by Jack Whyte
St. Valéry glanced at de Berenger, whose face showed nothing of his thoughts. “A few hours to transfer the remaining treasure from my hold to whichever vessel you select to take it, and then to transfer as many provisions as we might need from other ships. Half a day at most.”
When St. Valéry asked for distance and sailing time to the bay from where they now were, the two mariners conferred again and offered an estimate of three, perhaps four days, depending upon winds and offshore tides. They did not yet know exactly where they were in relation to the shore, but estimated that they were within two to three days’ sail of Cape Corunna, with another day beyond that to reach the bay.
Sinclair was still thinking about the length of time they would spend there. “How many ships do you wish to take with you, Admiral? Much will depend on that. I am thinking of your estimate of half a day’s work.” Sinclair saw the hesitancy in the admiral’s eyes and continued. “The length of time does not concern me; the sufficiency does. I think we will need a full day to see this thing well done. You may be at sea for months, and it would be galling to run out of something simply because we did not take the time to load sufficient supplies. Now that we have made the decision to proceed in this, I want you to do it properly.”
St. Valéry shrugged and looked up at the sail above him with its great painted cross of black on white. “Ships would be better than galleys, sturdier … with more storage room. Galleys would be worse than useless out on there on the ocean, months at a stretch … Cargo ships, Sir William. Four of them, if you can spare so many.”
“We can. We have four spare and available now, according to your own tally, so you may have them—given that you can find the men to crew them voluntarily. Think you that would be sufficient to ensure your success, as far as you can ensure anything in this venture?” He was aware of the three visitors standing close by, their eyes moving from one speaker to the other, their faces alive with curiosity, and he held up a hand to St. Valéry. “Wait, if you will.” He turned his attention to the three watching men. “Have you all heard of the legend of Merica, spoken of in the Order’s lore?”
The three men nodded, but looked mystified.
“Admiral St. Valéry has decided to sail in search of it, to find out once and for all whether it be there or not beyond the Western Sea where it is supposed to be, and I have given him the blessings of our Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, to do so. In finding it, he and the men who sail with him will prove the truth of another great piece of our ancient lore, just as Hugh de Payens and his companions did with the discovery of the Temple Treasure. He will be seeking volunteers to sail with him into the unknown upon a great and daunting quest. How think you his request might be received by your fellows?”
The three men stood for a few moments, looking at each other, rank apparently forgotten, and then the knight spoke up. “I can speak for no one but myself, my lord Admiral, but I can think of nothing I would rather do than sail on your quest with you.”
St. Valéry inclined his head graciously, but said nothing, and Sinclair intervened. “What is your name, sir? We have not met before, have we?”
“Antonio Escobar, Sir William, and no, we have not met before now.”
“Well, sir, I shall remember you as the first knight of the Temple to join Sir Charles’s quest. And what of you two men?”
The elder of the two sergeants spoke up at once, saying he might think about going since he had no family to concern himself about, but the second man shook his head regretfully and declined.
“Well, Sir Charles, two out of three at first sweep. If you continue thus you will take full two-thirds of my strength.”
“No chance of that, Sir William. I seek but to crew four ships. If I have more than that number, I shall select those I need and wish the others well with you.”
“What about water? You’ll need as much as you can carry.”
The knight Escobar raised a hand, and when Sinclair looked at him he said, “There is sweet, fresh water in the bay we spoke of, sir. A spring-fed stream near the top of the cliffs falls to the beach.”
“Good, then we’ll use it. Thank you, gentlemen. Which of you knows the coastline best? We need only one of you to lead us in; the other two may return to your ships.”
“Then it should be one of these two men, sir, since I am not a mariner,” Escobar said, and drew himself up to attention. The other two muttered briefly to each other, and the younger of the two turned to St. Valéry. “I will stay, Admiral.”
St. Valéry thanked all three men before dismissing them, sending the one who would remain behind to the stern with the galley’s captain, and when the four senior officers were alone again Sinclair struck straight to the heart of the matter at hand.
“Very well, then. We will have half a day to effect our changes, perhaps longer, depending upon how closely we are being pursued. Now we have much planning to do, and we need to send out the word to all our ships of what we are about in this endeavor. Can you attend to that, Sir Charles? We should do it quickly and clear our minds for other things. Among which is the disposition of your passenger and her cargo. I presume the Baroness will not be accompanying you on your quest … What, then, are we to do with her?”
St. Valéry shrugged his shoulders. “She will remain aboard my galley, which will become de Berenger’s command. Captain de Narremat here will assume the rank of vice-admiral and take over Sir Edward’s present command.” He glanced at de Narremat, whose face was flushing with surprised pleasure. “Before doing that, Captain, you will appoint another from your own officers here to fill your present position as admiral’s shipmaster.” He broke off, turning to Sinclair. “Unless you object to any of that, Sir William?”
The inflexion of the admiral’s voice turned that last statement into a question, but Sinclair shook his head. “You are still admiral, Sir Charles, and you know your people far better than I do. The choice of captains is yours. I will remain aboard the vice-admiral’s galley for now, if the new vice-admiral has no objection. And now, gentlemen, we have other matters to deal with. Shall we begin?”
