Order in Chaos

by Jack Whyte

  “Jessie, I swear to you upon my love of life that I will gladly burn in Hell for what they deem my sinful pride before I will submit to such obscenities as those people are now to me. Thus I stand damned by my own pride and obstinacy, alone with my own honor. A loss of chastity would cause me not a moment of concern, were I but interested.”

  Jessie had heard his last reference to chastity, but startling and cynical as it had seemed in the utterance, she realized that it held little significance by comparison with the other, far more fundamental changes she was discerning in the man beside her.

  “You are greatly changed since last we spoke, Sir William.” She herself heard the formality of the address, but he seemed unaware of it, gazing now with narrowed eyes into the leaping heart of the fire. “I can scarce bel—”

  “Greatly changed?” He made a sound deep in his throat, a stifled sound of bitter, repressed self-mockery. “Greatly changed … Aye, I suppose it must seem that way to you, after so long a lapse of time. The years pass more quickly nowadays, it seems, but the effects they wreak in passing remain with us.” He stood up abruptly and stepped towards the fire, leaning against the mantel with one outstretched hand as he spoke down into the flames. “I have not changed at all, Jessie, not one whit, but all the world in which I used to live has changed around me, and I am dispossessed. I have responsibilities and I discharge them to the best of my abilities. I have my honor and my beliefs, and I am true to those. But all the duties I once owned are shrunk to one small sphere—the duty of protecting the community of the brotherhood on Arran.”

  He turned back to face her again, a lopsided, reluctant grin on his face, although she saw at once how sad his eyes were. “Those changes you referred to are changes forced upon me by the world and its treatment of me and mine. Changes in the way I think, and in the way I perceive the things I may not ignore. Changes in the way I look at grasping kings and venal priests and what they will do in their never-ending greed and lust for power, whether it be power over men’s souls or over men themselves and their possessions. But greater than these, I think, are the changes I have accepted in the way men dictate morals and morality and govern them with the threat of God’s displeasure to suit their own vicious whims … and with never a thought of the God in whose name they disgrace themselves. And so I have abjured them all, and all they represent.” He shrugged then, twisting his mouth. “If that is what the ancients called hubris, the sin of pride, then so be it. But I know what I believe, and I cannot accept that God will see much that is wrong in my beliefs or my behavior. As for the rest … no sinful priest can ever again claim the right to define sin in my eyes.” He grinned. “The sole exception I will make is for your priests in Scotland, hovering on the edge of damnation with their King. People like Davie Moray, whom I cannot see as priest, for all his rank.”

  Jessie made no response, sunk deep in thought with her head bowed. Will watched her, seeing the straight slash of white scalp that divided the tresses of her hair, and when she made no move to look at him again he cleared his throat.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She sighed and straightened. “About your strange new land. When will you go?”

  He inhaled deeply. “Not soon enough to suit me. There is much work to do first.”

  Now she looked at him. “What kind of work?”

  “Ship building and repairs. The ship that returned was battered beyond endurance. It had been repaired before setting out to return here, and when it sailed it was as strong as they could make it, lacking the proper tools. The native people who live there have no skills in building ships. They fear the sea. The only craft they have are hollowed logs, for use in inland waterways. Clumsy things they are, and dangerous to those who ride in them. Without steel, iron, skills in working metal they cannot cut trees properly but must wait until they fall naturally. They cannot split logs with care, or make planks. Therefore they have no ships. Our men had shipwrights with them, but no means of making new tools and therefore no means of teaching others how to use the few they had. So they turned all their efforts to the repair of the single ship they had that was still seaworthy, in the hope of sailing it home. It survived, but barely. The tales I heard of the storms they met at sea seemed scarce believable, except that I saw the damage they suffered.” He shook his head, remembering. “So we need new ships, built strong enough to withstand the ocean storms. That will take years, and more resources than we have in hand. There are no oak trees on Arran.”

