Knights of the Black and White

NINE

It took a full week of hard work, collecting wagonloads of wood—always in scarce supply in Palestine—before the monks, impatient with what they saw as yet another frustrating impediment to their success, had assembled enough fuel and torches to enable them to go back to work exploring the chamber, but it could have taken much longer had not Montdidier remembered hearing a report, several months earlier, of a wildfire that had destroyed a large olive grove a few days’ journey to the southeast. A train of five rented wagons, accompanied by a strong escort of sergeants, was sent out in search of the grove and, by one means or another, they managed to bring back four complete wagonloads of heavy, charred tree trunks, suitable for splitting and making into torches. Every candle maker in Jerusalem had been bought out of stock by then, and an entire barrel of pitch, purchased from one of the Arab traders, had been set in place below ground, and the monks began immediately making torches that would burn long and cleanly.

St. Clair was happy enough to find himself uninvolved in the search for fuel that week; de Payens, mindful that the younger knight had returned from patrol and gone straight to work on the underground explorations, granted him a three-day rest period, completely free of duties. St. Clair spent much of the first day simply lying around in slothful bliss, enjoying the sheer simplicity of doing nothing, but it was not in his nature to remain idle for long, and the following morning, after attending to the few allocated chores he had, he set out with the package that he had promised to deliver to Hassan the horse trader from his cousin and namesake, Hassan the Shi’a warrior. He had felt no urgency about the task until then, and undertook it when he did simply for diversion, because he knew that the trader would not yet have returned to the city.

Even before he left the stable precincts that morning, however, Stephen became aware that something unusual was afoot, because the streets were crowded and he could hear the hubbub even from a distance. None of the sergeants on guard was able to tell him what was happening, but it was clear the mood of the throng below was festive, and so he slung his sword belt comfortably over his shoulders, out of the way and yet easily reachable, and struck out for the marketplace beyond the walls, where Hassan’s horse stalls were located. He had an inbred distrust of exposing himself needlessly to the dangers of being a Frankish knight alone in a close-packed crowd of potential enemies, but the mood of the crowd seemed benign, and he felt reasonably sure that his heavy, mailed hauberk would protect him against the kind of sneak attack that would involve nothing heavier, in such circumstances, than a sly knife. He entered the flow of bodies and was quickly hemmed in on every side, the press growing thicker as he began to approach the city walls, and by the time the enormous wooden gates came into view over the heads of the people around him he was barely making any progress at all.

Finally, no more than thirty paces from the gates, he could go no farther. The huge, wooden barriers were closed, which was unheard of at this time of day when there was no attack expected, and now he saw that the crowd ahead of him was being held in check by a line of the King’s Guard, who had linked arms and were facing into the crowd, their backs to the empty street. He began to push his way forward to the front, ignoring the complaints of the people he displaced, many of whom turned to see who was pushing and then bit back their angry protests at the sight of the towering, blue-eyed ferenghi in the mailed coat. Before he could reach any of the guards to ask what was going on, however, there came a blare of trumpets, and the massive gates began to swing open, the noise of their ponderous groaning quickly drowned out by the excited shouts of the people around him, and the tension on the faces of the guards increased visibly as they hunched even harder against the pushing of the crowd. Knowing then that questions were pointless, St. Clair gave up the struggle to advance and simply stood there, looking over the heads of the people in front of him and waiting to see what would develop.

He could not have been better positioned to witness the arrival in Jerusalem of a truly magnificent cavalcade of newcomers, most of them fitting his concept of what he and his fellow veterans called damsels, in that they were fresh faced and obviously unweathered by the desert climate, their clothing, weapons, and accoutrements new and shining with bright, unfaded colors and heraldic devices he had never seen before. Three score of these bright-eyed warriors rode at the head of the procession, in fifteen ranks of four abreast, preceded by a tight, magnificently burnished and caparisoned formation of twelve of King Baldwin’s senior commanders, mounted on the King’s finest horses. The newcomers were followed by a group of musicians, drummers and trumpeters, marching to the cadence of a quartet of drums, and after those came the royal party, all aglitter with gilt and jewels and embroidered surcoats. King Baldwin himself sat on a throne mounted on an elaborately decorated bier surmounting three long poles, carried by four men to a pole, twelve in front and twelve behind, and as he passed by, royal servants walking beside his bier threw sweetmeats and honey cakes to the watching throng. And then, riding directly behind the King, on a well-sprung, flat-bottomed wagon drawn by a team of four stocky, well-matched, solid-looking blacks, came the Patriarch Archbishop, seated comfortably on his Bishop’s Seat, resplendent in his full episcopal finery and accompanied by his secretary, Bishop Odo of Fontainebleau.

At their rear, separated by another corps of drummers marching to a single drum beat, came yet another band of damsels, their magnificence outshining even Baldwin’s, and the young man who rode at their head, on a breathtakingly splendid horse of pale gold with a silver mane and tail, appeared as the very embodiment of a Christian paladin, tall and broad shouldered, with long, blond hair, darkly bronzed skin, and startling, flashing blue eyes. This was obviously the welcome guest, whoever he might be, St. Clair thought, and he was plainly glad to be here, smiling widely and displaying perfectly white and even teeth. His armor, in the Byzantine fashion, shimmered as he moved, its cuirass covered in individual leaflike plates of what appeared to be solid gold, and his booted legs, solid and strong looking as young trees, bore greaves of the same fashion, covering him from knee to ankle. From his shoulders, hanging down his back and draped across his horse’s withers, a full cape of thick, ivory-colored silk, bearing a brightly embroidered coat of arms, draped flawlessly, prompting St. Clair to wonder, looking at its perfection, if it had somehow been pinned in place.

