by Jack Whyte
“How long ago was this?”
“Last July. More than a year ago.”
“And what has the King being doing since then?” “He played the cateran among the Isles last winter, raising support from the Islesmen, living off the land and fighting to consolidate his kingdom. And all the while straining to stay unbowed while new burdens afflict him daily.”
“Burdens such as what?”
Douglas looked away, clasping his hands about his upper arms, so that Will thought he was not going to answer, but no sooner had he thought that than the young nobleman spoke. “Oh, the loss of three of his four brothers, Nigel, Alec, and Thomas, all of them betrayed by Scots nobles and sent to Edward in England to be hanged, drawn, and quartered like brigands. And the capture of his wife, Queen Elizabeth, his daughter, Marjory, his sisters Mary and Christina, Countess of Mar, and the Countess of Buchan. All of them taken and sent to England likewise, this time by John Comyn, the Earl of Ross. The Queen, we have been told, is being held prisoner somewhere in the north of England. The Princess Marjory, at thirteen, is forbidden to be spoken to by anyone and is hung in an open cage from the outer wall of London’s Tower. The Lady Mary Bruce, the King’s sister, hung in a similar cage from the walls of Roxburgh Castle. The Lady Christina of Mar, his other sister, locked up in a nunnery. And Isobel, Countess of Buchan, hangs in an another cage from the walls of Berwick.”
“Good God! And this was Edward’s doing? But surely, now that he is dead—”
“Nothing has changed. Nor will it. Edward of Caernarvon is not the man his father was, but he hates just as hard. He left this land last August, with nigh on two hundred thousand men in his train. We thought for a while he would march north in search of us, for that would have been the end of everything, but thanks be to God his coronation had been scheduled for September in London. He had dallied too long without striking at us and marched away leaving us with the knowledge of the size of the force he had fielded. Two hundred thousand men, against our three thousand. They came and they left, but they’ll be back one of these days, though we have had word from England, from a trusted source, that he has problems enough with his own barons to keep his mind away from us for a spell.
“And that gave King Robert opportunity to turn to cleaning his own realm of turncoats and traitors. He took the MacDowals first, in Galloway, and gave them a taste of what treason entails. And then he turned to the MacDougalls in Argyll, and wrung a truce from them, from their chief’s son, Lame John MacDougall of Lorn. The father, old Alexander, can no longer march or fight, so Lame John rules there in all but name now. But the King made a truce. No more hostilities between now and June of next year. I fear he should have finished it then and there, but he was loath to risk losing too many men in formal battle. We are not yet strong enough for that. But then he headed north and east, marching along the Great Glen, and took the castle at Inverness—the first such victory he has won since taking up the crown. All the other castles in the realm remain in English hands.”
Sinclair struggled to encompass the enormity of what he had been told, trying to imagine the effect such a progression of family catastrophes must have had on the man Bruce. How had he managed to survive such things without losing his ability to function as a man, let alone a king? He shook his head, trying to clear it, and Douglas spoke again, quietly, as if he had read Will’s thoughts.
“His family’s losses hit him hard, but they strengthened him too. A lesser man would have been beaten to his knees. I know I would. But not King Robert … Even so, I sometimes wonder how he restrains himself from hunting down his enemies, one by one, and killing each one privily, in person. But he will not do so. He sees himself as Monarch first, responsible for his people, and only after that, his duty done, as family man, responsible for kinsmen and friends.
“And yet, within these past few months, we have seen signs that the tide is turning. Not sufficiently, not yet. But there is hope, increasing all the time. We have won a few tulzies, and folk are coming to our cause more and more all the time—not the great nobles, but the common folk—and we have more strength now than we have had since Methven. But King Robert will not hear of set battles, not when he can field fewer than three thousand men against English and Comyn hosts of tens of thousands … But that will change, once he carries the fight to the Comyns.”
“Then how come you to be here, in Arran, Sir James? I would have thought your place is with the King.”
