Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Thus, in the hubbub of all the ongoing activities, Will had made a fundamental error in his calculations. For more than five years now, revolving shifts of armed and mounted men from their Arran community had been fighting with the Bruce armies, and Will had taken it for granted that they would continue to do so after their relocation to the mainland. But those riders—knights and sergeants alike—had all used smaller, lighter horses and mail armor, easier to transport across water. He had not considered the great destriers, or the fact that many of his men, the French knights most assuredly, would wish to rearm themselves with their own huge war horses and plate armor once that became possible. Now he had to plan to present King Robert not only with horses but with the armored knights to ride those horses. Chagrined initially at having overlooked such an apparently obvious development, he had nevertheless soon found the grace and humor to acknowledge, once again, his new-won spouse’s value as an adviser. He had immediately issued orders to have all the Templars’ heavy armor and weaponry brought out from storage and refurbished for use in the coming English invasion.

And so, as soon as the chapter meeting was adjourned, the business of transferring the horses, armor, and weapons to Scotland would begin, for they had no time to waste. She herself would have been in Brodick now, organizing the score and a half of women who would sail with the expedition to the new land, had Will not asked her to remain behind in Lochranza to act as chatelaine and hostess to the gathering there. That was a waste of her time, in Jessie’s opinion—though she kept her silence—since she had contributed nothing but her presence, and that had been largely ignored, as she had known it would be.

A sudden upsurge in the noise from below attracted her attention. The apparently aimless seething of the crowd down there had altered since she had last looked, and now men were moving purposefully, pouring aboard the galleys, spilling from one to the other as they sought their own berths.

A discreet cough came from behind her, and she turned to find Hector standing at the turret door, holding it open for Sir James Douglas, who was stooped in the entryway, smiling at her.

“Sir James! Is something wrong? Do you need anything? I—”

Douglas doffed his feathered cap and bowed low in the gesture she had come to associate with him, but the smile remained in place on his dark-skinned, strangely attractive face. “No, Baroness, nothing is wrong. We are done our work and I need nothing … except time—a few more months between now and the coming week, if you could arrange that?”

She laughed back at him. “Would that I could, Sir James. But are you leaving?”

“Aye, on the rising tide, ’gin we can board and clear the sea wall in time. It is gey tight down there.” He stepped to her side and they stood together for a moment, watching the still-increasing activity below. “MacNeil, at the back there, will go first,” Douglas told her, “and that will clear the harbor mouth. As soon as they have room to dip their oars, the others will follow. I would venture, though it seems impossible, looking at that, that your harbor will be empty again within the hour from now. These caterans know their business.”

He looked at her again and stepped back a pace, inclining his head. “I have come to thank you, Baroness, from all of us who have gathered here these past few days, depriving you of house and home. Your hospitality and forbearance have been much appreciated, and we have achieved all that we hoped for. The Islesmen of the West will stand with His Grace when England comes chapping at our door, and those tidings will do much to soothe our noble Robert’s cares. But I must now travel hard and fast to tell him, for he is on his way to Stirling to assemble our host, such as it may be. And so, ’gin you will grant me leave to go thus rudely, I must away forthwith. The others are waiting for me.”

“Go then, and Godspeed, Sir James. Carry my blessings and good wishes to the King, and tell him I will keep his niece safe for him.”

“I will. Adieu, then, Madame la Baronne.” He bowed again, sweeping the ground with his bonnet’s plume, and then he was gone, the sound of his booted feet dwindling rapidly down the narrow spiral staircase.

Jessie stood staring at the spot where he had vanished, her eyes narrowed in thought. She had been less than truthful with the King in the matter of his niece, for she had said nothing of taking the girl with her beyond the seas, and even now she was unsure what she would do when the time came to decide. It would all depend upon what happened in the weeks and months ahead; if she decided that Marjorie’s life would be safer in the new land, then she would take the child without a moment’s hesitation.

That Scotland would be invaded was a certainty. Edward Bruce had ensured that when he made his foolish truce with the English governor of Stirling the previous summer. England’s King had used the ensuing year to settle his own internal wars with his barons and whip them into a frenzy of greed and offended chivalric honor, playing upon their lust for Scottish lands and wealth. The sole question remaining was the exact timing and strength of the incursion, and even that was finite. Midsummer Day, the date of settlement of the Stirling truce, was June twenty-fourth. England had until that date, now six weeks distant, to relieve Stirling or lose Scotland.

Edward of England had begun summoning his earls and barons months earlier, just before Christmas. Word had soon reached Bruce’s ears, generating the urgency that had brought about this gathering of Scots and Gaels here in Lochranza, forging alliance between King Robert and the reluctant, independent Islesmen and Highlanders, for if King Robert’s Scotland fell to the English, so, too, would the Western Isles and the Highlands.

A chorus of horns and shouts from below brought Jessie’s attention back to the present, and she looked over the battlements to see, to her astonishment, that the harbor was indeed emptying rapidly, the sea beyond the entrance dotted with departing galleys, all of them using wind and oars to reach their various destinations as soon as possible. Another roar of approval reached her, and she looked straight down, recognizing Douglas and his three companions as they and their attendants moved quickly to board their own vessel, the massive galley lent to the King of Scots by his Arran Templars.

How long she stood gazing down at the King’s galley as it was warped away from its berth and headed out to sea she could not have said afterwards, for her mind was filled with worries of another sort as she wondered what her own man would now do. He had told her that he would remain on Arran to complete his work; that the affairs of Scotland were Scotland’s own; that he had made and would continue to make his contribution to King Robert’s cause with men, horses, and weaponry; but that his overriding responsibility was to his own people and their journey to the new land. She had believed him at the time, but that had been a full month earlier, and now she was not so sure. Sir William Sinclair was not the kind of man who could turn his back upon his friends in time of need, and Robert Bruce and his closest supporters had become Will’s friends. Knowing that, she knew too, in her heart of hearts, that as the threat of invasion drew nearer, her man must be undergoing torment from his divided loyalties.

He would do the right thing. She had no doubt of that. But the unease over what that might be, the decision he might finally make, had kept her awake every night since he had left for Brodick. She had waited far too long for him to come to her, and now that he had, she could barely tolerate the thought that she might lose him in the squalor of some muddy battlefield, slaughtered in the mire because his sense of honor and his conscience would not permit him to stand back and look to his own affairs.