Jack Whyte - Knights of the Black and White

THAT EPISODE had occurred almost two months earlier, and St. Clair reflected that de Montbard’s work had continued quietly since then, with none of the brotherhood making any attempt to ask questions about the progress of his investigations. By and large, work had continued as before, but with freedom from the years-long need to dig, the program of patrols had been expanded and intensified until, the previous evening, de Payens had announced the impending return to France. It had been decades since any of the brothers had seen their homeland, and so the selection of the third envoy had been viewed with great enthusiasm and suspense. The draw had been made immediately, and St. Clair, to the good-natured chagrin of everyone else, had won.

Even as he accepted the position, however, St. Clair had been aware that Gondemare, who was arguably the quietest of all the brethren, had been more deeply disappointed than any of the others, and his conscience had begun to plague him. Gondemare, like Payn Montdidier, as St. Clair knew well, had been widowed early and had come to Outremer soon after the death of his wife. Unlike Payn, however, Gondemare had left several young children behind in the care of relatives, and word had reached him, a few years earlier, that those children had produced grandchildren. This might have been Gondemare’s only opportunity to meet those grandchildren, and St. Clair had gone to bed that night with that knowledge in his mind, and had been unable to sleep. He had no family of any closeness remaining in Anjou, and although he would have enjoyed returning there, it would have been for no real purpose other than his personal attendance to the duties of his Order—a task that Gondemare could accomplish just as easily as he. Besides—and this was the awareness that had troubled him more than any other—he, among all of the brotherhood here, was the one who had broken all his vows and proved himself, in his own eyes at least, to be unworthy of the honor involved in representing his brethren on this expedition. And so St. Clair had spent an entirely sleepless night and had arisen well before dawn, to walk the streets and struggle with what he ought to do.

He had finally decided, with great relief, to relinquish his place to Gondemare, and at that point, engrossed in his own thoughts as he was, he might never have become aware of Odo at all, had it not been for the bishop’s last spurt of speed in seeking to avoid him. St. Clair sensed, rather than saw, a sudden movement and looked over just in time to see a man’s shape vanishing into the alley. He recognized something familiar about it, something in the way the fellow moved, but by the time his attention sharpened sufficiently, the figure had vanished, and St. Clair walked past the alley, glancing casually down its length just in time to see the figure turn left and disappear from view, once again leaving him with an elusive feeling of having recognized the man. He hesitated, aware of an urge to follow, then shrugged and kept walking.

He had gone no more than ten or twelve paces, however, when he realized, against all logic, that the scurrying figure he had seen reminded him unmistakably of the Patriarch’s amanuensis, Odo, the Bishop of Fontainebleau. He knew he must be mistaken, for the man he had twice glimpsed had been shabbily dressed, far too shabbily to be a bishop, but then, as he remembered the shiftiness and untrustworthiness he had sensed in the selfsame bishop, his curiosity became aroused, and he retraced his steps to the mouth of the alley, where he stood for several moments gazing into its shadowed depths and then moved idly forward to the spot where he had last seen the vanishing figure.

There was nothing there. The corner he had seen was merely the entrance to a blind alley with high, blank walls on all three sides, which meant that the hurrying man, whoever he had been, had entered it purely to avoid being seen from where St. Clair had been watching. His curiosity now fully engaged, St. Clair left the alley again and turned left, lengthening his pace in pursuit of the enigmatic shadow, aware that he was in unknown territory and that the few people he saw, all of them men, were staring at him with pronounced hostility. Unperturbed, he shifted his sword belt, bringing his hilt closer to hand, and strode on.

FAR AHEAD OF HIM NOW, and safely concealed by several twists in the narrow, winding street, Odo was congratulating himself on his avoidance of being seen, when he emerged into a small, enclosed square and saw several swarthy, dangerous-looking men straighten up on seeing him, almost as though they had been waiting for him to appear. He knew, of course, that no such thing was possible, and so he swallowed the sudden fear that flared in him and drew himself up to his full height, holding his head high and striding resolutely forward. Even as he did so he heard a sound at his back and turned his head to see two more men converging on him from the rear, both of them holding long, curved daggers. Choking on a strangled cry of fear, he swung around in a complete circle, counting six men, all of whom now held bare blades, and saw that they all came to a halt, surrounding him but several paces distant. He was steeling himself to challenge them, to tell them who he was, when he felt his heart and his soul shrivel within him.

“Bishop.” The single word was spoken quietly, but there was no doubting what it was or what it meant, and he turned, suddenly terrified, to face the direction from which it had come. A single man, tall and slim and dressed from head to foot in the long, flowing black robes of a desert nomad, was walking towards him, his face concealed except for his dark, unblinking eyes, which were fixed on Odo’s. He approached to within two paces of the bishop, who stood frozen, and then he spoke again, another single, unmistakable word. “Arouna.” Then, before Odo could even begin to react to what he had heard, the fellow struck.

For the briefest of moments, Odo thought the man had punched him in the stomach, the blow heavy and solid, driving the wind from him, but then his assailant twisted his wrist, hard, turning the blade in Odo’s flesh and dragging its razor-sharp edge up along the inner curve of his ribs and across, eviscerating him so that, as the incredible pain belatedly struck home, Odo felt his bowels sag loose and tumble out into his clothing. His mouth opened and closed, emitting only a high-pitched whine of fear and agony, his voice stilled forever, but before he could lose consciousness, his killer leaned close and breathed into his ear, “This for Princess Alice, a wedding gift, and for Arouna’s father, vengeance. You bought this death when you befouled his daughter.” He then whipped out his blade and stepped back, watching as Odo fell to his knees and unaware that the bishop’s last conscious thought was of Alice, the faithless bitch, and how she would now claim his treasure.

With a wave of his hand, Hassan the Shi’a sent his Assassins melting into the surrounding doors and alleyways before he removed a folded letter from his breast and tucked it carefully into the dead man’s clothing where it would not be stained by his blood. Without even wrinkling his nose at the stench of Odo’s loosened bowels, he wiped his blade clean on the dead man’s cloak and casually walked away, leaving the square deserted.

Mere moments later, St. Clair stepped into the small square.

THE ASSASSINATION of a bishop caused an uproar among the Frankish community, but it was short lived, since the letter found in his clothing detailed the bishop’s sins and transgressions, and the murdered body of a young Muslim woman, the daughter of a local sheikh, was discovered a short time later, in the house that was soon proved to be held in Odo’s name. Within the day, two more Franks were found dead together, murdered in the same manner, one of them the spy Gregorio, and the other a sergeant brother of the order of the knight monks, Giacomo Versace. This discovery, too, caused little public fuss, since the men’s association with Odo was already known, their names written clearly in the letter found on the bishop’s body, but the killers of all four went undiscovered.