by Jack Whyte
“He’s shy,” Jamie said, then raised his voice. “Thomas, have you no words of greeting for our hostess?”
The tall man seemed to stiffen, and then turned around slowly, and even from a distance Jessie could see the color suffusing his face as Douglas called again. “Come over here, man, and play the civil courtier.”
Jessie felt her jaw sag open as she gazed at the stranger, whose eyes only now met hers, clouded with what she could only discern as shame and embarrassment. She knew the man, recognized him easily, but yet her mind seemed incapable of accepting his presence here.
“Thomas?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. Then, more strongly, “Thomas, is that you?”
The man ducked his head in acknowledgment, then moved forward slowly, his fair-skinned face burning with blood. “Auntie Jessie,” he said. “Forgive me for this. I fear you may not want me ’neath your roof.”
Her eyes went wide with astonishment. “My roof? What are you talking about? It is your roof, Thomas. This is your house. But you were … I thought … How come you here?”
Sir Thomas Randolph, her eldest brother’s son and nephew to the Bruce himself through a half-sister, stepped closer, his face a portrait of misery and shame. “You thought me in England, a willing vassal to the Plantagenet, a traitor to my home and kinsmen. Is that not what you wished to say?”
Jessie gasped, then bridled in protest. “Well, yes and no, in equal measure. In England, certainly. A prisoner of England, willingly or no, taken at Methven field. But traitor? No. That thought never entered my mind. No man who bears the name of Thomas Randolph could ever be traitor. So have done with the self-pity if you would please me, for it ill becomes you. Now, tell me true, how do you come to be here?”
Before the other could answer, Jamie Douglas moved away and began barking orders to his men, bidding them settle down and dispose themselves quietly and without fuss, and Jessie turned to interrupt him.
“How many are you, Sir James?”
“Forty-four, my lady, including ourselves … young Thomas and I.”
“Then we can put them all under roofs. There are four bothies behind the farm, apart from the main buildings. They can hold twelve men apiece in comfort. Have your men move into those and set up picket lines for your horses at the rear. There’s ample grazing in the paddock back there, and I’ll have my people—Sir Thomas’s people—start preparing food for everyone. We had to kill a stirk that broke a leg four days ago, so we have ample meat. I had feared much of it might go to waste, but now we’ll make good use of it, though it will be well after dark, I fear, before we sup.”
She turned back to her nephew to find that the angry color had receded from his face and he was looking at her now with something akin to gratitude and wonder in his eyes. “Well,” she said. “Are you going to stand there fidgeting all night, Thomas Randolph? Come you inside. I have been keeping your house clean and warm in your absence, but now that you are home again, I am become your guest.”
He threw up his hand immediately, then bowed from the waist, smiling suddenly, and it seemed the sun itself shone from his eyes. “No, Auntie Jess. Do not even say the words. I am … in transit. No more than that. This house is yours for as long as you may need it. And I am grateful.”
“Grateful? For what?”
“For your forbearance … your goodwill. Sir James has told me you are close in the King’s regard. Nursed him while he was sick. I had thought you would bear me ill will for taking arms against him.”
“Aye … Well, you were wrong. We talked of you, the King and I, when word first came to us last winter that you were riding with the English. He bore you no ill will, even then, knowing you for what you are, a knight yet unschooled in the realities of the wars he fights today. He said you reminded him of himself, when he was your age, full of the bright awareness of knighthood and honor and chivalry and not yet dulled by life’s realities. He feared that you saw him as a brigand, unfit to bear the title of knighthood. And he grieved for that. But we will talk of that later. I have much to do to feed your company, and the day grows late already. Come you in when you have finished what you have to do, and bring Sir James with you. I will have something more than water to slake your thirst by then. Go now.”
