Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

A strong wind came up before he was two miles from Lochranza, but he slept soundly that night on a bed of bracken in a deep, sheltered hollow by a mountain tarn while a howling gale shrieked and whistled above his head without harming him, wrapped warmly as he was in a thick woolen blanket and covered by piled bracken ferns. The wind subsided while he slept, and he was up and about long before dawn began to brighten the sky. He ate a breakfast of cold meat and oatmeal cake in the dark and struck camp before sunrise, heading south and east under the flanks of the great Fells that towered on his right, until he found the coast again. He reached his destination by mid-morning, when the sun was already hot on his face.

Will stood with his back to the sea, peering up at the slopes of the high mountains, searching for signs of human life but not expecting to see any. This was one of the most remote stretches of coastline on Arran, seldom visited because it had high cliffs and no shelving beaches in front, and massive, impassable mountains at its back. It was approachable only from the way he had come, and he had found the place by accident, two years earlier, while following a gut-shot stag.

He took his horse’s bridle and led the broad-hoofed beast down towards the cliff, where they descended into a narrow defile cut by a fast-flowing stream and vanished from view. Down there, however, was the jewel of this place. Fifteen paces beneath the lip of the cliff, invisible from every direction but the sea straight ahead and forming one side of the gully housing the cataract, a wide finger of rock jutted out into the sea, its upper surface coated with turf and bracken ferns. Once there, Will unsaddled his horse and left it to graze freely. Then, carrying his saddlebags and four lengths of alder sapling that he had cut from a grove a mile away to the north, he walked to the farthest point of the rocky finger and gazed down into the sea, less than ten paces beneath him.

The day was perfectly calm, and the sea reflected that, only the gentlest appearance and disappearance of isolated underwater rocks revealing that there was a five- or six-foot swell down there, its presence the only sign that a gale had been howling here mere hours before. The water was so clear and still-looking now, despite the swell, that he could see the occasional large fish glide by. He turned and gazed up again at the cliff top above. Nothing stirred up there; he was alone.

He stepped away from the edge of the rock and shrugged his long-sword belt up and over his head, dropping it and the weapon it bore onto the grass, to be followed by the waist belt holding his scrip and his sheathed dagger. He wore no mail or armor of any kind this day, for those things were never needed on the island. The people of the mainland and Kintyre might not know exactly who the strangers were who had recently occupied Arran, but they knew that they were numerous, they were womanless, and they were warriors, and so they kept their distance and left the islanders in peace.

Moving rapidly now, Will collected the four lengths of alder sapling and tied them together with strips of leather to form a four-foot-high tripod, after which he tied the fourth length across two of the legs. That done, he pulled off the plain brown summer surcoat he wore and folded it loosely before dropping it on top of his discarded weapons. Then he undid yet another narrow belt and removed his knee-length fold-over tunic of rough wool, baring his upper body and spreading his arms wide to embrace the freedom of the air against his skin. Moments later he dropped to his rump and pulled off his heavy riding boots, then eased his loose woolen breeches down until he could kick them off his feet, leaving himself clad only in a single undergarment.

He reached over, bending sideways, and pulled the saddlebags towards him, and from them he withdrew two objects, the first of them a heavy cake of rough, strong-smelling soap from the chapter’s laundry, and the other a white, carefully rolled and bound packet that he untied and flapped open. It was a plain rectangular sheet of bleached lambskin, more than twice as broad as it was long. Soft and supple, the inner side was scrubbed brilliantly white and clean, the outer still bearing the fleece, shaven to a depth of less than one quarter of an inch. A long thong of the same white leather was threaded loosely through the first few of a row of punched holes on one end, and the other end was similarly punched. Leaving the thing lying fleece side down on the short grass, Will rolled and swung himself up until he was kneeling. He reached down to his side and tugged at the knotted thong that held a soiled but otherwise identical lambskin wrapping tightly in place about his waist, from hips to just above mid-thigh. It took him some time to undo the bindings, pulling them loose from the eyelets through which they were threaded, and when the garment fell away he swept it up and walked naked to the edge of the promontory to look down at the fast-flowing stream hurtling down its deep gully to the sea. Sighting carefully, he lobbed the garment, and then the cake of soap, down to the one spot on the far bank of the narrow flume where there was sufficient space to do so, and then he turned and walked swiftly to the point of the promontory.

The decision to come to this spot had been precipitated by a recent encounter with Richard de Montrichard’s squire, Gareth. Will and de Montrichard had been reviewing the duty roster for the upcoming rotation of troops for King Robert when de Montrichard’s squire had come in, bearing a message for his master, and as the burly youth passed close by him Will had had to close his eyes and hold his breath against the sour, fecal stench emanating from him. He was practically immune to the smells of the people he lived among, some of whom gave off a rank and even feral odor, but even among a community of unwashed bodies, this young man stank. Will had forced himself to sit still and breathe only when he had to until the doors had closed behind the young man, and then he’d sucked in a deep breath.

“Sweet Jesus, Richard, that boy of yours stinks like an open latrine. A festering corpse would smell more wholesome. When did he last bathe, do you know?”

De Montrichard looked mystified. “I don’t know. At Easter, I suppose, with the rest of us. Three months ago? Should I have him bathe again?”

On the point of uttering an explosive “Yes!” Will shrugged and waved a hand mildly to dismiss the topic. He had already decided upon a course of action regarding the Gareth lad.

As soon as his business with the preceptor was concluded, Will sent word to the training yard to have his own squire, his nephew Henry Sinclair, report to him in his private quarters. He then went to one of the six small chests that lined the rear wall of the room that served him as a cell, pulled out a bar of rough soap, and wrapped it in one of his own towels. When the boy arrived he beckoned young Henry to approach, then bent towards him to sniff, searchingly, and his nose wrinkled.

“When did you last bathe?”

“Two weeks ago, Uncle.” The boy did not even blink at the question, having long since grown inured to his uncle’s strange regard for, and insistence upon, bodily cleanliness. Bathing was not a requirement of the Rule, so they did not bathe. Regarded as being effete and conducive to carnality, it was officially frowned upon.

“Then I have a task for you. It is high time you went for a swim.”

Young Henry smiled, a little uncertainly. He was one of only half a score of the two score squires in the community who could swim, and he loved nothing better than to do so on the very infrequent occasions when his duties granted him the freedom to enjoy it.

Will lobbed the towel and soap towards him and the boy caught it.