The magnificent young man rode on proudly, followed by his bodyguard of damsels, who were followed in turn by the rear guard, appropriately another contingent of King Baldwin’s own guard, impeccably turned out and marching smartly, despite the age and worn condition of their armor, as though acknowledging that they could not compete with the finery ahead of them but were prepared to fight to keep their guests from being overtaken by the mob before they reached the palace.

As the last of the rear guard passed by, the crowd began to break up, many of them following the cavalcade but others beginning to go about their normal business. The guards lining the street formed up in ranks, preparing to return to their barracks, and St. Clair recognized the knight who supervised them. He stepped into the road and called him by his name, and the knight looked down and recognized him, returning the greeting.

“What was that all about? Who is the young demi-god?”

The other man grinned, but barked an order to one of his subordinates before he turned back. “That was Prince Bohemond of Antioch, new come from Italy to claim his father’s throne and pausing here to claim the hand of his betrothed, the Princess Alice. Where have you been, that you do not know that?”

St. Clair shrugged. “I’ve been on patrol, smiling at brigands. Came back but yesterday. The young man seems impressive. He is to wed the Princess Alice, you say?”

“Aye, as soon as it may be arranged, for he has a kingdom—or at least a principality—to set in order. It has been too long ungoverned.” The knight glanced away, towards his men, then raised a hand in salute to St. Clair and turned back to his duties.

St. Clair stood where he was for a few moments longer, watching the other man marshal his troops and set them marching, but his thoughts were far from what he was watching. His mind was filled with thoughts of the princess and her coming nuptials, and he found himself, without expectation or rational cause, resenting the noble and handsome youth who was to be her husband, aware of a tight ball of envy and frustration forming deep in his chest and sending out discomfiting tendrils to afflict his loins, reminding him of images he had no real wish to recall. He hung there a little longer, hesitant, fighting an unreasonable and ludicrous temptation to follow the parade back to the King’s palace, then swung sharply on his heel and stalked away, surprised to find the streets now almost empty.

He was still fighting to empty his mind of thoughts of the princess when he came to the railed enclosure fronting the premises of Hassan the horse trader, and he paused to admire the three animals penned there, one white, one a pale dun color, and the third a beautiful dappled gray. All three were stallions and all bore the clean lines and unmistakable narrow muzzle of the pure Arab bloodlines. He wondered idly what they might be worth, smiling ruefully as he remembered that, even before the days of his joining the Brethren of the Mount, the poorest of the three would have been far beyond the reach of his purse.

“They are magnificent, are they not, Lord St. Clair?”

He swung around to find himself looking at a man he recognized but could not place, and he was sufficiently flustered by being addressed in his own tongue to neglect correcting the fellow’s mode of addressing him. Instead, he remembered where he had seen the man before and drew himself up, reaching beneath his surcoat for the package in his belt, then spoke in Arabic.

“You are the man called Nabib, who works for Hassan, are you not?”

The other inclined his head graciously and answered in the same tongue. “I have that honor, praise be to Allah. What may I do for you?”

“Nothing at all. I am merely the bearer of tidings. I was making my way towards your stall in the market when the procession approached.” He pulled out the package he was holding and extended it. “I was asked to deliver this to you to give to your master when he returns. It was sent by his cousin Hassan.”

The other’s eyebrows rose, but he allowed nothing else to show on his face. “His cousin Hassan? The warrior Hassan?”

St. Clair nodded. “The warrior. I met him in the desert, close to Jaffa, and he asked me if I would deliver this on my return.”

The hint of a smile flickered around one corner of the Arab’s mouth, but he merely inclined his head again. “Then it must be of great import, for a Shi’a warrior to entrust a ferenghi warrior with its safety. You may be sure of our lasting gratitude, Lord St. Clair.”

“Not Lord St. Clair, Nabib. I am but a monk nowadays, known as plain Brother Stephen.”

Again Nabib nodded. “The Prophet teaches that we should not belittle others by disbelieving what they say in truth, but in this I have to speak. Brother Stephen you may be today, but no ferenghi who can speak of Hassan the Shi’a as a friend could ever be plain. Accept our thanks and go with God, my friend.”

On leaving the Arab’s enclosure, St. Clair was briefly tempted to stroll through the market and indulge his love of sweetmeats, but the more he sought to forget about her, the more strongly the Princess Alice intruded into his thoughts, and he soon found himself becoming aroused, even in the crowded marketplace, as he pictured her with her new husband in the intimacy of her chambers, so that soon, verging close upon outright panic, he quit the marketplace and strode off homeward, towards the stables and the recent discovery that lay in the tunnels beneath them, renouncing any and all claim on the time off that de Payens had granted him, and uncomfortably aware that in the space of another single day, without the blessing of hard work to distract him, he could be lost again in the morass churned up by his awareness of temptation. He would be better off by far, he knew, floundering through the darkness of the place he had discovered beneath the tunnels of the Temple Mount, and he was relieved beyond words that in merely thinking about the massive chamber and the secrets it contained, he was able to purge his mind of thoughts about Alice le Bourcq.

Some of the brotherhood, he reflected, had begun to refer to the newly discovered chamber as “the Temple” when they withdrew that first day, purely because of its size and scale. But André de Montbard would have none of that and quickly set them to rights. The hall they had discovered lay beneath the level on which the original Temple of Solomon had stood, he told them, and he cited several sources from the Order of Rebirth’s own hallowed Lore to reinforce his claims, so that the others had no option but to believe what he said, and the new term for the place they had discovered became “the Hall.”

