Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“Forgive me, Baroness, I was woolgathering. It’s plain to see, even in the dark, that nothing here has been disturbed, save by our own presence, and now your tenants have come home. Shall we go on?”

The sky had faded to a dark, purplish hue, and the last lingering rays of the vanished sun were firing the low western clouds with brilliantly glowing, flaming tints of orange and gold and red. Jessie stopped walking and gazed up at the display.

“How can one look at that and not believe in God? It is different every night, never the same from day to day nor even from hour to hour, and it is never ugly. Even at its worst, the sky is always wondrously beautiful. But everything changes constantly, everywhere we look.” She glanced sideways at him, standing quietly beside her as he, too, stared out at the panorama in the west. “I will admit, though, sir knight, that the changes I have seen in you these past few weeks have amazed me. I expect change, as a part of life, inevitable as night after day, but still you astound me.”

“Astound you? How so, madam?”

“Let me see … you astound me in a host of ways, and I have to say that I would be hard put to name but one … But no, that is untrue. I have one. You have learned to listen.”

His mouth widened slowly into a grin. “I assure you, Baroness—”

“ Jessie .”

“Jessie, aye … I assure you, Jessie , that I have never had the slightest trouble with my hearing.”

“Nor did I say you had. I said you have learned to listen , not to hear . Hearing is an ability, but listening is an accomplishment. I know few men who really listen to anyone or anything, let alone to women. Your friend Tam is one of them.”

“Tam …? You will explain that to me, I hope.”

It was Jessie’s turn to grin, and he felt his spirits lift with the quick merriness of it.

“I will, and I’ll do it slowly, for the sake of your masculine ears. But may we walk while I do so? It’s growing cool.”

She fell silent as they began to walk again, and before she could resume, Will turned his head towards the gates, attracted by the sound of voices.

“Did you not say you had given Tam the night to himself?”

She glanced up at him quickly and he laughed aloud and turned away again, failing to notice the look on her face as he crowed, “Well then, it would appear he didna listen to you. Tam! Sergeant Sinclair! Here, to me!”

A large group of men had just entered the enclosure, indistinct in the rapidly growing darkness, a mere block of black male shapes, some of them carrying longhandled shovels, but there was no mistaking Tam’s upright form at their head or the massive bulk of Mungo MacDowal by his side. They stopped as one, and Will heard Tam say something to the others. He weaved slightly as he approached, but Tam Sinclair was a long way from being the worse for drink. When he was close enough to see them clearly he stopped short, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping as he looked at the spectacle of his kinsman dressed in the sumptuous garb of a French nobleman.

“Name o’ God,” he muttered, more to himself that anyone. “What in—?”

“Good evening, Tam.” Jessie cut him short before he could blurt out anything else, and he turned to her, blinking owlishly.

“And a guid e’en to you, Baroness,” he growled, his Scots burr thickened by drink. “A braw night.” He swung his head back truculently to look again at Will, but Will was ready for him.

“What have you been doing out there, so late in the day?”

“Late in the day? We’ve been there a’ day lang. What d’ ye think we’d be doin’? We’ve been buryin’ bodies. Ye may mind there wis a wheen o’ them lyin’ about the place.”

“I do.” Will looked towards where the last of the distant group was vanishing around the corner of the main house. “How many were you?”

“Six to dig—the prisoners—and eight o’ us to guard them. The four o’ us, and four o’ Lady Jessie’s men.”

“And how many bodies?”

“Nine, and every one o’ them a heavy whore to shift—Your pardon, Baroness.”

Will nodded. “Well done. But the Baroness has just been telling me she set you free and at leisure today.”

“So she did.” Tam frowned. “Are you telling me I’m no’?”

“No, not at all. I merely wondered why you did not take her at her word.”

“I did, and I thanked her for it. Did I no’, Baroness? Aye. This night, I intend to get very drunk. We ha’e the drink in the bothy, and food to soak it up, thanks to the stewart, Hector McBean. So, ’gin ye’ll let me, I’ll—” He stopped again, scanning his kinsman slowly from head to foot, missing no slightest detail, and then turned to Jessie, pointing a thumb towards Will. “This is your work, I jalouse?” Jessie smiled, rather tenuously, but said nothing, and he shook his head. “I ha’e never seen the like. An’ I wouldna ha’e believed it wi’out seein’ it for mysel’.” He looked Will up and down again, slowly. “Green boots! Green boots an’ nae armor … No’ even a dirk.” He glanced again at Jessie and then drew himself up to his full height, clearing his throat loudly. “Well, ye look grand, Will Sinclair. Grand and braw and … no’ just different , but … right , ye ken? Ye should aey wear green.” He grinned wickedly. “It suits ye.” And with that he turned and walked away.

How long Will might have stood there speechless he would never know, but beside him he heard Jessie stifle a sudden shudder and saw her clasp her elbows, hugging her breast. “It’s cold,” she murmured. “I want to go back inside now.”

They crossed the courtyard quickly this time, striding towards the house, and both of them were shivering as they entered the main room and moved directly to stand as close as possible to the roaring fire. They stood side by side, gazing into the flames, each of them lost in thought until Jessie broke the silence, giggling gently.

“You see? Tam approved my choice. Did that surprise you?”

“I’ve been speechless ever since.”

They both turned to say something else, and suddenly they were face to face, no more than a hand’s breadth between them. Neither said a word for some moments, until Jessie raised a hand wonderingly to her mouth.

“I had never heard you laugh before tonight. Did you know that?”

Will stepped away, lowering himself into one of the two large chairs that had been repositioned during their absence to face the fire, and Jessie sat down in the other. “Never? That is hard to believe,” he said, resisting the urge to call her by name. “How long have we known each other now? You must have heard me laugh at one time or another.”

“Six years since we first met, that night in La Rochelle. And you have never laughed. Not in my presence. Until tonight.”

“That is ridiculous,” he blustered. “You make me sound like … you make me sound as though … Bah!” He threw up his hands.

“I make you sound like a grim and intolerant knight I once knew, a Templar knight called Guillaume de St. Clair … a man who never smiled, as far as I could see, let alone laughed. Come now, be serious. When do you last remember laughing, really laughing so that it hurt your ribs? Can you recall?”

He sat still, thinking, his face growing sober as the moments stretched, and then his eyes lit up and he smacked the arm of his chair. “I can! It was the time when Tam fell in a river, fully armed, and couldn’t climb out. I fell out of my saddle laughing, and the angrier he grew, the funnier it seemed.” He laughed again, gently, recalling the scene. “It had been raining hard that day … straight down, relentless, and the riverbank was sodden. Tam slipped and dropped his sword in the mud—I can’t recall why he had drawn it or why he was afoot—but he was angry at himself and went to wash it clean in the river. He stooped and stretched until his feet went out from under him and he landed on his backside. Then he spun around until he was looking up at me, his face wild with outrage … and he slid slowly backwards, scrabbling at the mud, his legs in the air, all the way down and off the bank, into the water. And once in, fully armored, he could not climb out.” Will was really laughing now, pinching the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb and snorting with mirth, his eyes tearing over. “It wasn’t deep, but it was slippery. I tell you, Jessie, he was howling, baying with anger, and it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.” He pulled himself together then, shaking his head and blinking the tears from his eyes. “It took him a long time to forgive us, but he did, eventually. Sweet Jesus, that was funny.”