Jack Whyte: Standard of Honor

“I can answer that for both of you. There is no honor in this war. There is no honor among kings and princes, popes and patriarchs, caliphs and viziers or whatever else you wish to name as titles. All of those are men, and all of them are venal, greedy, gross, and driven by base lusts for power. Ours is the task of fighting for their lusts, and like poor fools, we do it gladly, time and time again, answering the call to duty and lining up to die unnoticed by the very people who sent us out there.

“Well, my friends, I have buried you together, as you died together, and now I will leave you together. I received a warning yesterday, Cousin, to watch my back. I meant to talk to you about it last night, but you sent me to Arsuf. Then I would have told you of it tonight, but you died on me. So I will tell you now, and let you think more on honor.

“It seems that I was recognized some days ago by one of the men who killed my father. I was in close proximity to him and to his friends and he assumed, wrongly, that I was snooping for evidence against them. The man who told me was a man I had never seen, but it was clear he had difficulties of his own with these people, whoever they are. He would not give me names, but only said I should beware of ‘Richard’s bullyboys’ as he called them, and watch my back because they were intent on killing me, to keep me quiet.

“In essence, Cousin, that does not inspire me to return to fight and die, killing good men like the emir here, either for Richard’s personal ambitions or at Richard’s instigation, so I know not where I’ll go next, but I will undertake to see that the mullah Yusuf receives the emir’s amulet. And so adieu, to both of you. I leave you wrapped there in your honor … I will weep for you, Cousin Alec, and will rejoice at having known you. But not yet. Not yet. It is much too soon for that. But I will weep, for you, and for my father, and for all the fond fools dying all around us. God give them rest. Farewell.”

Sir André St. Clair wrapped the two daggers and the emir’s amulet in the yellow folds of al-Farouch’s banner and stood up, stuffing the bundle inside his surcoat and then pulling his mantle about him against the evening chill as he went to where his horse and pack mule stood placidly grazing together. Lights were glimmering among the trees, where the Hospitallers had been working all afternoon to set up facilities to treat the wounded, and there was no shortage of people moving about, talking easily to each other now that the worst of the crisis was over and the cruelest excesses of the day had been set aside. He gathered up both sets of reins, for horse and mule, and led the animals slowly up the sloping rise to the old Roman road, where he mounted the Arab mare and turned northward, leading the mule.

“You are facing north, Brother. Arsuf lies south of here.”

André turned and looked at the man who had spoken to him from the darkness beneath a neighboring tree. He was dressed in black from head to foot, and André smiled at him. “Are you a knight?”

“No, Brother, I am but a simple monk of the Hospital. I fight to keep men alive.”

“And may you thrive and prosper at your craft, Brother. I am headed north, back towards Acre.”

“Back to Acre? Will you not fight at Jerusalem?”

“No, Brother, I will not fight at Jerusalem, nor for Jerusalem. I am done with fighting. I intend to ride in search of a field of stones, in which to meditate and commune with my God. After that, when He and I have come to know each other better, who knows? I might even go and live among the Infidel. It can’t be any more perilous than living where I do, among God’s faithful zealots …” He broke off and smiled at the expression on the tall monk’s face, which he could now see clearly in the light of the rising moon. St. Clair took pity on him. “Forgive me, Brother,” he said. “It has been a long day and I have far to travel in the coming years. Farewell, and God bless you.”

Without another word he set spurs to his horse and trotted away, the mule in tow, and the monk stood staring after him, watching the tall, white-clad figure with the blood-red cross on its shoulders until he lost sight of it among the trees that lined the road.

FINIS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In 2005, just as I was really getting into the nitty-gritty of researching this story, I received two books as gifts from really good friends: Sharan Newman sent me a French publication called Les sites Templiers de France — Templar Sites in France—by Jean-Luc Aubarbier and Michel Binet, published by Éditions Ouest-France, and Diana Gabaldon sent me a jewel of a book called Arab Historians of the Crusades by Francesco Gabrieli, the 1993 Barnes & Noble edition of the classic 1957 Italian compilation of Arab commentaries and insights into the Crusades “from the other side.” Both books proved to be invaluable to me in the time that followed, allowing me to visualize connections and nuances that might never otherwise have occurred to me, and so I wish to express my gratitude to both donors.

It is truly astonishing how many books, articles, papers, and treatises there are out there on the Knights Templar, and a major part of deciding which materials to use for reference is the difficulty of being able to tell, at a glance, which are historically accurate, which are trustworthy, and which are purely speculative. Sometimes the distinctions are obvious, but I found myself traveling, on several occasions, in directions that I had never anticipated. Of course, as a writer of fiction, such tangential wanderings can be part and parcel of the voyage, and in this story of mine, I have borrowed from a few of them. By and large, however, I decided to rely upon respectability, and so restricted my later reading to works of generally accepted provenance. I thought, too, about including a bibliography here, then decided that it was much simpler to mention the half dozen wonderful books that I used most, mainly in keeping my story straight. They are:

The Knights Templar , Stephen Howarth, 1982, republished in 1993 by Barnes & Noble

Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour , Barbara Tuchman, New York University Press, 1956, republished in 1984 by Ballantine Books

The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple , Malcolm Barber, Cambridge University Press, 1994

The Templars , Piers Paul Read, Phoenix Press, 2001

Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade , James Reston Jr., Anchor Books, 2001

The Templars: Knights of God , Edward Burman, Destiny Books, 1986

Once again, and as always, I am acutely aware of the debt of gratitude I owe to the Penguin Group production team. They are consistently dependable and reliable—not always exactly the same thing—and even when they are cracking the whip across my dilatory shoulders, they manage to do it subtly enough and with sufficient finesse and panache that my pain is lessened somehow by my admiration of the pink tissue paper they use to cover the metal barbs … And among the Penguins, associated with them, are two paragons: Catherine Marjoribanks, my story editor, and Shaun Oakey, my astounding copy editor … amazing people, both of them. To all, my thanks.

Read on for Chapter One of Jack

Whyte’s exciting new novel,

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ONE

THE WOMAN AT THE GATES

Aman with no eyes could have seen that something was wrong up ahead, and Tam Sinclair’s eyes were perfect. His patience, however, was less so. The afternoon light was settling into dusk, and Tam was reduced to immobility after three days of hard traveling and within a half-mile of his goal. The reins of his tired team now hung useless in his hands as a growing crowd of people backed up ahead of him, blocking his way and crowding too close to his horses, making them snort and stomp and toss their heads nervously. Tam felt himself growing angry at the press around him, a purely instinctual reaction that had nothing to do with logic. He did not like being among large numbers of people at the best of times, but when they were compressed in a solid crowd, as they were now, his sensibilities revolted against the stink of their unwashed bodies, combining as they did to deprive him of the simple pleasure of taking a deep breath.