By the end of the following few days, the three knights had catalogued and cross-referenced every single item of information in the Count’s dispatches, and they had established, beyond dispute, that their target lay, at least partially, beneath the foundations of the al-Aqsa Mosque. A minimum distance of sixty paces separated them, they estimated, from their objective in the bowels of the ancient temple, and much of that distance involved bedrock. The lower levels of the Temple Mount itself, they had learned from their reading, were riddled with networks and mazes of tunnels dug over the millennia, but all access to those tunnels appeared to have been confined to the inner precincts of the temple. Only people inside the temple had been able to enter the tunnels, and the temple had been destroyed, its subterranean interior demolished and filled in a thousand years earlier by the Jewish priests themselves, in order to defeat and frustrate Titus’s rapacious legions. The new diggers knew that while it was at least conceivable that they might intersect an ancient tunnel in the course of their excavations, and be faced thereafter with merely clearing out the debris that had accumulated since the tunnels were last used, the odds against such an occurrence were incalculable.
Hugh de Payens put the entire situation into words for the other knights at their next official Gathering, while the sergeant brothers were in the city, celebrating a local feast day.
“The situation with the temple—our distance from it—is as we suspected. We are a long way removed from where we wish to be. But there are other, additional considerations that, together with everything else, will make all our lives more interesting in future. We have been poring over the information sent us by the Seneschal, and we can tell you several things with absolute certainty, based upon what we have discovered in the documents he has supplied.
“Prime among those is that the treasure we are looking for is there. We have no doubt of that, and we are confident that we know exactly where it is.
“Unfortunately, the task of finding it, or more accurately, the task of reaching it in the first place, threatens to be a labor worthy of Hercules. The rock beneath the temple foundations is honeycombed with passages and tunnels, but there are no known entrances to any of them and we have no way of reaching them by what anyone would think of as normal means. You all know we cannot simply go outside and start digging beside the palace walls, and so we have to dig straight down, through the solid stone of the mountain, from here in our own quarters, these stables.” He paused to allow his listeners to absorb that, then added, “We estimate that we will have to dig as far as thirty paces—one hundred feet—straight down, then angle straight inward from there, beneath the foundations of the palace behind us, which we believe are also the foundations of the earliest temple, Solomon’s Temple … perhaps an additional fifty to sixty feet. It will take years, but with luck and strong security, we can do it.”
“What d’you mean, security?” Sir Geoffrey Bissot’s voice was a low rumble of sound, and de Payens looked at him and smiled.
“Protection, brother. We will have safeguards to ensure that no one from outside will ever come close enough to suspect that we are digging tunnels.”
“How will you do that, especially in the beginning? Digging through hard rock with chisels and steel mauls makes a deal of noise. And who do you mean when you say no one from outside? Mean you from outside our commune here, or from outside our Order? Because if that last is what you mean, then I agree with Brother de Montbard—our own sergeants will probably be the undoing of all our plans. These are not stupid men, Hugh, and if you think you can gull them into being unaware for years of what we are about, you are deceiving yourself gravely.”
“Suicidally so, in fact,” de Payens concurred, nodding his head. “But that is not what I am saying at all. We could not disguise the fact that we are digging in the rock, not from our own men. But we could suggest a feasible purpose for our digging, without telling them everything about what we are doing. Say, for example, that we are digging out a subterranean monastery—cells from the living rock—as a penitential exercise to God’s glory. We will have excellent reasons for our excavations, I promise you, reasons sound enough to be accepted instantly by our sergeant brethren. But when I spoke of people from outside, I meant exactly that—people from outside our little commune here in these stables. We are an order of monks, or we will be in the fullness of time, and that means we will have removed ourselves from the world. And so the world will have no cause, and no encouragement, to impose itself upon us or our affairs. No one will bother us, and no one will intrude upon our privacy and solitude. As for the noise of steel on steel at the outset, that will be transitory. It will continue for as long as the work continues, but it will fade beyond hearing as the shaft sinks deeper below the level of the floors.”
“How wide will this tunnel be and who will do the digging?”
“All of us will dig, and the vertical tunnel will be as narrow as we can make it. Wide enough for one man to swing a hammer and another to kneel and support the chisel bit, and for one or both to ply a shovel in reasonable comfort, but not for much more. We will need driving bars—chisels, Jubal the sergeant calls them—and tongs to hold them with, and heavy hammers, as well as pickaxes and shovels and several other kinds of tools. Once we dig down far enough, we will need hoists and pulleys to raise the debris from the pit floor. But all of that will present itself later, when there is need to know such things.”
