Standard of Honour. Jack Whyte

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      Individual members of the organization were not distinguishable in any way save one, and even that knowledge was secretly guarded, close held among themselves, although it was a distinction that no one who was not an initiate could ever see. Every man of them was selected from one of a federation of aristocratic clans known among themselves as the Friendly Families, all of which lived in the region of southern France known as the Languedoc, so called because the region had its own ancient language. The name literally meant “the tongue of Oc,” or “the place where Oc is spoken.” The association of the federated families dated back more than a millennium, to the first century of the Christian era, when the founders of each of the clans settled together in southern Gaul after their long overland flight from the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in the year 79.

      Their collective Jewish roots were the greatest secret of the brotherhood, for their families had assimilated seamlessly into local society soon after their arrival, and they had now been Christian for a thousand years, blissfully ignorant of their Semitic origins. Only the initiates of the ancient Brotherhood of the Order of Rebirth in Sion knew the truth, passed down in secret throughout the generations of that same thousand years, and they alone undertook to shoulder the great responsibility entailed in that knowledge, their singular entitlement safeguarded and reinforced by the inflexible edict that only one male member from every generation of each of the Families could be eligible for initiation.

      Sir Alexander Sinclair, chosen from among seven brothers in a family that had produced no daughters, had been admitted to the brotherhood on his twentieth birthday. None of his siblings, all of whom were now of age and two of them knights of the Temple while a third rode with the Order of the Hospitallers, ever suspected that their brother Alec held a secret station above and beyond any of theirs. And because the duties imposed upon him by the brotherhood had made it all but impossible for him to interact normally with his brothers in their workaday world of filial and familial obligations, Christian dedication, and feudal loyalties, they chose to believe that their brother Alec was an ingrate, guilty of turning his back on his family responsibilities. Alec had had no other option than to shrug and appear to accept their condemnation.

      And so he had disappeared into the secretive world of the brotherhood, where the Governing Council, having assessed and quantified his every trait and capability, began to educate him in a specific way, for its own purposes. Alexander Sinclair, Knight of the Temple, was a spy for the brotherhood.

      “You are deep in thought, ferenghi.” Al-Farouch’s French was fluent, despite the guttural overtones of his Arabic diction. Sinclair smiled wryly and scratched at his scalp.

      “I was thinking about my situation here, thinking I ought to climb back up onto your horse and make good my escape before your friends arrive to rescue you.”

      “If they arrive. Nothing is certain but what is written, and it might be Allah’s will, blessings upon His name, that I should remain here and die.”

      Sinclair thought about that for a while, then nodded slowly. “I find myself believing that Allah might be reluctant to discard a weapon as strong as I suspect you might be for him…I was also thinking that I do not enjoy the thought of simply riding off and leaving you here alone to live or die, strange as that might sound to you.”

      The Saracen’s eyes narrowed to slits. “More than strange. It smacks of madness. Why should you care what happens to me here, when every moment that you remain places you in deeper peril of being taken, if my men arrive?”

      A bleak smile flickered on Sinclair’s lips. “Call it a family weakness, bred in my bones: that no man of honor should ever leave another to die when he might either save him or help him.”

      “Honor. It is…” The Saracen paused, searching for a word. “It is a concept, no? A reality without substance. One that is given much…external recognition…but is truly understood by very few.”

      “Even among the faithful of Allah?”

      “Even so, alas, as I am sure it is among your own kind.”

      “Aye, yon’s the truth…” Sinclair had lapsed back into Scots, but even so he could see that the man across from him had understood his tone.

      “What is your name, ferenghi? You know mine already.”

      “Lachlan Moray.” The lie sprang naturally and unbidden to Sinclair’s lips.

      “Lachlan…That almost sounds like an Arabic name. Lach-lan Murr-ay.”

      “It might, to your ears, but it is Scots.”

      “And you have but little beard. I thought all Frankish knights had beards.”

      Sinclair scratched ruefully at his stubbled chin. “It is true. I would never be mistaken for a Templar were I in the midst of them. But if I stay out here much longer the beard will grow and I will regret that. I have an affliction, even in the eyes of my comrades, in that my face has little hair and my skin is…do you know the word ‘delicate’?”

      The Saracen shook his head, and Sinclair shrugged. “Well, as my beard grows, the skin grows scaly and itches painfully, and so, to maintain my sanity and keep from scratching myself bloody, I choose to keep my face clean shaven, when I can. Few of my fellow Franks can understand that.” He said nothing of the fact that being clean shaven enabled him to wear a false beard of whatever shape and texture he required from time to time in the course of his work.

      “Tell me of Hittin…Hattin, as you call it.”

      The request was straightforward, but couched as it was in a mild command, it caught Sinclair unawares so that he sat blinking, unable to think of a response.

      The Saracen sat straighter, flexing his shoulders. “You asked me when you first arrived if I had been at Hattin, and the tone in which you asked caught my attention. I was not there, as you now know, but Hattin is close to the place you call Tiberias, and the Sultan, may Allah smile upon him, summoned us to gather there. Was there a battle there? Is that why you are here alone?”

      Sinclair silently cursed his own carelessness, but there was no point in lying now. He sighed. “Aye, there was a battle.”

      “I see. And it was…decisive?”

      “Aye, I fear it was. We were defeated. Your side was victorious.”

      “Allah be praised. What happened?”

      “What happened? You ask me that? Have you ever been in a major battle, involving thousands of men?”

      “I have, several times.”

      “Have you ever held supreme command in such a battle?”

      The Saracen frowned. “No, I commanded my own men, but I am no general.”

      “Nor am I. So you know as well as I do that a warrior in a battle has little awareness of what is happening in the overall sense of the fighting. He only learns of victory or defeat from what he sees at the end of it. In the midst of it, he strives to protect himself and his men—to stay alive.

      “This battle at Hattin was enormous. We had the strongest army ever gathered solely in the kingdom—more than thirty thousand strong. Knights, Turcopole allies and infantry. Your Sultan, Saladin, commanded at least twice our number, probably more, and we were beaten. I saw only glimpses of СКАЧАТЬ