Knights of the Black and White Book One

In the years that followed his Raising, from the age of eighteen until he was twenty-five, Hugh de Payens learned a great deal about life, while making rapid progress through the Levels of Learning of the Order of Rebirth, but he appeared to take little overt interest in any of the great changes that were occurring in the world around him. He was the kind of young man that people think of as being driven, impelled by a force that sets him apart and spurs him constantly to succeed in everything he attempts. Thus, when it came to his knightly responsibilities he fought like a lion, mastering sword, axe, dagger, mace, and spear, and even the crossbow, and was unbeatable either in the lists or in the butts, where his accuracy with the steel crossbow bolts quickly became a matter for awe. At the same time, he maintained a constant and focused attention to his studies within the Order of Rebirth, spending far more time with his tutors and elders than he did with people of his own age.

Commitment on such a scale carries a certain penalty, in that it leaves little time for things that are considered unimportant. Had anyone thought to ask for Hugh’s opinion, they might have been perplexed to discover that, at such an early age, he considered relaxation or leisurely behavior of any kind unimportant and frivolous. He had no interest in carousing with his fellow knights, and he made no secret of the fact that he found the drinking of ale, for the mere sake of drinking until one grew drunk, to be a useless, feckless pursuit. That earned him little liking among his peers. But Hugh had friends enough, he believed; Godfrey St. Omer and Payn Montdidier had been his friends since boyhood, and even then he would have trusted them with his life. In later life he was to do exactly that, time and time again.

Godfrey’s family, the St. Omer clan, held great estates in Picardy, and Godfrey had spent almost half his boyhood there, usually the winter months each year, obediently but under protest, since he was by far a younger son, fifth in line to inherit. He much preferred the other half of his life, where he spent the long summers in his mother’s domain, which was close to Payens and the residence of her favorite cousin, Hugh’s mother, and the friendship between their mothers had made it almost inevitable that the two boys should be friends, too.

Godfrey, much like Hugh in many things, was the perfect foil to him in others. The two were of an age, a mere ten months separating their births, with Godfrey the elder, and there was not a single item of physical similarity between them to indicate that they might be related to each other. Godfrey, with bright golden hair, had always appeared, at least from a distance, to be the more comely of the two youths, but on closer view, his blue eyes were set perceptibly closer together than were Hugh’s brown ones, and although both lads had open, friendly countenances, the few girls of their acquaintance seemed to prefer Hugh’s dark, saturnine appearance to Godfrey’s sunny, golden one. The sole exception to that rule, as might be expected, was Hugh’s younger sister, Louise, who had never had eyes for anyone other than Godfrey St. Omer since she grew old enough to recognize him from a distance. Godfrey, for his part, saw nothing out of place in that and was happy to return her high regard in equal measure.

Perhaps because of their close association with each other since childhood—Godfrey felt closer to Hugh than he ever had to any of his own brothers—they were equally skilled with weapons, although when he had to, Hugh could usually outfight Godfrey with swords. With the crossbow, however, a controversial weapon at the best of times since its distant and impersonal lethality seemed inconsistent with the spirit of chivalry, Godfrey always performed dismally and therefore tended to dismiss it contemptuously as being a weapon for old men and cripples. He was also as literate and well read as Hugh, thereby sharing an attribute that was viewed with deep suspicion by their fellow knights, most of whom were as ignorant as fence posts and regarded literacy as a clerical vice on a par with self-abuse and homosexuality. But where Hugh tended to be serious and single-minded to the point of sometimes appearing rigid and aloof, Godfrey was mercurial, with a sparkling wit, an irreverent, endearing, and never-failing sense of humor, and an inexhaustible willingness to see another person’s point of view. He could cut through a conversational impasse or an awkward moment with a single barbed comment that usually brought laughter and averted unpleasantness.

The third and eldest member of their triumvirate, as they liked to call themselves, was Payn Montdidier, another Friendly Families scion and related somehow to both of them, although none of them ever bothered to inquire into the complexities of the cousinship; they were friends and that was all that mattered to any of them. Payn, like Hugh, was native to the County of Champagne. His father, like Hugh’s own, was a senior and highly respected officer and tenant of Count Hugh, and Baron Hugo’s wife was a Montdidier. Payn was a couple of months older than Goff and a year older than Hugh, and he had everything the others lacked in personal appearance and appeal. He was tall and slim, long legged, broad shouldered and narrow waisted even as a boy, and he had grown to manhood without losing any of his boyhood charm or his winning, affable ways. The tallest of the friends, a full head taller than Godfrey St. Omer, Payn had shoulder-length light brown hair, streaked with blond, and startling, amber-colored eyes that had frequently wrung sighs from the young women in their community.

