Jack Whyte - Standard of Honor

“I have been out here in Outremer, perhaps, for too many years,” Alec continued after a moment’s additional thought. “I have grown used to living alone like an anchorite, away from other men, Christian men, if you understand what I am trying to say, and to conducting my own devotions in the way I was taught. In consequence of that, I have obviously not been exposed to the kind of changes that everyone who came over the sea with you appears to accept as commonplace. Not the kind of changes that one may point to and identify clearly. I suppose, really, that I am referring more to moral differences, to changes in perception and acceptance.

“Now that I am aware of them, I can see that most of them must have occurred since I left Scotland, and certainly since I left Christendom to come out here. They are changes of attitude, and of perception, more than anything else, I believe—changes in the way men look at things and see things nowadays.” Again he stopped, shaking his head. “You plainly have no idea what I am ranting about here, and I can’t blame you.”

He sucked in and released a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let me try another way. I am speaking here of the truths that you and I were taught by our brethren in the Order of Sion, when we were first Raised to the brotherhood—the truths that we were taught, unchanged since our forefathers fled Jerusalem twelve hundred years ago to escape the wrath of Rome and the false and Godless ‘Truth’ the Romans would impose upon them. And now here we are, you and I, more than a millennium later, back in our ancient homeland and still dealing with the wrath of Rome and the new, updated Roman version of truth. We swore oaths, all of us in the brotherhood, to do certain things, to observe certain conventions and to obey and sustain certain ancient laws that will enable us to carry out our duties and our tasks with honor at all times. And since the earliest days of our Order, those oaths and laws and promises have remained unchanged.

“But look now at our supposed exemplar, the Roman Church. Nothing is immutable therein, André. Nothing at all. Everything—every duty, every law, every obligation, every element of their credo—is negotiable and changeable, according to the will of whoever happens to be wielding the power at any given time. Look no further than the beginnings of this Order of the Temple, ninety years ago. Until then, for a thousand years, the mere idea of priests and monks killing other men had been anathema. But then—and granted, it was at our own brotherhood’s suggestion—the priests perceived a way to effect great change in that, to their great benefit, as always, and it was a simple matter of rearranging a few priorities and repositioning certain criteria to conform to the will of God, as expressed to and interpreted by His priests. Nothing in the Roman Church, it seems obvious to me, is absolute … Are you following me now?”

St. Clair nodded. “Aye, easily enough, but I have no idea where you are leading me.”

A tiny smile cracked the seriousness of Sinclair’s expression. “I have no idea, either, but I think it is time we both found somewhere new to go. Everything was brought into focus for me by the way you voiced your reaction to—your disgust over—the way Richard dealt with his Muslim prisoners.”

St. Clair barely reacted to that, limiting his response to a minuscule headshake and keeping his voice low and calm. “Disgust is too small a word for what I felt. Nothing that I could possibly say could even come close to expressing what I want to say. I have the knowledge inside me, and someday, I know, it will spill out, purging and absolving me. Or so I hope. But between you and me let there be no misunderstandings and no lies. Richard did not ‘deal with’ his Muslim prisoners. He slaughtered them out of hand, and their blood is still thick and wet out on the killing ground. He murdered them by the thousand, and for no other reasons than to vent his spleen and show Saladin that he was angry and impatient with the Sultan’s behavior.”

“He is your liege lord, Cousin.”

“No, Cousin, he is not. That status was forfeit, by his own design, when I became a Templar. You know that, because you had to forfeit your own liege in the same way. It was Richard’s own idea that I should join the Temple, and he knew when he made the suggestion that it would result in losing my services and my fealty. That has come to pass. Richard Plantagenet can make no more claims on me. But even there he was being duplicitous, seeking to sway my father into joining his Great Venture … and not because he needed him. Sir Henry St. Clair had no great, vaulting skills that Richard of England could not have found elsewhere. No, the simple truth is that Richard dreamed up, or was given, or otherwise conceived the thought that Sir Henry St. Clair should go with him to war, as a perfect foil against the ever-present threat of having his own father’s favorite factotum, William Marshall of England, thrust upon him as his Master-at-Arms. And once that thought was in his head, it became his will, and my father was powerless against it …”

Sinclair must have noticed the change in his expression. “What? What is it?”

St. Clair held up a hand to stem the questions. “It simply came to me that by the time Richard came with de Sablé to my father’s house on that occasion, to talk the old man into going with him, he had already decided on a path. Robert de Sablé was already destined then to be Grand Master of the Temple, and Richard knew it. And if truth be told, it might come out that Richard was the author, somehow, of that nomination. It would certainly not surprise me. But even so … If Richard knew that his friend Robert was to be the Grand Master, then he must have thought, too, being Richard, that he would be able to control the man, playing on his gratitude and his sense of obligation … and that would mean, in turn, that Richard must have thought the entire Temple would fall, more or less without volition, into his grasp. If so, he misread his man badly, for Robert de Sablé will play the dupe to no man, be he pope, king, or emperor. He has been Grand Master of the Temple for less than three months and already his independence is manifestly obvious. But he is also a member of our ancient brotherhood, loyal to the core and honest and trustworthy to a fault, and that is something Richard will never even begin to suspect. He will never know where his dear friend’s true loyalty is owed and paid. But that is of no help to us, here and now.”

He stood chewing on his lower lip for a few moments before lowering himself to sit on the saddle by his feet. “So,” he said then, looking up at Sinclair, “where do we go from here, you and I?”

Alec Sinclair laid his crossbow on the ground, then sat on his own saddle. “I have no idea, so I will be grateful for anything you might suggest.”

“Hmm … Well, speaking for myself, I have no wish to go anywhere near Richard or his armies. I might be content to hover on the outskirts of things for a while, but I doubt even that would satisfy me. What I really wish is that I were months and the breadth of seas removed from here, back in my home in Poitou, but that is plainly an impossibility. So in the meantime, I intend to immerse myself in my duties here, serving the Temple in whatever capacity is deemed to be suitable for me.”

“And what happens when we return to fighting? What will you do then?”

André looked up in surprise. “I shall fight. What else would I do?”

“You see no contradiction there?”

“In fighting? How should I? I am a knight-at-arms.

I’ve trained all my life to fight, as have you.”

“Aye, mayhap, Cousin, but I have had ten more years to weigh the verities than you have.”