Order In Chaos

The crews of the Temple galleys were equally skilled, he knew, but to different effect and with far greater discipline. The transport ships were manned by professional mariners, employed by or belonging to the Temple; the galleys were manned by fighting seamen, sergeants of the Order whose natural tastes led them to seafaring duties rather than land-based. All of the latter lived, sailed, and fought under military and monastic discipline, their lives governed by a maritime version of the Order’s Rule, so that they prayed and performed monastic chores each day, although the off-watch crew were permitted to sleep after their labors and husband their strength at night. Their primary duty, above and beyond all else, was to protect the Order’s enormous trading fleet.

Sinclair looked down into the waist of the galley on which he stood, his eyes scanning the ranks of oarsmen at their benches, the nearest of them a good twelve feet below the stern deck. This craft was noticeably smaller than the admiral’s, with eighteen oars to a side where St. Valéry’s had twenty, but the oars were the same on all galleys, long, heavy, yet graceful sweeps that could propel the vessels over the water at astonishing speeds, even without the massive square sail.

He heard his name being shouted and looked over the rail to where a long, narrow boat rowed by eight oarsmen was taking up position directly beneath him. From its stern seats, Admiral St. Valéry was gazing up at him, and when he caught Sinclair’s eye he waved towards the village and shouted, “Join me ashore. I’m going to speak with de Berenger.”

Once again, Will was made aware of the difference between moving on water as opposed to land. His galley—de Berenger’s—was moored less than a tenth of a mile from the landward end of the wharf, perhaps two hundred paces on land, a distance that Will would have covered in a matter of minutes, even had he had to saddle his horse beforehand. On this occasion, however, he had to call for a boat and a crew of rowers, and then transfer himself from the galley to the boat, with the extreme caution of a landsman distrustful of the behavior of water and the vessels that bobbed about on it, and be rowed over to the end of the wharf. By the time he eventually caught up with St. Valéry, three-quarters of an hour had elapsed.

His brother Kenneth was waiting to greet him as Will climbed from the boat to the top of the breakwater, and threw his arms around him, squeezing him in a great bear hug. As Will prized himself away, grinning, he ran his fingertips over Kenneth’s chain-mail hauberk.

“Well met, Brother. I’ll presume, from the absence o’ tears and wailing, that everything went as it was supposed to. The goods are safe?”

“Safe and sound, Will. They’re all here.”

“You make that sound as though there was more than you bargained for.”

“There was! It filled five four-wheeled wagons and a cart. There was far more there than we thought there would be, but not too much to transport. There were four main chests, of course, the big ones—we loaded those onto two wagons, as planned—but then there was a fine collection of gold and silver I didn’t expect, in boxes—bars and coinage of both—and seven whole chests of jewels, two of them small, the other five almost as large as the main treasure chests. They’re closed wi’ straps for the most part, so a few of them were easy to open and I took a look inside, just to see what we were lugging. They’re stuffed wi’ studded chalices and crucifixes and church vessels, that kind of thing. Clearly the Master didn’t want them falling into de Nogaret’s hands. We had to turn the country upside down to find more wagons to carry them.”

“You—you did not wreak havoc in taking them, I hope?”

“D’you take me for a fool, Brother? I sent out pairs of men in every direction, with silver coin, to find me anything that they could buy within a day and to buy no more than one wagon and team at any place…And before you think to ask, none of them wore anything that might identify them to strange eyes as Templars.”

“Hmm.” Sinclair absorbed that for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Excellent. You have done well, Kenneth. We’ll get everything aboard quickly and see that all is safely stowed. In the meantime, promise me you’ll take that armor off before you try to board a ship, Brother, and have your men do the same. You’ll notice this dagger is the heaviest thing I’m wearing. I’ve almost gone swimming several times, simply climbing in and out of boats. You fall in wearing any of that gear and you’ll sink like a stone. Where are your men, by the way?”