His face flushed again, though not so shamefacedly this time, and she felt the beginnings of a smile upon her lips, for she thought he might be quite the most attractive man she had ever seen, tall and broad shouldered and fair of hair and face. He would be more than half her age, she thought, twenty at the most, to her thirty and six, and he had his father’s easy, upright carriage and his mother’s length of limb and her maternal family’s golden hair and bright blue eyes. He shrugged the sword belt from across his chest and over his head as he went from her, and she admired the easy confidence with which he threw the long, sheathed weapon to a waiting, gray-bearded moss-trooper before he strode through the entranceway and out into the fields beyond, headed towards the bothies at the back. And then she remembered what she had to do and spun back to the doorway.
From that moment on until late in the night after the huge but plain supper of spit-roasted beef, fresh oatmeal bread, and boiled greens served with vinegar and butter, Jessie barely had a moment to herself, making herself available and visible everywhere, supervising the details of the meal’s preparation and the arrangements for housing more than two score unanticipated visitors. And so it was with great relief that she sank into a solid, upholstered chair by the fire in the farmhouse’s main room shortly before midnight, taking pleasure in the fact that her two guests were there already, comfortably seated and awaiting her arrival.
Douglas had been dozing when she came in, but had leapt to his feet as quickly as her nephew and ushered her towards the room’s main chair, situated directly in front of the peat fire that glowed in the stone hearth. She thanked him with a smile and murmured word of thanks, then allowed herself to relax into the chair and look around the shadowed, comfortable room. It was spacious but low ceilinged, with a roof of hammered beams, and furnished for comfort, with four massive armchairs and a deep couch, besides the enormous table of ancient, hand-carved black oak and the twelve matching high-backed chairs surrounding it. Candles were scattered throughout, some in sconces, others in scattered holders, and a half score ranged in each of the two candelabra on the old oak table, and their light reflected on all the upright surfaces, casting the four corners of the room into dark, flickering, shadow-filled places. She sighed contentedly and waved away the proffered cup of wine that her nephew held out to her.
“No, Thomas. Too late at night and we must be astir at daybreak. So come and sit down and tell me, for you never did, what brings you here thus unexpectedly.”
Randolph grinned. He poured the wine from the cup he had offered her into his own, then gestured with it towards where Douglas had subsided back into his chair. “Sir James, my captor here, thought we should visit you.”
Jessie glanced from him to the other man. “Your captor?”
“My captor. He took my sword at Peebles last month. And he now holds my parole that I will not attempt to flee back to England.”
Douglas shook his head ruefully. “What you are listening to is guilt and nonsense, Lady Jessica. I captured him, that much is true. But then I took him directly to the King, who forgave him all his follies and received him back into his peace in return for an oath of loyalty. So this of the captivity is but a nonsense. Your nephew is being harder on himself than any other is.”
“I see …” But clearly she did not. “So why is he here with you now?”
Douglas sat straighter and held out his empty cup to Sir Thomas, who carried it to the table and refilled it from a silver jug. “I am his penance, Lady. For his sins, he must bear with me and my brigandage … until he learns the rules of war.”
Jessie was frowning now, more perplexed than before. “Brigandage? I do not understand—”
“It is my lord of Douglas who spouts nonsense now,
Auntie.” Thomas carried the replenished cup back to Douglas, then sat down again, his forehead creased in a frown.
“I thought to judge my uncle Robert as being unworthy of the name of knight. You know that already, but it is simple truth. When I was captured after Methven fight, they took me to King Edward, who received me with great kindness and treated me with much largesse. And then for the ensuing months he played upon my gullibility and my … credulity and sinful arrogance. He sought to convince me—and I am ashamed to say he succeeded—that no true king would wage war as this ingrate upstart—that was his name for King Robert, the Ingrate Upstart—sought to do in Scotland, ignoring all the protocols of warfare, burning and pillaging and slaughtering from ambush, then running away to hide in the hills, playing the savage cateran and all the while not daring to stand and fight like a man of honor. And I, to my eternal shame, gave credence to everything he said.”
“I see … And what brought about your change of heart?”