“No, my place is here, holding the southwest and maintaining it against the King’s return. I have it safe for now, but every castle in the land is still manned by English garrisons. Above us, to the north and east, the MacDougalls and the MacDowals still swarm like maggots in Lorn and Galloway, nursing their hatred. We are safely based here on Arran, for the time being, but that could change with the next sail that comes over the horizon … Speaking of which,” he added, taking a new tack, “you said ships when you spoke of your treasure—one of your ships. I see but one, so plainly you have others.” Will pursed his lips and nodded, and Douglas’s eyes came close to squinting. “How many, and where are they?”
“They are nearby, awaiting word from me. I told you I came seeking sanctuary, but I knew not how I might be received or what, if anything, I might find here. I left my ships behind, in a safe anchorage, whence they might come or go without hindrance whatever we found.”
Douglas was nibbling on his upper lip now, deep in thought as the noise and horseplay nearby swelled in volume. But then he straightened and drew a deep breath. “Come you with me, if you will. There are others who should hear what you have to say … and many others who should not. So mind you, guard your tongue henceforth until I give the nod. Will you agree to that?”
Will Sinclair smiled widely, unable to resist his inexplicable liking for this dark-skinned young man with the brilliant and expressive blue eyes. “Happily,” he said, and then followed Douglas back across the wide forecourt and up the flight of sturdy wooden steps to the castle hall.
SIX
The vast room was almost empty now and, pausing just inside the threshold, Will was surprised to see that it was not as he had first perceived it. In the crush of people who had filled it earlier, he had taken it to be a single great space, its high roof supported by pillars and huge beams, but now he saw that there were doors at each end, leading to two more full-width chambers, and that wide stairways against the wall facing the main entry doors led up to partitioned spaces above both. The platform on his left held several rooms, each curtained off and served by a common passageway along the gallery they formed. The one on the right, presumably similar in layout, was fronted by a wooden wall, affording privacy to whoever lived there, and he supposed that it would be occupied by the commander.
The place was new, and crudely but strongly built, its wooden beams still showing the fresh cuts of axe and adze, but already he saw signs that carpenters had been at work, smoothing and finishing the main surfaces, particularly the wall that fronted the upper space reserved for the commander. A fire blazed in a great, open stone fireplace against the rear wall, too, between the two flights of steps, and by just looking at it and smelling the gently drifting haze of smoke from it he could tell that it was freshly lit. Along the walls to his immediate right and left, a small army of men was starting to prepare tables and benches for the coming feast, manhandling them from where they had been piled on end in the far corners and carrying them out into the middle of the floor, laying them out in rows from there.
All of this he absorbed in moments, along with the awareness that the place now seemed to be full of large dogs—lean, rangy, spike-coated hounds that he remembered from his boyhood but had seldom seen in France. Three knots of men, the largest of them a quartet, were talking quietly in various parts of the main room, each far enough away from the others to remain unheard. De Berenger was there, too, standing about ten paces ahead of Will in the middle of the floor and turning to look at him. He had been talking to one of the Scots
knights Will had met earlier, although the man’s name was long since beyond recall, and as Will focused on the stranger he felt Douglas place a hand on his elbow.
“Come, I see your admiral has met Bishop Moray. I will leave you with them for a while, with your permission, for I have things to do before we can continue.”
He started to move forward, but Will restrained him with a touch on his arm and a question. “Bishop Moray. Is he the same one who rode north with the Queen and her ladies?”
“The same.”
“And is he one of those you trust, or no?”
Douglas grinned, a flash of brightness in the gloom. “David is one to trust, believe me.”
