by Jack Whyte
Order in Chaos
( Templar Trilogy - 3 )
Jack Whyte
The third novel in the thrilling historical trilogy about the rise and fall of the powerful and mysterious Templars, from the author of the immensely popular Camulod Chronicles.Order in Chaos begins just prior to Friday the thirteenth of October 1307, the original Day of Infamy that marked the abrupt end of the Order of the Templars. On that day, without warning, King Philip IV sent his armies to arrest every Templar in France in a single morning. Then, with the aid of Pope Clement V, he seized all the Temple assets and set the Holy Inquisition against the Order. Forewarned at the last minute by the Grand Master himself, who has discovered the king's plot too late to thwart it, Sir William St. Clair flees France with the Temple's legendary treasure, taking with him several hundred knights, along with the Scots-born widow of a French Baron, the Lady Jessica Randolph. As time passes and the evidence of the French King's treachery becomes incontestable, St. Clair finds himself increasingly disillusioned and decides, on behalf of his Order, to abandon the past. He releases his men from their "sacred" vows of papal obedience and leads them into battle as Temple Knights one last time, in support of King Robert Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn. And in the aftermath of victory, he takes his surviving men away in search of another legend: the fabled land, mentioned in Templar lore, that lies beyond the Western Ocean and is known as Merica.
Praise for the Templar Trilogy
“To read Jack Whyte is to surrender to a storyteller of the old school. His writing is firmly rooted in the basics of good storytelling: strong characterization, effective plotting, and excellent writing.”
—Quill & Quire
“Whyte, a master at painting pictures on an epic-sized canvas, pulls the reader into the story with his usual deft combination of historical drama and old-fashioned adventure.”
—Booklist
“It is here that the origin of the Knights Templar is revealed … Taut and gripping.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“Enough loose ends and cliff-hanging dramatic turns to guarantee an audience for volume two.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Whyte’s Templar Trilogy … finds the author in his top form. Few authors can match Whyte when it comes to epic battle scenes involving blazing heat, choking dust, rearing horses, and thousands of sword-wielding knights and Saracens locked in mortal combat.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Standard of Honor’s] quick rise to the upper reaches of the bestseller list, not to mention signs of strong word of mouth, suggest that Whyte’s star is rising even higher.”
—Quill & Quire
“Whyte brings his Templar Trilogy to a rousing conclusion … Readers are in for a thrilling, exhilarating ride. There’s a reason why Whyte’s historical novels are so popular: he adroitly juggles fact and fiction, using real events as a jumping-off point for stories that feel historically right. Fans of the previous two novels who have been clamoring for this one since 2007 will not be disappointed.”
—Booklist
ORDER IN
CHAOS
JACK WHYTE
To my wife, Beverley, mentor and care giver, who knows, invariably, when to leave me alone and when to haul me out of my hermitage and back into the light of life … Thank you yet again.
I will give them into the hands of their enemies … and I will make [them] a desolation.
—Jeremiah 34:19–22
FRANCE
THE WOMAN AT THE GATES
ONE
Even a man with no eyes could have seen that something was wrong up ahead, and Tam Sinclair’s eyes were perfect. His patience, however, was less so. The afternoon light was settling into dusk, and Tam was reduced to immobility after three days of hard traveling and within a half mile of his goal. The reins of his tired team now hung useless in his hands as a growing crowd of people backed up ahead of him, blocking his way and crowding close to his horses, making them snort and stomp and toss their heads nervously. Tam felt himself growing angry at the press around him. He did not like being among large numbers of people at the best of times, but when they were compressed together in a solid crowd, as they were now, the stink of their unwashed bodies deprived him of even the simple pleasure of taking a deep breath.
“Ewan!”
