Jack Whyte - Standard of Honor

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

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

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

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

“Another place … a field of stones.”

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

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

“Just like this field here.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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