by Jack Whyte
When the last basket of fish was carried away he was left standing alone on the beach’s silvered edge, lost in a swirling torrent of thoughts that tumbled over one another and swept his mind along without rhyme or reason. The boyhood memories that the fisher folk had evoked gave way to memories of joining the Order of Sion at boyhood’s end, at the age of eighteen, of being sent to join the Temple, and of how he had begun to struggle with the lore and the advanced mysteries of the Order of Sion, all the time advancing through the Temple hierarchy. For a while he found himself plunged back into the struggles they had had in trying, vainly, to stop the spread of Islam from northern Africa across the narrow seas into Iberia.
The waves swirled around his soles, shifting the pebbles on which he stood, and he turned away to climb the sloping foreshore towards the palisaded fort. He was through the gate and just starting up the flight of stone steps that led up to the forecourt of the hall when he heard yet another commotion erupt ahead of him, beyond the stairs. The sounds cut through the drifting eddies in his mind and snapped him back to the present. He lengthened his step and bounded up the stairs, fearing what he would find up there, and sure enough, a mile beyond where the fishing boats had been, the line between sea and sky was obscured by an irregular mass of angular shapes: masts and billowing sails upon which he could clearly see the emblem Bruce had described the night before, the galley symbol of Angus Og MacDonald, stark in its blackness against the whitened sails that bore it.
More and more men were crowding around him, obscuring his vision as they bobbed and weaved for a sight of the distant fleet, and he saw Tam Sinclair among them. He waited to catch his kinsman’s eye, then waved him over.
“Good day to you,” he growled when Tam reached his side. “You look … fresh. What were you up to last night?”
Tam grinned down at the thronging clansmen. “Among this crew? What would you think? I supped well, played a few games of dice and lost, then had the best night’s sleep I’ve had since leaving La Rochelle. On a tabletop on a floor that didna budge or sway once in the whole night. Whose ships are those?”
“Islanders. They are expected. Where’s Mungo?”
Tam shrugged. “He’s here somewhere. I saw him just a while ago. What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you everything later. For now, I need to see what’s happening out there.”
The crowd had ringed them in while they stood talking, and now Will began to weave among them, trying to find a vantage point of his own, but a hand pulled at his sleeve and he heard his name being spoken. It was David de Moray at his side, with the taller figure of Bruce looming just behind him.
“A word, if it please you,” the Bishop said, and beckoned him to come with them.
They crossed the crowded yard and mounted the wooden stairs to the hall, picking their way through the press of craning bodies that jammed the steps. Inside, the building was deserted, and Bruce led the way quickly across the rush-strewn floor and up the stairs to the room they had been in the night before. As he climbed the steps, Will was surprised to realize that for a period of hours he had managed to escape the tension and uncertainty that had kept him awake for most of the night. It had all returned now, filling his breast, and he had not yet spoken a word since being summoned. The Bishop pulled the door shut behind them.
The room was dim, lit only by thin November daylight from the small windows high in the gable wall, and the King was already seating himself next to the long dead fire in the iron grate. He waved Will to a seat across from him, and as the Temple knight obeyed, Moray lowered himself carefully into the chair next to Bruce. The King looked at Will and scratched his chin.
“Davie here has been praying all morning,” he said.
“Thinking and praying,” the Bishop amended. “And I have some suggestions to propose … some provisos.”
There came a deep-throated roar from outside and Bruce glanced up at the windows. “Angus Og is giving them something to react to,” he said quietly. “A great believer in spectacle, is Angus. But,” he drew himself upright in his chair, his entire demeanor changing, “we will have an hour before he approaches the beach, so we can talk—” He broke off, his eyebrows rising slightly, then asked, “What is it?”
Will flapped a hand to indicate that what he had to say was unimportant. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but it occurred to me that when your guest arrives, he might address you as King Bruce openly, in front of all … and I know you are here secretly. That is all.”
The King nodded. “Well said, but Angus will not come ashore. He will merely send a boat for Davie, Boyd, de Hay, and me. He and I talked of this but days ago and he knows I am plain Boyd of Annandale here. Now, let’s listen to what my lord Bishop has to say. Davie?”
The Bishop sat back and leveled his bright, hazel eyes at Will. “Fine,” he said, speaking in clearly enunciated Scots. Fine. I’ll not bore you with what you already know, Sir William, but get right to the heart of things. We have … difficulties … possible and serious discomfiture and embarrassment for King Robert and his entire realm should your presence here become public knowledge—and with the arrival of the fleet you expect tomorrow, that knowledge can scarcely be avoided. But on the other hand, there could be—there are—equally potent benefits available to both Crown and realm through your presence here, not the least of those being the treasure you carry in your hold for the King’s purse. But there is also the matter of your galleys to consider, the goodwill and advantages those offer us. And forbye, there is the real, appreciable worth of the trained, disciplined, mounted, and fully equipped manpower you have promised in King Robert’s support should you be permitted to remain here. Those things are known, and in many respects, they counterbalance each the other, pro and contra.
