'Where are we going?' he called out.
Aimard didn't break his step. 'The Falcon Temple awaits us. Hurry.'
Martin stopped in his tracks, his mind reeling in confusion. We're leaving.
He had known Aimard of Villiers since the death of his own father, a knight himself, fifteen years earlier, when Martin was barely five years old. Ever since, Aimard had been his guardian, his mentor. His hero. They had fought many battles together and it was fitting, Martin believed, that they would stand side by side and die together when the end came. But not this. This was insane.
This was . . . desertion.
Aimard stopped too, but only to grasp Martin's shoulder and push him into motion. 'Make haste,'
he ordered.
'No,' Martin yelled, flicking Aimard's hand off him.
'Yes,' the older knight insisted tersely.
Martin felt nausea rising in his throat; his face clouded as he struggled for words. 'I will not desert our brothers,' he stammered. 'Not now— not ever!'
Aimard heaved a ponderous sigh and glanced back at the besieged city. Blazing projectiles were arcing into the night sky and hurtling down into it from all sides. Still clutching the small chest, he turned and took a menacing step forward so that their faces were now inches apart, and Martin saw that his friend's eyes were wet with unshed tears. 'Do you think I want to abandon them?' he hissed, his voice slicing the air. 'Abandon our master—in his final hour? You know me better than that.'
Martin's mind seethed with turmoil. 'Then . . . why?'
'What we have to do is far more important than killing a few more of those rabid dogs,' Aimard replied somberly. 'It's crucial to the survival of our Order. It's crucial if we are to make sure everything we've worked for doesn't die here as well. We have to go. Now.'
Martin opened his mouth to protest, but Aimard's expression was fiercely unequivocal. Martin bowed his head in curt, if unwilling, acquiescence and followed.
The only vessel remaining in the port was the Falcon Temple, the other galleys having sailed away before the Saracen assault had cut off the city's main harbor a week earlier. Already low in the water, it was being loaded by slaves, sergeant-brothers, and knights. Question after question tumbled through Martin's brain but he had no time to ask any of them. As they approached the dock, he could see the shipmaster, an old sailor he knew only as Hugh and who, he also knew, was held in high regard by the grand master. The burly man was watching the feverish activity from the deck of his ship. Martin scanned the ship from the aftcastle at the stern, past its high mast and to the stem from which sprang the figurehead, a remarkably lifelike carving of a fierce bird of prey.
Without breaking step, Aimard's voice bellowed out to the ship's master. 'Are the water and provisions loaded?'
'They are.'
'Then abandon the rest and set sail at once.'
Within minutes, the gangplank was pulled in, the mooring ropes cast off, and the Falcon Temple was pulled away from the dockside by oarsmen in the ship's longboat. Before long, the overseer had called out and the banks of galley slaves had dipped their oars into the dark water. Martin watched as the rowers scrambled up onto the deck then hauled the longboat up and made it secure. To the rhythmic beat of a deep gong and the grunts of over a hundred and fifty chained rowers, the ship gathered speed and cleared the great wall of the Templar compound.
As the galley moved into open water, arrows rained down on it while the sea around it erupted with huge, sizzling explosions of white foam as the Sultan's crossbows and catapults were trained on the escaping galley. It was soon beyond their range, and Martin stood up, glancing back at die receding landscape. Hordes of warriors lined the city's ramparts, howling and jeering at the ship like caged animals. Behind them, an inferno raged, resounding with the shouts and screams of men, women, and children, all against the incessant rolling thunder of the drums of war.
Slowly, the ship gathered speed, aided by the offshore wind, its banks of oars rising and falling like wings skimming the darkening waters. On die distant horizon, the sky had turned black and threatening.
It was over.
His hands still shaking and his heart leaden, Martin of Carmaux slowly and reluctantly turned his back on the land of his birth and stared ahead at the storm that awaited diem.
Chapter 1
At first, no one noticed the four horsemen as they emerged out of the darkness of Central Park.
Instead, all eyes were focused four blocks south where, under a barrage of flashbulbs and television lights, a steady stream of limos decanted elegantly attired celebrities and lesser mortals onto the curb outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It was one of those mammoth events that no other city could pull off quite as well as New York, least of all when the hosting venue happened to be the Met. Spectacularly lit up and with searchlight beams swirling across the black April sky above it, the sprawling building was like an irresistible beacon in the heart of the city, beckoning its guests through the austere columns of its neoclassical facade, over which floated a banner that read:
TREASURES OF THE VATICAN
There had been talk of postponing the event, or even canceling it altogether. Yet again, recent intelligence reports had prompted the government to raise the national terror alert level to orange.
Across the country, state and local authorities had stepped up security measures, and although New York City had been at orange since 9/11, additional precautions were taken. National Guard troops were posted at subways and bridges, while police officers were working twelve-hour shifts.
The exhibition, given its subject matter, was deemed to be particularly at risk. Despite all this, strong wills had prevailed and the museum's board had voted to stick to its plans. The show would go on as planned, further testimony to the city's unbreakable spirit.
***
A young woman with impeccable hair and brightly enameled teeth stood with her back to the museum, taking her third shot at getting her intro right. Having failed at studiously knowledgeable and blase, the reporter was going for earnest this time as she stared into the lens.
'I can't remember the last time the Met hosted such a star-studded party, certainly nothing since the Mayan show and that's going back a few years,' she announced as a chubby, middle-aged man stepped out of a limo with a tall, angular woman in a blue evening dress a size too tight and a generation too young for her. 'And there's the mayor and his lovely wife,' the reporter gushed, 'our very own royal family and fashionably late, of course.'
Going on in earnest, she adopted a more serious look and added, 'Many of the artifacts on display here tonight have never been seen by the public before, anywhere. They've been locked away in the vaults of the Vatican for hundreds of years and—'
Just then, a sudden surge of whistles and cheers from the crowd distracted her. Her voice trailing off, she glanced away from the camera, her eyes drifting toward the growing commotion.
And that was when she saw the horsemen.
The horses were superb specimens: imperious grays and chestnuts, with flowing black tails and manes. But it was their riders that had roused the crowd.
The four men, riding abreast, were all dressed in identical medieval armor. They had visored helmets, chain-mail vests, flanged plate leggings over black jerkins and quilted hose. They looked as though they had just beamed in through a time-travel portal. Further dramatizing the effect, long scabbarded broadswords hung from their waists. Most striking of all, they wore long white mantles over their armor, each bearing a splayed, blood-red cross.
The horses were now moving at a gentle trot.
The crowd went wild with excitement as the knights advanced slowly, staring ahead, oblivious to the hoopla around them.
'Well, what do we have here? It looks like the Met and the Vatican have pulled out all the stops tonight, and