Kenneth pointed a thumb back over his shoulder, and Will climbed up onto a stony outcrop and peered over the top of all the surrounding activity to see the hundred knights and sergeants drawn up on foot, in orderly ranks at the base of the high cliff. The sergeants formed a solid, disciplined bank of brown and black shapes, and the forty knights, most of them wearing their red-crossed white cloth surcoats over chain mail, were grouped to their left. One glance was all he required to see that the men were waiting patiently, and he jumped down again.

“They look good. Their horses are being loaded now. I’ll have de Berenger, the vice-admiral, send you instructions as to where and when your men should board—and here he is, the very man.”

Sir Edward de Berenger had approached, unnoticed until that moment, and Sinclair introduced him to Kenneth, then asked where the admiral had gone. De Berenger smiled and waved towards a single large tent, a hundred yards from where they stood, and as William glanced towards it he noticed a knot of people he identified by their dress as villagers, standing huddled off to one side, well clear of the activities on the beach. He indicated them with a nod.

“What about the village folk there? Did you have any problems with them?”

“Nah!” Kenneth shook his head. “They were terrified when we came down on them from the cliffs, but once they saw that we meant them no harm but were interested only in their wharf, they threw up their hands and left us to it. The head man is a fellow called Pierre. He calmed them down. I told him to keep them well out of our way and gave him a purse of silver for their trouble. I did it publicly, too, so he won’t be able to keep it for himself. None of them has said a word since then. Oh, I told him, too, that if anyone comes questioning them, to hold nothing back, but tell about everything they saw. It won’t make any difference to us by then.”

“Hmm.” His brother twisted his mouth wryly. “If anyone comes looking for us here, it won’t matter what these people say. Their lives will be forfeit. I’m sure they know that, too.” He turned to de Berenger. “Well, Sir Edward, we should join the admiral, since he called us here in person. Kenneth, you should rejoin your men.”

Kenneth nodded to both of them and turned away as de Berenger raised a finger to Sinclair.

“I cannot join you yet. I have another matter of some urgency—a problem with one of the hoists—and it will not wait. Present my apologies to Sir Charles, if you will, and I will come to you presently.”

Sinclair was chagrined, as he headed for the admiral’s tent, to see the Baroness St. Valéry already there, sitting on the pebbled foreshore beside her good-brother, and his heart seemed to sink into the pit of his stomach. He found himself wondering if she intended to participate in every discussion that was to take place, and the thought set him immediately on edge. He saw St. Valéry take note of his arrival only to turn away, distracted by someone who had approached him with tidings of some kind.

St. Valéry rose to his feet and said something to the Baroness, flipped a hand in salute to the still-approaching Sinclair, and followed the messenger, disappearing quickly among the throng of bodies behind him. Less than half a hundred paces now separated Sinclair from where the Baroness sat gazing out at the shipping in the small harbor, and as he struggled to walk quickly over the yielding mass of the pebbled beach that seemed to drag at the soles of his boots, he lowered his eyes to watch his feet, thus avoiding looking at her. Despite his exhaustion, or perhaps because of it, he had not been able to sleep aboard ship the previous night and had spent a long time thinking about the woman, once he had finally accepted that he was unable not to think about her.

Lady Jessica Randolph unsettled him deeply, and lying on his rocking bunk in the hours before dawn, he had understood that for him, she was the embodiment of something utterly beyond his experience, the essence of everything he had willingly abandoned upon joining the Brotherhood of the Temple and undertaking his solemn vows of monkhood. As monk, soldier, and Crusader, his had been a life of purely masculine concerns: combat, training, and campaigning in times of war; garrison duties, unrelenting discipline, and the incessant prayer schedule of the Templars’ Rule in times of peace. Even in recent years, while undergoing intensive training for his future role as a member of the Governing Council of the Order, he had been held separate from the affairs of the world outside the brotherhood, his time dedicated to the staggeringly complex task of learning the esoteric secrets shared only by the privileged elite of the Temple’s highest initiates, that knowledge referred to—although not often and never publicly—as the Higher Mysteries of the Ancient Order of Sion. That task had consumed him, and as his comprehension of its immensity grew, it had even frightened him at times, forcing him to review the entire sum of knowledge and beliefs that he had acquired in a lifetime of total ignorance of the Mysteries’ existence.