Fortunately for everyone, Payn was genuinely unaware of his attractiveness, and his easy, informal friendliness and ready smile made it a simple thing for him to weave his way effortlessly through and around all the amatory threats that surrounded him constantly, without once giving serious offense to any of his disappointed lovers. Equally fortunately, for Payn himself, his fighting and riding skills set him sufficiently far above his more sullen and jealous rivals to ensure that he was never bothered by petty squabbles. He was a sound, solid friend, infinitely dependable, and Hugh and Godfrey felt deprived whenever he was not with them. In the year that followed Hugh’s Raising, the three young men enjoyed what would be the most carefree time of their entire lives, and although much of their day, every day, was dedicated to duty and responsibilities, they nevertheless contrived to find ample time to enjoy themselves.

There was one more member of their group—one might have called him the fourth in the triumvirate, if such a thing were not logically impossible. As Sir Hugh de Payens, Hugh had an associate called Arlo, who was nominally and by birth a servant, but the two had been together for so long that Hugh simply accepted Arlo as a constant presence in his life, sharing most of his thoughts and activities first as a childhood friend and companion, then later as a classmate in learning to read and write, and later still, as both boys grew towards manhood, as his assistant, squire, bodyguard, and companion-at-arms.

The two of them were even closer to each other in age than Hugh was to Godfrey and Payn, and Arlo’s father, Manon de Payens, had served Baron Hugo all his life. His eldest son, Arlo, had been born within three months and two hundred paces of young Hugh, and from the day of his birth it had been understood that Arlo, who also called himself de Payens because of his birth within the barony, would serve the future Sir Hugh as his father had served Baron Hugo. Since then the two had been inseparable as boys and as men, sharing from the very outset of their lives that unique relationship, based upon total trust and mutual loyalty, that sometimes springs up between master and retainer. They had grown to know each other so well that frequently they had no need even to speak to each other, so close were they to thinking as one.

The Order of Rebirth was the sole topic proscribed among the four, never mentioned by any of the others in Arlo’s hearing, and that had been an unforeseen development, starting at the moment of Hugh’s first encounter with the Order. It was the only aspect of his new status that he did not enjoy wholeheartedly, since it meant that, after eighteen years of sharing every aspect of his life openly and fully with Arlo, he now found himself constrained to keep secrets from him. That he could understand and even justify the need for such secrecy did nothing at all to lessen his regret, but he had no other option than to accept that Arlo was not, and could never be, a member of the Order.

His dilemma resolved itself in a way that he could never have anticipated. He had been convinced that Arlo suspected nothing of what was going on, but there came a day when, for one reason after another, Hugh had had to shut Arlo out not merely once but three times in a single afternoon, and he grew angry at himself for not being able to do so less obviously, for it was clear that Arlo knew something untoward was going on. That night, however, in the period after dinner and before lights out, Arlo himself brought the matter up, in his own blunt, straightforward manner. It was a cool evening and they were outside, sitting alone by a well-established fire close to the stables, sharpening blades, Arlo with Hugh’s sword and Hugh himself with a long, pointed dagger.

“Had a busy afternoon, today, didn’t you?” Arlo spoke without raising his head from what he was doing. “You were scuttling around like a mouse in a miller’s storehouse, frowning and biting your tongue all day.”

Hugh stiffened as he wondered what was coming next.

“Days like that come and go, for all of us.” Arlo straightened his back and laid the hilt of the sword against his knee before turning to look at Hugh.

“You’re grumpy and you’re upset. I can see that … Everyone can see it. But you’ve been getting worse, that way at least, ever since you attended that big Gathering a few months ago.” He held out the sword and squinted at the blade, looking for rust spots. “D’you know why I didn’t attend that Gathering?” He glanced back just in time to see Hugh blink in astonishment at hearing such a question even asked. “’Course you do. I wasn’t invited, that’s why. And was glad to have it that way … or I would have been glad, if I’d thought about it. It just isn’t my place to attend such things. I wouldn’t feel right, sitting there gawping among all you knights in all your fine clothes. Just the same way as you wouldn’t feel right sitting around the kitchens with the scullions and the rest of us, eating the food we sometimes eat.”

Hugh was frowning at him. “I am not sure I understand what you’re saying, Arlo.”