Much as the brothers liked and admired him, André de Montbard had always been something of an incongruity among them, in that he had been sent from France to join them—virtually co-opted to their brotherhood—by Count Hugh of Champagne, the Seneschal of the Order of Rebirth. It was a distinction Montbard shared with St. Clair, but St. Clair’s selection had been self-evidently attributable to his youth, strength, piety, and fighting skills, whereas Montbard’s abilities lay in other areas, which had only begun to be seen since the discovery of the underground tunnels.

That distinction alone set de Montbard apart, and might have been a serious impediment to his acceptance by the others had he been a different kind of man, for vassal to the Count though he might nominally be, all of them knew that de Montbard was far more wealthy and powerful in his own right than any other among them and could easily have made their lives intolerable simply because of that. That he had chosen not to do so surprised several of the brethren who had initially been prepared to resent him as a spy set to watch them. And thus he was an anomaly—a man of immense personal power in France, choosing to display or pursue no vestige of that power here in Jerusalem, and voluntarily sublimating himself in true fealty to serve as deputy for another. It was the very stuff of feudalism, but few people in the real world of ambitious and venal men ever made even a pretense of placing any other man’s demands and priorities—feudal lord or no—ahead of their own best interests.

Following his unexpected arrival, the others had soon come to see that de Montbard was, in fact, exactly what he appeared to be, no more and no less, and they had adjusted to the strangeness of that truth as being simply a part of the man. No one among them had ever had the slightest cause to complain about his bearing or his behavior in any respect, and he had comported himself exactly as one of them from the outset, assuming neither airs nor privileged expectations. Now, however, from the moment of discovering the Hall, de Montbard had begun to dictate requirements and instructions that were obeyed without demur by de Payens and St. Omer, making it clear to all of the brothers, without need of explanation, that he was following long-standing instructions of his own and that this situation was the precise reason for his presence in their midst.

St. Clair found de Montbard waiting for him a few days later when he emerged from his own cell, soon after the return of the wood-gathering expedition, and he paused, almost in mid-step, and cocked his head slightly, his eyebrows rising in curiosity.

“I’m going down,” de Montbard said without preamble. “Will you come with me?”

“Aye, give me a moment.” He spun on his heel and went back into his cell, emerging a short time later with his belted sword, slinging it over his head so that the belt hung across his chest, the long sword hanging at his back and the sheathed dagger dangling by his belly. De Montbard made no attempt to mask his grin.

“You think we might find opponents down there?”

“You do, too, obviously. I only came for these because you’re wearing yours … You never know, my friend. There might be demons, waiting to suck us into Hell the moment we lift that ankh. Should that be the case, I would rather go clutching my good, sharp sword than anything else I can think of. If it transpires not to be the case, on the other hand, we can use the dagger point to scrape the dirt from the grooves in the stone, and perhaps even use the sword as a lever.”

It took the two men the better part of half an hour to reach the subterranean hall and lower themselves to the floor in the basket hoist, with an ample supply of freshly made torches that St. Agnan, who had made them himself, swore would burn for hours. De Montbard carried two armloads of the torches, while St. Clair carried two small iron braziers, modified so that they would stand on the floor and support a brace of burning torches apiece. A short time later, the torches set and placed where they cast most light, the two knights knelt facing each other on each side of the ankh carved into the floor. De Montbard nodded, and they went to work, using dagger points to gouge out the dirt that had settled into the grooves over a millennium. It soon became apparent that de Montbard had been right again: once cleared of dirt, there was sufficient space beneath each cross-arm of the ankh to permit each half to be grasped on its own side like the hilt of a sword.

St. Clair took a firm grip and looked at Montbard. “Ready?”

“I am, but I think you might be better off on this side, too. Then we can lift together, from the same direction.”

St. Clair crossed to kneel beside the other man and gripped the “handle” de Montbard had dug out. But before the other man could move, he tilted his head back and looked his companion in the eye, a taut little smile on his lips. “You know,” he said, “it occurs to me that what we are about to do here might have a momentous outcome.”

De Montbard quirked one eyebrow. “Like what?”

“How could I know that? We haven’t done it yet, have we? But we have been scrabbling about in the dark down here like rats for a long time, a very long time, and now we may be about to do something from which there can be no turning back. The world we know might never be the same again once we have pulled on these handles. Should we not, perhaps, say something portentous? Something profound?” He frowned. “I thought I was about to say something tongue in cheek when I began that, but suddenly what I was saying feels true.”

De Montbard simply stared at him, unmoved. “Do you have something you wish to say, then?”

“No …”

“Nor do I, so may we proceed? Together then, on three.”

They heaved, steadily, and their combined strength produced not the hint of a movement, as though they were attempting to lift the solid floor, and they released at the same moment, their breath exploding from their lungs.

De Montbard wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “A thousand years is a long time, I suppose. Moving parts might stiffen up over that long a period.”

“Principles of leverage,” St. Clair said, staring down at the ankh.

De Montbard stood up and stretched hugely. “Principles of what?”

The younger man sat back on his haunches. “Brother Joachim, an elderly monk I knew in my boyhood, had a great love of the ancients—Archimedes and Euclid and Pythagoras and their mathematics. I remember him saying something about being able to lift up the world if he had a large enough lever. He used to talk about the laws of force and energy, and how there is a correct way to move anything. I think if we squat, knee to knee and face to face, and lift straight up together, using our leg muscles instead of our arms, we might do better.”

“Let’s try.” De Montbard moved immediately into position, and both men reached down between their feet to grasp the handles.

“I just thought of something, something you said last time we were here.”

De Montbard raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“It was about this being over when we find the treasure. It won’t be, will it? Finding the treasure will only be the beginning.”

De Montbard tilted his head to one side, a smile beginning to form on his lips. “The beginning of what, Stephen?”