“Aye!” One of the two young men who had been lounging and talking to each other among the covered shapes of the wagon’s cargo pulled himself upright to where he could lean easily with braced arms on the high driver’s bench. “Whoa! What’s happening? Where did all these people come from all of a sudden?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have had to interrupt your debate wi’ your young friend.” Tam glanced sideways at the other man, quirking his mouth, almost concealed by his grizzled beard, into what might have been a grin or a grimace of distaste. “Go up there to the gates and find out what’s going on and how long we’re to be stuck here. Maybe somebody’s had a fit or dropped dead. If that’s the case, I’ll thank you to find us another gate close enough to reach afore curfew. My arse is sore and full o’ splinters from this damned seat and I’m pining to hear the noisy clatter as we tip this load o’ rusty rubbish into the smelter’s yard. And be quick. I don’t want to be sleepin’ outside these walls this night. Away wi’ ye now.”
“Right.” Young Ewan placed a hand on the high side of the wagon and vaulted over it, dropping effortlessly to the cobbled roadway and pushing his way quickly into the crowd. La Rochelle was France’s greatest and busiest port, and the high, narrow gates of its southern entrance, directly ahead of him, were fronted by this wide approach that narrowed rapidly as it neared the check points manned by the city guards.
Tam watched the boy go and then swung himself down after him, albeit not quite so lithely. The wagon driver was a strong-looking man, still in the prime of life, but the ability to do everything his apprentices could do physically was something he had abandoned gladly years before. Glancing intolerantly now at the people closest to him, he made his way to a small oaken barrel securely fastened with hempen rope to the side of the wagon. He took the hanging dipper and raised the barrel’s loose-fitting lid, then brought the brimming ladle of cool water to his lips and held it there as he looked about him, seeing nothing out of place or anything that might explain the blockage ahead. He did notice a heavy presence of guards with crossbows lining the walkways above and on each side of the high gates, but none of them appeared to be particularly interested in anything happening below.
In the meantime, young Ewan had moved forward aggressively, anonymous among the crowd. He was soon aware that he was not the only one trying to find out what was happening, and as he drew closer to the gates he found it increasingly difficult to penetrate the noisy, neck-craning throng. He was eventually forced to use his wide shoulders to clear a passage for himself, elbowing his way single-mindedly towards the front, ignoring the deafening babble of shouting voices all around him. He was almost there—if he stood on his toes he could see the crested helmet of the Corporal of the Guard—when he became aware of louder, shriller voices directly ahead. Three men came charging towards him, plowing through the crowd, pulling at people as they went, pushing and shoving and trying to run, wide eyed with fear. One of them shouldered Ewan aside as he surged by, but the young man regained his balance easily and swung around to watch the three of them scrambling into the throng behind him, dodging and weaving as they sought to lose themselves among the crush.
The crowd, like a living thing sensing the terror of the fleeing men, pulled itself away from them quickly, people pushing and pulling at their neighbors as they fought to keep clear of the fugitives, and in so doing exposing them to the guards in front of and on top of
the gate towers.
The Corporal of the Guard’s single shout, ordering the fleeing men to halt, went unheeded, and almost before the word had left his lips the first crossbow bolt struck the cobblestones with a clanging impact that stunned the crowd into instant silence. Shot from high above the gates, and too hastily loosed, the steel projectile caromed off the worn cobblestone and was deflected upwards, hammering its point through the wooden water barrel from which Tam Sinclair was drinking, shattering the staves and drenching the man in a deluge of cold water that soaked his breeches and splashed loudly on the cobbles at his feet.
Cursing, Tam dropped down onto the wet stones, landing on all fours and rolling sideways to safety under the wagon’s bed as the air filled with the bowelloosening hiss and sickening thud of crossbow bolts. His other apprentice, Hamish, jumped from the wagon bed and dived behind the protection of a wheel hub, fighting off others who sought the same shelter.
