and Christendom is sadly less than all the world … and the Bible itself teems with plagues …” His voice trailed away and he fell silent for a while. “I must think more on this, consult with people, and then, perhaps, I may talk to this new Pope. Perhaps. But not today. I have no wish to mix with clerics, and no need to go to Rome or Avignon, so let us talk now of other things. Have you heard about this new siege engine the Normans have developed, this trebuchet? I think that’s what they are calling it. No, none of you? That surprises me. I have yet to see one of them myself, but by all accounts it is a fearsome device, capable of throwing a stone the size of a heavy man farther than anything else ever has.”
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