And then had come this woman to distract him with the sound of her voice, the sight of her body, the smell of her presence, and the awareness of her femininity.

When no more than twenty paces separated them, she saw him coming, and her face cleared, losing the slight air of preoccupation it had worn and taking on an expression of…what? Disinterest? No, Sinclair corrected himself. Plain emptiness was what it was. As though he were beneath her notice. Well, he thought, that would earn her no displeasure from him. If she wanted to behave as she thought a man behaved, then so be it; she would be treated as a man could expect to be treated…a lesser man, of course. An underling. Sinclair felt himself grinding his teeth and made a conscious effort to relax.

She looked up at him as he arrived beside her and he nodded stiffly, in a tacit, perfunctory greeting.

“Good day, Sir William.” Her voice, while not welcoming, conveyed no hint of displeasure. “Sir Charles will join us directly. Please sit down.”

It may have been the “us” that angered him, her assumption that she would share whatever he might have to say to St. Valéry, or vice versa, or it may have been the cool air of impenetrable self-possession with which she invited him to sit and plainly expected him to obey, but whatever the reason, he felt the ire flare up in him, outrage and humiliation vying with each other to undo him equally—for he knew beyond doubt, even then, that he would be in the wrong no matter what he said or did, and so he stood there mute for long moments, unable either to move or to speak. Fortunately for him, the woman misinterpreted his inaction and looked up at him with a shade more warmth in her gaze.

“Please, sit, if you will. Charles saw you coming but was called away before he could greet you. Something to do with the loading of livestock. I must admit to being surprised at the number of your brother’s company here. I had expected a score or so of men and horses, but there must be more than a hundred of each. Please, sit you down here. My ladies have gone looking for firewood, to take the chill off the afternoon air, but they should soon be back, and we’ll be warmer once the fire is lit.”

Bemused by her easy openness and lack of apparent guile, Sinclair found himself moving to comply with her wishes, even though he had no slightest idea of what to say to her. But she simply kept talking as he lowered himself to perch on a boulder across from her, and he found himself listening and preparing to answer in spite of himself.

“I confess, were it not for my ladies, I should freeze and die of exposure, for I have no notion of how to light a fire in the open air, do you? Are you adept with flint and steel? I suppose you must be, being a Temple Knight. I am told there is nothing practical that you and your fellows cannot do.”

“No, that’s a nonsense,” he heard himself say, and nearly winced at his own brusqueness. “I have a tinder box, wi’ flint and steel, but a’ God’s name, Lady, I cannot remember when I last used it, if I ever did. Tam does all that, and I am grateful to him for it. He starts our fires and keeps them alight, and he keeps me fed, for else I would most likely starve. I have little attention for such things.”

Well, at least you are capable of speaking like a reasonably normal person. From what I’ve seen and learned of you until now, that is a very important development in your status vis-à-vis women—

Sinclair was already rising to his feet again. “Here come your women now, madam. I’ll leave you with them.” Sinclair nodded towards the only two other women on the beach, who were bearing armloads of logs and followed by a group of sergeants carrying more.

Jessica stood up, too, as the armloads of logs clattered to the pebbles, one after the other, and called to Sinclair as he was on the point of walking away.

“Wait, Sir William, if you will. I will walk with you until the fire is lit.”

Dismayed, Will stood hesitantly as she approached him and managed not to flinch as she reached out and laid one hand on his forearm.

“There,” she said, “and you have my thanks. These pebbles are grossly difficult and dangerous to walk upon.”