  “So what will you do?”

  Will smiled without humor. “Find them elsewhere, I suppose. I have not yet thought this thing through … In truth, I have not yet had time to absorb the immensity of the thought.”

  “And if you find such trees, do you have men with the ability to build these ships?”

  “Aye, we have those, enough of them, at least, and they will train others. But it will be slow and will take long.”

  “How long?”

  “As long as a piece of rope.” He smiled at her puzzled frown. “I cannot tell you how long, my lady … three years, perhaps four if we are lucky.”

  “Jessie. Call me Jessie. I am your friend, Will, not your lady. Can you not simply buy new ships? You do not lack for money, do you?”

  “No, we do not. But that is not—” He stopped, tipping his head to one side as he thought about what she had said, and she saw a change come over his face. “I was about to scoff at you, but that is a fine idea. It had not yet occurred to me. To buy new ships … We would have to go to Genoa.”

  “To Genoa! Why there?”

  Will smiled again, animated now, and she took pleasure in the novelty of seeing it. “Because they build the finest ships in all the world and have been doing it since Roman times. Until recently, they built all our Temple ships, galleys as well as trading vessels. They may even have some now, waiting to be sold again, now that the Temple no longer requires them … save that it does, here and now.” His face darkened. “But that might require all the gold we have, and more. I have no idea how much a strong ship costs, but it must be a massive sum.”

  “Who would know that?”

  “Hmm. The seneschal of the Order would, or the draper. All such outgoing expenses must be directed through their offices and are—were—subject to their approval. But the seneschal is entombed in one of Philip’s jails, and I have heard the draper, Sir Philip Estinguay, died of the tortures inflicted upon him by the priests. Their people might, the underlings who worked for them, but they are all dispersed and vanished as smoke in a high wind. Thus, no one knows, and I would—I will—have to find out for myself.” He smiled again. “One thing is certain. If we can afford the cost, we will meet it though it beggar us, for we will have no need of gold in the new land.”

  Someone knocked on the door, and Will jerked his hand for silence as it opened to admit Brother Matthew, his face puffy with sleep. He blinked owlishly at Will and then addressed Jessie.

  “My lady? Is the boy yet asleep?”

  As if in answer to his question there came a stifled groan behind the woven screens, announcing that young Henry was awake, and for a time the former stillness of the room was banished as everyone went to see to him.

  THREE

  The following morning, before the sun had risen, and for want of anything better to do to take his mind off the condition of young Henry, Will took his bow, a spear, and a quiver of arrows and went hunting, accompanied by his two remaining sergeants. He had dined with Jessie the night before, but they had had no further chance to speak in private, surrounded as they were by other people. And so they had talked of normal things, sharing the laughter and the conversation of those around them. Only once, at the beginning of their dinner, had she leaned close to him to tell him that she regretted the interruption of their talk earlier, and that she wanted to speak further on the matters they had been discussing.

  Will had been surprised, and pleased, to discover that he enjoyed the evening and, to some extent, th
e novelty of being in the company of so many women—there had been eight of them in all—after so many years of exclusively masculine companionship. Four of the women had been the wives of Jessie’s tenants, plain but pleasant farm women whom she had invited to the house, along with their goodmen, on a mischievous whim. Will had caught Jessie watching him and smiling slyly on several occasions when one or the other of the women had engaged him in conversation, and at some point he had begun to suspect what she was watching for. The awareness, instead of annoying him as it would have a mere few months earlier, now simply amused him, and he had entered into the spirit of the enjoyment she was obviously taking from observing him. In spite of his determination to be less rigid, however, a lifetime of training was hard to relinquish, and his disapproval of female company was too deeply ingrained to be so easily set aside. He found the women’s conversation inane, trivial, and often unpleasantly inquisitive and personal, punctuated with rather alarming, spontaneous laughter, but he persevered, although his cheeks sometimes ached from smiling and being pleasant, and when it was over he had been glad to have Hector show him to his bed for the night.