He led Will forward then to join the other two, introducing him again to the Bishop, who looked less like a bishop than any other Will had ever seen or known. David de Moray, Bishop of Moray, was not a tall man, but he was enormously broad and deep across shoulders and chest, and he was self-evidently a practicing member of the Church Militant, armored from head to foot. The open skirts of his calf-length coat of rusting but still pliable chain mail clearly showed three bright scars where they had recently been struck by hard-swung weapons. Beneath the coat he wore leggings of the same mail, and on his feet, sturdy, well-worn boots with thick, many-layered soles. His head was covered by a close-fitting hood of felted wool, the bindings at its chin undone, and the mailed cap that would cover it dangled between his shoulders. A long, plain-hilted dirk hung from a sheath at his waist, and a broad belt slung across his chest from his right shoulder supported a heavy broadsword in a scuffed scabbard.
“I am glad you’re here, David,” Douglas said, speaking in French again and nodding to the admiral as he did so. “Sir William has been asking me about the state of King Robert’s realm today. But I thought it better he should speak with you, to hear the Church’s reasoned view of things, rather than my bloody-handed version of what is going on and who deserves to die.” He turned to Will. “David has been one of our King’s staunchest supporters since the beginning. He can tell you all you need to know—things I could not tell you. He is less priest than fighter, as the dints in his mail will attest, but priest he is, nonetheless, with views more sober and long-headed than mine, so I will leave you with him.” He pointed at one particularly bright slash of silver on the Bishop’s rusted skirts. “You were lucky with that one, David. That could have taken your leg off.”
“It almost did,” Moray drawled, smiling. “But God was watching at the time, even if I was not.”
“Of course He was. I’ll leave you to it, then, and be back as soon as I can be.”
Moray turned to Will. “Well, sir, what think you of our young Jamie?”
Will watched the younger man bound up the stairs leading to the upper floor two steps at a time. “A remarkable young man … and very young, it seems, to hold the trust he evidently holds.”
The Bishop laughed. “Granted, he’s young indeed, but Jamie is a Paladin. For all his youth, he’s one of our best commanders, and if he lives, he will become the best. The lad learns quickly and he never makes the same mistake twice. But he has grown from boy to man in desperately short time, and it shows on him to those of us who know him. He is also become one of the King’s closest and most trusted friends and advisers, despite his having been unknown to any of us until last year. King Robert knighted him in person upon meeting him, the day before his coronation at Scone.” His hand fell naturally to toy with the dirk at his waist. “So, you have questions. Ask away, then, and I will answer them as well as I may.”
“Thank you, my lord Bishop. I scarce know where to begin.”
“Begin by calling me David, then, and go forward from there. As Jamie said, I am become more fighter than bishop these past two years, and outside the chancel, away from my cope and miter, I find I prefer my name to my title … Mind you, it took me months before I could convince Jamie Douglas to call me by name. What do you need to know most?”
“About the King and his status. He is excommunicate, I heard.”
“Hmm. In the eyes of some, he is. But there is more of politics than of theology in that belief. Within the Church in Scotland, there are those, thank God, who can see things from another viewpoint, and prime among those are our Primate, Archbishop Lamberton, and Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, who is second in seniority and influence after the Archbishop. These two, in good conscience and for the good of the realm of Scotland, believe sincerely that the Holy Father has been misinformed about what came to pass between the two guardians that day in the chapel at Dumfries. They believe that His understanding of the situation has been warped and twisted by advisers desirous of promoting their own visions. Pope Clement passed his judgment in absentia, far removed from Scotland and its troubles, and it is the devout hope of the Archbishop that the Holy Father may be convinced of this someday soon and lift his interdiction. In the meantime, the Primate has refused, still in good conscience, to prosecute the excommunication … and that, in turn, permits the King to govern the realm in its time of sorest need.”
Will frowned. “Think you, then, that Archbishop Lamberton might know where the King is to be found?”
“No. On that I can be definite. The Archbishop is in England, a prisoner of the English, as is Wishart of Glasgow. Once again, betrayed and sold by fellow Scots. We are told they are well enough treated, as befits their station, but they are held fast nonetheless.”
“I see. And what of the other bishops of the realm? Is all the Church in Scotland united behind the Archbishop?”