“The sight of the Lady Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Fife and wife of the Earl of Buchan, hanging naked in an open cage from the walls of Berwick.” The words hung in the air for a long moment before the young knight continued. “I had not believed it until I saw it with my own eyes … Edward Plantagenet’s chivalry. The English took great delight in it, their King’s vengeance on the woman who crowned Scotland’s King in defiance of him and of her whole family. And when I saw her there, a living truth I could not deny, I began to question all I had been told. What kind of a man, be he knight, king, or both, would besmirch the very essentials of honor to stoop to such a thing?” He gazed directly at Jessie, making no attempt to avoid her eyes. “From that point on, I began to take note of what was being done to my fellow countrymen in the name of the King of England’s justice, and I soon saw it for what it was: a grasping, willful lust for power in the heart of a once great but now demented man. And so I began to think about returning home, but my shame was too great … My shame and, I fear, my humbled pride. By the time I met Sir James in the field, though, I was prepared to throw down my sword and face the King I had dishonored.”
“And so he did, as I have said,” Douglas put in. “And spoke most eloquently of his disenchantment. The King believed him, and so did I.”
Jessie looked at Douglas. “So why is he now with you, as penance?”
The young man smiled at her. “Because I, too, am what he thought of as a brigand. He rides with me today to complete his education, seeing at first hand how I operate to rid this land of Englishry, and seeing, too, ever more clearly, why it must be so. His Grace thought it more fitting that it should be I, rather than he, who teach young Thomas what is involved in bringing peace to this sad realm of his. We cannot fight the English in pitched battle—a matter of strength rather than willingness or mere determination. We have less than one-tenth their strength and not one-twentieth part of their resources. The reserves they keep at home in England outnumber us beyond counting. And yet we must fight, with everything and every man we have. To do less would be to guarantee their victory. We cannot give them time to rally or opportunity to consolidate their forces. And so we harry them, playing the cateran, as Edward said.
“The old Plantagenet Lion is dead now, thanks be to God, and so the pressure is relieved, but though his son, Caernarvon, will never be fit to cast a shadow like his father’s, his barons are more powerful than ever, threatening to rise against him, sensing his weakness and deploring his pederasty. But they want Scotland, too, for the scent of blood and power is rank in them and they seek to rip our realm apart and divide it among themselves. Gloucester and Leicester, Northumberland and Hereford are but the leaders of the pack, and any one of them can field more men from his own earldom within a seven-night spell than we can raise through all this land in a twelvemonth. So Thomas is my student, and I will admit to you he shows great promise. We will make a brigand of your nephew yet, my lady, and the English will take note of where he goes. Believe me.”
Jessie nodded slowly. “I do, my lord … And the King is well? He prospers?”
“Aye, Lady, by the grace of God he does, and fortune smiles upon us for once. All of the northeast is in his hands now, for the people of Aberdeen rose up and cast out the English garrison last month, which means we have a seaport of our own for the first time. And his brother Sir Edward has spent these past two months subduing the MacDowals and their hives in Galloway. And subdue them he did. Aided by Angus Og and his Highlanders, he thrashed the MacDowals and their English levies under Ingram de Umfraville and Aymer St. John. Outnumbered by more than two to one, and with only fifty knights, he swept them into ruin. We have just come from there, with dispatches from Sir Edward to the King, and we must now ride north and west, for the King himself is marching there, against the MacDougalls in Argyll.”
Jessie’s frown was quick. “There is a truce with the MacDougalls.”
“There was, my lady. It expired last month, and the old chief’s son, Lame John of Lorn, had spent it raising men in arms to continue his fight to depose His Grace. But the King has men, even among the MacDougalls, who now incline to his cause, and he is well aware of what’s afoot. And so he moves to stamp upon the snake, marching to invade Argyll through the Pass of Brander. We ride to join him there, Thomas and I, and are to meet with him in ten days’ time, at Loch Awe. If we succeed in Argyll, and Lame John goes down—and he will—then only the Earl of Ross will remain to stand against King Robert in the north. And when that arch schemer sees the error of his ways and recants, as he surely must, Robert Bruce will be King indeed through all of Scotland. Pray that it be so, my lady.”