But at that moment a hail from the lookout on the cross-spar at the mast top announced that he had seen another vessel bearing down on them, and even as they absorbed that, they heard him counting aloud as more distant sails became discernible far behind them to the northeast.
“Five galleys!” the lookout shouted. “One ahead of four! And … and more behind those … Two, three more in pursuit.”
St. Valéry looked at Will Sinclair. “Five Temple galleys, fleeing from pursuit by three? That is not possible. There must be another explanation … The three rearward galleys must be our own, escaped from La Rochelle before they could be taken.”
WITHIN TWO HOURS of the first distant sighting, Will Sinclair stood on the upper deck of the admiral’s stern castle, watching the approach of the three strange galleys, and he could see plainly why the naval officers had spoken earlier of de l’Armentière’s galley, the leading one, as being unmistakably different. The Templar galleys, irrespective of individual size, were all modeled upon the massive biremes of Roman times and built in the shipyards around Genoa, where generations of shipwright families had been building the same kind of vessels for hundreds of years. Huge and solid, with double banks of oars and an elongated ram beneath the prow, they had been virtually unchanged since the days of the Roman navies, the single difference being that now the sails were made of heavy cloth rather than of leather. De l’Armentière’s was different; longer, lower, and sleeker, it shipped thirty-six oars, he saw, but in two long, single banks of eighteen a side. The mast, too, was different, neither as tall nor as thick as those on the Temple’s vessels, but there was no mistaking the fact that this vessel had been designed for speed and battle. Its long battering ram, clad in copper sheeting, curved up and projected from the water ahead of the craft like the horn of some ferocious beast.
Behind the strange-looking galley, its two escorting craft were standard Temp
le vessels, each of them shipping eighteen double-banked oars to a side, so that he estimated their fighting force to be anywhere from eighty to a hundred men apiece, dependent upon the size of their relief crews, and his guess was that they would not have sailed from Cyprus without a full complement. So another two to three hundred fighting men had been added to their force, and from the look of them, they were all veteran Temple sergeants.
He stood watching until he saw boats being lowered from the strange-looking leader, and then, as he turned away, he spotted the Baroness St. Valéry watching the newcomers from the corresponding deck on the ship’s forecastle. Inexplicably flustered by the sudden sight of her and feeling slightly breathless despite having known he would probably see her somewhere during his visit, he averted his eyes and went below, moving very deliberately, to await the new arrivals in the ship’s main cabin.
FIVE
The commander of the leading galley, Sir Antoine de l’Armentière, was precisely the kind of man Will Sinclair had expected him to be, the kind of Templar he thought of as a Temple Boar: a fighting monk, largely devoid of humor and thoroughly dedicated to the affairs of the Temple to the exclusion of all else. Not that there was anything amiss with that, Will thought, examining the captain as he arrived. Such men served a necessary function, and their loyalty to the Order was unassailable. De l’Armentière strode into the cabin as if it were his personal domain and came to attention in front of the admiral, ignoring everyone else.
St. Valéry greeted him courteously, then introduced him to the others in attendance, most of whom de l’Armentière already knew. Finally he brought him forward to introduce him to Will.
“May I present Sir William Sinclair, Sir Antoine. He is a member of the Governing Council, here on direct business for Master de Molay himself concerning the recent matters of which you may or not be aware.” He turned to Will. “Sir Antoine is from Burgundy, Sir William. His family has provided members for our Order since its beginnings in Jerusalem.” And having delivered his message that de l’Armentière was definitely not of the Order of Sion, the admiral gestured to everyone to be seated. “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”
Sinclair and de l’Armentière exchanged nods, and then the men took their places around the long, narrow table that filled up most of the main cabin.
As soon as they were all seated, St. Valéry motioned to de l’Armentière. “Your report, if you please, Sir Antoine. We know you arrived in La Rochelle mere hours after our departure, but our lookouts were too far away to prevent you from entering the harbor. Since then, we had thought your galleys confiscated. When they emerged again, we had no choice but to assume them crewed by the enemy. Plainly we were mistaken. Please tell us what occurred.”
De l’Armentière knew how to savor a moment of attention. He sat frowning for some time, looking at no one, as though gazing inwardly, making a display of collecting his thoughts, then looked slowly from man to man around the table. “Who is the enemy?” he asked eventually. “We arrived directly from Cyprus, after ten days at sea, and we saw the King’s colors among the men on the quays. But even before that we had seen a pyre of burning ships and a harbor devoid of Temple shipping. And the Order’s banners were missing from the battlements, something I had never seen before.
“And so I gave orders to drop anchor out of bowshot from the quay. But once they had seen that we were not going to approach them any closer, they fired upon us uselessly nonetheless. I waited to see if anyone would approach us, but not a single boat was launched towards us, and it soon became quite obvious that the crowds on the quay were leaderless and there was no one willing to assume the authority to deal with us. And so I remained at anchor, to see if someone might return to assume command. But no one did. I waited for three hours, by which time the tide was in full ebb, and then I took my ships out of there under oars … truthfully, with no idea of what I should do next.”
