Jack Whyte - Knights of the Black and White

Slowly, fearfully, he opened his eyes to see nothing but utter, stygian blackness, as deep and dark as the lack of light had been behind his tightly clenched eyelids. The dark, the silence, the profound stillness surrounding him, and the lack of pain or feelings combined to convince him that he really was dead, and as he allowed his mind to begin exploring that possibility, there came a tiny, metallic sound, and light exploded into the darkness as someone opened the closed door of a burning lamp.

Hugh went rigid with fear again, his heart leaping in his chest as he saw the person holding the lamp insert a taper through its open door, and then other tapers were extended towards the flame of the first, so that the room filled rapidly with light. Hugh moved to roll over and sit up, but found that he could not move, and then a hand was pressed gently over his mouth from above, bidding him to lie still. Moments later, he found himself staring directly up at a ring of faces that were looking down at him from high above. He was flat on his back. Then the robed and hooded man standing at his feet gave a signal, and the others knelt quickly and reached down towards him, and once again Hugh felt their hands grasp him and lift him, exerting rigid control over him, so that his heels remained on the ground while the rest of him was swung upright, as stiff as a wooden board on a hinged end, until he was standing erect. The hands left him then, withdrawn in pairs, he thought, until he was standing free, staring at the hooded man now facing him, and knowing, from the man’s immense height and size, exactly who he was.

Sir Stephen St. Clair reached up and pulled off his black hood, his face crinkled in a wide smile. “What are you wearing?” he asked Hugh. Surprised by the mundane question, Hugh looked down, then blinked in confusion, never having seen this garment before. “I don’t know, my lord,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders and discovering that he was tightly bound in a strange white robe, unable to move his arms.

“It is the cerement.” St. Clair’s face was grave again. “You know what that is?”

Hugh glanced down again. “Aye, my lord. It is the shroud worn to the grave by a dead man.”

“It is. And do you know why you are wearing it?”

“No, my lord.”

“Turn around, then, and see where you have been.”

Hands seized Hugh’s arms and turned him slowly, bracing him as he reared back. Directly at his feet lay an open shallow grave containing a bleached human skull with a pair of thigh bones crossed beneath it. Hugh stood there stunned, gazing down into the pit. It was real, and he had lain in it. No wonder, he thought, that it seemed he had been lowered a long way.

“You died and were laid down,” St. Clair said, “and then the light returned and you were raised up again to life. You are reborn, newborn, a different person, one of our ancient brotherhood. Your previous life now lies behind you, forsaken, finished, and abandoned, and you have been reborn into Enlightenment to serve the search for truth and restitution of that which was in our beginnings. Welcome therefore, Brother Hugh, to our fraternity, the Order of Rebirth in Sion. Now that you have been Raised to be one of us, you will have the opportunity to learn all that there is to know about our ancient and sacred trust, and the first step in that progression is to enrobe you in the vestments of the initiate.”

“So mote it be!” Every man present spoke the words, their voices blending into a muffled thunder, and Hugh experienced, for the first time, the ancient blessing and ritual approval of the Brotherhood of the Order of Rebirth.

St. Clair motioned with his hand, and four white-clad men came forward to surround Hugh. They stripped him quickly of the shroud in which he had been wrapped, and of the coarse, jute tunic he had worn beneath it, and then they dressed him in a girdle made from the fleece of a lamb, over which they draped rich vestments of snowy white, and when they stepped away from him again, he saw that everyone else present had set aside the black cloaks they had worn earlier and were dressed in the same kind of brilliantly white garment that he wore. Some among them yet wore black, but only as adornments to their white garb, and Hugh quickly guessed that the black ornamentation signified rank of some kind, for all of them were different. The entire Chamber was now revealed in all its magnificence, and every element of it, ceiling, walls, furnishings, and floor, was either black or white or a combination of both.

Now St. Clair stepped forward with extended arms and embraced his white-clad godson, then stepped aside as Hugh’s father and grandfather came next to welcome their family’s latest member to the brotherhood. They were followed in turn by every other person there, and as Hugh accepted the acknowledgments of all of them, being enfolded in each one’s arms in a welcoming gesture of brotherhood and recognizing some of them with great astonishment, he was thinking of what had happened, and of how many of the mysteries that had confounded him until tonight had suddenly become clear, and even as that thought occurred to him, he understood more and more as pieces continued to click into place within his mind.

Much later, when the last of the evening’s rites had been concluded and the crowd had begun to disperse, Hugh found himself sitting in a brightly lit anteroom to the main chamber, sharing a jug of wine with his father, his two grandfathers, and his godfather, and at one point, when the conversation had reached a natural pause, Sir Stephen St. Clair set down his cup and crossed his arms over his broad chest, pushing himself back so that his chair rocked on its rear legs. Hugh waited, but St. Clair held his peace.

“Forgive me, my lord, but I think you wish to ask me something?”

St. Clair shook his head. “No, I want to tell you something, so listen carefully. We are brothers now, you and I, by virtue of tonight’s proceedings, so we will have no more ‘my lord’ from you, especially here in the Chamber. If ever you feel a paralyzing need to be formal, you may call me Sir Stephen, but in the normal way of things, Stephen will suffice, as between natural brothers. You did well tonight, but we all knew you would. And last night, you may recall, I gave you leave to ask me any question that you wished. Now that you have been Raised, might you have another question in you?”

“Aye, I have, about the Order of Rebirth in Sion. The rebirth of what, or whom? Or does the name simply refer to the Raising ceremony? And where, or what, is Sion?”

“Aha!” St. Clair raised his feet, allowing his chair to drop onto all four legs again, and held out his hand to the Baron. Baron Hugo laughed ruefully, reached into the scrip at his belt, and threw his friend a purse of coins. The knight snatched it from the air with the speed of a pouncing cat and turned back to Hugh, grinning widely and holding the heavy purse in his extended palm. “I made this wager with your father yesterday, that you would ask me exactly what you did, with only one question available to you.” He tossed the purse into the air and caught it again, then dropped it into his own scrip. “As for the answers to your question, you are now in a position to learn them for yourself, for they must be learned, earned, and won, just as your Raising was.

“Sion is the Hebrew name for the Holy Land, a place of safety, or sanctuary. That is common knowledge to anyone who thinks to ask. I cannot tell you more than that, however, nor can any other of our brethren, until you have earned the right to hear it. Even our most learned members have earned their right to know each secret. And you will earn those rights, one by one, as each of us here has learned them. That is how we function, and how we progress through the levels of our Order’s knowledge: we study, and we learn the rituals—perfectly, word by word—from our brethren, the most revered of whom have spent their lives acquiring that knowledge, experience, and wisdom. We are carefully tested on our learning, and when we are ready, each of us at his own pace and according to his own wishes, we progress to the next level of awareness. Some progress further than others do, dependent upon intellect, abilities, and interests. There is no yardstick of judgment applied to the achievement of learning from this point onward; there is only the assessment of understanding and knowledge.” A half-formed quirk at the corner of St. Clair’s mouth hinted at the beginnings of a smile. “I can promise you, however, that you will enjoy earning those rights. The answers you find will excite you … and the knowledge you will gain will astound you. I think, too, that once begun, you will learn quickly. And now we should rejoin the others upstairs.”