Order in Chaos tt-3

by Jack Whyte

  Of course, the King’s royal leave for the Scots Templars to attend the chapter gathering had not been given without conditions, and Will had discussed those conditions with Jessie, seeking her advice. The King knew of the resources Will had nurtured on Arran, and he was more than aware of the wealth of horseflesh, particularly the heavy horses, under Will’s command. In all of Bruce’s Scotland there were fewer than forty destriers, the enormous war horses that made the chivalry of England and France so powerful, and the worth of each one was incalculable. The small cavalry force that Scotland could field, seldom more than five hundred strong, was all light horse: scouts and skirmishers and mounted men-at-arms and bowmen, suitable enough for diversionary tactics and for nuisance raiding but utterly ineffectual against the fearsome, overwhelming bulk of massed English chivalry. Thus it was natural that King Robert coveted the Temple destriers, and knowing the King’s needs and the dangers facing his realm, Will had had no difficulty in agreeing to provide them. After all, as he had said to Jessie, they could not take the beasts to Merica. They had more than seventy of the huge animals on Arran now, and they would have difficulty transporting them even across the narrow channel to the mainland, for the ships that brought them here from France had all long since been reconfigured for other cargo.

  Jessie had agreed with everything that Will was saying, advising him to make an immediate start on reconfiguring the ships’ holds yet again to accommodate heavy livestock. But then she had asked him about the knights’ armor. King Robert would assign the destriers to his knights, she pointed out, but would those knights have armor sufficiently heavy and strong for the tasks they had to face aboard their new and massive mounts? Very few of them would, she suggested, since Scots knights, less wealthy than their English counterparts, had traditionally been unable to afford, or even to find, such enormous mounts, and consequently had no use for such bulky, reinforced armor. Their need had always been for lighter, stronger armor, mail that was more supple and less restrictive than the solid, unyielding plate worn by the English chivalry. Besides, she added, had he thought about how many of his own Templars would wish to volunteer their services as chivalry to Scotland?

  That took Will aback, for he had not thought of it at all. His overriding concern in recent months had been the composition of the group that would set out across the sea for the new land, ensuring that only the best, most versatile and resilient of his people would be included. De Berenger had crossed safely to Genoa late in the previous July, avoiding the English blockade of the North Sea coast, and had been able to buy two newly built ships, both commissioned and partly paid for by the Temple before its dissolution, along with two similar vessels that were unfinished when he arrived, their construction suspended in the absence of a purchaser. All four, he had reported back, were suitable for their expedition and in fact better than he had hoped to find. He had promised to have the four new ships back in Arran by mid-June, and all Will’s efforts had been geared towards being ready to set out at that time.

  Thus, in the hubbub of all the ongoing activities, Will had made a fundamental error in his calculations. For more than five years now, revolving shifts of armed and mounted men from their Arran community had been fighting with the Bruce armies, and Will had taken it for granted that they would continue to do so after their relocation to the mainland. But those riders—knights and sergeants alike—had all used smaller, lighter horses and mail armor, easier to transport across water. He had not considered the great destriers, or the fact that many of his men, the French knights most assuredly, would wish to rearm themselves with their own huge war horses and plate armor once that became possible. Now he had to plan to present King Robert not only with horses but with the armored knights to ride those horses. Chagrined initially at having overlooked such an apparently obvious development, he had nevertheless soon found the grace and humor to acknowledge, once again, his new-won spouse’s value as an adviser. He had immediately issued orders to have all the Templars’ heavy armor and weaponry brought out from storage and refurbished for use in the coming English invasion.

  And so, as soon as the chapter meeting was adjourned, the business of transferring the horses, armor, and weapons to Scotland would begin, for they had no time to waste. She herself would have been in Brodick now, organizing the score and a half of women who would sail with the expedition to the new land, had Will not asked her to remain behind in Lochranza to act as chatelaine and hostess to the gathering there. That was a waste of her time, in Jessie’s opinion—though she kept her silence—since she had contributed nothing but her presence, and that had been largely ignored, as she had known it would be.

  A sudden upsurge in the noise from below attracted her attention. The apparently aimless seething of the crowd down there had altered since she had last looked, and now men were moving purposefully, pouring aboard the galleys, spilling from one to the other as they sought their own berths.

  A discreet cough came from behind her, and she turned to find Hector standing at the turret door, holding it open for Sir James Douglas, who was stooped in the entryway, smiling at her.

  “Sir James! Is something wrong? Do you need anything? I—”

  Douglas doffed his feathered cap and bowed low in the gesture she had come to associate with him, but the smile remained in place on his dark-skinned, strangely attractive face. “No, Baroness, nothing is wrong. We are done our work and I need nothing … except time—a few more months between now and the coming week, if you could arrange that?”

  She laughed back at him. “Would that I could, Sir James. But are you leaving?”

