Well, now, that rocked me. I mean, I'd learned about the Knights Templars in school and read about them in Ivanhoe, and been thoroughly scandalized by the mere notion that a man who is purportedly dedicated to God could also be dedicating himself to smashing up his fellow human beings with a Clydesdale and a mace. But I tried to be tactful. "Uh ... isn't that kind of a contradiction in terms?"
Instantly, the frown was back. "Why, how mean you?"
"Why," I said, "a monk is dedicated to love of his fellow human beings, and to upholding the Commandments - including 'Thou shalt not kill,' and 'Love one another.' But a knight is dedicated to hurting those same people."
"Assuredly, you cannot mean it!" He paled, and I could have sworn he was genuinely shocked. "Do you truly know so little of your own faith?"
"Of my own civilization, you mean." I frowned up at him. "You forget I've spent most of my life in a foreign land."
"Aye, I had forgot." He gathered composure around him, but still seemed rather shaken. "Know, then, young man, that we, as knights, are dedicated to the protecting of God's people from those who worship evil. And they who are dedicated to evil, scruple not to kill and maim in their lust to capture all that they can. It is therefore necessary to take arms against the minions of Satan; only major force can stay them."
I braced myself and tried to smile. I was hearing the rationalization that had allowed medieval Christians to mount a crusade against their own countrymen, for no better reason than that they had come up with a different version of Christianity.
The commander turned away and began to stroll through the camp, glancing around him to see all was in order-but he was still talking, so I tagged along. "Know, too," he said, "that in these lands of Christendom, many folk have fallen under the sway of Satan and his minions. Allustria, where we are now, is sunk in the bog of corruption; it is ruled by a sorcerer-queen. lbile is only lately freed from a similar fate, and Merovence is free only because a most powerful wizard came to the aid of the heir, Queen Alisande, and fought off the evil spells of the usurper's sorcerer, so that her armies might cleanse the land of the false king Astaulf and his twisted knights." Well, usurpation I could understand, even if it was saturated with superstition. "I take it you come from this, uh, Merovence?"
"In truth, we have."
"Ibile" - that had a familiar ring. The Iberian peninsula? if so, the "reign of evil" would probably have been nothing more than the Moorish Empire - to medieval Spaniards, the Muslim Moors seemed like pagans, therefore worshipping false gods. So I took the rest of it with a grain of salt. "Allustria" sounded like "Austria" with a couple "l". Is thrown in - maybe "Allemagne," which was Germany, combined with Austria? I knew of a pretty demonic figure in recent history who had tried to do just that - but he wasn't medieval. So I decided to reserve judgment on the evilness of Allustria's queen. But Merovence - would that be France, or Italy? Or maybe Poland or Russia? At a guess it was the land of the Merovingians, which would have been France. Why not ask? "I'm kind of turned around," I said. "Which way is Merovence? "
"Why, ahead of you," said the commander, surprised.
"You are near its border. Did you not know you had come out of Allustria?"
Suddenly, the business about Allustria being under the reign of an evil queen gained credence - at least, judging by the reception I'd had there, and the things Sobaka had said. "I hadn't known," I said. "Wherever it was, though, I was trying to get out of it."
"In that, you succeeded. Know that you have come into the mountains, and even though the queen of Allustria claims them, her writ does not truly run-though she has folk stationed in pretense of governance. If these hills are held by anyone, they are held by the mountaineers who call themselves Switzers."
Suddenly the geography clicked into place, and I frowned. "But aren't you kind of going the long way around? To go through Switzerland to get into Allustria?"
The commander nodded. " 'Tis even so. Yet there is no other way to come upon the minions of Queen Suettay unawares. Even coming down from the mountains, we may be espied."
"I think not," I said slowly. "If you go down through the pass I came from, you may find that the functionary who's supposed to watch that crossing point may not have been replaced yet." He glanced at me keenly. "Have you slain him, then?"
"Her," I corrected, "and no, I didn't do any killing. Persuaded her to see the error of her ways, you might say." I didn't like the way he looked at me then, and I added quickly, "Don't get any ideas. I'm not a missionary."
"You must have a silvered tongue, then, to have so swayed one of Queen Suettay's liege men!"
I noticed my correction about gender hadn't taken, and I wasn't surprised. People tend to see what they want to see, and the Middle Ages kind of locked people into certain expectations, blinding them to anything they hadn't been taught. I recognized this whole business about needing to take arms against evil as just another excuse for doing what Christianity forbade, which amounted to hypocrisy. I wasn't about to say that out loud, though. Standing for truth is one thing, but saying it when you haven't been asked is another. I had no desire to get pummeled, or to become the subject of an impromptu beheading.
But I was still kind of dazed by the notion of an order of military monks. I wondered what their monastery looked like. Did it have a gate, or a portcullis?
"Strange that you know so little of your own land," the commander sighed, "from sojourning so long among the paynim. Yet you are a scholar, and therefore also a gentleman - though you know not the weapons of honor."
Again, I nodded. I knew something of late medieval society. A gentleman was below the aristocracy, but above the peasantry - upper middle class, in my own day's terms. Knights qualified, but by the eighteenth century, so did squires, even if they never became knights. They owned enough land to have several tenant farmers, and generally had more education than most. At this point in history assuming it to be about 1350; I didn't dare ask, for fear of betraying ignorance that might make me suspect - that meant being able to read and write, and knowing table manners and strict rules of protocol. Not that these boys seemed all that big on class distinctions, though-I saw knights in their gambesons, fetching buckets of water and lighting campfires, right along with their squires. "Uh," I said. And, "I notice that your men are fetching and carrying, right along with their squires."
"Aye," he said. " 'Tis a lesson in humility."
"But," I said, "when I came up, you said all I was good for was fetching and carrying."
"Aye, and I regret the haste of my words - yet by your appearance, who was to know your quality? Still, friend, though peasants may be fit only for hewing wood and drawing water, a knight is fit for any task, short of those fit only for royal blood, or appropriate to a monk."
"But knights can draw water and gather wood, too, eh?" I nodded; it made sense, within their worldview. You can always do less than you're able - and to them, it was a gesture of humility - but you can't do more. The idea raised my hackles, especially since I knew damn well that any man could learn to ride or swing a broadsword-though I would have been the first to admit that some can learn it better than others. It was just that my enlightened age believes that every task is as honorable as any other-or tries to, anyway. "But you're monks, too."
"Aye, and like other monks, we labor at menial tasks as well as great, to make us mindful that we, too, are only mortal, and must strive lifelong if we would become saints in Heaven." Something about that struck a faint resonance of rightness within me. I tried to ignore it. "Meaning that all people are equal in God's eyes? " He stared at me as if I had spoken treason.