalously visible, and daylight attacks had ceased almost completely within weeks of the first appearance of the new force, so that nowadays, several months later, most of the roads in the kingdom, although certainly not all of them, were clear of threats to travelers, and the only raids reported anywhere in the kingdom were those carried out by large, organized bands like the one that had struck Morfia’s party this day.

People had long since stopped laughing at the Patriarch’s Patrol. The name had gone from being an insult to being an honor.

Now Morfia stood watching the leader of this particular patrol approaching her. His brow furrowed in thought, he was clearly unaware of her presence, and Morfia of Melitene was not accustomed to being unnoticed. She stepped forward and placed herself right in front of him, staring directly into his startlingly vivid blue eyes, and she saw them flare in surprise as he reared back.

Elderly? she thought. This fellow is not elderly. He is mature, but there is nothing old about him. And see how he looks me up and down. Covered in blood as I am, I must look monstrous. She spoke up, forcing him to look up from her stained clothing and meet her eyes.

“I wish to thank you, sir, for my life. I am deeply in your debt, and my husband’s gratitude will, I promise you, be no less than mine.”

A tiny tic appeared between his brows and deepened into a frown. “I would gladly forgo his gratitude and yours, my lady, were your husband to undertake never to do anything so foolish as to allow you to travel these roads again without a much larger escort.”

Her head snapped up in indignation, although she knew he was right. “You are insolent, sir.”

His frown deepened, and he made no pretense of seeking to placate her. “Is that so, my lady? From gratitude to hostility is not a long journey in your world, it seems. Had we not come upon you when we did, you would have been taken by this time, probably alive, and would now be begging and praying for death. If you think me insolent in saying that, take you a look about you at your dead.”

One of her knights stepped forward, chopping his arm in the air to cut the other short. “Enough, sir,” he snapped. “How dare you speak thus to your Queen!”

Godfrey barely glanced at the man who had challenged him, but his eyes widened again and he repeated her title, pronouncing it slowly and turning it into a question. “My Queen?” His eyes swept her again from head to foot, taking in the condition of her clothing and, no doubt, the disarray of her hair, and probably, now that she came to think of it, her dirt-encrusted face, doubtless smeared with blood from her sticky fingers.

“Aye,” the King’s knight snapped, “the Lady Morfia of Melitene, wife to King Baldwin and Queen of Jerusalem. Kneel and salute her.”

The man Godfrey turned his head slightly and looked at the fellow in obvious disdain, then ignored him completely, turning back to the Queen without another glance at the flushing knight.

“Your pardon, my lady. Had I known who you are, I would have been less vocal with my criticism. But what I said is true, none the less.”

Morfia inclined her head. “I know it is, Sir Knight. I took offense where none was offered. Might I ask you for your name?” Morfia smiled her widest, most effective smile at him, and the knight nodded.

“Aye, my lady. I am Godfrey St. Omer … or I was Godfrey St. Omer. Now I am plain Brother Godfrey.”

The Queen smiled again. “I understand your difficulty. For many years I was Countess of Edessa, but now I am Queen of Jerusalem. These titles require … an adjustment before they become familiar. Well then, Brother Sir Godfrey St. Omer, if you will call upon me at the palace, I shall be pleased to express my gratitude, and that of my husband and my children, more formally, and more graciously. When may we expect you?”

The knight drew himself erect and held his clenched right fist to his left breast, nodding his head in salutation as he did so. “Forgive me, my lady, but I fear I may not do that. I am a monk now, and albeit but a novice, I am bound by anticipated vows that preclude me from commingling with women, even when those women are gracious and queenly—” He hesitated, then continued, with the merest hint of a smile. “Or perhaps that should be particularly when those women are gracious and queenly. Nevertheless, I appreciate the thought of it.” He glanced about him, unsmiling now, then nodded again. “Now, if you will permit me, I shall organize some horses and a conveyance for you—since the carriage in which you came is unfit for use—and we will escort you back to the city … Presuming, of course, that you wish to return there, rather than continue your journey.”

Morfia nodded. “You are correct, sir. Foolish to continue when so many of my escort have been killed. I shall return to my husband. You may continue with your arrangements.”

A moment later he was gone about his business, and Morfia was left alone to wait while her rescuers organized the means of leading her safely home to her family. She was far from unhappy or impatient over being left to her own devices, however, for she had learned, chillingly and with appalling clarity, that when churchmen said in the midst of life, we are in death, they were being literally truthful. Her own survival of the slaughter that had just occurred was a small miracle that she clutched warmly yet still hazily within her own awareness, taking note of the marvels all around her, now that her life was safe. She was also aware of a need to think about doing something concrete to reward these people who had come to her aid so selflessly, these warrior monks who sought nothing in the way of reward. Although she had uncaringly accepted the common belief that the veteran patrolmen were incompetent and inconsequential, now she owed them her life, and she would never again permit anyone of her acquaintance to demean them or treat them with disdain. Only a fool, she now knew beyond dispute, would accept the opinions of others about anything without making some attempt to determine the truth of them for herself, and Morfia of Melitene was no fool.