None of the three fleeing men survived for long. The first was brought down by three bolts, all of which hit him at the same time, in the shoulder, the neck, and the right knee. He went flying and whirling like a touring mummer, blood arcing high above him from a jagged rip in his neck and raining back down and around him as he fell sprawling less than ten paces from where he had begun his flight. The second stopped running, almost in mid-stride, teetering for balance with windmilling arms, and turned back to face the city gates, raising his hands high above his head in surrender. For the space of a single heartbeat he stood there, and then a crossbow bolt smashed through his sternum, the meaty impact driving him backwards, his feet clear off the ground, to land hard on his backside before his lifeless body toppled over onto its side.
The third man fell face down at the feet of a tall, stooped-over monk, one outstretched hand clutching in its death throes at the mendicant’s sandal beneath the tattered, ankle-high hem of his ragged black robe. The monk stopped moving as soon as he was touched, and stood still as though carved from wood, gazing down in stupefaction at the bloodied metal bolts that had snatched the life so brutally from the running man. No one paid any attention to his shock, however; all their own fascinated interest was focused upon the dead man at his feet. The monk himself barely registered upon their consciousness, merely another of the faceless, wandering thousands of his like who could be found begging for sustenance the length and breadth of Christendom.
So profound was the silence that had fallen in the wake of the shattering violence that the sound of a creaking iron hinge was clear from some distance away as a door swung open, and then came the measured tread of heavily booted feet as someone in authority paced forward from the entrance to the tower on the left of the city gates.
And still no one stirred in the crowded approach to the gates. Travelers and guards alike seemed petrified by the swiftness with which death had come to this pleasant, early evening.
“Have you all lost your wits?”
The voice was harsh, gravelly, and at the sound of it the spell was broken. People began to move again and voices sprang up, halting at first, unsure of how to begin talking about what had happened here. The guards stirred themselves into motion, too, and several made their way towards the three lifeless bodies.
Tam Sinclair had already crawled out from his hiding place and was preparing to mount to his high seat, one foot raised to the front wheel’s hub and his hand resting gently on the footboard of the driver’s bench, when he heard a hiss from behind him.
“Please, I heard you talking to the young man. You are from Scotland.”
Sinclair froze, then turned slowly, keeping his face expressionless. The woman was standing by the tail gate of his wagon, white-knuckled hands grasping the thick strap of a bulky cloth bag suspended from her shoulder. Her shape was muffled in a long garment of dull green wool that was wrapped completely around her, one corner covering her head like a hood, exposing only her mouth and chin. She looked young, but not girlish, Tam thought, judging from the few inches of her face that he could see. The skin on her face was fair and free of obvious dirt. He eyed her again, his gaze traveling slowly and deliberately but with no hint of lechery, from her face down to her feet.
“I am of Scotland. What of it?”
“I am, too. And I need help. I need it greatly. I can reward you.”
This woman was no peasant. Her whisper had been replaced by a quiet, low-pitched voice. Her diction was clear and precise, and her words, despite the tremor in her voice, possessed the confidence born of high breeding. Tam pursed his lips, looking about him instinctively, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention; all eyes were directed towards the drama in the nearby open space. He sensed, though he knew not how, that this woman was involved in what had happened here, and he was favorably impressed by her demeanor, in spite of his wariness. She was tight wound with fear, he could see, and yet she had sufficient presence of mind to appear outwardly calm to a casual observer. His response was quiet but courteous.
“What trouble are you in, Lady? What would you have of me, a simple carter?”
“I need to get inside the gates. They are … People are looking for me, and they mean me ill.”
Sinclair watched her carefully, his eyes fixed on the wide-lipped mouth that was all he could really see of her. “Is that a fact?” he asked then, his Scots brogue suddenly broad and heavy in the rhetorical question. “And who are these people that harry and frighten well-born women?”
She bit her lip, and he could see her debating whether to say more, but then she drew herself up even straighter. “The King’s men. The men of William de Nogaret.”