“The difficulty lies in finding the means—some practical and valid method—whereby we, the Church in Scotland, as much as the King’s military and civil advisers, could justifiably grant the sanctuary you seek, while keeping the dangers entailed from overwhelming everything. The losses we would court in doing so are not to be made light of. They involve the excommunication and eternal damnation of an entire people on the one hand, and the loss of a powerful ally on the other. And even the threatened loss of that ally’s neutrality is to be feared, since the absence of neutrality entails his espousal of England’s cause in the wars we face.”
He cleared his throat, glancing away towards a distant corner. “I prayed long and hard last night, searching for some guidance, some oracle, I suppose, to tell me what Archbishop Lamberton and Bishop Wishart would wish to say, were either of them able to be here. But of course they cannot be here, and I must act in their stead, for my sins. And so I tossed and turned much of the night, and thought … thought about the idea, no more than a flashing notion, that had come to me last night. We talked briefly of beards.”
“I remember.”
“You told us that the full, forked beards were an affectation. That was the word you used.”
“Aye. It is an affectation. It began in the Holy Lands, during the wars there. All men went bearded there, Muslim and Christian alike. And at some point, no one knows when now, the knights of the Temple began to wear their beards forked, to differentiate themselves from others.”
“How do you know that? You sound certain of it.”
Will frowned, wondering where this was leading. Bruce was saying nothing, plucking at the tuft of beard beneath his nether lip and studying the Bishop through narrowed eyes.
“I am certain of it. It was referred to in—” Will caught himself. “In some documents I read … while preparing for advancement within the Order. It was of no importance, but it stuck in my memory for some reason.” He shrugged. “My mind works like that sometimes, retaining things of which I have no need. Why do you ask? Is it important?”
“I think so. How does one man look at another and know he belongs to the Temple?”
Will’s frown deepened, reflecting his growing bewilderment. “Several di
fferent ways. By the clothes he wears, and the insignia he bears—the cross pattée, the various marks of rank.”
“And the beard?”
“Aye, certainly, if the wearer is a knight, but not so the sergeants. The knights all wear forked beards, highly distinctive, as you pointed out, but the sergeants simply go bearded … and tonsured, of course.”
“Of course,” the Bishop agreed, nodding. “They all wear the tonsure of the Church’s most privileged Order.” He paused for barely a heartbeat, then continued on a different tack. “You said your first task would be to remind your people of who they are and what they represent, no?”
Thoroughly perplexed now, Will glanced at the King, seeking some guidance. But the monarch’s steelgray eyes stared back at him levelly, offering nothing in the way of enlightenment, and so he looked again at Moray, only to find the same level, noncommittal gaze. He flapped a hand impatiently and nodded. “I did say that, yes. And I meant it.”
“I know you did, because you named your reasons and your fears: that their morale might have been threatened by the events in France, because after weeks cooped up at sea they might be feeling mutinous, angry, and resentful and thus prone to unpredictable behavior. Am I correct or have I missed something?”
“No, Bishop, you were listening well.” Something like a small, hard-edged grin flickered at the corner of Will’s mouth. “You may have overstated the case slightly, but the gist of what I said is there.”
“You said you must remind them of their vows and make them aware of the obligations they undertook in joining the Order. Those would be poverty, chastity, and obedience.” Moray smiled now. “Poverty, it seems to me, has never been a difficulty for your brethren, would you not agree? And chastity becomes a way of life in a religious Order, free of the fleshly temptations that beset the ruck of men. But obedience is another matter altogether, and in this instance of what occurred in France, the deterrent to obedience, the fear of punishment, has been removed by the incarceration of the Order’s leaders and commanders. That, I believe, must be your first priority: to re-establish the concept of obedience, and your own authority, before all else. How will you do that, should the need arise?” He extended his hand, fingers spread, inviting a response.
Will gazed at the tabletop, seeing the grain in the long slabs of wood that had been used to make it. Across from him, his audience of two sat patiently. He could feel their eyes watching him, waiting.
“This … this potential for rebellion, as you put it, could present a novel situation,” he said finally, speaking almost to himself, so that the others leaned closer. “The chances are strong that it will not arise, but if it should, I will have to deal with it.”
He looked from one to the other of them, then continued in a louder voice. “You must understand that the matter of the punishment of brethren who offend the Rule is one that is strictly held, and privily, among the Order. It is not, nor can it ever be, a matter for discussion or debate outside of chapter gatherings. But I can see why it is you ask.” He stopped again, wrestling with words. “When we … disembark … and reassemble from our ships, we will be a community again—a single entity and a self-contained chapter. My first duty, as a representative of the Governing Council within that community, will be to convene a gathering of the chapter and give blessings and prayers for our deliverance from the perils thrust upon us by King Philip and de Nogaret.” He smiled, briefly.
