Accepting that awareness, years earlier, had been a difficult task for André, eased only by the recognition that it had been shared by every individual initiate of the ancient brotherhood into which he had been inducted, or Raised as his brethren called the initiation, at the age of eighteen, even before being knighted by Duke Richard.
The brotherhood conducted its affairs beneath a shroud of inviolable secrecy, with a simply stated purpose: to safeguard and study the incalculably valuable secret that was its sole reason for being. From the moment of his Raising to a full-status brother, André had grown increasingly fascinated with the reality of that secret, so that now, endlessly enthralled by what it all entailed, he found himself thinking of varying aspects of it at different times, every day of his life, no matter what he was doing or where he might be.
For more than a millennium, ever since the end of the first century of Christianity, its presence unsuspected and undreamed of by anyone outside its own ranks, the organization, the brotherhood, had been known to successive generations of initiate brothers as the Order of Rebirth in Sion, and throughout that time its members had been studying the great body of lore that lay at the root of its being. The secret they guarded so zealously and jealously was one so old and so alien to their everyday world that it defied belief, perhaps even more so now than ever before, after eleven hundred years. It had certainly defied Andrés belief when he first learned of it, and he now believed implicitly that it had affected every one of his initiate brethren, older and younger, living and dead, in the same way since time immemorial, for alien it was. Its substance was inconceivable, and awareness of its mere existence induced nausea, profound terror, and the appalling possibility of eternal damnation, with the irretrievable loss of ones immortal soul and forfeiture of any possible hope of achieving salvation on either side of death. And so the initiates questioned it vigorously and disputed its credibility with everythingevery whit of logic, intellect, and instinctual horror and distaste at their disposal beginning as soon as the trauma of their introduction to it had begun to wear off. And every individual initiate who fought against it came to appreciate, eventually, that every single one of his brethren, over the past thousand years, had shared the same odyssey and come to harbor at the end of it, at ease with the immensity of what he had learned to be the absolute truth. And one by one the entire brotherhood, to a man, became content to dedicate the remainder of their lives to proving that truth, by proving the truth underlying the lore of the Order.
That unity of purpose had survived unbroken, André knew, until approximately sixty years earlier, in 1127, when the Order had renamed itself by dropping the word Rebirth from its title, calling itself simply the Order of Sion. Only the brothers themselves knew of the change, and they smiled with pride when they thought of it, for after a millennium, the Rebirth had been achieved when a small group of nine knights from the Languedoc area, all of them members of the brotherhood, led by a man called Hugh de Payens, had excavated under the foundations of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and, after searching diligently and in secret for eight years, had unearthed exactly what the Orders lore had told them would be in that precise place.
Thinking about what he knew, and what his father would never know, André lay his head down that night feeling more like a stranger in his fathers home than he had ever felt before.
THE NEXT MORNING, father and son were out in the training yard between the castle and its outer walls, waiting for sunrise, neither one enthusiastic about being there or about acknowledging the others presence. Sir Henry stood back with the heavy arbalest in his arms while André stooped close to the front wall of the yard in the dim light of the newborn day, a quiver of heavy crossbow bolts dangling from his shoulder, and carefully examined the old and battered balk of oak used for sword practice.
This will serve, for now, he said, striding back to join his father. Ill shoot from over yonder on the other side. The light will soon be strong enough for us. He then led the way to the far side of the yard, less than fifty paces from the thick practice post, where he took the heavy weapon from Sir Henry and proceeded to arm it. Henry could see that his son was an expert in its use, for he pressed it front down against the ground and placed his foot firmly in the stirrup at the end, then leaned forward, bracing the butt end against his belly while he used both hands to wind the pair of swivel ratchets that dragged the bowstring of thickly woven leather back, against the pull of the steel bow, until it tipped and was held in place by the notched end of the trigger that protruded through the body of the weapon, at the end of the channeled groove that would hold the feathered bolt. It was hard work, and his father admired the way André performed the task with the ease and skill of a master.
Thats the worst part, André said, straightening his back and wiping a trickle of sweat from his eyebrow with the back of one hand. Now we simply load the bolt and watch what it does.
Is this the same device you said will throw a missile five hundred paces?
Is this the same device you said will throw a missile five hundred paces?
Aye, it is. Why do you ask?
Because it is less than fifty paces from here to the post youre aiming at. What do you hope to achieve there, in order to impress me?