St. Clair shook his head. “The beginning of whatever comes next, I suppose. I don’t know, and I would not care to guess at what that might be, but I have no doubt that something is inevitable. I may be no more than a simple soldier monk, but I am not stupid. All those jars over there contain something, André, and whatever it is, it must be enormously valuable and of great significance to have been hidden so carefully a thousand years ago. That is an entire millennium, as you said—fifty generations of fathers and sons. And all that time, our Order has been dreaming of finding this place and its contents. But a length of time like that is meaningless to any ordinary man. We cannot grasp the reality involved. We can barely recall our grandsires, two generations removed from us, so we cannot begin to comprehend the thought of ten generations, let alone fifty.

“And now it appears that after all that time, this hoard, whatever it contains, is to become unhidden. We have unhidden it. Whatever it is, Brother, whatever this treasure may be, or may comprise, I hope you will not insult me by saying it is going to remain a secret, for even I can see that it is far too important.

“And so I am wondering, what then will happen to the Order of Rebirth in Sion? Will it remain secret as it has always been, or will it, too, and all of us, come forth into the light of day, brandishing what we have found?”

De Montbard held up his hands, palms forward. “Too deep for me. I swear to you, Stephen, I have no idea. Those things lie far beyond my capacity to influence, or even to interpret. This much, however, I can promise you: whatever we find here, today, tomorrow, or whenever, will have to be catalogued and recorded, meticulously, before a word of what we have found leaves these tunnels. Depending on what we unearth here, that single task alone could take months and perhaps even years to complete. But it will have to be done. And that we do it is important beyond credence. We must record our findings, in every detail of our discovering them.” He grinned again, his teeth gleaming and his features seeming to waver in the flickering torchlight. “But we may find nothing more than those jars. So, what say you, shall we try your leverage idea?” He waited for St. Clair’s nod of agreement, then grunted. “So be it. Ready, then? One … and two … and three!”

They unfolded slowly, straightening and straining in unison, glaring straight forward into each other’s eyes, their thigh and calf muscles locked and trembling with the strain they were exerting, and slowly, so gradually that they could only sense it rather than actually feel it, they wrested a degree of yielding from the ankh that lay between them. A moment later, with no lessening of the pressure they were exerting, they felt another shift, this one tiny yet unmistakable.

“One more,” St. Clair gasped, his face crimson with sustained effort. “Heave!” This time, however, nothing happened, and it was de Montbard who gave the signal to desist and rest for a while. They had wrested a small amount of motion from the stone, an acknowledgment that movement had been designed into the device, and so they took time to recover from their efforts before trying again. A short time later, with not another word spoken between them, they took their places again and straightened up together, using the full strength of their thigh and leg muscles to push against the force that kept the ankh immobile, and something yielded without warning; the cross-arm they were pulling against rose suddenly, perhaps half a foot, and then stopped. The shift was accompanied by an indistinct yet solid percussive sound, strangely hollow seeming, and that was followed by a brief and muffled barely audible noise, as though of grinding stones, that appeared to come from directly beneath their feet. Even as St. Clair heard it, his mind was registering what had happened to the ankh.

“Straight up,” de Montbard said. “It came straight up.”

St. Clair had been thinking exactly the same thing, because his expectation had been that the ankh would rise out of its carved niche like a lever, the handles swinging upward and pivoting upon the fixed point that was the lower extremity of its shaft. But that had not happened at all. Instead, the cross-arm of the device had popped free and risen vertically, exposing a rod beneath that vanished into the earth below.

“What was the noise? It sounded like something broke off and fell underground.”

“I thought the same, but I think we are unlikely to find out easily. This handle does not appear to have any more travel left in it.” De Montbard was pushing at the handle as he spoke, and it seemed to be rock-solid. St. Clair grunted in disgust and pushed himself to his feet, tilting his head back to look up at the other ankh scratched into the face of the altar, but de Montbard was still pulling and pushing at the handle they had raised from the floor.

“I think you may forget about that, my friend,” St. Clair said. “It is not about to move again. We may have to come back to it with mauls and pry bars, to dig up the flagstones and let us see what is underneath, although I suspect it is solid earth and nothing more.”

“No, it sounded hollow,” de Montbard said quietly, gazing down at the shape in the floor. “It makes no sense, but that noise we heard sounded hollow to me.”

“How did you know the altar was here? And the ankh?”

De Montbard looked at him. “I was told. Our oldest records deal with it and they described the layout of this chamber perfectly. I never saw those records, but I spent time with a number of the Order’s most learned men, absorbing from them everything I could learn about this place before I was sent here. I knew the layout, and I knew the content. Unfortunately, the records that we have give no indication of anything beyond referring to the ankh, and that very obliquely, as the key, so even that reference is not assured. It seems clear, in retrospect, that the survivors of what befell here had no concept of how long they might be gone after they concluded their work. They must have thought they would return within their own lifetimes or those of their children, and that their knowledge would enable them to open the vaults they had so carefully concealed.” He smiled, wryly, and clapped his hands together, looking about him. “As you said earlier, no ordinary man can visualize a thousand years …

“The chamber is truly ancient. I know you know that, speaking of a millennium, but it is even older than you may think. It was built before the Temple of Solomon was even designed. Everything about it, its shape, design, construction, all of it, is Egyptian. It was built in the earliest days of the return of the Hebrews from their bondage in Egypt, and its sole purpose was to house and conceal the temple treasures. It had two entrances, according to our records, and we’ll find them as soon as we begin to examine the place more fully, but I suspect we will find that the passages leading to them from outside have been blocked off and sealed, completely hidden from view on the far side. The people who used this place last had no desire to leave any part of it accessible to looters.”

