Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Jessie was smiling with him, and as his laughter died away, she said, “I’m glad I asked you that. When did it happen? Was this on Arran?”

His face grew somber and his voice changed, becoming quieter. “No. It was in the Languedoc, close to the Pyrenees, on the way to Navarre to fight the Moors. It was … fifteen years ago.”

Jessie sat stunned, for there was nothing she could say, she thought, that would not sound petty, but after a few moments she drew in a breath and spoke brightly. “Well! We may be glad it happened, for it has brought laughter back to you, for my pleasure, after all this time.”

“Aye, mayhap, Jessie.” His voice was barely audible. “But you were right. I doubt I have really laughed since that afternoon, for we lost more than half our number in the fighting that followed hard on that day. Fifteen years!”

A silence stretched after that, and she watched him. Ah, Will Sinclair, you dear, dear man, how I wish I could show you what laughter does to your face, to all of you … It strips years away from you, years and years and years, and shows the boy in you …

A log spat and cracked in the fireplace and the blaze subsided, throwing sparks and whirling smoke up into the canopied flue.

“What were you thinking there?”

The question caught her by surprise and she answered unthinkingly. “I was watching you, thinking you should laugh more often … all the time … and wishing I could show you how you change when you do …”

He sat gazing at her, and then a tiny smile tugged at his mouth. “That would be a clever—”

A shriek of female laughter rang out somewhere beyond the door and snapped them both out of the mood they had been sharing.

“Marjorie! That child is …” Jessie was on her feet, unaware of having moved, and now she stood glaring down at him as they listened to the clatter of running feet, her eyes sparkling with an emotion he could not define. “I swear, since that boy entered this household all sense of decorum has been tossed aside. And Marie and Janette are no better than my ward. Wait for me here, if you will. I have to go and assert some authority.”

Wide eyed, Will watched her go, her skirts swirling about her, and he was still unsure whether the look in her eyes had been one of anger or of perplexed amusement. She left the door open as she went, and he heard her going up the stairs, her voice raised in exasperation until it dwindled beyond hearing. Only then, when he could hear nothing but stillness, did he settle back in his chair, gripping the arms and looking absently about him as he began to take stock of this unusual day. Unusual was not the word for it, he thought; this had been a day beyond imagining. This was her room, Jessie Randolph’s room, despite whatever claims her nephew might hold to it. Her influence, the signs of her presence, her dominance of this household, were visible everywhere: they shone in the colors of the room, the banks of candles cunningly arranged, the shawls and cushions on the furnishings, and the jugs and pots of living flowers on practically every level surface. And in the middle of it all, he sat wondering what he was doing there … How had he come to this, and what was happening to him?

There was a time, he thought, when he might have believed the woman had bewitched him, and as the thought occurred to him, he acknowledged that she had, in fact, bewitched him, slowly and surely. But where years earlier he might have run in confusion to some priest, seeking absolution, he was now content to sit and await the next developments. He had become a different man today from the one he had been the previous year, or even the previous month, and he was well aware that the rigorous, unyielding Temple knight of a decade earlier was long since dead. But the process of that particular knightly death had been assiduously executed by men, by those same men to whom he had dedicated his life, swearing to serve, to honor, and to obey. No witchcraft there … Exorcism, perhaps, in that the spirit that possessed him as a younger knight had been expelled, cast out forever. But that had happened through no fault or influence of Jessie Randolph’s. All she had done was frighten him with unchaste thoughts and lustful dreams, phenomena that, in his single-minded dedication to doing his duty by and for the Temple, he had forgotten were harmless in the eyes of his true Order, the Brotherhood of Sion. And in the past few weeks, all that he had learned had combined with all he had decided in recent years to generate a new Sir William Sinclair, another man altogether; a man mature in years and battle-hardened, but owning all the terrors of an unworldly, virgin boy.

IN THE STILLNESS, the long howl of a distant wolf came clearly through the unglazed window high above his head, followed by the sound of marching boots and a loud challenge that marked the changing of the night watch. The fire settled again, and he noticed that several of the banked candles on the table and sideboard were guttering, close to burning out. He had lost track of how long Jessie had been gone, but he felt utterly at ease as he pushed himself to his feet and went to snuff the dying candles, pinching them out between a moistened finger and thumb and smelling the odor of smoldering wick as he scratched congealed wax from his thumb afterwards. Only a few had burned out, and he left the others as he went to rebuild the fire, settling new logs in place and only remembering at the last moment not to push them down with his bright new spotless boots. He stood for a few moments gazing down into the fire and frowning slightly, and then he sat down again, plucking at his lower lip, and let his thoughts run free, aware only that he had never been indecisive, and that he needed to be constructively decisive now.

He was deep in thought when Jessie stepped back into the room and stopped near the door, observing him. But when she spoke he turned to her immediately, showing no sign of surprise.

“You are still here! I thought you would have tired of being alone and be abed.”

“Not at all. I have been sitting here thinking, of many things—things to be done, decisions to be made. Are you for bed yourself?”

“No, not yet, unless you wish to be alone.”

“No, I am content. Come and sit then, if you have a mind to share the fire.” He watched her as she came to sit across from him again, and when she was settled, stretching out her hands towards the flames, he smiled. “You have quelled the mutiny up there?”

“Oh aye, long since. High spirits are a blessing from God, but they need to be curtailed from time to time. Now Marjorie and Henry are abed, lights out, and Marie and Janette are at their chores, preparing for the morrow, spinning yarn for the loom. Am I permitted to ask what you were thinking about?”

“In your own house you may ask anything you wish, Jessie …” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I’ve been thinking about myself, in the main—about my life and what’s to be done with it. I’ve never had to do that before, can you imagine that? Here I am, growing old already, and I have spent my life being told what to do and when to do it, so thinking about what I ought to do is a new concern for me … very new … and strange … But you spoke of changes earlier tonight, and that set me off. My entire world has changed in the six years since I left Master de Molay in Paris. I still have duties, God knows—tasks to do and decisions to make that will influence far more lives than my own. But now I am thinking for myself, commanding others to obey my wishes and decisions.”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, frowning, and then he looked directly at her. “I have been thinking about you, too. About this wish of yours to sail with us when we leave. How did you come to that?”