Knights of the Black and White Book One. Jack Whyte

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СКАЧАТЬ being mounted by the House of Anjou. They understood that this was not merely a tourney; it was a political statement of no great subtlety, a grand spectacle and a celebration of the county’s success in a variety of ventures—including a public thumbing of the Count’s nose at the adulterous King of France made possible by the annexation of Blois itself into the County of Anjou—over the previous four years. Hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of people were in attendance from as far away as Burgundy in the far northeast and Marseille in the distant south, and the celebrations had continued for ten days. Count Hugh’s arrival had been a week earlier, and they would be leaving again in another week’s time to make their way homeward.

      They had stopped to stare in awe at a caged pair of lions when Hugh’s man Arlo found them and summoned them to wait at once upon Baron Hugo in his tent, and they obeyed him without comment, curious but not alarmed, since Arlo had informed them at the outset that the ladies were already there.

      Louise and Margaret and several other women were seated outside, but Baron Hugo was in his tent, dictating a letter to Charon, the elderly Greek scholar who had been his amanuensis since before any of the three younger knights were born, and when they entered Hugo waved a hand, indicating that they should wait and be silent until he was done, and then continued pacing, rubbing his forehead with one hand and dictating his thoughts. As soon as he had finished, Charon rose to his feet and left the tent. The Baron crossed to a corner table and poured himself a cup of wine, making no move to offer any to the others, then sipped at it, frowning, before he spoke.

      “We must leave here tomorrow. I trust you are all sated with the pleasures Fulk has provided?”

      The three friends looked at each other in surprise, but Hugh was the only one who responded. “Tomorrow, Father? Why? I thought we would be—”

      “Because I have said so. Is that not reason enough?”

      “It is, and forgive me. I meant no disrespect and had no thought of complaining. I was merely curious.”

      “I know, and I was merely being miserable. I have no more wish to leave early than you do, but we have little choice. The Count has ordered me to return to Payens, there to start making preparations for November.”

      “November? Am I permitted to ask the significance of November?”

      “Aye, I suppose so. The Count has just received word, from Avignon, that the Pope, Urban, is here in our lands. He has been touring in the south and west since early last month, and he has just left Avignon, on his way north to Lyon, and thence into Burgundy. But while he was in Le Puy, en route to Avignon, he issued a decree that he will convene another great ecclesiastical council, like the one he held in March in Piacenza, in Italy. This one will be held in the Massif Central, in Clermont, and it will start in mid-November. Every churchman and every nobleman in all the lands and duchies has been summoned to attend, and apparently great things are to take place in the course of the assembly. What those great things may be, no one knows, but Count Hugh has charged me with organizing whatever will have to be done within his County of Champagne, and I, in turn, am deputizing you three to assist me. And I warn you, it will not be an easy task. There is much to be done, and alarmingly little time in which to see to it. Fortunately most of the harvest is already in, but the county is far from being ready to do anything quickly. And for that reason, we leave tomorrow, solely because it is already too late to leave today. Now, go and do what you have left to do, because I intend to be on the road by daybreak.”

      The six weeks that followed were indeed, as the Baron had promised, filled to capacity with every kind of exigency that could be imagined and many that could not, but by the time they came to leave for Clermont, everything that needed to be done had been accomplished, and the Count’s party, more splendidly equipped and accoutered than any other that could be remembered by even the oldest resident of Champagne, set out with all due pomp and panoply to ride to join the Pope’s convocation. Count Hugh’s great friend Raymond, the Count of Toulouse, had added his own glittering entourage to the gathering, and the outgoing cavalcade was highly impressive. Once again, the triumvirate of Payens was in attendance, and finally relieved of the stresses under which they had been laboring for the previous six weeks, all three were in fine fettle and ready, they thought, to intercept and neutralize any theological missile the assembled priests might launch at them.

      Speculation over the reason for the gathering had been rampant since the news of it broke, for at the previous council, in Italy, Urban had publicly declared an alliance between the western Church, represented by his own See of Rome, and the eastern Church, represented by the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus. Now people wondered what other momentous events were to occur in Clermont, and when the council began, they were not kept long in the dark. For the first nine days, the three hundred clerics in attendance debated a number of issues and made momentous decisions. Simony—the greatest bane of the Church at that time—was outlawed and declared anathema, involving as it did the buying and selling of priestly office or the exchange of spiritual favors and influence for monetary gain. Clerical marriage was also declared anathema, and to top everything off, King Philip I of France was excommunicated for his adulterous marriage to Count Fulk’s wife.

      On the very last day of the council, when the crowds hoping to see and hear the Pope had become too immense for the cathedral and its grounds, the gathering was moved to a field called the Champet, outside the church of Notre Dame du Port on the eastern edge of the city. It was the only open space large enough to accommodate all of those in attendance, and it was there, when everyone had reassembled, that Pope Urban unveiled his true purpose for convening the assembly. With the unerring instinct of a born performer, he did it spectacularly, creating chaos and fomenting a religious revolution with a single impassioned oration, unexpected and unprecedented, that inflamed everyone who heard it.

      The Pope spoke with great eloquence, making it clear from the outset that he was speaking not only to the people assembled there but to all the Christian kingdoms of the West, and despite his initial skepticism, Hugh soon found himself caught up by the pontiff’s passion as he talked about the terrible difficulties facing their Christian brethren in the East, struggling under the brutal repression of the Seljuk Turks. At one point, almost reeling from a vivid description of an atrocity he could visualize, he reached out and grasped Montdidier by the arm.

      “They defile and desecrate our altars,” Urban was saying, his voice ringing through the stunned silence of his listeners, reaching the culmination of a litany of horrors. “They circumcise Christians and pour the blood of the circumcised into the fonts. They will take a Christian—any Christian—and cut open his belly, then tie his intestines to a stake and force him to run, goaded with spears, until he pulls out his own entrails and falls dead.” The Pope gazed out over the horrified crowd, watching the effect of his announcement. “I have heard many such reports, delivered to me from too many sources, and believe me when I say these are not isolated incidents. Throughout the East, from Jerusalem to Byzantium, these things are happening daily.”

      Again he paused, his eyes moving constantly, and then he said, “Let me remind you of the words of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. ‘Whoever should abandon in my name his house or his brothers, his father or his mother, his wife or his children or his lands, will receive them again a hundredfold and will come to eternal life.’” The silence was absolute, because people were unable to believe what they had just heard from the lips of the Pope himself. But Urban was not yet done. He gazed around him and raised both arms wide. “Heed the words of God, my children, and you knights and men of prowess, hear the cries of your brethren in the eastern lands, dying beneath the heel of the ungodly. Think not about your petty quarrels here at home, among your friends, but turn your eyes towards true Glory … the Holy City of Jerusalem itself cries out for deliverance! Take the road to the Holy Sepulcher as soldiers of God, and tear God’s land from these abominable people!”

      The silence lasted for perhaps another five heartbeats, just long enough СКАЧАТЬ