“Obviously,” St. Clair said quietly, “and they were successful. When will you begin opening the jars?” He took a torch from one of the braziers and walked away towards the nearest row of the clay jars around the altar to the right of where they were, and de Montbard watched him go until he passed beyond the vertical edge of the altar, evidently counting rows, but moments later his voice came back from the darkness.

“André, come and look at this.”

Intrigued by St. Clair’s tone, de Montbard straightened up, took a torch of his own, and followed the sound of the other man’s voice to find him standing rigidly, illuminated by the torch he held and staring fixedly back towards the altar. A glance to see what he was looking at was enough to freeze de Montbard into immobility as well. He saw the dimly lit shape of the flight of steps that rose to the altar table. He knew it was different, but he could not at first see how.

“I don’t know what made me look,” St. Clair said quietly. “I only saw it from the corner of my eye at first, and we’re not close enough to be sure of anything yet, but …”

“The bottom steps are missing.”

But as they drew closer and their eyes adjusted, they could see that was inaccurate, because the steps were not missing. They had moved, but they were still there. The bottom portion had merely sunk down into the floor, on some kind of pivot mechanism, revealing an entrance that had not been visible before, and the steps that had formerly stretched up towards the sacrificial table above now led downward into a deep, dark space beneath the great altar. The two knights stood looking down into it for what seemed like a long time until St. Clair said, “That explains the noises we heard. Are we going down there?”

De Montbard cleared his throat before he spoke. “We are, but I think we should take at least one fresh torch apiece before we do. It doesn’t smell bad, but the air might be foul in there.”

Holding their torches high and carrying another spare apiece, they made their way slowly down the steps into the space beneath the altar, and stepped forward cautiously, surprised by the size and extent of their discovery, a long, high-ceilinged, rectangular chamber stretching to both sides from the foot of the stairs. St. Clair’s immediate impression was that the shape of the place mirrored the dimensions of the altar above and included its hollow height, for the ceiling was at least a score of feet above their heads. He raised his torch even higher and saw that the walls on each side of him, right and left, were lined with stone shelves all the way up to the ceiling, cubic stone boxes, open at their sides, and each a good arm’s length, shoulder to fingertip, in height, width, and depth, most of them crammed with exactly the same kind of jars that were ranged on the floor of the Hall above, save that he could see a few chests or cases among them.

De Montbard stood rapt, his head moving from side to side as he scanned the ranked tiers, while St. Clair looked instead at the length of the chamber, trying to estimate the total number of boxes. The gallery was long, and narrow in proportion to its length, and he counted eighteen boxes at floor level on the unbroken wall facing them. He multiplied that by the seven layers from floor to ceiling, doubled the result to accommodate both sides of the gallery, and then subtracted three tiers for the space occupied by the stairs at their back. He was only slightly surprised at the total of 231 boxes.

There were brackets all along both walls, at head height, to hold torches of the kind they had brought with them, and de Montbard grunted, then reached up and placed his torch in one of them before turning back towards the entranceway.

“Torches,” he said, his voice echoing in the confined space. “We’ll need more light. Help me load the rest of these sconces, then let’s see what’s in here.”

They quickly brought down more torches from the Hall and, minutes later, the interior of the gallery now brightly lit by half a score of flambeaux, they stood side by side, examining the rows of boxes lining the walls.

“More jars,” St. Clair murmured. “These people must have had a manufactory making nothing but clay jars.”

“They’re not all jars,” de Montbard said. “Let’s open some of those wooden chests.”

The first contained loose pieces of jewelry, some of them barbarically ornate, others delicately made, and all of them reflecting the dancing light from above. They were in no order at all, appearing to have been simply thrown into the chest, and after a glance at them, de Montbard turned to open a second, larger chest that proved to be full of gold coinage, also piled loosely, with no attempt having been made to put the coins in any kind of order. St. Clair glanced over and saw silver pieces gleaming in places among the golden coins, but his attention had been seized by one particular piece of jewelry in the open chest at his feet, and he reached down to pull it free of the other pieces with which it was entangled. It was a glittering necklace, a circle of heavy, woven gold wire from which depended a selection of splendid stones in blue and green, strung on a web of finer gold wire and designed to grace the breast of some wealthy woman. The green stones were rectangular lozenges, long and narrow, but the blue jewels were teardrop shaped, smooth and polished, and the gap where one of them was missing was plainly evident. He knew that the missing piece was the very stone he had found in the tunnels above, and he wondered who had stolen it originally, for there was not the slightest doubt in his mind, seeing the necklace, that someone had stolen it, a thousand years earlier. But then, his curiosity strangely satisfied, he dropped the necklace back into the chest, closed the lid, and turned to see what else de Montbard had found.

The other knight was hauling heavy vessels around, pulling and pushing them this way and that to see what was behind them, and St. Clair, recognizing nothing about them, asked what they were. Montbard’s curt response—“ceremonial vessels”—meant nothing to him, but he could see that whatever they were, the vessels were in no way precious. Many of them were made of polished stone, some green and some brown, but the majority appeared to be of bronze, and they all looked clumsy and awkwardly formed, so St. Clair left his companion to whatever he was doing and turned his attention to the other boxes lining the walls.

“More than three quarters of this is jars like those upstairs.”

De Montbard straightened up. “I had noticed that. I think what’s in here is the most valuable material—the rest of it, upstairs in the main hall, is probably less important.”

“Important? To whom? What do the jars contain, Montbard?”

De Montbard shrugged. “Have you seen me look into any of them? We’ll find out later what they hold, but my guess is that they contain parchment scrolls, tightly bound and sealed inside the jars with wax to protect them against time and dampness. I believe we will find they are the recorded annals of the priests who left them here.”

