Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“And so we have made changes—dire changes, indeed, but necessary in a swiftly changing world.” He drew a deep, audible breath. “Now I have learned of one more such, one last, appalling change that has made exiles of us all, forever …” The silence in the room was absolute, and he looked about him before he spoke again, making eye contact with as many of the assembled men as he could, and seeing the same tension of uncertainty and dread in every face.

“On the eighteenth day of March this year, the year of our Lord 1314, our beloved Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, was burned alive in Paris. The murder—for it was nothing less—was performed as a public spectacle by the direct order of Philip Capet. An obscene atrocity was treated as a festivity.”

It was as though a silent gale had blown into the hall, its force rocking the packed crowd visibly, but before they could begin to react further, Will launched into the tale as he had heard it from St. Omer, omitting nothing and ending with the challenge—amounting to a curse—that de Molay had issued from the flames, summoning both King and Pope to join him before the throne of God Himself within the year. Then, when he had finished, he raised a hand into the profound silence.

“So there you have it. Our noble Order has ceased to exist beyond this realm of Scotland. It is finished, dead with the death of its noble Master and the simultaneous deaths of honor, justice, and nobility in our sad land. And with the passing of our Master, by his own written command, I am now become Grand Master of what remains.” His eyes swept the crowd. “Master of what remains.

“And what is that? What does remain, what can remain, after such infamy and gross injustice?” What remains , brethren, is here with us now, within this Chapter Hall. It is our enduring spirit, our honor and our ideals, our clear understanding, unsullied by venality or envy, of our duties as knights and men, and our responsibility to ourselves and those who stand with us. We hold those tenets safe within us, untarnished and undiminished by the betrayals of Church and state and the horrors unleashed upon our innocent brothers by the Holy Inquisition.

“In the eyes of the world, then, our Order is dead, but we know, all of us, that that is not true. As long as one of us remains alive to nurture its memory and serve its purposes, our Order will continue to exist, and that becomes my greatest responsibility as Master now: to protect and nourish what remains. We must change, adapt, reform ourselves completely. We have changed, greatly but not yet sufficiently. And now we are about to conceal ourselves completely from the eyes and ken of ordinary men. We will become as ghosts and phantoms. But we will continue to observe our rites and ceremonies, to maintain our beliefs and to coexist in amity, as brothers, equal in the all-seeing eye of God. Henceforth, we will pursue our goals and dreams in utter secrecy, our existence veiled and hidden, our true identities unknown. This is my oath to you: we will survive and thrive, though hidden from the eyes of others, and the day will come when this Order will arise again, from out of this realm of Scotland, to honor the memory of the last, true Grand Master of the Temple, who died on the island in the Seine last March. And thus I think it would be fitting, as our last act in this, our last gathering, were we to sing ‘Dies Irae’—Days of Wrath—to mark the passing of a great and noble man.”

Across from Will, on the Western dais, Bishop Formadieu stepped forward and began to sing the first line of the solemn, sonorous chant of the requiem hymn, and by the end of his first phrase he had been joined by the massed voices of the assembly, singing with a fervor and solemnity that Will could not remember ever having heard. He stood listening intently, feeling no urge to join in although the hairs stirred on his neck as the waves of sound swelled and washed over him. He had always preferred listening to music rather than marring it with his own tuneless contribution, and now he pictured the dead man as he had last seen him, grave, dignified, and deeply troubled by the seemingly preposterous warnings he had received. Remembering the Master’s reluctant decision to act upon those warnings, Will now realized how appropriate the words of this dirge were to that memory: Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets’ warning, Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

As the hymn ended, Will pulled the bag towards him. He laid both hands on it.

“This would not have been a day of celebration, even without these evil tidings, but it must not—will not—end in despair. Few of you, I suspect, ever laid eyes on Master de Molay, for he lived most of his life far from France, beyond the seas, working without pause for the good of our Order. But I know there is not a man among you who is unaware of the reverence, even the awe, with which he was regarded by all who knew him. He was a knight without peer, and it was, alas, his destiny to die in office, the last of an unbroken line of twenty-three Grand Masters of our Order, beginning with Hugh de Payens in 1118.

“Twenty-three men, Brethren, and one hundred and ninety-six years of rectitude and devotion to duty, all of it destroyed by one greedy, venal king. Philip Capet, known as le Bel —the Fair. Such fairness brings to mind the whited sepulcher of scripture … But no more of him. He is not worthy of your time or of your thoughts. Think instead of Jacques de Molay for the remainder of this day, as you work at your appointed tasks.

“Before we stand adjourned, however, I have a few things—personal things—I want to say to you as Master here. I will not keep you long, for most of our work is done in preparation for this day.” He looked around at their watching faces as he spoke, noticing, not for the first time, that few among them could be described as young looking.

“When we leave here today, we will begin the final stages of our preparations to quit this place for good. Horses, armor, weapons, and provisions, along with most of your personal possessions—those of you who have any—are all in place on the beaches by the wharf below, and the ships are waiting to take them on board. You all know what to do and you know we have no time to waste. I want to add a reminder, if you will.

“When we came here, we were exiles, homeless fugitives who still could not believe what had happened to our ordered world. We were confused and disbelieving, not knowing what to think and waiting, blind and deaf, for news to reach us telling us it had all been a mistake and that we must return home. But that word never came, and the world we had known fell into ruin.

“Yet we sat safe here, on this island, sheltered from the chaos by the goodwill of one man, Robert of Scotland, and his friends. Of course, we were able to support him in return, from our own strength, limited though that was. And when we leave here today, most of you will continue to support him from your new homes in the lodges we have founded in Scotland, and your strength will hearten him in his time of need, as his understanding and goodwill heartened us in ours.” He tapped his clenched right fist into the palm of his other hand. “But now the King of Scots faces the greatest challenge of his reign. England is set to destroy him utterly, and all who stand with him. I know you are all aware of that. It is not new. England has been determined to destroy the Scots for years now, yet the Scots remain unbroken. I know, too, that you are all aware of the new invasion now being prepared. I wonder, however, if you know the true extent of what is afoot this time.

“Edward of Caernarvon has assembled more than two and a half thousand heavy chivalry at Berwick. Two thousand and five hundred armored knights, each of them backed by mounted men-at-arms. He has raised four thousand longbows and fifteen thousand infantry troops. He has a supply train of hundreds of wagons, all of them poised and ready to move north at his word. And he has a fleet of ships already sailing up the coast towards the River Forth, where they will wait, with fresh provisions and supplies, until his armies reach them.