by Jack Whyte
“That same month, word came from Lamberton, in a letter smuggled from where he is held in England, that Edward has increased his levy. He has called for an additional fifteen thousand infantry from the north and Midlands, and three thousand archers from Wales, and he has requisitioned more than two hundred heavy carts and wagons for his supply train. As I was leaving for Brodick four days ago, Douglas himself told me the latest numbers indicate that there are more than twenty thousand men at Berwick, all of them well equipped and slavering with thoughts of victory and plunder.”
“Twenty thousand?”
“Aye, lass, that’s what I said. Twenty thousand. And in all of Bruce’s Scotland, even were he to raise every able-bodied man in the realm, there are less than half of that number, mayhap even less than a quarter of it, to withstand them.”
Both of them stared into the sinking fire until Jessie asked, “Would you like to hear my advice?”
He almost smiled. “You would advise me even in this? Aye, I would. You have not failed me yet.”
“Nor will I now, for I love you more than life itself, and because of that I will tell you what is in my mind.” She looked down to where the fingers of her hand were pleating the fabric of her gown. “I thought about this long and hard, Will, and I believe I know what you should do—must do. So listen to me carefully, my love, and pay close attention, for I might change my mind later and try to tell you I was wrong. But right now, I know I am right.”
TWO
The Great Hall at Brodick, the Chapter House as it was now known among the brethren, was full, with men packed shoulder to shoulder even on the alternating black and white squares of the ceremonial square painted in the center of the floor. Only two open aisles, edged by ropes and forming a cross, permitted access to the four rostra that held the chairs at the four cardinal points of the compass. The Eastern dais was the largest of these, holding the Master’s Chair, and it formed the front of the assembly, the focus of all men’s eyes.
The closed rites of the knightly brethren were complete, conducted according to the Rule, in the darkness of the night, and now with the coming of daylight, the sergeants had joined the knights for the less formal portion of the ceremonies. There was a profound, almost palpable air of solemnity about the occasion, for everyone knew that this would be the last such gathering—the last plenary assembly of the surviving members of the Order of the Temple in Arran, perhaps the last anywhere. Any gathering would hereafter be clandestine, private, of necessity—and that awareness lent an aching piquancy to the rumbling sound of the massed voices chanting the canons of the Rule.
Will stood high above the assembly, looking down from a curtained window in the carved wooden screen that concealed the suite of rooms at his back and waiting for the last of the canons to reach its end. He had planned this event carefully, bearing in mind everything that Jessie had said to him, and he was still astonished at the degree of insight she had shown into events about which she could have known nothing. She had divined the mood of this assembly, if not the content of it, and had considered aspects of this day that might never have occurred to him at all.
The chant reached the point he had been waiting for—he had heard it sung a thousand times and more over the years—and he turned and nodded to the men lined up on his right, then watched as they turned in unison and began to move in procession towards the door at the top of the wide stairs that led down along the east wall to the ceremonial floor. All four were dressed in bright white woolen robes over which each wore the emblems—the jewels—of his individual office. As they reached the door, each one in turn knocked loudly, and when the door was opened by the inner guard, the man who had knocked leaned forward and gave the password in a voice that only the guard could hear, then passed through, closing the door behind him.
Will watched them go, feeling love and admiration for each of them swelling in his breast. Richard de Montrichard, preceptor here since their arrival, went first. His was the Chair in the North, and none of the gathering below would dispute his right to hold it. De Montrichard had been a fine preceptor, and Will felt a familiar stirring of discomfort as he recalled his own doubts about the man’s suitability when they first landed here. De Montrichard had blossomed at his post and had commanded from the outset with a sure and steady hand.
After him, the senior galley captain, de l’Armentière, knocked and was passed through. On the floor, he would occupy the Southern Chair, deputizing for Admiral de Berenger, who had not yet returned from Genoa. And behind him, bound for the Western Chair, the two remaining men sought entry in their turn. The first was Bishop Formadieu, the senior bishop of the Arran community and the rightful holder of the Western Chair. But Formadieu had recused himself from the Chair more than a year earlier, claiming to be unfit to represent the brotherhood because of his failure to influence the Church’s decision to do what it had done to the Order. No one in the community had wanted him to give up the Chair, and no one believed that any portion of the fault was his, but the old man had been adamant, and Will had reluctantly acceded to his wishes, with the single but absolute proviso that Formadieu remain on the Western dais, behind, and at the shoulder of, the man selected to replace him. Of course, the selection of that successor had been Will’s, and he had chosen to appoint Sir Reynald de Pairaud, now an old and wizened man, in recognition of the veteran knight’s staunch but unexpected enthusiasm for what they had been able to achieve since landing on the island.