He made no response, but held his bent arm stiffly and began to walk with exaggerated slowness, clearly braced to prevent her from falling. She fought back the smile that threatened to break out upon her face and made herself walk beside him slowly and with great decorum, visualizing what his shocked reaction might be were she to break into anything resembling a dance while walking with her hand upon his arm. And such was her temptation to break into giggles that she had to raise her free hand to her mouth and pretend to cough. She stopped, obliging him to stop, too, and wait for her as she made an elaborate show of examining the fishing hamlet and the cliffs behind it.

“What a perfect place for the task you have in hand, Sir William. This spot must be completely hidden here beneath the cliffs from anyone above, and I vow it could never be seen from a passing ship, were the people aboard unaware of its existence. How did you ever come to find it?”

Sinclair followed her gaze to where the beetling cliffs loomed over the tiny settlement. “By chance, Lady,” he said, avoiding looking at her. “Purely by chance, a score and more years ago.”

“What kind of chance might have brought you here? This is not a friendly coastline.”

“Wind and weather brought me. I was on a ship that foundered when a winter squall blew us onto a shoal to the south of here. Tam and I were among the very few to survive, him in a boat of sorts with three other lads, and me clinging to a spar with another man who was dead when the current cast us ashore in this inlet. Tam came ashore a mile or so farther north and thought me dead, too, as I did him, but we found each other by chance the following day.”

“And this village was here then?”

He glanced at her sidelong, as though surprised by the naivety of the question. “Aye, it was. It is a natural haven. There have been fisher folk living here since the land was created, I am sure.”

“And you remembered it.”

“Aye, I did. I always try to remember the good and the bad. It is folly not to remember both ends of the range of things. Most of the ruck is forgettable…unimportant…but the knowledge of a safe haven, or of a dangerous killing ground, can be priceless at times.”

She had been watching him with her head tilted to one side, and now she began to walk again, her hand still resting on his arm. “I confess, Sir William, the concept of killing grounds is one I seldom entertain, but I understand what you are saying and I agree with the principle behind it.”

She said nothing more for a short time, continuing to walk with lowered eyes, leaving him to grapple with the idea that a mere woman had expressed an understanding of a principle. He wanted to pursue that thought, but had no slightest notion of how to go about it, and so he waited instead, hoping she would say more on the topic. But she continued in silence, and then, just as he was deciding that she might say no more, she continued as though there had been no lapse in what she was saying.

“It will be amusing, think you not”—and here she paused to dart a smile at him—“to see how your views might change from now on, given the safe havens and dangerous grounds of your new life henceforth.”

“My new life?” His voice hardened instantly as he sensed her threatening to intrude where she had no right to go. “I have no new life, Lady, nor will I.”

“But I—” Jessie was flustered by the sudden hostility in his voice and spoke without really thinking. “I was but referring to the events of this morning…the King’s obvious enmity and de Nogaret’s duplicity. That has changed everythi—”

“Nothing has changed, Baroness.” His voice was harsh, peremptory. “There has been a misunderstanding of some kind, some form of miscommunication, but it will be soon resolved, let me assure you. The Temple Order is the strongest of its kind anywhere. It is far greater than any one man. And it is incapable of being seriously disrupted by the greedy scheming of lesser men, be they kings and kings’ ministers or no. So there will be no lasting changes made to my life.”

She was staring wide eyed at him before he had come close to finishing, the color already flaring up in her cheeks, and she swept in to the attack.

“Misunderstandings? Soon to be resolved? Were you not in the room last night when I spoke on that very topic? Did you not hear a single word I said? Or did you simply dismiss me for being a woman and decide that my opinions are worthless and unfounded?”

The two stood glaring at each other as Jessie waited for his response, but when it came it was not in the form of words. His face simply froze into a baleful mask of disapproval and he swung away, rigid with outraged dignity, leaving her standing alone on the strand as her good-brother the admiral approached, his face clearly betraying astonishment at what he was seeing.

“In God’s name, what happened, Sister? What did you to offend Sir William so? I have never seen him so angry. What did you say to him to make him charge away like that?”

She did not even glance at him, her eyes fixed on Sinclair as he vanished among the bustle of people on the beach.

