Jack Whyte - Knights of the Black and White

Visualizing the lascivious delights he was about to experience, he felt himself becoming aroused and lengthened his pace. Gregorio had kept him late, later than he wanted to be, and Odo resented the spy’s unfortunate timing, even as he thrilled again at the thought of the possibilities the little man’s information had generated. Ahead of him, he saw the narrow side street that would take him to his house, but at the same moment he became aware of the figure walking towards him in the distance, a tall Frank, wearing a full suit of gleaming, sand-burnished mail covered by a plain white surcoat.

The sight was unexpected and unpleasant, for the white surcoat of the knight monks had become a well-known sight in Jerusalem in recent years, though they numbered only nine, and Odo knew from the youthfulness of the approaching man’s stride that this could only be the youngest one, the knight St. Clair, who called himself Brother Stephen, the one among them most likely to recognize him. Cursing quietly to himself, he was heartened a little to see that the knight was unaccompanied and appeared to be walking like a man in a dream, staring ahead into nothingness and unaware of his surroundings. His heart suddenly hammering in his chest, the bishop extended his stride even more and swung into the alleyway before St. Clair could come close enough to see him.

ELEVEN

St. Clair, for his part, had been walking alone for hours by that time, wandering aimlessly through the city streets as he struggled with a decision he had been pondering all night long. It was a weighty decision, for several reasons, and he had dismissed Arlo before dawn that morning to his own devices, insisting that he had matters on his mind that demanded not merely concentration but isolation within which to concentrate. Arlo had been disgruntled and had made no secret of his displeasure, but St. Clair had never been so determined about such a thing before and so, albeit with a total absence of grace on Arlo’s part, the master’s wish had overruled the servant’s.

The previous afternoon, at a convocation of the brothers, Hugh de Payens had announced that he would be returning to France within the month, and that he would be taking two others of their number to accompany him.

One of those two, for reasons that had previously become obvious, was André de Montbard, but in the spirit of brotherhood, de Payens had announced that the name of the third member of the group would be chosen by lot, ensuring each man an equal opportunity of being selected. Once at home in France, the three knights would report their discoveries to the senior Council of the Order of Rebirth, and would then, with the support and agreement of that body, make a formal approach to a man who, despite his youth, had rapidly become the most influential and powerful figure among the French clergy. This young cleric, who had been born Bernard of Fontaines-les-Dijons, was now known throughout ecclesiastical circles as Bernard of Clairvaux, after the Cistercian monastery he had built and now presided over as abbot. Bernard of Clairvaux was the nephew of André de Montbard, and de Montbard, long before leaving France to come to the Holy Land, had endowed the young man, and by extension the recently formed Cistercian order, with the estates on which the Abbey of Clairvaux now stood. De Montbard was confident that, properly approached, his nephew would be willing to act as intermediary in arranging an audience for them with the Pope, in the course of which the brothers would present evidence of what they had found in the bowels of the temple.

The treasure had by this time been examined and catalogued, and the authenticity of the Ark of the Covenant investigated and ratified beyond any possibility of error, although its contents remained, to this point, undisturbed and unexamined. De Payens, as the senior among them, had not changed his opinion on mere men being worthy or entitled to lay hands, physically, upon such a precious and sanctified relic, and so he had ordered that it be crated and preserved intact until such time as it could be opened and examined by people better qualified than he was to deal with its portent.

Hugh de Payens, after consulting with St. Omer and de Montbard, had decided that the containers found in the crypt beneath the altar were likely to be more important than those stored more openly in the hall above, and accordingly, not knowing the order in which the jars had originally been placed on the shelves, they had selected eight jars, two from each end of the ranked vessels on either wall, one from the top and one from the bottom of each tier of shelves.

It had not surprised St. Clair at all that de Montbard had been the one to take charge at that point, supervising the removal of the eight samples from the crypt to the stables. Under his scrutiny, each jar was roped and cradled, and then carried by two of the brethren to the records room on ground level, where a large array of wooden tables had been laid out, several in each of the four corners, to receive them. A fifth group of tables stood in the center of the room, already covered with documents that the brethren recognized as having been brought by de Montbard himself from France when he first came.

Once safely delivered, a pair of jars, from corresponding positions on each side of the gallery, was placed upon a separate table in one of the corners, then marked and numbered with great precision before de Montbard broke each seal with exquisite caution and gently removed the contents. St. Clair had been present at the time—they all had—anxious to set eyes upon whatever it might be that they had worked so long and so hard to find, and when it became obvious that the jars did indeed contain parchment scrolls, as predicted by Montbard, they all stood silent, watching almost in awe, as de Montbard called for a bowl of water and washed his hands absolutely clean, then dried them thoroughly on a clean towel before sitting down and leaning forward with great deliberation to unroll the first portion of the very first scroll, holding it open with spread fingers. The writing on it was tiny, the letters and symbols exquisitely formed, but to all of them, save perhaps de Montbard himself, it was completely alien and indecipherable.

De Montbard sat transfixed, utterly motionless except for his eyes, which scanned the document eagerly until some of the other men began to shift and fidget. Even de Payens and St. Omer hovered anxiously, their eyes intent upon their companion, their faces making it appear that they were holding their breath, but eventually de Montbard nodded his head, satisfied with something, and sat back, cradling the parchment as it sprang back into its tube shape. He raised his eyes to look at each of the two elders in turn.

“Yes,” he said, and nodded again, more emphatically this time. “Yes! This is it. We have it. This is what we came to find.”

Hugh de Payens gasped aloud, and St. Omer fetched him a resounding thump on the shoulder, a wide grin breaking out on his seamed, grizzled face while the other six men looked at each other with varying degrees of baffled curiosity and incomprehension. De Montbard was already on his feet and moving to the tables in the center of the room where his own documents were neatly laid out. He shuffled through several before selecting one and bringing it back to the table that held the scroll, and only then did he notice the expressions on the faces of the others. He hesitated, looking from man to man, and then he rested his buttocks against the edge of the table behind him and looked again at each man in turn, his smile widening to a rather rueful grin.

“I can see that none of you really knows what has happened here, so let me try to explain it to you in a way that will make some sense.” He paused, aware of the fact that every man there was hanging on his words, then waved to indicate the four pairs of jars in their respective corners. “What you have found, my friends, in these jars and the others down below, is the Rebirth in Sion. With this discovery, our ancient Order of Rebirth in Sion is reborn in Sion. These scrolls contain the absolute vindication of all that our ancestors have believed, and have striven to find, for centuries, for more than a thousand years. And the honor and glory of having found them is yours.”