De Payens stopped then, aware of the silence of his listeners, and looked from man to man, meeting the eye of each in turn before he continued. “We will probably work, initially at least, in shifts of two, for whatever length of time may prove to be acceptable. That is something else that we will learn only from experience. And eventually, as we develop a routine and the shaft sinks deeper, we will need others working at the top, to raise and clear the debris. But, God willing, the work will continue day and night without pause, and throughout the passage of time, we will maintain our schedule of patrols, policing the roads. Patrols will continue without respite, and will be conducted by ten-man squads of sergeants, each accompanied by at least one knight, but sometimes, for effect, by two or more. Thus, the surface work will continue while the subterranean work is being carried out.”
Bissot nodded sagely, fingering his beard. “It sounds … complex.”
“It is, and it will be, but not impossibly so, Brother.” De Payens straightened up, his gaze taking in the entire assembly. “This is all very new, of course, and everything appears to have come together very quickly, but we have achieved much in these past few days. Our planning is going well, and within the month the real work will begin. In the meantime, our patrols are effective, and it will not hurt our cause to have been instrumental in saving the life of Queen Morfia. Let us pray that our good fortune will continue, Brethren. So mote it be.”
THREE
The continuance of their good fortune began the following day with a summons for de Payens and St. Omer to attend the King that afternoon, and when they presented themselves at the palace at the appointed hour, they were admitted to the royal presence without delay, an event so startling in its novelty that both men felt a certain degree of trepidation as they were led into the audience chamber.
Baldwin le Bourcq, King of Jerusalem, welcomed them with extreme cordiality, clasping their hands warmly and dismissing his guards with a request that one of them should send in his wife and children. From the speed with which Morfia and her daughters appeared after that, accompanied by the children’s nurse, it was evident that they had been standing nearby, awaiting the summons. The King introduced the two knights to his four daughters, explaining that these were the knights who had saved their mother’s life from the Muslim bandits the previous day, and each of the little girls curtsied prettily, dipping her head in turn, as she had been taught, to each of the two knights, whispering her thanks as she did so. Only the eldest, Melisende, at fourteen years of age, gave the impression of sincerity, as befitted a young princess. He
r next sister, Alice, at two years younger, appeared sullen and truculent, frowning beneath lowered brows. The two youngest children, Hodiema and Joveta, were typical little girls, with lisps and dimples and appropriate giggles. As soon as the little ceremony was over, their father clapped his hands and shooed them all off with their nurse, smiling fondly at their retreating backs until the doors closed firmly behind them.
Before he could fully turn back towards his guests, de Payens spoke up.
“Your Grace, I must point out that I was not one of the two who rescued my lady the Queen—”
“I know that, Master de Payens, as does my wife”—the Queen smiled and inclined her head to de Payens—“but I saw no point in confusing the children. Two knights saved their mother’s life, and they met and thanked two knights. That is all they will remember. Now please, be seated, and Morfia and I will join you.”
The knights exchanged speculative glances as they moved to the table the King had indicated, and the royal couple sat and waved to them to sit at the same time. A tray with glass cups and a tall, silver ewer was already in place there, the long neck of the jug beaded with moisture, and Queen Morfia herself poured drinks for them. When they had tasted the deliciously sweet, lemony concoction and praised the excellence of its flavor, the King sat back and cleared his throat before launching himself into what he wanted to say, and de Payens, at least, was well aware of how closely the Queen was watching her husband, her eyes flickering between his lips and his eyes.
“There are no words, I suppose, to express adequately how much I am in your debt,” he said eventually, and a smile flickered unexpectedly at one corner of his mouth. “My wife has impressed that upon me most profoundly. Even without her instructions, however, I should still be sitting here facing you and saying the same thing. Until yesterday, after your people brought her home, I had never really thought about the consequences of losing her—not merely to brigands, but in any way at all. Her misadventure yesterday, and your timely arrival, brought the narrowness of her escape home to me and made me see, very clearly, just what the loss of this woman would mean to me. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have no words with which I could even begin to describe such a thing. And so …”
It was clear from the tone of his voice that he had paused merely to consider what he would say next, and neither of the men facing him moved a muscle.
“When you and your friends first came to my notice, Sir Hugh, I thought you might prove to be an annoyance and a source of irritation—” He held up a peremptory hand as though he believed that either man might attempt to contradict him. “I have since changed my mind on all of that, because the value of your contribution to our state became obvious very quickly, even to your most virulent detractors. I was never one of those, but in the beginning I was never slow to join others in sharing a jest at your expense. As King of Jerusalem, however, and this is something I know you are well aware of, I have been plagued since the day I accepted the crown and assumed the throne, by the very problem you elected to attack—the brigandage that now seems to threaten the very existence of this state.