Moray snorted in disgust. “No. As I said, there’s more politics here than theology. The bishops who support the Comyn faction stand against the King, united in treason. They hope still to see him overthrown and their own candidate anointed in his place.”
Will nodded, accepting the Bishop’s explanation. “I have already told Sir James Douglas this, but no one else. I am a member of the Governing Council of our Order, appointed to my current task by our Grand Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, and I am entrusted with a large sum of gold and silver, although not from the Temple’s treasury, intended for King Robert’s use. Did you know Sir Thomas Randolph, the former Sir Thomas?”
“Tom? I knew him well. Why?”
“Knew you then his youngest sister, the Lady Jessica?”
“Aye, but not well at all. I met her but once, long since. She was wed to a Frenchman … a baron, I believe.”
“The Baron Etienne de St. Valéry. He is dead, too, but he amassed a sum of wealth ere he died, and through a long chain of circumstances it was entrusted to our keeping in the Temple. His widow, the Baroness, is here aboard one of my ships, at anchor off the isle of Sanda, on Kintyre coast, and she wishes to donate this treasure to the King of Scots. And if ever we can find him, we will deliver it.”
The Bishop scratched his beard. “How large is it?”
“Large enough to buy an army. Six chests of gold and five of silver.”
“That is a great treasure …” Moray’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Depending, of course, upon the size of the chests. Yet I find myself wondering whether it be large enough to warrant accompaniment by a Knight Commander and the admiral of the Temple fleet?”
Will had trusted Douglas instinctively, and now he decided to trust this bishop, too. “You have not heard all of it—nor yet one-tenth of any part of it. We barely managed to bring the treasure out of France ahead of King Philip’s grasping fingers. And the reason we were able to do so was that we were warned in advance.”
“You were warned that the King of France was coming for the Baroness’s gold?”
“No. The Baroness’s gold was already in La Rochelle. Our saving it was mere good fortune. We had received warning that the King’s chief lawyer and first minister, William de Nogaret, planned to attack and interdict the Temple in France on the morning of October thirteenth.”
The silence that followed seemed long, and Moray’s face was a picture as he grappled with what he had heard. Finally he shook
his head. “Tell me that again. What exactly did you say?”
“At dawn on the morning of Friday, October thirteenth, mere weeks ago, the French army, acting under the instructions of William de Nogaret, the chief lawyer of France, moved concertedly against every commandery and every Temple installation in the country. All the occupants—knights, sergeants, brethren, and lay brethren—were arrested and imprisoned. All of them, at one swoop.”
The Bishop’s mouth was hanging open. “That is … that is inconceivable. But how then come you here?”
“I have said—we were warned. Our Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, had word of it more than a month before. He scarce believed what he was told, but he took steps to safeguard the fleet against such treachery, should it be true. At the last moment, in the increasing belief that it might be true, he sent me to La Rochelle, to warn the garrison and make preparations to secure the fleet and take it safely offshore the night before the threatened raid.”
“And it came to pass?”
“We stand here as witnesses. From all we understand, the Temple in France no longer exists.”
“That defies belief. The Temple no longer exists?”
“Not in France, at least not for the time being. That is what we believe. We did not linger long enough to verify the extent of the attack, but we saw what we saw in La Rochelle, and that was the Order’s operational headquarters in France.
“We have been through all the explanations we can think of—that it might have been a misunderstanding of some kind, that it might be no more than a gambit by the King to frighten the Order into making funds available to him, that whatever the root cause, negotiations will follow and all will be resolved …”
“But you believe none of it.”
Will’s headshake was barely noticeable. “No. I do not. I believe King Philip did what he did deliberately, with malice aforethought, and with the precise intention of seizing the Order’s wealth for himself. And I do not believe he will relent. In truth, he cannot. He owed the Temple too much money and he was bankrupt. With the Temple gone he will be solvent again, debtfree and with money to do whatever he desires. The Temple in France is finished.” He glanced at de Berenger, whose face was unreadable. “Forgive my bluntness, Edward, but the truth of that has just come home to me.”