Still Sinclair studied her, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts although her words had startled him. William de Nogaret, chief lawyer to King Philip IV, was the most feared and hated man in all of France, and the woman’s admission, clearly born of a desperate decision to trust Tam solely on the grounds of their common birthplace, invited him instantly either to betray her or to become complicit with her in something, and complicity in anything involving the frustration of the King’s principal henchman surely led to torture and death. He remained motionless for a moment longer, his thoughts racing, and then his face creased beneath his short, neatly trimmed beard into what might have been the beginnings of a smile.
“You’re running from de Nogaret? Sweet Jesus, lass, you could not have named a better reason to be seeking aid. Stay where you are. You are hidden there. I need to see what’s going on ahead of us.”
Something, some of the tension, seeped visibly out of the woman, and she drew back slightly, concealing herself behind the rear of the wagon. Sinclair began to haul himself up onto the hub of the front wheel. He was still apprehensive and curious about the woman, but felt somehow that he was doing the right thing. He paused with one foot on the hub to look over the heads of the crowd and across the open space to where the monk still stood over the dead man, hunched as though petrified, and after a moment Sinclair gave a small snort and swung himself up and onto his seat.
There, settled on his bench above the crowd, he gathered the reins of his team in his hand, reached for the whip by his feet, and gave a piercing whistle. His two lanky but strong-looking apprentices came running to his summons, swinging themselves lithely up into the vehicle. The one called Ewan took a seat on the bench beside Tam, and the other settled himself comfortably again among the covered shapes of the cargo in the wagon bed. But, whip in hand, Tam Sinclair made no move to start his animals. He had nowhere to go. The crowd was jostling and shuffling, milling at the edges of the space surrounding the slain men, but it was not going forward. The guards were still intent upon discovering whatever it was that had set the trouble afoot, and none of them had thought to marshal the waiting traffic.
The three dead men had apparently been pulling a handcart with them, and from the garbled commentary of the people around him, Tam gathered that it was when the guards, their suspicions aroused for some reason, had set out to search the cart and then attempted to seize
one of the men that the trio broke and ran. Now, watching a handful of guards swarming over the high-piled contents of the handcart, Tam wondered idly what could have been in there that was worth dying for. He would never find out, because even as his curiosity stirred, the Corporal of the Guard ordered the cart to be taken into the guardhouse and searched there. Tam eyed the guards as they hauled it out of sight, then shifted his gaze to the swaggering figure of the harsh-voiced knight who had emerged from the tower and was now stalking about the open space where lay the three dead men.
He was not a tall man, this knight, but his burnished half armor, worn over a suit of mail and topped by a domed metal helmet, enhanced his stature in the late-afternoon light, and the scapular-like King’s livery he wore, a narrow-fronted, dingy white surcoat edged with royal blue, the embroidered fleur-de-lis emblem of the royal house of Capet centered on the chest, added to the air of authority that set him apart from everyone else within sight.
Gazing stolidly from his perch high on the driver’s bench, Tam Sinclair was not impressed by what he saw in the knight. He himself had been a soldier too long, had traveled too far and seen too many men in situations of dire, life-threatening peril, to be influenced by a mere show of outward finery. External trappings, he had learned long years before, too often had little bearing on the substance of what they adorned. The man he was looking at was a King’s knight, but in the driver’s eyes that in itself was no indicator of manhood or worth. People called the King of France Philip the Fair, because he was pleasant, almost flawless, to behold, but beauty, Tam knew as well as anyone, went only skin deep. No one who knew anything real about the puissant monarch would ever have considered referring to him as Philip the Just, or even the Compassionate. Philip Capet, the fourth of that name and grandson of the sainted King Louis IX, had shown himself, time and again, to be inhumanly self-centered, a cold and ambitious tyrant. And in Tam Sinclair’s eyes too many of the knights and familiars with whom the King surrounded himself were cut from the same cloth. This particular example of the breed had drawn his long sword slowly and ostentatiously and walked now with the bared blade bouncing gently against his right shoulder as he made his way towards the tall monk who stood isolated on the edge of the crowd, still stooped over the man who had died clutching his foot.