Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Moments later, Will stood side by side with Seton, watching as four men carried the boy carefully, moving slowly and taking great pains to keep the litter level on the steep hillside. Will had not spoken since the younger knight had assumed command of the operation, but now he huffed through his nostrils and looked at the other man.

“Thank you, Sir Malcolm, for your assistance.”

“Don’t thank me, Sir William. You owe your thanks to the sharp eyes of my squire, who was looking up at you when this began. I did not even know you were here, but young Donald saw you knocked from your horse and raised the alarm.”

“Where is he now, then? I should like to thank him.”

“He’s still down there. I ordered him to stay. He’ll see enough dead friends once he is knighted, and I doubted you or your squire would be alive by the time we reached you. I thought to spare him the sight of that.”

“Then you are a good master, as well as a true knight. You have my deepest gratitude, Sir Malcolm.”

Seton cocked his head and eyed Will with concern. “And you yourself are well? Are you sure? You are drenched in blood.”

Will looked down at himself and shook his head. “None of it is mine, although it should be. I should be flogged for dereliction, riding up here like a fool without taking a moment to check the woods for enemies.”

“That was unfortunate but understandable. These were not soldiers.”

“No, but they were enemies. I should have—”

“Pardon me for a moment.”

He turned aside to where two of his men had bound the hamstrung survivor’s hands in front of him and were holding him upright with a spear shaft thrust across his back between his elbows. No one had made any attempt to stanch the bleeding from his damaged leg. Sir Malcolm looked the man up and down. “We will have the devil of a time getting you down to the camp in that condition, and you might die before we reach it. On the other hand, you will certainly hang if you do reach it, and for good and ample reason. You are guilty of brigandage and the attempted murder of a guest of Robert, King of Scots, and his squire might yet die.” He addressed the two men flanking the prisoner. “Take him into the woods and find a tree strong enough to hang him from. And be quick.” Seton caught the look on Will’s face. “Do you object to that, Sir William?”

Will looked at the prisoner, whose face had blanched on hearing the death sentence Seton had pronounced. The man had not yet begun to scream in protest, but he soon would, and now his eyes fastened imploringly on Will, sensing that his intended victim now had the power to spare his life. Will, however, was not in a forgiving mood. He looked at the fellow and saw again the bloodstained body of his young squire, and he knew the man would hang, one way or the other.

“I doubt there’s a tree in there big enough to hang him from,” he said. “Hawthorn scrub and stunted trees for the most part. And I think you have the right of it, he could die if we attempt to take him down the hill—to be hanged there anyway. We could leave him here to starve, since he cannot walk, but that would be inhuman.” He turned and spoke directly to the prisoner. “There is nothing I can do for you. You condemned yourself when you decided to murder us from ambush, shooting me in the back and slaying my unarmed squire. Now, whatever way things might turn out, you are a dead man. May God have mercy on your soul, for I can have none on you.” He shifted his eyes to the senior of the two guardsmen. “Obey your commander. Hang him, but if you can’t find a suitable tree, behead him, quick and clean.”

THE WOMAN IN THE BYRE

ONE

Jessie Randolph was flustered. She had fallen asleep on the couch in her own room in the middle of the afternoon, a rarity in itself brought on by the fact that she had been up and laboring since dawn in her garden, attacking the weeds that were threatening to overcome her carefully nurtured little crop of hand-set herbs and vegetables. She had neglected the garden badly in previous weeks, driven to ignore her own concerns by the urgency of an outbreak of fever that had swept the district, threatening the lives of the elderly and the very young. The sickness had not been virulent enough to earn the name of pestilence, but it had nonetheless proved to be a potent and dangerous threat to the welfare of many of her tenants, and it had kept her traveling the countryside with her two women, Marie and Janette, doing what she could for the families under her care, most of whom had lost their menfolk to the King’s last, urgent summons to gather for the invasion of England’s northern counties.

The sickness had died off in the previous ten days, having taken the life of only one elderly woman for whom nothing could be done, and Jessie had been able, finally, to return to her own home, where she had spent a day resting and recouping her strength before yielding to the urge to go outside and begin inspecting her properties. The morning’s work on her garden had stretched long beyond noon, and Jessie had been exhausted to the point where, having sat down on her couch and then lain back to close her eyes for a few moments’ rest, she had fallen deeply asleep.

Almost immediately, it seemed to her, she was awoken by her ward, Marjorie, now grown into a strikingly beautiful young woman of almost sixteen, with word that people were approaching from the south. Startled awake, Jessie was at first surprised and then appalled to realize that her hair was unkempt, her hands dirty and her fingernails black with soil, but she quickly stifled the urge to flee and make herself presentable and went instead directly with Marjorie to the roof, where several of the household retainers had already gathered on the fortified central tower to watch the approaching strangers.

She recognized Will Sinclair at once, even from the distance of a mile. His party, and she counted six including himself, was moving slowly, at a walk, accompanying a low-slung wagon pulled by a pair of stocky lowland horses. Jessie quickly estimated that she had time enough, if she made haste, to prepare for their arrival, but just as she was on the point of hurrying back inside the house, she realized that there was something odd about the small group, an air of dejection that she would never have associated with the Will Sinclair she had come to know.

She went inside quickly, down from the tower and through the house to the great wooden entrance doors, which she threw wide before crossing the entrance yard to the high gates in the curtain wall, all thoughts of her appearance banished by her concern over what could be wrong. The gates were open, and she marched out onto the road, where she stood, hands on hips, waiting for the newcomers to reach her. Only then did she realize that young Marjorie had followed her. She sent the girl back inside, telling her she wished to be alone, and although it was obvious that the girl was disappointed, she obeyed meekly enough as Jessie turned her eyes back to the road.

Will Sinclair saw her before any of the others did, and she saw him turn in his saddle and say something to his kinsman Tam, whom she now recognized. He then set the spurs to his horse and came galloping towards her, reining to a halt right in front of her. She said nothing, merely gazing up at him, and he nodded and doffed the plain black cap he was wearing.

“Lady Baroness,” he said, frowning, but she knew him well enough by this time to know that this particular frown was not his usual expression of disapproval. “Your pardon, I beg, for disturbing your peace thus unannounced. I would not have done so without great need.”

“Sir William. I know that. What is the matter?”

“My squire, my lady. Henry Sinclair, my nephew. He is sore wounded and in need of care. We were in England with King Robert, close by Carlisle, when the lad was almost killed … through my fault, my carelessness. The King himself sent me to find you here and to entreat your aid.”