“We are surrounded—our kingdom is surrounded—by Mussulman armies, all of them battle ready and poised to attack us. In the beginning, they were all Seljuk Turks and we were not too greatly concerned, for we had already defeated them and cast them out of Jerusalem, in ’99. But that was almost two decades ago. Now we are in a new millennium, and we find ourselves being faced by a new breed of enemies, a race of warlike people who call themselves Saracens. We know little of them at this time, but I have no doubt that we are destined to learn more, and that learning will be greatly to our cost. For the moment, I know only that my spies insist the Saracens are out there, in the deserts of Syria, biding their time just beyond our borders. The only thing that keeps them at bay and deters them from advancing against us immediately is the current readiness and vigilance of our own army, and that readiness would be fatally impaired, I believe, the moment I diverted personnel into what I know would be a futile attempt to entrap and fight such an elusive and highly mobile enemy as these brigand bands. Indeed, for all I know, the worst of them may not be brigands at all, but infiltrators sent by these Saracens to pester us and tempt me to do just that—to divide my forces in an attempt to fight them.
“Then you and your people came along and presented yourselves to de Picquigny, who, although he is a churchman, is none the less an able strategist and a pragmatist with no fear of fighting the good fight. He brought your request to me, as you know, and he pointed out that I could do myself much good, at little or no cost, by freeing you from your knightly duties to your lieges and reassigning you to his authority, providing you would be willing to maintain your fighting skills and patrol the roads.
“That very suggestion shocked me at first. Fighting knights, certainly. That is fitting and as God intended. But fighting monks? God’s word on that is plain and unequivocal, written in the stone tablets Moses brought down from the mountain: Thou shalt not kill.
“But our Patriarch, a devout and holy man, was sufficiently pious and enlightened to discern that God provides His own solutions to threats against His teachings and His Church. I thought about that for a long time and eventually decided Warmund was right, and so I did as he advised.
“But I was strongly motivated by the thought that I could have your services at no cost to myself. I freely admit to you that, had that not been the case, I would never have agreed to release you from your former duties. Now I can see—and again, I emphasize, without need of my wife’s prompting—that I was wrong in being so …” He shook his head. “I do not even know the word I need. Cynical? Greedy? Perhaps both.”
The King sat back and reached out his hand sideways towards his wife, who took it in her own. “I know you ask for nothing for yourselves, and I know that you intend to undertake vows of poverty. And my Queen has made it very clear to me that she believes you to be utterly sincere in what you are about. But yet I feel that there must be something I can contribute—some way in which I can be of practical assistance to you in the work you have undertaken, whether it be in the form of weaponry, armor, or horses. I can certainly extend my protection and patronage to you, and I hereby do so and will have my wishes recorded in writing.” He smiled again. “That will at least guarantee that no one will sneer openly at you from this day forth, and that, in turn, will save you from having to sin in fighting against supposedly Christian oafs and louts, simply to defend your honor.” He looked from one man to the other then, all trace of humor vanishing from his expression. “Now, is there anything I can do for you, in return for what you did for me in person yesterday?”
De Payens glanced sideways at St. Omer, who looked back at him, shaking his head.
“What? What is it?” the King said at once. “You have something you do not agree upon. Tell me what it is.”
De Payens looked at him and shrugged. “Your Grace, it is an internal matter, one that we have been debating now for months.”
“An internal matter? Concerning what?”
The other man looked askance again at his companion. “It concerns the stables in which we are quartered, my lord King.”
“Ah! Well, that is understandable, they must be intolerable. I will find other quarters for you immediately.”
“No!” De Payens blinked at his own vehemence and immediately bowed his head. “Forgive me, my lord, but we are not at all unhappy with our quarters, other than that some of our brethren think they may be too luxurious.”
The King became aware of the increasing pressure of his wife’s fingers on his own and glanced over at her. She was staring fixedly at him, one eyebrow raised in an expression he knew well from his dealings with her and his children. Ask him what he means, it said, louder than words. He coughed throatily and turned back to de Payens.
“Too … luxurious,” he said. “I am not quite sure I understand what you mean by that, Sir Hugh.”
“We are very new monks, my lo
rd,” de Payens said, “mere novices in fact, and under the sole instruction of Archbishop de Picquigny, and our lives have been … less than exemplary, in many cases, and decidedly lacking in many of the Christian virtues. And so several of our brethren—there are but seven of us, as you know, although we have an eighth currently wishing to join us—several of our brethren believe that we should be more zealous in our striving for enlightenment and salvation. They believe that our current quarters in the stables are too warm, too comfortable, and too conducive to sloth and idleness and inattentiveness to duty. And so they would seek to alter things.”
“To make them less luxurious?” The King was frowning. “Tell me, man, how in the name of God Himself do they intend to do that?”
Hugh de Payens shrugged his shoulders expressively, giving the impression that he himself could not understand, either. “What they would like us all to consider, my lord, is the undertaking of a truly penitential task. They are proposing that, in whatever amount of time the brethren have, free of duties and obligations, they should all work on excavating a real monastery beneath the stables, in the living rock of the Temple Mount.”