“Why not? It’s plain enough.” Arlo expelled a breath. “You and I are friends, Hugh, but before anything else, we’re also master and servant—you the Baron’s son, and me the Baron’s servant’s son. I never lose sight of that, but sometimes you do, and you shouldn’t. Not ever. So now you’re a man and you have new things to think about, things to which I can’t be privy. I can sometimes see you fretting over it, like today. Well, you shouldn’t, because I don’t fret over it and I don’t want to know whatever it is that keeps you so agitated. It’s not my place to know about such things, and that pleases me.” He looked Hugh straight in the eye. “I’m quite happy doing the things I have to do. I have enough of them to keep me occupied, I know how to do them all, and I can do them in my sleep if I have to. D’you hear what I’m saying to you?”

“Aye.” Hugh had begun to smile. “You are telling me to mind my own affairs and keep them to myself, and to leave you to yours. I hear you.”

“Good, because you’re going to cut a finger off there if you don’t start looking to what you’re about.”

WHEN THE TIME FINALLY CAME for Godfrey to marry Hugh’s sister, Louise—Godfrey was almost twenty-one years old by that time, and tardy in taking up his spousal duties—the event had been so long awaited, its inevitability accepted, that it barely occasioned comment from Hugh and Payn; Louise had always been more of a friend than a sister to Hugh, and her relationship to Payn had been remarkably similar, in that they, too, were like brother and sister, so both men knew well that Godfrey’s marriage to her would make little difference to the closeness they shared with him.

What no one expected, however, was that Payn, around the same time, would wed the Lady Margaret St. Clair. The two had met when Margaret accompanied her father on his visit to Champagne from England to attend Hugh’s Raising, and although Payn had been far more enamored of Margaret than she of him, it became evident, much later, that he had none the less impressed her very favorably. So much so, as Hugh and his friends later discovered, that the Lady Margaret had done everything in her power, from the moment she returned home to England, to persuade her father to return with her to the civilized world of Champagne once again.

Sir Stephen, whose wife had died many years earlier, was utterly defenseless against both the wiles and the wishes of his only daughter, and had been so since the day of her birth, but he was unable to indulge her in this instance because of his duties and responsibilities to the King of England, William Rufus, son of William I, the Conqueror. But circumstances soon conspired with those same duties and responsibilities to oblige St. Clair, willing or no, to send Margaret back to Champagne without him. She arrived in the Barony of Payens in the early autumn of 1091, accompanied by a respectable retinue and bearing a heavy letter from her father to his old friend Baron Hugo, who was gracious enough to conceal any sense of misgiving he might have felt at the lady’s unexpected reappearance, and to welcome her into his home and family. Then, once his wife and his ecstatic daughter had ushered her ladyship off to show her where she would be living and to distribute the people in her entourage among their own servants, the Baron sat down to read the letter from his friend. It was written on six sheets of heavy sheepskin vellum, carefully cured and scraped and softened with great care, then drafted with great precision, so that Hugo knew it had been dictated to one of Sir Stephen’s scribes.

York

This Fifth Day of June, Anno Domini 1091

To Hugo, Baron of Payens in the County of Champagne:

Greetings, my friend.

This missive, when it reaches you, will be accompanied bymy greatest and most precious earthly possession, my daughterMargaret, and the mere fact of her presence there with youwhile I remain here in England will assure you that I am notmaking this approach to you lightly. Were I not deeply afraidfor her safety now, I would never voluntarily part from her,nor would I impose upon you the task with which you are nowfaced: that of caring for another man’s child. Margaret is nolonger a child, however, and that is another contributingfactor to this decision of mine.

Since the death of my wife, as you are aware, Margarethas been the light of my life, and she has been saintly in hertolerance and acceptance of the discomforts and indignitiesto which my life, and my way of living it, have subjected her.A castle such as mine is no fit place for a young woman, asyou are well aware. It is functional, Spartan, and unlovely, itswalls made of earth, fronted by sharpened tree trunks, andits buildings primitive, drafty, and mud-filled, containing noamenities for a young, well-born woman. It is a fortress,making no claim to being a home, and I have finally come tosee that, in merely keeping my daughter here, I am condemningher, if not to death, then at least to misery and squalor. We—William’s Normans—have now been here in England fortwo decades and a half, and in this region of York for sixteenyears, and the local Saxons are no less rebellious and savagenow than they were when first we came. I should have sentmy daughter far away from here years ago, but in my ownweakness and self-centered folly, I have been afraid to partwith her, for she provides my only reminder of beauty in thisrain-drenched, sodden, chilly land.