“So what did you do, Captain?” Sir William asked him.
De l’Armentière offered a half smile to his questioner. “As soon as we had cleared the harbor mouth, my lookouts reported masts on the horizon to the south, and so I set a course to follow them. I did not know who had occupied La Rochelle, but if these ships were coming in support of whoever it was, then I intended to debate with them. But as it turned out, they were sailing away from us and keeping their distance.”
St. Valéry cleared his throat politely. “And you had no suspicion that these vessels you were pursuing might be your own? Temple galleys?”
The other smiled again, more broadly this time. “I had many suspicions, Admiral, but not that one. The thought of Temple galleys fleeing a fight simply did not occur to me. Besides, they were hull down on the horizon most of the time, no matter how we sought to catch them … which told me, indeed, that they were in fact galleys of one kind or another. Not all galleys are alike, as you may see by looking at my own.”
He looked again around the table, meeting each man’s eye before continuing. “I accepted that they had no wish to close with us, but neither had I any wish to abandon the chase. We had returned from a long voyage, our stores depleted, to find our own harbor closed to us, and so I found myself loath to give up and turn away. And so their flight became our pursuit … until, of course, they approached and identified themselves, early yesterday. Since then I have gathered some information, enough to form some notion of what has been happening recently, but my sources were mainly officers and sergeants who knew little or nothing of what is really involved. And so, if I may ask without being ruled impertinent, will someone tell me what has been going on in my absence?”
The question brought about a general surge of noise that the admiral quelled by thumping on the table, and when silence had returned he himself spoke to de l’Armentière.
“Folly and chaos and treachery has been going on,” he said, his voice flat. “Suffice for now to say that the King’s chief minister, William de Nogaret, has moved against our Order with the full support of the King himself and, it would seem, the Pope. The atrocity was perpetrated the morning you arrived, and it is our understanding that it occurred on a massive scale, throughout France. You will learn all about it later. For the moment, we have other things to discuss.
“We were forewarned by Sir William here, who came to us with the written authority of Master de Molay, and it was the Master himself who first learned of the plot against us. He issued orders for us to embark on the night of the twelfth and to await whatever might develop the following morning, for even he was unsure of the truth of the warnings he had received. We waited, and de Nogaret’s men arrived as predicted. And now we are making our way in search of sanctuary elsewhere, away from France.”
“Where, in God’s holy name?”
St. Valéry glanced at Sinclair, who responded, “In Scotland, where the King is excommunicate and therefore unlikely to be influenced by the Pope.”
“Unless,” de l’Armentière said, “the Pope offers to lift the excommunication in return for our capture. Have you thought of that?”
The response verged on insolence, and in fact Will Sinclair had not thought of that at all. He bit back an angry response and busied himself in leaning back in his chair and stretching his muscles for a moment to give himself time to think.
“That thought had occurred to me,” he drawled after a moment, knowing somehow that it was important to lie. “But I dismissed it as irrelevant, particularly since we now know you were not de Nogaret’s spies pursuing us. We also know that no one can possibly know where we have disappeared to. Had you, in fact, been enemies, we would have led you out into the ocean beyond Finisterre and either lost you or destroyed you. Relieved of the need to waste time doing either of those things, we may now head directly for Scotland, where we will deliver a treasure of gold and silver bars and coins to the King of Scots on behalf of one of his most loyal subjects. That should win us his gratitude for as long as we require it. The Temple is secure in Scotland, so we will be doubly welcome. If de
Nogaret traces us there eventually, it will no longer matter, for this unpleasantness will have dried up and blown away by then, all differences settled.”
The Burgundian knight sat mulling that for a moment, then dipped his head and smiled. “So mote it be. Then I am content, and at your service, Sir William.” He stopped short and looked around the table, one eyebrow raised but this time without giving offense. “I am correct in assuming, am I not, that your rank supersedes all others here?”
Will Sinclair nodded. “Aye, technically you are. In fact, though, the admiral continues to be God at sea, and I am a mere passenger aboard his craft. And having said that, gentlemen, I will leave you to your planning, for you have much yet to do. Admiral, should you need me at all, I shall be in my quarters. It remains to me to commend you, Captain de l’Armentière, on your actions in La Rochelle. You did well. And now, a good day to you all.”
SIX
Will was already looking around for Tam as soon as he left the cabin and he saw him quickly, standing by the ship’s entry port deep in conversation with Baroness St. Valéry. She was wearing a dark green hooded cloak, and the hood’s high peak made it look as though she was taller than Tam. His heartbeat was suddenly loud in his head and his gut twisted in—what? he asked himself. He felt a stirring of pleasure, then a formless guilt quickly smothered in rising anger.
What in God’s name are you doing talking to that woman? was the first clear thought that came to him, and then he drew a deep breath, forcing himself to swallow his anger, which he knew was utterly unreasonable, and to take the time to think about how he could make the inevitable encounter with the woman both courteous and harmless. He made his way towards them, and his spoken order was the first inkling either of them had that he was there.
“Tam. My boat, if you will. Good day to you, Baroness.”