“I will. You need never fear. Now tell me, my lord, have you heard ought of how things progress in Arran?”
Douglas’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her and slowly shook his head. “No, Lady Jessica, I have heard nothing. But that must surely mean that there is nothing ill going on there. Bad news travels fast, and had there been cause for such, we would have heard of it. On the dexter side, though, I know the corps of riders from the island was renewed at June’s end, and the numbers increased. King Robert is well pleased with the unflinching support he has received from Arran.” He hesitated before adding, “And from Sir William.” Again he hesitated. “Forgive me for asking, my lady, but do you communicate with the brotherhood there?”
“No, sir, I do not, although I have in the past, on King Robert’s behalf. Why would you ask me such a thing?”
Douglas had the grace to look embarrassed, but he shrugged his wide shoulders. “Because I have tidings that the monks on Arran should know of. King Robert has received word privily, from Archbishop Lamberton in England, that the Pope has sent a communication regarding the Temple to all the kings and princes in Christendom. King Robert himself did not receive the missive because he is excommunicate.”
Jessie’s breath caught in her throat, because she could see from Douglas’s expression that this communication would offer no solace to Will Sinclair and his men. “What did it say, this missive?”
Douglas cleared his throat. “It bore a title, Pastoralis Praeeminentiae. In it, the Pope asked all who received it to arrest all the Templars in their lands, and to do it—and these the King took to be important words—prudently, discreetly, and secretly. That done, they were to confiscate all their property and hold it in safekeeping for the Church.”
“But that is infamous! All Templars, everywhere in Christendom?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“So Sir William was right. He foretold this …” Jessie stopped, thinking hard, then looked at her nephew. “Did you know anything of this, Thomas?”
Randolph merely looked back at her, utterly mystified as to what she meant, and she turned back to Douglas. “When did this happen?”
“The Archbishop wrote that the letter was dated November the twenty-second, last year.”
“Barely a month after the arrests in France. Surely they could not have proven any of de Nogaret’s lies by then?”
“So it would seem, my lady … but I know nothing more than I have told you.”
Jessie fought to keep her face expressionless, merely nodding in acceptance of what she had been told, but her mind was full of the knowledge that the letter over which she had spent so much time and thought was now outdated and would have to be rewritten.
THREE
In the north anteroom of the Great Hall at Brodick, Will Sinclair set down his pen on the long refectory table that served him as a desk and stretched, arching his back and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as he grunted aloud with the pleasure of flexing his shoulders and straightening his spine. He had been working without rest since dawn, digging his way through the mountain of papers and parchment that had confronted him after weeks of neglect caused by other priorities. Most he had merely read and marked with his name, as evidence of his examination, before setting them aside on a smaller table to his left. Others he had examined more meticulously, making occasional notes to himself to remind him of their content and what had been achieved in recent months, and these he had also set aside, to his right.
His companions and brethren had achieved great things in a short time. Each of the two Arran chapters now had its own Chapter House, and each of those administered its own affairs and resources, from devotions and ritual procedures to stables, barracks, houses, crude farms, and warehouses. The program of horse breeding, training, and maintenance was now firmly established in both chapters, and military drill, albeit discreet, had come back into its own as a sine qua non of their daily practice. A strong and resilient trading schedule had been set in place, too, with their ships coming and going to and from both Brodick and Lochranza at regular intervals, plying the waters of Britain for the most part but venturing into Ireland and France, and occasionally, in the summer months, crossing the northern waters eastward to reach Norway and Denmark and the Germanic coastline to the Low Countries. Food was now plentiful, in sufficient supply to be stored and husbanded, and even livestock had been brought ashore in small numbers—swine, sheep, and goats in the main, but also a few cattle and oxen, tame geese with clipped wings, and fat white ducks whose eggs were a luxurious addition to the island diet, which consisted mainly of fish and oats.