Now, however, we are at war again, facing yet anotherinvasion from the north, and since I cannot guarantee hersafety, I have no other choice but to send her to you, knowingthat she could be in no safer hands.

Malcolm Canmohr, the King of Scotland, has come backto vanquish us—his third attempt in twenty years—and KingWilliam has decided yet again that I should be the one tothrow the fellow out. I did it before, nine years ago, and wethought to have done with it then, but now the Conqueror isdead, and Canmohr—the name means Great Chief, I amtold—seems to believe the new king will be easier to oust thanhis father was. Foolish man. His wife, revered by her peopleas some kind of saint, shares my daughter’s name, but she isfirst cousin to Egbert, the Saxon heir to the former Englishthrone, and thus she is unsaintly enough to provoke herhusband into squandering huge numbers of men in trying towin back his kingdom, not merely once, but thrice. And so Imust march in three days’ time.

My army is assembling as I write, and will consist of everyavailable man I can conscript, and one effect of that will bethat I must leave my own castle defenses to the care of a tinyskeleton crew who will keep the gates closed until I return. Faced with the inevitability of that, and with the real possibilitythat I might not return at all from this campaign, I havemade arrangements to ship my precious Margaret into yourcare. She and a small party will leave tomorrow. The man incharge of her party, appointed personally by myself, is calledGiscard, and he and his two sons, Michel and Rombaud, areentrusted with sufficient gold, in three sound chests, to dowerthe girl suitably for any match you might arrange for her infuture times.

I have no knowledge of when, or whether, you might hearfrom me again, my friend, but neither have I any doubt that mybeloved daughter, in your hands and under your supervision,could be better served under any circumstances. Watch overher for me, and I hope to see you both again soon.

St. Clair

For the next three years, no word came out of England concerning St. Clair. No one even knew if the Scots invasion had been successful in the north. The Normans in the south of the country were still in power. That was common knowledge, but nothing was known for sure about anything else, because William Rufus willed it so and no one dared provoke his anger. Unknowing then whether his old friend was dead or alive, Baron Hugo had assumed full parental responsibility for the young woman by the end of her first full year of residence with him, and treated her exactly as he treated his own daughters, even going so far as to arrange her marriage to young Payn Montdidier in the autumn of 1092, as an eminently suitable match, advantageous to all parties, and one that he knew her father himself would approve. The bridal couple were nowhere near as visibly in love as Louise de Payens and St. Omer had been, but they enjoyed and admired each other, and everyone agreed that that was the required basis for a lasting and successful marriage.

FIVE (#uee30750c-e2f0-5c8e-9b30-bfec832d73a1)

For a time after that, life was idyllic for the three young men of the triumvirate. The two who were married lived in utter contentment, their wives the closest of friends, and Hugh, the unwed third, was more than satisfied to be able to work as hard as he wished on his studies of the Order of Rebirth without the distractions his now-preoccupied friends would normally have caused him.

The idyll came to an end on a day in May 1093, when Godfrey and Payn came to Hugh’s quarters together, looking decidedly ill at ease. Hugh saw at first glance that something was seriously wrong, and he immediately set aside the book he had been studying and stood up.

“What has happened? What’s wrong?”

Godfrey and Payn looked at each other—guiltily, was Hugh’s first thought—and neither one appeared to have any wish to answer him.

Godfrey sank onto a bench against the wall by the window. “They know,” he said.

“Who knows, and what?”

Payn cleared his throat. “The girls, Margaret and Louise. They know about the Order.”

“They what?”

“They know about it,” Godfrey muttered. “They’ve been talking about it, discussing and comparing their ideas, and they came right out and asked us about it, about what we do at the Gatherings.”

“In God’s name …” Hugh was barely able to speak, so profound was his shock. “What have you two done? How could you forget your oaths like that? Were they not awful enough, the dreadful penalties you undertook to suffer for betraying them?”

“We have done nothing, Hugh. We forgot nothing and we have said nothing. Neither one of us has as much as breathed a single word to anyone outside our Lodge. Believe me, we have asked each other everything there is to ask since we learned of this, and neither one of us has as much as whispered a word of anything to do with the Order.”

“Yet your wives know of it.” He waited, seeing only misery in their faces. “When did you discover this? How long ago did they ask you about it?”

“Today,” Godfrey said, meeting Hugh’s eye directly. “This afternoon, no more than an hour ago. We came to you immediately.”

“And what exactly did they ask you?”

Payn looked bewildered. “I … I don’t know … I can’t remember. I felt such horror when I realized what they were saying that I was struck dumb. All I can remember thinking is, They know. How couldthey know?”