Disappointed, despite having guessed at something of the sort, St. Clair sighed and looked around him again. “And what about those things there, the ceremonial vessels, what are they for?”

“They would have been used in temple rites. Some of them are probably unimaginably ancient.”

“But they’re made of stone.”

“Aye, most of them. Stone or bronze.”

“So they are worth nothing.”

“No, not if you wanted to sell them in the souk. Why would you even say that?”

St. Clair grinned wryly. “Because it’s beginning to look as though the vaunted treasure that our Lore speaks of is less than might have been expected. So far, one case of jeweled pieces and one more of gold and silver coins. Hardly a massive hoard of wealth.”

De Montbard looked him in the eye, smiling. “That is only because your expectations are born of your experience, my young friend. Treasure, to you, should be treasure in today’s meaning. Bear in mind, the churchmen who concealed this trove were not Christian churchmen as we know them. This hoard, as you call it, was buried by the priests of the original Christian Church, the Church that admired poverty and preached the virtues of owning nothing of value.”

“Then what about the gold there, and the jewels?”

“Two boxes so far—as you say—out of all of this collection,” de Montbard answered. “They were probably collected in the temple, as offerings in lieu of sacrifices. We will never know where they came from or how they were gathered, but proportionally they amount to next to nothing. King Baldwin will be happy to accept all of it, in return for allowing us to keep what is left.” He placed one hand flat on the side of the jar nearest to him and patted it gently. “This is our Order’s treasure, Stephen, here in these jars. And perhaps …” His voice trailed off and he moved away towards the far end of the gallery, where he stood staring at the blank wall.

“And perhaps what?”

“Does it not strike you as being odd that this wall should be plain and unused, where the other walls are honeycombed with storage cells?”

“Odd? No, I think not. Why should it be odd? This is an end wall.”

De Montbard grimaced. “Wrong, Stephen. Disabuse yourself. There is a secret here, somewhere … Do you see any ankhs carved anywhere?”

“No.” Stephen’s response was emphatic. “And before you ask, I know there are none because I’ve been looking for decorations of any kind, merely out of curiosity. There are none. Why would you think there might be?”

De Montbard had knelt down on one knee and was peering at the bottom of the wall. “Because, my youthful friend, there ought to be. There is more in here than meets the eye. I am convinced of that.” He stood up again and turned away from the wall, his gaze traveling all over the chamber. “And yet there is nothing,” he continued, speaking to himself as much as to St. Clair. “Nothing at all.”

“What else did you expect?”

De Montbard rounded on him then, drawing himself up to his full height, his eyes flashing with sudden impatience. “Trickery, Stephen,” he snapped. “Subterfuge and deceit. This place was built by the people who built the pyramids in Egypt, the finest stonemasons who ever lived. You saw the workmanship of the opening—the intricacy of that doorway in the steps. Anyone possessing the learning and the craft required to build such a thing would have been more than capable of hiding a simple cavity behind a false wall.” He whipped out his sword and slashed backward, underhand, striking its blade loudly and dramatically against the wall behind him. “And I believe this wall is false.”

His impatience vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and he turned slowly in a full circle, his eyes sweeping the entire room, floor and walls, including the one at his back. “And if that is true, then there must be a key to opening it, just as the ankh was the key to opening the other. So where could it be?”

“The sconces? They are the only things in the room that are not made of solid stone.”

De Montbard’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course! Try them. You take that side. I’ll handle this one.”

The third sconce from the wall turned in St. Clair’s hand as he tugged at it, and as he snatched at the torch that tumbled from it, they both heard the same subterranean rumble they had heard earlier, when the first door opened, except that this time it was closer and not at all muffled, as the blank end wall sank slowly into the floor.

Stretching across the cavity revealed a heavy curtain of richly embroidered cloth hung from a thick rod, the colors in the pattern still bright in the torchlight. For a long space neither man moved or appeared to breathe, but finally de Montbard took a tentative step forward, stretching his hand out cautiously to touch the cloth. St. Clair stood spellbound, watching the hanging fabric stir beneath that questing hand until suddenly de Montbard seized the curtain and thrust it violently to one side, letting the light from their torches spill into the darkness beyond.

In spite of himself, St. Clair leapt in fright and uttered a strange, high-pitched sound, then fell to his knees as though he had been smashed with a mace. Beside him, de Montbard reacted similarly, grunting an unintelligible sound, but remaining on his feet despite the shock.

In front of them, awash in the light of the torches they had lit, stretched a chamber as large as the one in which they stood; a long, narrow space of two contrasting colors, black and white. It was a perfect replica of the temples, the ritual gathering places, they had known at home in Christendom, from the alternating marble tiles of black and white upon the floor, to the draped thrones on either side of where they now stood staring into the chamber’s depths, to the twin pillars between which they had sworn their oaths. They saw and recognized all of it, and yet each of them knew, within the echoing stillness of his own mind, that this place, this temple, had been shut up in darkness for thousands of years, awaiting their arrival.

De Montbard was the first of them to gather his wits—probably, St. Clair found himself thinking to his own surprise, because he had known enough beforehand to suspect what might be here. He stepped into the chamber slowly, holding a flaming torch high above his head, and St. Clair went with him, matching him step for step and willing his pounding heart to slow down.

“We are in the West,” de Montbard said.

“Aye, and facing towards the East,” St. Clair responded, barely aware of repeating the ritual words, “where all shall be revealed.”