The sound of the door closing behind de Pairaud brought Will back to an awareness that it was now his turn to request entry to the proceedings below. He glanced down at himself and at the black leather bag in the crook of his arm, checking that all was as it should be, then walked forward and knocked on the door, which opened immediately. He whispered the password into the doorkeeper’s ear, then stepped across the threshold to where the other four, already in order of precedence, waited for him on the narrow landing at the top of the steep wooden stairs. Below them, the last, sustained note of the deep chant faded to silence just as Will murmured to the whiterobed brethren to start down. He himself was dressed from head to foot in black, in the cowled robe of a mendicant friar, save that the robe was of rich and heavy wool, unrelieved by any decoration and belted with a thickly plaited girdle of black-dyed, glossy linen fiber. He waited until the others began to move down the stairs, then hitched his leather bag higher and followed them, aware now of the silent faces that stared up at him and the expectant stillness that awaited his arrival.
He paused at the bottom of the last flight, then stepped directly to the Master’s Chair on the Eastern dais, one pace to his left. His four companions waited for him to take his place, then moved on to the junction of the cruciform aisles, where de l’Armentière turned left and De Montrichard right, to the South and North respectively, leaving De Pairaud and Bishop Formadieu to make their way together to the dais in the West. When all four were in place, Will stood looking out at the assembled brethren, sensing the silence growing even deeper, as though everyone in the crowd was holding his breath.
He made himself count slowly to ten, dragging out the stillness, then lowered his bag to the table in front of him and unbuckled it before raising his head again and starting to speak, pitching his voice carefully so that it resonated in the crowded hall, and articulating his words slowly and clearly.
“Brethren, we are here together to mark a momentous occasion, one that none of us could ever have imagined when we left La Rochelle seven years ago. Since then, we have built a life for ourselves here on this little island, and we have struggled diligently to live by the Rule of our Order and to preserve our ways and our responsibilities against the day that every one of us once believed must surely come … that day when we would be redeemed and would return to France, our names and that of our Order restored to honor, the spurious charges against us finally expunged. We have lived here in hope and in brotherhood, and within the past year, we have been joined and strengthened by our Scots bret
hren from the mainland.
“But within those same seven years, our hopes for justice and an honorable reinstatement of our Order have been crushed, dwindling steadily in the face of everincreasing tidings of grief and disaster, treachery and malice emanating from France and from its King.” He stopped there, giving his listeners time to accept what he was saying, and as soon as he saw heads beginning to nod in agreement, he resumed in the same voice.
“And so we have made changes—dire changes, indeed, but necessary in a swiftly changing world.” He drew a deep, audible breath. “Now I have learned of one more such, one last, appalling change that has made exiles of us all, forever …” The silence in the room was absolute, and he looked about him before he spoke again, making eye contact with as many of the assembled men as he could, and seeing the same tension of uncertainty and dread in every face.
“On the eighteenth day of March this year, the year of our Lord 1314, our beloved Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, was burned alive in Paris. The murder—for it was nothing less—was performed as a public spectacle by the direct order of Philip Capet. An obscene atrocity was treated as a festivity.”
It was as though a silent gale had blown into the hall, its force rocking the packed crowd visibly, but before they could begin to react further, Will launched into the tale as he had heard it from St. Omer, omitting nothing and ending with the challenge—amounting to a curse—that de Molay had issued from the flames, summoning both King and Pope to join him before the throne of God Himself within the year. Then, when he had finished, he raised a hand into the profound silence.
“So there you have it. Our noble Order has ceased to exist beyond this realm of Scotland. It is finished, dead with the death of its noble Master and the simultaneous deaths of honor, justice, and nobility in our sad land. And with the passing of our Master, by his own written command, I am now become Grand Master of what remains.” His eyes swept the crowd. “Master of what remains.
“And what is that? What does remain, what can remain, after such infamy and gross injustice?” What remains, brethren, is here with us now, within this Chapter Hall. It is our enduring spirit, our honor and our ideals, our clear understanding, unsullied by venality or envy, of our duties as knights and men, and our responsibility to ourselves and those who stand with us. We hold those tenets safe within us, untarnished and undiminished by the betrayals of Church and state and the horrors unleashed upon our innocent brothers by the Holy Inquisition.
“In the eyes of the world, then, our Order is dead, but we know, all of us, that that is not true. As long as one of us remains alive to nurture its memory and serve its purposes, our Order will continue to exist, and that becomes my greatest responsibility as Master now: to protect and nourish what remains. We must change, adapt, reform ourselves completely. We have changed, greatly but not yet sufficiently. And now we are about to conceal ourselves completely from the eyes and ken of ordinary men. We will become as ghosts and phantoms. But we will continue to observe our rites and ceremonies, to maintain our beliefs and to coexist in amity, as brothers, equal in the all-seeing eye of God. Henceforth, we will pursue our goals and dreams in utter secrecy, our existence veiled and hidden, our true identities unknown. This is my oath to you: we will survive and thrive, though hidden from the eyes of others, and the day will come when this Order will arise again, from out of this realm of Scotland, to honor the memory of the last, true Grand Master of the Temple, who died on the island in the Seine last March. And thus I think it would be fitting, as our last act in this, our last gathering, were we to sing ‘Dies Irae’—Days of Wrath—to mark the passing of a great and noble man.”