  He had slept well, but had awakened in full darkness with the memory of Jessie telling him that her people had been unable to hunt recently, thanks to the sickness that had stalked their valleys, and in consequence they were almost bereft of fresh meat. And so he had decided to make it a hunting day.

  By mid-morning one of the two sergeants, a taciturn Burgundian called Bernét, had killed a fine young buck with a long crossbow shot that Will knew he himself could never have equaled, and soon after that, carrying the butchered animal back to where they had tethered their horses, they happened upon a rooting boar that promptly charged at them with none of the groundscraping preliminaries they might have expected. Bernét and his companion were carrying the deer carcass between them and had no time to react, apart from dropping the meat and attempting to draw their blades, and the angry animal was upon them before either man was ready.

  Will had been carrying all three hunting spears and barely had the time or the presence of mind to drop two of them and grasp the third firmly in both hands before falling to one knee and thrusting the butt of the weapon hard against the ground, holding it there with one straight arm while he used the other to aim the point at the charging beast, shouting to attract its attention. The boar ignored him, driving straight for Bernét and remaining well out of range of the spear’s point, but for some imponderable reason it paused to savage the bloodied carcass of the deer in passing, giving Bernét time to leap away and free his sword while Will leapt to his feet and hurled the heavy spear. He had no time to aim with care, but the boar was large enough, and Will was close enough, for his target to be unmissable. The spear’s barbed point plunged deeply into the creature’s flank, knocking the thing off balance for the space of a heartbeat before its swinish eyes fastened upon Will as the originator of its new torment, and it lunged towards him, dragging the heavy spear as though it were weightless.

  By then, though, Will had snatched up a second spear and set it properly, and the enraged animal ran right onto it, snapping at the wide spearhead and transfixing itself with open mouth, swallowing the metal head with all its charging weight and driving the broad, sharp-edged blade through its own spine.

  When their breathing returned to normal, the three men decided they had had enough of hunting for one day, and the two sergeants set about butchering the boar while Will went to collect the horses and bring them back to be loaded with the fresh meat.

  They were back at the house by midday and took the meat directly to the kitchens, where they found a visiting priest sitting by the fire in the hearth, wolfing down a bowl of stew left over from the previous night. On seeing Will, the priest set down his bowl and rose to his feet, asking if Will might be the knight Sir William Sinclair. Will admitted that he was, and the priest told him that Master Balmyle awaited him at St. Andrews but requested that Sir William proceed there without delay, since the urgency of the King’s business was great and Balmyle must leave to meet with the Abbot of Arbroath as soon as possible.

  Will grimaced as he listened, thinking that he could have kept Tam and Mungo close, had he but known this fellow was coming. They must have passed one another along the way. Now he would have to ride through unknown lands with an escort of but two men, when they would have been much safer as a band of five. He thanked the priest for delivering his summons and quickly ate a small bowl of stew himself, not having eaten anything for hours, then left the two sergeants with the grateful cook, warning them to have his horse ready and be prepared to ride out within the hour. He went to look for Jessie and a report on the progress of young Henry.

  Henry Sinclair was doing well, he was told by the solicitous Brother Matthew, whom he found in the sickroom after a brief, unsuccessful search for Jessie. The monk motioned him aside and, in a low voice clearly meant to avoid disturbing his sleeping charge, told him that the lad had slept soundly throughout the night. His wounds had been washed and his dressings changed the previous night, and again when he awoke in the morning, and Brother Matthew had been happy with the pus-free condition of the soiled cloths. The wound was still bleeding, but no more than a slight seepage now, and the inflammation around the entrance and exit points of the stabbing blade had subsided visibly, indicating that the danger of putrefaction and disease had been greatly reduced.

  “He sleeps soundly after a night of solid rest,” Will murmured to the monk. “Is that not unusual?”

