sat rapt, watching Andre’s lips and missing not a nuance of the tale unfolding in front of him. When the younger man fell silent at last, neither of them made any attempt to speak for a long time. It was eventually Justin who broke the silence.
“Hmph,” he grunted, then fell silent again for a short time before adding, “Well, then, why are you here? Why would you not simply go ahead and take what you have been offered? You have sworn no vows and undertaken no obligations to this point that might prevent you from doing so. Most men would do anything to gain what you are offered. You have not refused the honor, have you?”
Andre was frowning. “No, I have not. Not yet, but—”
“Then why tell me about it, in God’s name? Why would you even hesitate in this?”
“You yourself used the word that stops me.”
“I did?” Justin frowned now. “What word was that?”
“Honor, Brother. It is an ideal, and a reality that I value highly, particularly since it seems to be greatly out of use and favor nowadays.”
“Aah … Honor, I see. Yes, honor can be inconvenient.”
St. Clair shook his head. “I disagree, Brother Justin. I believe that honor is never inconvenient, and the lack or absence of it in any situation repels me. I see nothing of honor, no slightest trace of it, in what I have described to you here.”
“And so you will have none of it, is that what you are tell-ing me?”
“Aye, sir. It is.”
“You set a high standard for others to follow, then.”
“No, I do not. The standards I may set are mine alone, for me to follow. I expect no others to accept my dictates. They are my own, as is my honor.”
Justin pursed his lips and nodded. “Good man. So mote it be. I expected no less of you, and you have my full support. But tell me, why did you not go directly with this to de Sable? He has your interests at heart and holds higher rank within the brotherhood than I do. He also wields more influence in matters like this.”
St. Clair had started shaking his head as soon as Justin spoke de Sable’s name. “I dared not. Sir Robert is a good man and I know him well and I believe he trusts me, but he is close friends with Richard—has been for years. They are even related, cousins of some kind. I simply dared not take that kind of risk with this. It is too dangerous … Not that I thought he might betray me to Richard. He would never do that, I know, but he might betray himself inadvertently, and bring about his own destruction by showing his disapproval in some way. His honor, too, is great, and strictly guarded, and that would make it difficult for him to conceal his distaste over Richard’s treatment of the Queen. I could not forgive myself were he to be killed because of something I told him when there was no need to do so.”
“Hmm. You are probably right. It is too dangerous. We may never know with certainty whether you were right or wrong, but we do have other options and I think you were correct in choosing as you have … What’s wrong?”
St. Clair had been frowning. “Nothing, save that you do not appear to be surprised by anything I have told you.”
“Should I be? Do you mean I should be shocked and scandalized at venality and carnality, the lusts of these men and women? What would make you think that? I joined our brotherhood when I was eighteen, Brother Andre, as you did, and since then I have studied without rest to advance myself inside our Order and find the true Way to be with God. And most of what I have learned has been based upon the gulf created between God and men when our ancient Way was lost in the destruction of Jerusalem in Roman times, after the deaths of Jesus and his brother James. After that, as our ancient lore teaches us, humanity was left to wander in the wilderness, vainly attempting to find their way to God by following the errant footsteps of mere men, who were as mortal and as weak and foolish as those who followed them, no matter what great names and titles they bestowed upon themselves. Stripped of godliness, there remains in man’s nature nothing but feeble, fragile, and self-seeking humanity. So no, I am not surprised. My task is to find some way to make use of what you have told me in order to benefit the aims of our brotherhood. Thus I am glad you came to me first, for the aid we must now seek lies within the Temple Order itself, and de Sable is not yet one of them.
“We need to keep you here, from this time on, beyond Richard’s reach, and that could be but a temporary respite at best, since he may yet come looking for you as your liege lord. We can hope all his attention may be absorbed in the coming days by this Isaac Comnenus nonsense, but the only truly effective way to keep you beyond his reach is to induct you formally into the Temple as a knight. To that end, I will call upon some of the brethren to assemble as soon as may be.”
“You mean to induct me alone, without the other novices? How can that be done?”
“By speed and stealth, born of necessity. And not only can it be done, it can be done quickly. We have reason and motive. All we need now is a sufficiency of knights to conduct the ceremony.”
St. Clair grimaced. “Reason and motive. Is merely saving me from the King’s clutches, in the matter of an escapade of which we cannot speak, sufficient to provide both of those? How will you justify this to others?”
“Easily. First of all, the King has nothing to do with this. Be clear on that from the outset and bear it in mind from now on. I told you that your cousin appears to be alive and well, but that several of his fellow Templars might dispute that. Sir Alexander, not for the first time, is causing grief among his fellow Templars, challenging their standards at times and scorning them at others. He was ever a prickly man, your cousin, prickly and unyielding in his righteousness, but he was seldom wrong, a fact that, while it reflected well upon his name, did little to endear him to his less uncompromising peers. But now he has come back from captivity among the Saracens pouring out allegations of incompetence and corruption within the Templar hierarchy, along with other ideas that do little to endear him to his fellows, and when they challenged him on what he was saying—challenged him very bluntly, I understand—he vanished again, into the desert. The other Templars over there now say he has been suborned and seduced by Saladin and his ungodly beliefs, and they want him stripped of his rank and membership in the Order, and then banished, excommunicate.”
“Sweet Jesus! Can they do that?”
“Aye, if they see a need for it. They are Christian monks—men of God and thus entitled to punish wrongdoing or dereliction of duty mercilessly. They can do it, never delude yourself on that.”
“How long has he been free? Was he ransomed?”
“No. According to what I read, he was set free in an exchange of prisoners. But be all of that as it may, he has information that we of the brotherhood gravely need, information that he was sent out there to gather years ago, and it has been many years since any of the Council of the brotherhood have had direct dealings with him. Alexander Sinclair trusts no one at face value and never has. Now we have someone to send to him, from within the Temple, whom he will be inclined to trust instinctively. You and he were friends once, so he will trust you more easily than someone he has never met. Therefore you will be the one promoted and dispatched to bring him back into the Order, where he may be examined by his peers of the Temple. That will, at least, be the ostensible purpose underlying your induction and rapid dispatch to Acre—the requirements of the Temple and your duty to meet and execute those requirements, involving a special dispensation and a rapid induction and promotion predicated upon your family connections and your former friendship with Alexander Sinclair.
“Whether you can convince him to return and be judged, of course, remains to be seen. Your real objectives, however, when all is said and done, will have nothing to do with the Temple,
“And that information consists of what?”
Justin grinned, a vulpine, leering twisting of his uncomely features. “If I could answer that, Master St. Clair, there would be no need to send you all the way to Acre in such a rush, would there?”
“Hmm. What about the vows—where will I take those?”
“Two of them you have taken already, with merely minor differences. You’ll simply repeat them. I’ll be the one to lead you through that part, so I will put the words in your mouth and you will merely respond. These are illiterates, for the most part. No one who is not of our brotherhood will notice that the wording of the first two vows is different.”
“I have no concerns over those two. It’s the third of them that concerns me.”
Brother Justin raised both eyebrows. “The vow of chastity? But you have already made your choice on that
