Jack Whyte - Knights of the Black and White

“Stephen, you are making me impatient. What did the man say ?”

“That nothing is going to change. Nothing is going to happen.”

Montdidier tucked in his chin, his eyes narrowing to slits. “But that is patently ridiculous. Things have to change now. We have proof that they need to be changed, that the reality of the Church’s foundation is questionable, even that it is based upon lies. How then can de Payens say nothing will change?”

“He said that the established Church will not bend the knee to what we have discovered. They will ignore it if they can, and if they cannot ignore it they will deny it, using the entire weight of their history and worldly authority to reinforce their stance, and anyone who makes it too difficult for that denial to be maintained will be dealt with.”

“What do you mean, ‘will be dealt with’?”

“What do you suppose I mean, Payn? Do you think I am trying now, having come so far, to be obscure? Think about it for a while. We have a Church that considers itself universal, and for the last what—eight hundred years?—for the last eight hundred years, since the days of Constantine the Great, it has been solidly based in Rome, its well-fed, worldly princes blithely ignoring the beginnings they abandoned so quickly under the flattering, seductive spell of imperial bribery—those beginnings that were founded in poverty and proudly proclaimed that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it was for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

“This discovery of ours, de Payens pointed out, were it to be made public, would result immediately in the senior hierarchy of the entire Church having to admit the error of their ways, and being forced to relinquish all their wealth, their privilege, and the luxuries they now enjoy. That would be the very least that would happen. The knowledge, revealed, would destroy the Church.”

“Well, I hardly think it would go that far …”

“Oh, really? You don’t think people would be angry to discover that they’ve spent their lives in poverty when they needn’t have? That they’ve starved in their hundreds of thousands, giving most of what they own to the Church, not for the glory of God, or because God asked for it, but for the welfare and benefit of lazy clerics, simply because the priests think that is the way it should be? You think people might not be inclined to rebel and spill blood, seeing the proof that the Church has been exploiting them and their families for hundreds of years?

“Those hierarchical clerics I mentioned, popes and patriarchs and the like, are all men, my friend—not a God or a saint among them. And being men, they will go to any lengths they feel are necessary to protect them and their livelihood . To any lengths …

“Should we all vanish from the world tomorrow, we Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ, it would not be the first time in history that such a thing has happened. Archbishops and cardinals take great pride in representing God. They have His ear and they are zealous and jealous in preserving their right to pronounce His opinions and His judgments.”

“So they might wipe us all out. Is that what you are saying?”

“Aye, of course it is. Like flies.”

There was a long pause while they rode in silence, the only sounds being made by their horses’ hooves and the occasional creak of saddle leather, and then Montdidier asked, “So what did de Payens end up saying, really?”

“That we have allies and assets. That we are not without power of our own. That our own roots go back further and deeper than those of the Christian Church. That we have access to, and possession of, the documented truth of what we claim, while no one else has. That we have the ability and the intellect to keep our sources—and our treasure—securely hidden. And that we are not stupid enough to put ourselves at risk by wandering into peril, starry eyed and naïve.

“He said we will win, eventually, but not in any way that I, or you, might ever think of. And at the last, he bade me be patient and prepare myself, and all the rest of you, for great and sweeping changes to our world, changes, he said, that would be incomprehensible and unimaginable were he even to attempt to point them out to us now. They have not yet begun to occur, he said, but once they do begin, they will be unstoppable, and we, the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ and the Temple of Solomon, will have the power to change the entire world.”

Montdidier sat with his head to one side, eyeing St. Clair askance for several minutes before he grunted and said, “All nine of us? That, if you will forgive me for saying so, sounds like the ravings of a madman. And while we are on the topic of madness, tell me, if you will, Stephen, how we all became soldiers of Christ in the first place, when there is not a Christian among us?”

“Protection.” St. Clair did not even hesitate. “Protection, pure and simple. Who would suspect sedition among the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ ? The name allowed us to go about our lives without hindrance while we were seeking the treasure. As for the madness in what de Payens said, I thought the same at first, and then I questioned him more closely. He really does see great changes ahead for us. Recruits, for one thing. He sees us attracting hundreds of them, from all the lands of Christendom.”

“From Christendom … You mean Christian recruits? How can that be? I know the Order of Rebirth has been reborn, but it will continue to be a secret society, will it not? How then can we admit Christian knights?”

“Easily, Crusty. That was the first thing I asked de Payens when he mentioned recruitment, and he had already thought the matter through. Our ancient Order will continue to exist within the new order here in Jerusalem, whether we be called the Order of the Temple Knights or something else. The name we call the new order is not important, but its activities will be, and the activities of the Order of Rebirth will continue to be exercised, concealed among its activities. It will take thought, and much organization, but Hugh and St. Omer think it can be achieved. Hugh believes the Church will be brought to recognize our Order, and that will be the making of us.

“He has great faith in Bernard of Clairvaux, de Montbard’s young nephew who is abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux. He is confident that, with the backing of Clairvaux, allied with our own Order’s Grand Council and all the temporal power that can be brought to bear there by the Angevin Counts, Fulk of Anjou, Hugh of Champagne, and others like them, our Friendly Families will be able to prevail upon the Pope to accept not only the existence and import of our discoveries but also our sincere reassurances that nothing sudden will be forced upon the Church in the near future, until the Church Fathers themselves have had a sufficiency of time to study these matters and decide upon their validity. And in the meantime, he believes, we, and our works here in the Holy Land, will receive the full benison of papal recognition and favor, in return for our cooperation and silence.”

“And you believe that.” It was not a question.

St. Clair looked at his companion and nodded his head slowly. “I do. It took me some time to accept everything I had been told, but I now believe de Payens is right. In finding what we have found, we may have changed the known world and improved the life of every man, alive and to come, from what it has been to this point. For a thousand years there has been nothing, no dissenting voice, to gainsay the Church, or to threaten it with the loss of its worldly influence. Now we have the power to play that role, and in that way we may have made people’s lives better—theirs, and our own. That is worth believing, I think.”