  “Aye, on the rising tide, ’gin we can board and clear the sea wall in time. It is gey tight down there.” He stepped to her side and they stood together for a moment, watching the still-increasing activity below. “MacNeil, at the back there, will go first,” Douglas told her, “and that will clear the harbor mouth. As soon as they have room to dip their oars, the others will follow. I would venture, though it seems impossible, looking at that, that your harbor will be empty again within the hour from now. These caterans know their business.”

  He looked at her again and stepped back a pace, inclining his head. “I have come to thank you, Baroness, from all of us who have gathered here these past few days, depriving you of house and home. Your hospitality and forbearance have been much appreciated, and we have achieved all that we hoped for. The Islesmen of the West will stand with His Grace when England comes chapping at our door, and those tidings will do much to soothe our noble Robert’s cares. But I must now travel hard and fast to tell him, for he is on his way to Stirling to assemble our host, such as it may be. And so, ’gin you will grant me leave to go thus rudely, I must away forthwith. The others are waiting for me.”

  “Go then, and Godspeed, Sir James. Carry my blessings and good wishes to the King, and tell him I will keep his niece safe for him.”

  “I will. Adieu, then, Madame la Baronne.” He bowed again, sweeping the ground with his bonnet’s plume, and then he was gone, the sound of his booted feet dwindling rapidly down the narrow spiral staircase.

  Jessie stood staring at the spot where he had vanished, her eyes narrowed in thought. She had been less than truthful with the King in the matter of his niece, for she had said nothing of taking the girl with her beyond the seas, and even now she was unsure what she would do when the time came to decide. It would all depend upon what happened in the weeks and months ahead; if she decided that Marjorie’s life would be safer in the new land, then she would take the child without a moment’s hesitation.

  That Scotland would be invaded was a certainty. Edward Bruce had ensured that when he made his foolish truce with the English governor of Stirling the previous summer. England’s King had used the ensuing year to settle his own internal wars with his barons and whip them into a frenzy of greed and offended chivalric honor, playing upon their lust for Scottish lands and wealth. The sole question remaining was the exact timing and strength of the incursion, a
nd even that was finite. Midsummer Day, the date of settlement of the Stirling truce, was June twenty-fourth. England had until that date, now six weeks distant, to relieve Stirling or lose Scotland.

  Edward of England had begun summoning his earls and barons months earlier, just before Christmas. Word had soon reached Bruce’s ears, generating the urgency that had brought about this gathering of Scots and Gaels here in Lochranza, forging alliance between King Robert and the reluctant, independent Islesmen and Highlanders, for if King Robert’s Scotland fell to the English, so, too, would the Western Isles and the Highlands.

  A chorus of horns and shouts from below brought Jessie’s attention back to the present, and she looked over the battlements to see, to her astonishment, that the harbor was indeed emptying rapidly, the sea beyond the entrance dotted with departing galleys, all of them using wind and oars to reach their various destinations as soon as possible. Another roar of approval reached her, and she looked straight down, recognizing Douglas and his three companions as they and their attendants moved quickly to board their own vessel, the massive galley lent to the King of Scots by his Arran Templars.

  How long she stood gazing down at the King’s galley as it was warped away from its berth and headed out to sea she could not have said afterwards, for her mind was filled with worries of another sort as she wondered what her own man would now do. He had told her that he would remain on Arran to complete his work; that the affairs of Scotland were Scotland’s own; that he had made and would continue to make his contribution to King Robert’s cause with men, horses, and weaponry; but that his overriding responsibility was to his own people and their journey to the new land. She had believed him at the time, but that had been a full month earlier, and now she was not so sure. Sir William Sinclair was not the kind of man who could turn his back upon his friends in time of need, and Robert Bruce and his closest supporters had become Will’s friends. Knowing that, she knew too, in her heart of hearts, that as the threat of invasion drew nearer, her man must be undergoing torment from his divided loyalties.

  He would do the right thing. She had no doubt of that. But the unease over what that might be, the decision he might finally make, had kept her awake every night since he had left for Brodick. She had waited far too long for him to come to her, and now that he had, she could barely tolerate the thought that she might lose him in the squalor of some muddy battlefield, slaughtered in the mire because his sense of honor and his conscience would not permit him to stand back and look to his own affairs.

  She was still standing there, gazing sightlessly out to sea and hugging herself beneath her sealskin mantle, when she felt his hands close over her upper arms. She knew them instantly and whirled about, throwing himself into his embrace and kissing him wildly, feeling him stiffen at first at her unexpected ardor, and then enfold her, pulling her tightly against him as he returned her kiss.

  Finally, after a time she thought was all too short, he broke from the embrace and turned her in his arms so that she leaned back into him, but in the turning, she had time to see the lines in his face and the deeply troubled look in his eyes, and she felt her heart fill up with apprehension, knowing that he should not be here.

  “So, they are gone,” he whispered into her ear, holding her steadily as he looked out at the last of the departing ships. “They reached an agreement?”

  The question was rhetorical, but she answered it anyway. “Aye, they are gone. Sir James told me the men of the West will stand with the King when the time comes.”

  “I had no doubt they would. They have no option.”

