Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Will had been surprised, and pleased, to discover that he enjoyed the evening and, to some extent, the 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.”