Just watch. Pass me one of those bolts.
Henry pulled one from the quiver on the ground and straightened up slowly, one eyebrow raised as he held the missile out towards his son, who took it and placed it in the launching position.
Aye, André said. Heavier than you expected, was it not? And so it should be. That thing is solid steel. Now, watch. He raised the arbalest to his shoulder, sighted quickly with one eye closed, and squeezed the lever that operated the trigger. There was a loud, sharp snap, and Henry saw the end of the weapon leap high into the air. He grinned, meeting his sons eye.
Unfortunate, that. The violence of that snap back must have destroyed your aim, no?
No, Father. Andrés headshake was definite. Too much power involved for that. The bolt was clear and gone long before the nose began to rise. Look. He pointed to the post, but peer as he might, Henry could see no sign of the bolt.
You missed the post, he said.
No, sir, I did not. Look more closely.
Henry moved forward, peering towards the distant pole, his pace increasing as he approached it, and then he hesitated and stopped, unable to believe what he was seeing. The steel bolt, fifteen inches long and as thick as one of his fingers, was almost completely buried in the post, splitting the weathered wood vertically above and below its point of impact. Only the flighted end of the bolt remained visible, protruding a mere three inches. He reached out to touch it with his fingertips, then turned to his son.
This post is solid oak.
André nodded, smiling. I know, Father. Solid, aged, and seasoned, and battered now beyond its capacity to withstand much more abuse. I helped select it and set it in place there, you may recall, about twelve years ago. Now ask me again about the five-hundred-pace distance involved in a long shot.
No need, Sir Henry answered, shaking his head slowly. How many of these does Richard own?
Nowhere near sufficient to his purposes. Thats the rub. He has very few real arbaleststhis kind, I mean, with the steel bow. There are none at all outside Richards own domains of England and Aquitaine. Bear in mind that no one has used these weapons in fifty years, so even the art of making them is lost to most armorers. The man who made this one I use is a smith with skills that surpass belief. He makes them very well, but he appears to be the only one who can, and he cannot make large numbers of them, nor can he make them quickly. He appears to be the only one, at this point, who knows the secret of springing the metal bows. He is training others now, apprentices, but that takes time. He paused for a moment, thinking. Plain crossbows, with bows of wood and laminated horn and sinew, are easier to come by, but even they are scarce and precious nowadays, each one worth its weight in silver, perhaps even gold. And of course Richards English yeomen have their yew longbows, and their bowyers continue to work as they always have.
Henry nodded, accepting his sons word without demur. The second Pope Innocent, using the power of his office, had banned all projectile weaponsbows and crossbows alikefifty years earlier, and the proscription, despite its papal origins, had been unusually successful, honored and observed beyond credence by almost everyone throughout Christendom. The results of that success, inevitable and, as it was now turning out, unfortunate, had been that bowyers and fletchers everywhere outside of England and Aquitaine, deprived of purchasers for their products, had turned their skills towards other crafts, and projectile weapons had fallen into disuse. They were seldom seen nowadays, and those that did survive were ancient, worn-out things, barely capable of bringing down a hare or a deer.
The official explanation for the papal ban had been that God Himself found these weapons offensive and un-Christian, and their use against Christian warriors from that time on had been forbidden under pain of excommunication and eternal fire. But the truth underlying itand the pragmatic reason for both the original proposal and its subsequent acceptance by the knightly classwas that the escalating power and strength of the weapons had made it possible for an untrained, landless, ragamuffin man-at-arms, or even a serf, to shoot down and kill a fully armored, highly trained knight from a distance far enough removed to offer the killer immunity.
Among the ruling heads of Christendom at the time of the proscription, only the young Henry Plantagenet, then Count of Anjou but later to become King Henry II of England, had possessed both the perspicacity and the self-sufficient defiance to ignore the papal decree from the outset, keeping the weapons in usealbeit ostensibly for hunting and training purposeswithin his own territories. He recognized that these weapons were the strongest and most lethal killing machines ever developed for use by individual men in dealing death impersonally, and hence terrifyingly, from great distances and he therefore refused to deny himself the advantages they offered to him as a warrior and commander of armies. And later, adhering to his example almost inevitably, his third-born son, Richard, Count of Anjou and Poitou, and eventually Duke of his mothers province of Aquitaine, had adopted his fathers enthusiasm with an even greater approval of his own.