“Not that I will officiate myself in the praying. We have three of the Order’s own bishops with us, by the grace of God. But, that done, and the specific requirements, regulations, and obligations of the Order and its sacred Rule completed in this, our new communal home—for no matter how temporary our stay here might be, the obligations are unchangeable—it will remain for me to supervise the election of the community’s officers, and with them, to define the brethren’s tasks and duties in this place. And by that time, with the establishment of a community again and the reinforcement of our duties, the threat of disobedience should be slight. It ought to be unthinkable, in fact, but … it will be slight.”
He sighed, then twisted his head, loosening his neck, which had grown stiff from the force of his concentration. “And if it is not, then I will have to build some kind of jail, some means of holding the miscreants apart, for the good of the community and the salvaging of their own souls. The value of a month of enforced solitude, existing on bread and water, is an inestimable thing.”
Bruce spoke into the silence that followed. “There are storehouses on the ground floor with stone walls and stout iron bars. Jail cells, if you need them.”
Will looked at him and nodded. “Thank you for that. Those would serve in the short term … and that is all we should need, a short-term solution. But we would have to build a Chapter House of our own for the duration of our stay. A religious community cannot share common lodgings with laymen. I trust you can see that?”
The King nodded slowly, then turned to the Bishop. “Davie, you must have more?”
“I do, Your Grace.” Moray drew both palms down his face from forehead to chin, then leaned forward towards Will. “Here then, Sir William, is the gist of my thinking, and before I say it I must make a point, not to insult or demean anyone or anything, but simply to make myself clear. Were you to enter this room and look at me now, for the first time, what kind of man would you take me to be?” He saw the puzzled look on Will’s face and stood up from the table, dragging his chair aside and stepping back so that he could be clearly seen. “Come now, what would you take me for?”
Will shrugged, his eyes taking in the figure facing him: short hair, enormously strong shoulders, a solid, confident posture, large, capable hands, a well-worn shirt of rusted mail, and a sheathed dirk hanging from a belt about his waist. “A knight,” he said. “A well-born fighting knight in need of a new shirt of mail.”
“Aha! And were I to walk out and come back in wearing miter and chasuble? What then?”
“I would see a bishop.”
“Yes, you would, and though both warrior and bishop would be accurate descriptions, you would be hard put to see either one in the other, am I right?”
“You are.”
“And I am right in this matter of the beards, for at the heart of that lies the solution we require. If you can make the manner of your people’s dress and appearance a matter of obedience, then you and yours might remain here in perpetuity.” He raised a swift hand to cut short Will’s reaction, pressing on with what he had to say. “Strip off the outer marks of what you are and you will not be seen, will be perceived as being other than you are. Command your knights to cut off their forked beards, to leave their tonsures to grow out, and dress them commonly, like ordinary men. Remove the Templar crosses and visible emblems from their clothing and military devices—armor, shields, and surcoats—and above all, be careful with your horses. Keep them apart and well concealed from casual view, and permit no displays of chivalry for idle folk to gawk at and talk about later. Become ordinary men, to outward view at least, even farming the little land that’s there to till, and you may rest secure here, as we may rest secure knowing you are here, unseen.
“Unseen? But we will be seen. God knows there are enough of us, and this is a small island. How can you think that we will not be seen?”
“I don’t. I am not talking about sorcery or magic. You will be seen, but you’ll be seen as ordinary men—soldiers and men at arms. We are at war here in Scotland. There are men in arms everywhere throughout the realm, and no one pays them any notice until it comes time to fight. But a strong force of disciplined men, religious, well-horsed fighting men in red Crusader crosses and the black cross of the Temple Mount, based upon the Isle of Arran? Think you not that would be remarked, a topic for discussion throughout the land?”
Will’s mind reeled as he grappled with what the Bishop was suggesting. Here, he thought, was blasphemy, issuing from the mouth of a bishop of Holy Church. His every instinct told him to rise up against it
. And yet, even as he contemplated doing so, seeking the words that would reject the notion, the edge of his outrage softened and he began to think more logically, and to perceive that the outrage might be confined to his own mind alone.
“This could not be,” he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “It is too much—”
“Too much of what?” Moray asked. “It was you who said the beards were but an affectation.”
“And they are. The matter of the beards is nothing. But the tonsure …”
“Do you know whence came the tonsure, Sir William?”
“Whence … ? No, I do not.”
The Bishop of Moray smiled, as though he were enjoying himself. “Well I do. Like you, I have a mind that retains such trivial, meaningless things. Eight hundred years ago, in the dying days of Rome’s empire, a shaved head was the symbol of slavery. Slaves were forbidden to wear hair, lest it make them indistinguishable from ordinary citizens. And so their heads were shaved bald, shaved unnaturally in a square, to mark them as slaves for all the world to see. And those were the days in which the first monastic Orders were being formed. The early monks took up the practice of shaving their heads, too, to demonstrate that they chose to be the lowest of the low, the very slaves of Christ.” The Bishop paused. “Few people know that today, and fewer still regard the tonsure as what it has become, now that its true meaning has been lost to history. It is an affectation. No more than that. Just like your full, forked beards.” He waited for a reaction from Will, and when he saw the knight’s jaw sag in amazement, he changed course, his voice deeper and more conciliatory.