Standard of Honor

food and drink. He kicked a hole in the side of a sandbank, large enough to accommodate his hips and allow him to sit in comfort, his lower back supported by the rising bank, and as soon as Andre saw what he was about, he did the same. Alec then went to his saddlebags and took out a number of wrapped bundles before returning to lay a plain cloth out on the sand between their seats and piling it with surprisingly fresh-looking bread, some slices of cold meat that looked like goat or lamb, a twist of salt, a small jar of olives in spiced oil, and a flask of water.

“They dislike me because they are afraid,” he said eventually. “Afraid of what I might have done, of what I might have learned, of what I might know, or even of what I might not know. They know no shortage of things to be afraid of.”

“But they are monks, Alec, men of God.” That earned him a swift, sidelong glance filled with skepticism, and he flushed quickly, remembering their earlier discussion. “Well, you know what I mean. They should know better than to doubt a brother simply on hearsay.”

Alec looked at him in astonishment. “That is the first truly stupid thing I have heard you say since your arrival, Cousin. They should know better … How could they know better? They have no way of learning otherwise and no one is willing to teach them differently. These men are monks in name only, Andre. You know that. And they are far from being what I call men of God. And because of that, their observance of the monkish code is limited to attending prayers all day and night, and muttering endless Paternosters in between. Most of these men believe their entire salvation depends upon killing Muslims and saying one hundred and fifty Paters a day, yet none of them can count … How does a man who cannot count keep track of one hundred and fifty repetitions of a prayer? The truthful answer is that he does not, and so he simply never stops, preferring to say a few more prayers in sanctity than to run the risk of not saying enough and thereby sinning.

“These are simple, ignorant, unimaginative men, Andre. They believe what they are told to believe, they behave as they are told to behave, and they are all convinced, utterly and beyond hope of change, that no one among them is capable of engendering a single worthwhile thought. They believe that thoughts and opinions, along with planning and directives, emanate from above, from beyond their experience. And so they listen to what they are told, and they behave accordingly because none of them would ever dare to question anything that came down to them from on high. Thus, they have heard that I am intractable, that I hold opinions that run contrary to the Order’s view of things, and since they know that means I ought to be punished, yet can see that I have not been punished, they are confused. And confusion breeds fear and panic.”

“And so they abuse you, rather than remain silent and be thought to agree with you?”

“Something akin to that, yes.”

“So tell me, then, about Muslims. What is it you believe that so upsets everyone?”

Alec Sinclair nodded, then busied himself with eating, chewing his food thoroughly and making no attempt to say anything further until he was replete and had washed down his meal with water from the flask. Andre, who finished at the same time, leaned back in his sand chair and folded his hands over his belly.

“That was good. Thank you. So, are you going to tell me?”

“Of course I am. I believe that Muslims are people, just like us, with all the same needs, desires, duties, and obligations, albeit they differ in interpretation.”

“So you have said. But that belief hardly seems radical enough to cause the kind of concern I see on the faces of your brethren when they look at you.”

Sinclair nodded again. “Carry it, then, to the next step.”

“I don’t understand what you are saying. Carry what to which next step?”

“The belief I have. Take it beyond a casual thinking about the ordinary people, and think of it from the viewpoint I am about to suggest. It will make things easier for you to understand.

“I have been out here for more than a decade now … closer to two decades, in truth.” He reached up and removed his helm, then loosened the bindings that held his mailed hood tightly in place. He pushed it back and off his head, and scratched vigorously at his shorn scalp. That done, he squirmed, twisting his buttocks in the sand until they were more comfortable, then leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. “There! That’s much better. Now, back to history.

“I was of middle status in the brotherhood, just like you, which meant that I had learned enough of the Order’s lore, in certain specific areas, to enable me to go forth and build upon what I knew. Like you, I had learned the tongue of the Saracens before setting out, taught to me by men of great learning, Arabs all, who had much in common with our senior and most learned Councillors of the brotherhood. I could have gone to Outremer alone, right then, but that would have meant operating alone thenceforth, with no support, thousands of miles from home. Much simpler, the Council thought, for me to join the Order of the Temple, where we already had a well- established network of the brotherhood working in secrecy. And so I joined the Temple and came out here, and since then, until I was captured after Hattin, I went about my primary work … Does the name Masyaf mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“Probably not, but that was where I was sent first by the brotherhood, after my arrival here in Outremer. I was attached to an intake of Templars assigned to garrison duty in the fortress at Safita, the one the Templars call Castel Blanc. It’s in Syria, north and east of Tyre. My instructions were to establish myself there, and then to contact Rashid al-Din Sinan, using an intermediary in the town of Masyaf.”

“Sinan? I know that name. Isn’t he—?”

“The Old Man of the Mountain. Aye, he is. The imam of the cult called the Assassins.”

“God’s eyebrows! Why would you be asked to contact him? To what end?”

“To several ends. There are certain matters in which the imam and our ancient Order share a common interest, not the least among those being what would appear to such as you and me as ancient and indecipherable mysteries. Rashid al-Din Sinan prides himself upon being something of a mystic and a clairvoyant, and he is an ascetic. He is also supposedly pious and demonstrably ruthless, and his reputation frightens even Saladin, who should twice have died at an Assassin’s hands long since and remains alive today only through the best of good fortune and blind chance. How Sinan and the brotherhood first came into contact with each other I know not, but the relationship is now more than forty years old.”

“And you were commanded to contact him …”

“Aye, I was. Jacques de Saint Germain, who had been the Council’s main liaison with the imam for more than twenty years, had died some time earlier, and I was his replacement. Sinan knew I would be coming, so I had no difficulty in finding him, especially through the Temple.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Then pin your ears back, lad, for there are clearly huge gaps in your knowledge. The Assassins are a terrifying group and they hold all of Outremer in a thrall of fear. But forty years ago, in seeking to expand their power and influence within a new territory, they overreached themselves and killed King Raymond II of Tripoli. In retaliation, the Templars were turned loose against them, operating from their bases at Castel Rouge and Castel Blanc, and they wrought havoc among the local populace until Sinan was forced to sue for truce. And ever since then the Assassins have been paying a heavy annual tribute to the Temple in return for the liberty to conduct their own affairs.”

“But they are Muslims … how can the Temple treat thus with the enemy?”

“Because they are not the enemy. Your interpretation is wrong. They are Shi’a. Ismaeli Shi’ites descended from Persian roots. They are the deadly enemies of Saladin and his Sunni followers, but any enmity they may feel for us is merely incidental. Rashid himself, the Old Man, was born in Basra, in Iraq, but he came into Syria as dai, or Imam of the Cult, only a short time before the killing of Raymond of Tripoli. That may have been one of his early moves to assert his dominance, but if it was, it was a costly error. Soon after that, he entered into a relationship with the Temple. The two organizations have much in common, when you sit down and think about it. Both are closed societies with arcane rites that they conduct in secrecy, far from the sight and hearing of ordinary men. Both are ascetic, too, in every sense of the word. And both are dedicated to death, in a manner of speaking—dedicated to high and vaunting ideals and prepared to die gladly in battle to achieve and protect them. Neither one has much difficulty in appreciating the objectives of the other.”

There was a silence then, and when Andre accepted that his cousin had no more to add, he prompted, “So this is why your brethren distrust you, this association with the Assassins?”

“No, by God’s wounds! None of them even knows about that. That liaison was a personal relationship, a