  “Not in this case. It means he is healing. Were it otherwise, it would mean he is in pain, still suffering and not yet doing well.” The monk smiled crookedly. “As I said to the Baroness last night, sleep is the greatest healer of all.”

  Will nodded. “So be it, then. I will take your word for it and offer you my gratitude in return.” He pulled a small bag of coins from his scrip and lobbed it towards the monk, who caught it deftly and hefted its weight without appearing to, and smiling his thanks. “And now I must away. Do you know, perhaps, where I might find the Baroness?”

  Brother Matthew raised his eyebrows high and shook his head. “No, Sir William, I do not. I saw her earlier. She, too, came to look at the boy and ask after his health, but I have no idea where she went after that.”

  “Well, I must bid her farewell. Tell the boy, if he ever wakes, that he is to stay here and grow strong again. I will return for him when he is healed. Adieu, mon frère.”

  He heard Jessie hailing him as soon as he stepped out into the courtyard and saw her watching him from close by the gates, accompanied by her two women and her niece. Like them, she held a large wicker basket propped against her hip and supported by a straight arm.

  “I am told I owe you deeply, Sir William,” she called out, “for replenishing my larder. Will you walk with us?”

  He crossed quickly to where she waited and bowed to all four women before addressing her. “I fear I may not, my lady. I have been summoned to make haste to St. Andrews, where Master Balmyle awaits me urgently.

  Thus I must be on the road within this hour.”

  “So soon? That is a pity.” She cocked her head. “I presume you have been in to see young Henry? He is well, Brother Matthew says.”

  “Aye, thanks be to God, it appears he is.”

  “I have something I wish to show you. Can you take the time? It will be no more than a few minutes.” He bowed again, and she set down her basket, heaving it out with her hip and letting it drop heavily to the ground before she turned to the others. “Go on without me and make a start. I will come soon.”

  She beckoned to Will with one crooked finger, and he followed her to a long, low, thick-walled stone building that looked and smelled like what it was, a cattle shed. As he stepped inside, he had to duck his head to avoid the low lintel, but he found plenty of room to stand erect beyond the doorway. The stalls were empty, the kine long since turned out into the fields, and the narrow central waste gutter had been recently muc
ked out. On either side of the scoured channel, the flagstone floor had also been swept clean and covered with fresh straw, and in the far right corner of the byre, raised above the floor itself, he saw a sturdy wooden platform, piled to the rafters with well-made bales of hay. The door at the byre’s far end stood open, allowing the brilliant late-July sunlight to glare in, casting the side stalls into darkness. Will blinked his eyes until they adjusted to the shimmering, mote-filled light and darkness, then looked sideways at Jessie.

  “You brought me to show me this?” There was a smile in his tone. “It is a byre, a cowshed. We have them in Anjou, too.”

  “Come.” She did not even react to his jibe but led the way towards the hay bales piled in the corner, and he followed dutifully, hoisting himself up easily onto the wooden platform. She pointed to the bales. “Can you move those? Not all of them. The middle ones. There’s a fork there.”

  Curious, but saying nothing, he picked up the heavy hay fork and dug it into the top bale. “Where will I put it?”

  “Pile them on the floor. We’ll put them back afterwards.”

  He worked hard and silently for several minutes, then saw what they were searching for. Buried beneath the bales was a long, narrow wooden chest that he recognized immediately.

  “Pull it out, but be careful. It took four of us to push it in there.”

  Will squatted carefully and grasped the thick rope handle on one end of the chest with both hands. He took a few deep breaths, then lifted steadily, pushing upwards with his thighs and keeping his spine straight as he took the weight of the thing. He raised the front edge from the floor and dragged it towards him, and it scraped loudly as it came, resisting him every inch of the way until he was able to lower it to the floor again.

  He straightened slowly, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “That, madam,” he drawled, “is heavy. I don’t even have to ask what it contains … Part of the treasure that you brought King Robert?”