Across from Will, on the Western dais, Bishop Formadieu stepped forward and began to sing the first line of the solemn, sonorous chant of the requiem hymn, and by the end of his first phrase he had been joined by the massed voices of the assembly, singing with a fervor and solemnity that Will could not remember ever having heard. He stood listening intently, feeling no urge to join in although the hairs stirred on his neck as the waves of sound swelled and washed over him. He had always preferred listening to music rather than marring it with his own tuneless contribution, and now he pictured the dead man as he had last seen him, grave, dignified, and deeply troubled by the seemingly preposterous warnings he had received. Remembering the Master’s reluctant decision to act upon those warnings, Will now realized how appropriate the words of this dirge were to that memory: Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets’ warning, Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
As the hymn ended, Will pulled the bag towards him. He laid both hands on it.
“This would not have been a day of celebration, even without these evil tidings, but it must not—will not—end in despair. Few of you, I suspect, ever laid eyes on Master de Molay, for he lived most of his life far from France, beyond the seas, working without pause for the good of our Order. But I know there is not a man among you who is unaware of the reverence, even the awe, with which he was regarded by all who knew him. He was a knight without peer, and it was, alas, his destiny to die in office, the last of an unbroken line of twenty-three Grand Masters of our Order, beginning with Hugh de Payens in 1118.
“Twenty-three men, Brethren, and one hundred and ninety-six years of rectitude and devotion to duty, all of it destroyed by one greedy, venal king. Philip Capet, known as le Bel—the Fair. Such fairness brings to mind the whited sepulcher of scripture … But no more of him. He is not worthy of your time or of your thoughts. Think instead of Jacques de Molay for the remainder of this day, as you work at your appointed tasks.
“Before we stand adjourned, however, I have a few things—personal things—I want to say to you as Master here. I will not keep you long, for most of our work is done in preparation for this day.” He looked around at their watching faces as he spoke, noticing, not for the first time, that few among them could be described as young looking.
“When we leave here today, we will begin the final stages of our preparations to quit this place for good. Horses, armor, weapons, and provisions, along with most of your personal possessions—those of you who have any—are all in place on the beaches by the wharf below, and the ships are waiting to take them on board. You all know what to do and you know we have no time to waste. I want to add a reminder, if you will.
“When we came here, we were exiles, homeless fugitives who still could not believe what had happened to our ordered world. We were confused and disbelieving, not knowing what to think and waiting, blind and deaf, for news to reach us telling us it had all been a mistake and that we must return home. But that word never came, and the world we had known fell into ruin.
“Yet we sat safe here, on this island, sheltered from the chaos by the goodwill of one man, Robert of Scotland, and his friends. Of course, we were able to support him in return, from our own strength, limited though that was. And when we leave here today, most of you will continue to support him from your new homes in the lodges we have founded in Scotland, and your strength will hearten him in his time of need, as his understanding and goodwill heartened us in ours.” He tapped his clenched right fist into the palm of his other hand. “But now the King of Scots faces the greatest challenge of his reign. England is set to destroy him utterly, and all who stand with him. I know you are all aware of that. It is not new. England has been determined to destroy the Scots for years now, yet the Scots remain unbroken. I know, too, that you are all aware of the new invasion now being prepared. I wonder, however, if you know the true extent of what is afoot this time.
“Edward of Caernarvon has assembled more than two and a half thousand heavy chivalry at Berwick. Two thousand and five hundred armored knights, each of them backed by mounted men-at-arms. He has raised four thousand longbows and fifteen thousand infantry troops. He has a supply train of hundreds of wagons, all of them poised and ready to move north at his word. And he has a fleet of ships already sailing up the coast towards the River Forth, where they will wait, with f
resh provisions and supplies, until his armies reach them.
“Twenty thousand men, at modest count, poised to strike into Scotland. And King Robert will confront them close to Stirling, the narrowest point of their invasion route and perhaps the only spot where they might be stopped. The odds against the Bruce’s army, including those of you who choose to stand with him, will be at least four to one, and perhaps greater.”
He drew the black bag towards him, raising the flap with one hand while he reached inside with the other, and he drew out the great blazing jewel of red and white enameled metal depicting an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid that marked his rank as a member of the Governing Council of the Temple. He held it up for them to see, suspended from its heavy chain of silver links.
“I set this aside last night, in chapter, for the last time, laying down my role and rank as Knight Commander of the Temple Council. I will not wear it again because for now the Council has ceased to exist and I see no reason to replace it, since we are so few. And so I speak to you now as plain Sir William Sinclair, one of you—no more and no less. I have done my duty as prescribed, with the help of my own counselors, and all the arrangements are in place for our dispersal as a community, everything as planned, and for the good of all.
“But now I find that, as a man, I am far from happy and farther from content. I am, in fact, sick at heart. We have changed ourselves outwardly, disguising who we were. We have accepted what has been done to us, in silence and without open protest. We have been meek, and turned the other cheek, accepting undeserved shame and degradation from the hands of those we once were proud to serve. Well, I have had my fill of that!
“Pride is a sin, they tell us. But those very speakers, in their arrogance and pride and greed, have stripped us of everything that made us men and dutiful monks. So if pride be a sin, I am prepared to die in sin, rather than live in shame.”