They moved forward together, stepping out resolutely until they were confronted by another curtain, much like the first but narrower. They exchanged glances, and de Montbard reached out yet again and, more cautiously and reverently this time, pulled the curtain aside. Beyond this veil, reflecting the light of their torches in a golden blaze, was something magnificent but unidentifiable: an elongated rectangular shape, solid and substantial and somehow more elaborate—this in defiance of all logic—than any single object St. Clair could ever remember having seen. It took him several more moments to understand that he was looking at an ornate golden chest, and he estimated its size to be about four feet in length by half that in height and width. It was topped with a complex, unrecognizable sculpture, also of gold, and two long, golden poles, held in place by heavy gold rings on each side, were obviously the means of carrying it from place to place. The sheer splendor of it filled St. Clair’s entire being with an awe that was almost religious, and for long minutes he simply stood and stared at it, aware that de Montbard was kneeling motionless in front of him, like a man in a trance. He had not seen de Montbard pass him or sink to his knees, but he was not surprised by any of that; since the moment the curtain had been pushed aside, St. Clair had been aware of nothing but the chest. Now he felt a need to move. And he willed himself to go forward, one small step at a time, until he was standing beside the kneeling man. His eyes filled with the golden glory of the thing in front of him, he reached down with one hand to grasp de Montbard’s shoulder.

“What is it?” He heard the timidity and awe in his own voice, but his question seemed to break the trance that gripped the other man, for he reached up and grasped St. Clair’s arm, using it to pull himself upright. When he was on his feet, he walked backward, pulling St. Clair with him, to the curtain, and he closed it once again, reverently, concealing the golden chest from view. That done, they continued to back away, looking neither to right nor left, until they reached the foot of the stairway leading to the Hall above. Only there did they turn, to run up the steps to the darkness of the great chamber, and only then, safely out of the other place, did they stop and turn to stare at each other, wide eyed.

“I did not believe,” Montbard said then, in a shaky voice. “I did not believe it could be true.”

St. Clair was breathing heavily, although he could not have told anyone why. “What could be true?” he asked. “What are you talking about? What is that thing?”

Now de Montbard gaped at him. “You don’t know? You don’t know what we have found? This is the Order’s treasure, Stephen, but a real treasure, spoken of in the Lore but never mentioned as being present here. A treasure greater than any of us could ever have suspected. It is the Ark, Stephen. We have found the Ark.”

St. Clair stood frowning, uncomprehending, aware only of his companion’s profound awe. “What Ark?”

“The Ark, Stephen. The Ark of the Covenant, the repository of God’s covenant with humanity. It was kept in the Holy of Holies, in the temple. It is the symbol of God Himself …”

He turned to face St. Clair, his eyes glowing with conviction. “We have to tell the others, Stephen, now, immediately, for this changes everything. This will change the entire world. Nothing will ever be the same again. This is the reason for our Order’s formation a thousand years ago.”

St. Clair shook his head as though to clear it. “The Ark of the Covenant? I thought our treasure was no more than written records. But now you are telling me that this thing we have found is the Ark of the Covenant? From the Holy of Holies? Then I want to look at it again.” He ran swiftly down the steps, uncaring whether de Montbard came with him or not, but by the time he paused hesitantly in front of the concealing curtain, he was aware of the other man at his shoulder. He reached out slowly and pushed the curtain aside carefully, hearing the curtain rings slowly sliding along the rod, and then he stood, gazing solemnly at the Ark, marking the way the flickering of their torches was reflected in the lines of the golden surface.

“Solid gold,” he said some time later, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“No, I think not,” de Montbard demurred. “The lid is solid gold. But I believe the chest and the carrying poles are carved from setim—an imperishable acacia wood—then coated with a covering of pure gold. Were the entire thing made of solid gold, it would be too heavy to carry.”

“What about the winged things on the top?”

“Cherubim, cherubs, angels—winged spirits of great power. You see how their wings are spread out and touching each other? They form a protective canopy over the lid of the Ark itself. The ancient Jews believed that God, the God of Moses, lives within that space.”

“Not in the Ark itself?” St. Clair’s face betrayed his surprise.

“No, in the space beneath the wings of the cherubim.”

“But those are graven images. The Jews were forbidden to have those.”

Montbard shrugged, his eyes still on the carvings. “Apparently they made an exception, just this once.”

“What is in the chest? Do you know?”

De Montbard’s response was little more than a whisper. “I did not even know the thing really existed. And no one knows what is inside it, Stephen. But I have heard tell that the Ark contains the tablets of stone Moses brought back from the mountain, bearing the Ten Commandments. It is also said to contain Aaron’s famed rod, the one that bore seeds. And some say it also contains manna from Heaven.”

“Can we touch it, open it?”

De Montbard’s hand came up automatically, as if to forestall a blow. “I think not. Remember, the Jews believed their temple was God’s home. He lived in the temple, above this Ark, beneath those very wings. Are you prepared to wager that He is not still there? I would not dare touch that device before doing a great deal of further study. But you may, if you wish, after I am gone from here.”

“No, perhaps not …” St. Clair cocked his head sideways, peering beyond the Ark. “Is that—?” He bent forward, squinting into the darkness behind the golden chest. “There’s another curtain there, behind the Ark, a black drape. There may be other treasures back there.”

He heard de Montbard sniff. “I doubt that, Stephen. I remember reading that the two carrying poles always touched a veil of some kind behind the Ark—I believe it was the veil that separated the two chambers of the Tabernacle. If so, that drape at the back is probably only symbolic, covering the wall and nothing else.” He reached out and prodded St. Clair, to add emphasis to what he was saying. “Besides, what would they want to hide back there? What could be more valuable than the Ark of the Covenant?

St. Clair turned to him in surprise. “Nothing, if you believe in the God of the ancient Jews. But that is not to say there is nothing else of any value here. I’m going to take a look. There’s room enough for me to slip by the end of the Ark without touching it.”