She swung to face her questioner. “As God may judge me, I said nothing to cause offense to any reasonable man. But your obdurate Sir William shows few signs of being reasonable in dealing with anyone he cannot dominate and bully. The offense, and the anger that accompanies it, arise from sources other than from me. Search you inside Sir William Sinclair for the root of it, for I will have no part of him or his anger. He is naught but a great truculent, ill-mannered oaf.” And having delivered herself of that opinion, she swept away in turn, leaving the highly perplexed admiral to gaze after her, shaking his head several times, before he turned to move quickly in pursuit of Sinclair.

3

Will Sinclair was standing at the edge of the quay when St. Valéry caught up to him, watching the loading activity in the tiny harbor, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed in deep thought as he tossed a smooth pebble listlessly from hand to hand.

“Sir William. I require some of your time, in order to discuss several matters of import. May we return to my tent on the beach?”

Sinclair nodded wordlessly.

“Excellent.” St. Valéry hesitated, then continued. “Look, Sir William, I know not what transpired between you and my good-sister back there, but I know it angered you, and I cannot afford to have you angry at this point. So empty your mind of what displeases you, if you can, and let us talk, you and I, of the priorities facing us in this endeavor. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can, Sir Charles. It vexes me that you should even have to ask. Lead on, if you will. You have all my attention.”

“Excellent, for we have much to discuss, first among all the disposition of the treasure brought by your brother, of which there is far more than we at first supposed. The two largest and most seaworthy vessels we possess are our two main command galleys, my own and de Berenger’s, which is substantially smaller but newer, and I find myself disliking the thought of entrusting the treasure to any other ship, even though the larger cargo vessels have more space in them. I firmly believe that we would be foolish to stow the chests anywhere else but where we can keep watch on them—not because I distrust our men but purely because I distrust the weather. The winter storms could set in now at any time and our fleet could be scattered to the ends of the ocean, dependent upon the whims and ferocity of the winds. And so I propose splitting the main treasure between your vessel—de Berenger’s—and mine. You already have the Lady Jessica’s gold aboard your ship, and your own personal responsibility entails the protection of the Templar Treasure. I will therefore have the four main chests containing your charge loaded aboard your ship as well. I myself will take the lesser treasure aboard mine. What think you?”

Sinclair agreed, relieved to know that he would not be parted from the main Treasure, the primary responsibility settled upon him by Master de Molay. For the next half hour the two commanders walked together up and down the beach, observing the work in progress as they went over the details of their plans, such as they were, for the coming few days.

As soon as the treasure was safely aboard ship, they would put to sea again, sailing south, between the mainland and the island called the Isle of Oleron, passing the wide entrance to the Gironde inlet on their port side to follow the French coastline south along the Bay of Biscay until they reached the westward-jutting Iberian peninsula. From there they would make their way west along the Iberian coast of the bay until they reached the headland of Corunna, where they would turn south again for several days to collect whatever elements of the Templar fleet might have gathered off Cape Finisterre. They had no means of divining how many vessels might have escaped from other French ports ahead of the seizures and sailed to await a rendezvous, or how punctual those might be, but once there, the La Rochelle contingent would wait on station, safely offshore, for seven days, to ensure that every vessel that had been en route to join them, prior to Friday the thirteenth, had arrived. Thereafter, the assembly would sail as one fleet wherever William Sinclair, as senior representative of the Order of the Temple, ordered them.

At last St. Valéry appeared to have run out of things to discuss. They were approaching the wharf again, and the piles of material on the beach by the quay had dwindled greatly.

“It looks as though they have almost finished,” Will said, nodding towards the wharfside activity. The four great chests of the main Treasure still sat on the wharf together with the remaining contents of Kenneth’s wagons, but the wagons themselves had been dismantled and stowed, Kenneth’s men had been shipped aboard a number of vessels, and the majority of their horses, along with their saddlery and weapons, had already been slung aboard the ships assigned to them.

St. Valéry barely glanced up before he asked, “Are you completely set on sailing to Scotland, Sir William?”