  His voice was quiet, a mere murmur, but she twisted out of his grasp. “What is it, Will? Why are you here?”

  His eyes examined the whole of her face, and then he shrugged and grunted softly, smiling sadly. “I am here to see you, Jess … to look at you and feel you in my arms, soft and warm against me … and to talk with you … to share some tidings.”

  “Ill tidings.”

  He hesitated, his eyes narrowing, then nodded.

  “Aye. As ill as might be.”

  “Come then, for this is no place to be sharing them.”

  She took his hand and led him from the roof, retaining her grip as she led him down the narrow, winding staircase to their bedchamber on the floor below. Young Marjorie was there, sitting before the fire with Marie and Janette, and all three of them glanced up in surprise as Jessie entered, still leading Will. She told them to leave, to go and help Hector and his staff in cleaning and readying the great hall below, and to stay away until she called for them again, and when they were gone, she turned again to Will, reaching up to touch his face, fingering the stubble on his cheek. “I want you, here and now, in that bed, but you have more need to talk than to make love. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She swung away, waving to the chair to the right of the large fireplace. “Sit then, and tell me, and when you have told me once, no matter how bad it may be, you can tell it to me again, in bed. I will listen closely both times, I promise you. And then I will tell you what I think.”

  He moved to sit obediently and she settled herself opposite him, her eyes on his, waiting until he had settled. “Now, tell me.”

  He nodded, complacently enough, but then sat silent, and she could see that his eyes were unfocused, his thoughts far away as he searched for words. She waited, and after a while he blinked as though awakening and dropped one hand to finger the hilt of the dagger at his waist.

  “I have just received news from France,” he said, his voice lifeless. “Jacques de Molay is dead, after seven years in jail. By now he would have been seventy-two, perhaps seventy-three. An old, done man, destroyed by seven years of abominations and abuse. They had sent cardinals to try him and his three remaining companions yet again, but he rejected their authority. He would speak only to Pope Clement, he said, and in person, in accordance with the oath he had sworn so long before. But Clement was in Avignon, at odds with Philip once again, and he would not go to Paris. And so, de Molay rescinded his confession once again. It had been drawn from him by torture, he proclaimed, and he now abjured it, denouncing Philip Capet for the greedy thief he is …” He blew out a long, shuddering breath.

  “Capet was in Paris, and he reacted swiftly. They burned the old man at the stake that very night, on an island in the middle of the Seine, by the church of Notre Dame. The date was the eighteenth of March. My old friend Antoine St. Omer was there among the hundreds that witnessed it. He said our Grand Master died well, cursing both Pope and King from the smoke and flames and calling upon God to witness that he and all his Order were innocent of the charges brought against them.”

  Jessie stood up and crossed to him, cradling his head against her breasts, and she said nothing. He sat with his face against her for several moments more, then pushed her gently away.

  “So there we have it, Jess. The final betrayal of a grand old man and all he stood for, by the Pope he served faithfully and the King he would not serve.

  “He did not die alone, though. The Preceptor of Normandy, Geoffrey of Charney, burned with him, close by. Nor did he die unheard, and the last call that he uttered was a summons to both Pope and King to meet him before God’s throne within the year. St. Omer spoke of that, and he would not lie in such a thing.”

  “Oh, my dear Will, I am so sorry.” He looked at her and twisted his mouth wryly, inclining his head in acknowledgment, and she asked, “How was the news received among the brethren in Brodick?”

  “No one yet knows. These are ill tidings, my love, and their timing could not have been less opportune. And so I decided to hold them close until the time is right to divulge them … although God Himself knows that time will never be.”

  “I see … So, what will happen now?”

  He expelled his breath slowly, wearily. “Now, Jess? Now I have to tell the brethren assembled at Brodick. Now I am Grand Master in fact, God help me, with nothing to be Master of. And now I must appoint a Master in Scotland, to guide th
e brethren who remain behind after we are gone. Does all of that sound as futile to you as it does to me?”

  “Shush now. Come you.”

  She took his hand and led him to the bed.

  AFTERWARDS, WHILE HE LAY SLEEPING by her side, she thought about what he might do, and arrived at a decision. It was a grave decision, and she refused to consider it at first, but she knew she had no choice but to accept it, though it might be the death of her.

  She sat up and turned sideways to wake him up, and he looked sheepish as he realized that he had rolled off her onto his back, and there fallen straight to sleep, but she merely smiled at him and ran a barely touching fingertip down the line of soft hair that ran from his chest to his navel. Then she slapped his flat belly and told him to get up and dress.

  When he was clothed again and sitting by the fire, she curled up in the chair across from him.

  “Tell me now, what of the English? Have you heard anything new?”

  “Aye, new and ever growing since Edward sent out his orders, calling eight earls and eighty-seven barons to assemble at Berwick with all their strength. The tenth of June was the assembly date he named, but more than two and a half thousand mounted knights, heavily armored and armed, were already there by March. And each of them brought two or three mounted men-at-arms to back him. By March, Jess, with two months in hand! The English crows are hungry for Scots flesh …