He waited for an answer from de Montbard, and when none came he turned his head again. “What think you?”

De Montbard shook his head, his lips pursed doubtfully. “I don’t know, Stephen. How close must a man approach a lightning bolt before being burned by it? Even were I a doubter, I do not think I would have the bravery, or the foolishness, to shrug by within a hand’s breadth of what might be the living God. But apparently you would.”

“Hmm.” St. Clair did not move, but stood in silence for some time before saying, “Well, since you put it like that, I doubt that I would, in fact. Perhaps I will wait until we hear what Master Hugh has to say. And so we had better go upstairs and tell the others about what we’ve found. Don’t you think so?”

Montbard nodded, smiling. “Aye, I think so. They might, after all, wish to see something of it at least, since they’ve been digging like moles for eight years and more in the mere hope of finding it. Let us go up, then, and find out.”

The hours that followed were a far cry from anything that had been known before, as all nine of the brethren crowded down into the Hall to look at what had been found beneath the altar, and no two men among them had exactly the same reaction to seeing the stark, black and white beauty of the chamber behind the first curtain, and the glory of the fabled Ark of the Covenant within its own curtained niche at the rear of the chamber. Several men wept openly; Geoffrey Bissot dropped to his knees at the foot of the entry stairs, facing the open end wall, and stayed there for three hours without moving, apparently lost in prayer; Godfrey St. Omer chose to kneel within the chamber that housed the Ark, and stayed there for two hours, joined from time to time by others of the brotherhood. All of them moved about in silence, and few of them spoke among themselves. None of them, it seemed, could fully come to terms with the truth that, after all their years of hard labor, scratching and scrabbling at the solid rock of the Temple Mount, they had actually found the treasure they had come to find, and had discovered it to be greater than their wildest imaginings could have made it.

Only Hugh de Payens seemed aloof from the general reaction. He was present the whole time, but he said not a word to anyone, and St. Clair watched him from a distance, with steadily growing concern, as he stood apart from the others, taking note of everything that was done and said but making no attempt to take an active part in any of the activities. Eventually, when the senior knight walked away into the surrounding darkness of the great Hall, St. Clair followed him, maintaining a wide distance but watching anxiously lest his superior fall over or grow ill.

No such thing occurred, however, and de Payens merely seated himself beyond the lights from the altar and continued to watch in silence until, one after another, the knights hoisted themselves up in the basket and retreated to their sleeping quarters far above. Only then, when the last of them had gone, did Hugh de Payens rise to his feet and walk forward into the still-guttering light of the few torches that remained. At the top of the stairs descending into the chamber beneath the altar, he stopped.

“Stephen,” he called out. “Come down with me, into the crypt.” He went down then, and St. Clair followed behind him, to find him waiting on the open threshold of the black and white chamber. The two of them stood side by side for a time, staring into the shadowy depths, and then de Payens knelt down and placed his hands on two of the marble floor tiles, one of them black, the other white.

“Here it is, Stephen,” he said, looking down at his hands. “All of my life, in this one room. Black and white. The colors of our Order, darkness and light, death and life, ignorance and enlightenment, not merely underfoot, on the floor, but all about us, in everything we do.” He rose smoothly to his feet and stood with his hands on his hips, then moved forward slowly, pivoting as he went so that his body revolved in a circle.

“You can have no idea how much I have waited for this day, my friend, waiting for it to come, yet not ever knowing even if it would or could. From the moment I found the Order of Rebirth, I dedicated my life to it and to its teachings, hoping against hope that I had not made a foolish choice and a bad decision. For there is nothing, really—no, there was nothing, really, to tell us what was true and what was not. Now there is. We have found the proof, and God has blessed us with the knowledge. But before, we had nothing to distinguish us from Christians, gravely misled and believing blindly in hope, and faith, and love. I have believed in what the Order taught, but there have been times when I was close to despair … close to believing we were wrong. Today has changed all that, and that truth has overwhelmed me these past few hours, so that I dared not trust myself to speak, or even to look too closely at my friends. Where is the Ark?”

St. Clair was surprised by the question. “Have you not seen it? It is back there, behind you, behind the curtain there.”

“Come, then, with me.”

They reached the closed curtain and de Payens opened it slowly, then stood there mute, staring at the ornate splendor of the golden chest for long moments before he sank slowly to his knees. He reached out a hand, tentatively, and then held it there, less than a hand’s breadth from one of the carrying rings on the side of the chest, as though he would lean forward and touch the container, but then he sighed and lowered his hand, and when he turned to look at St. Clair, the younger knight was unsurprised to see tears flowing down his cheeks. He felt a lump in his own throat in response and tried to look away, but found he was incapable of moving. Hugh de Payens blinked, unashamed of his tears, and then swallowed and spoke.

“I am not fit … no man is fit to lay hands upon the residence of God, the God of Moses and of Abraham, of Jesus and Mohammed. And I have no doubt that this Ark was, and is, that residence. And here it sits, in front of us, solid and real. The world has changed today, Stephen St. Clair, and so has everyone in it. I am grown old suddenly—not that I will die soon, or withdraw from life, but I am come of age, and so, my friend, are you. I must return to Christendom soon, I fear, to deal with all of this, but I will leave you and your brethren here with Brother Godfrey, who will govern in my place, and you will all live different lives from this day forth, thanks to what we have uncovered here today. Ah! See how the Lord of Hosts bids us to sleep.” Around them, the three remaining torches had begun to flicker and burn out. “Quickly now, Stephen, take the last fresh one there and light it while you can. It will show us the way to our cots, for tomorrow there is much to do.”