Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“Is that de Nogaret? Would he come here himself?” He answered his own question, aware that de Berenger was not listening. “Aye, he would, the diseased mongrel. He would want to take La Rochelle in person. Now I regret mooring beyond crossbow range. I could shoot him down from here.”

A banging against the hull announced the arrival of the boats bearing the arsonists, and as soon as they were all safely aboard, de Berenger issued the orders to bring the galley about and head to sea. As the galley’s prow swung around, Sinclair moved against it, revolving slowly until he was gazing out over the stern, his eyes never leaving the distant figure he knew was de Nogaret. Between them, a rain of crossbow bolts was falling uselessly into the waters of the harbor, and he had the pleasure of seeing the King’s minister strike out at someone standing beside him and then spin away, vanishing into the crowd, plainly headed into the empty Commandery.

Will turned his back on the scene then, filled with a turmoil of anger and fighting to empty his mind and heart of what was done. He had no time for useless imprecations, for he must now think to the future, to what must happen next and in the time to come. Ahead of him, framed by the entrance to the harbor, the admiral’s massive galley was slicing through the last of the calm waters, its sweeping oars throwing liquid diamonds into the rays of the sun that was now rising astern of them, above the walls and towers of La Rochelle, as the sleek, swift craft bore its double cargo of treasure and escapees away from the menace of the King of France. And on the stern, gazing back to the land, he could see the cloaked and hooded figure of the woman, the Baroness St. Valéry.

TWO

Six hours later, they were at anchor again, this time within the tiny harbor of a nameless fishing village, four leagues south along the coast from their starting point. The village had no name and few inhabitants, but it had a stout and solid stone quay, and ample flat ground at the base of the cliffs that towered above it to accommodate a host even larger than the small army that had descended upon the hamlet with this morning’s earliest light.

Will Sinclair stood with his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the galley’s low stern rail, watching the activity taking place all about him and learning much about the way naval matters differed from army activities. Both involved logistics in the use, feeding, and transportation of armed men, but Will knew he could never have begun to achieve the smoothness and ease of transference between land and sea that he was seeing here. Nor could his brother, he knew. He had caught sight of Kenneth on the wharf earlier, but had soon lost him again and was unsurprised, knowing that his brother, younger than himself by three years, was clever enough to stand away without interfering, and to let the seamen do what they did best.

St. Valéry and de Berenger had planned some of the details of this afternoon’s activities the previous night, before leaving La Rochelle, but their efforts had been limited by the fact that neither of them knew the village they would visit and both knew they would be constrained by the size and limitations of an unfamiliar wharf. Sinclair could have told them, for he it was who had chosen the place, remembered from a visit years earlier, but he had had duties of his own that night, and they had not thought to seek him out. In the event, the wharf was very small, accommodating only two vessels at a time, but the moorage was secure and the wharf had hoists and pulleys for lifting fishing boats into and out of the water, and now de Berenger was ashore, coordinating the activities there.

Will was watching a pair of horses being lowered, suspended in slings, into the waist of one of the cargo ships. He was growing more and more impressed, both by the handling abilities of the lading and receiving crews and by the swift ease with which the ships alongside the wharf were being rotated, one pair of keels waiting to warp into position as soon as the newly laden pair pulled out. These ships, the Order’s trading vessels, were very different in both appearance and function from the admiral’s galleys. Built with an eye to maximum storage capacity and solid seaworthiness, they were two-masted for the most part, although three of them had triple masts. They were uniformly broad in the beam and belly and rode low in the water when laden, so that they appeared bulky and ungainly when compared to the naval vessels that accompanied and guarded them. Watching them as they took on cargo, however, Sinclair acknowledged to himself that they possessed a beauty of their own, and he found himself admiring the skill with which their seasoned crews, Temple associates to a man, maneuvered them into and away from the small quay.

The crews of the Temple galleys were equally skilled, he knew, but to different effect and with far greater discipline. The transport ships were manned by professional mariners, employed by or belonging to the Temple; the galleys were manned by fighting seamen, sergeants of the Order whose natural tastes led them to seafaring duties rather than land-based. All of the latter lived, sailed, and fought under military and monastic discipline, their lives governed by a maritime version of the Order’s Rule, so that they prayed and performed monastic chores each day, although the off-watch crew were permitted to sleep after their labors and husband their strength at night. Their primary duty, above and beyond all else, was to protect the Order’s enormous trading fleet.

Sinclair looked down into the waist of the galley on which he stood, his eyes scanning the ranks of oarsmen at their benches, the nearest of them a good twelve feet below the stern deck. This craft was noticeably smaller than the admiral’s, with eighteen oars to a side where St. Valéry’s had twenty, but the oars were the same on all galleys, long, heavy, yet graceful sweeps that could propel the vessels over the water at astonishing speeds, even without the massive square sail.

He heard his name being shouted and looked over the rail to where a long, narrow boat rowed by eight oarsmen was taking up position directly beneath him. From its stern seats, Admiral St. Valéry was gazing up at him, and when he caught Sinclair’s eye he waved towards the village and shouted, “Join me ashore. I’m going to speak with de Berenger.”

Once again, Will was made aware of the difference between moving on water as opposed to land. His galley—de Berenger’s—was moored less than a tenth of a mile from the landward end of the wharf, perhaps two hundred paces on land, a distance that Will would have covered in a matter of minutes, even had he had to saddle his horse beforehand. On this occasion, however, he had to call for a boat and a crew of rowers, and then transfer himself from the galley to the boat, with the extreme caution of a landsman distrustful of the behavior of water and the vessels that bobbed about on it, and be rowed over to the end of the wharf. By the time he eventually caught up with St. Valéry, three-quarters of an hour had elapsed.

His brother Kenneth was waiting to greet him as Will climbed from the boat to the top of the breakwater, and threw his arms around him, squeezing him in a great bear hug. As Will prized himself away, grinning, he ran his fingertips over Kenneth’s chain-mail hauberk.

“Well met, Brother. I’ll presume, from the absence o’ tears and wailing, that everything went as it was supposed to. The goods are safe?”

“Safe and sound, Will. They’re all here.”

“You make that sound as though there was more than you bargained for.”

“There was! It filled five four-wheeled wagons and a cart. There was far more there than we thought there would be, but not too much to transport. There were four main chests, of course, the big ones—we loaded those onto two wagons, as planned—but then there was a fine collection of gold and silver I didn’t expect, in boxes—bars and coinage of both—and seven whole chests of jewels, two of them small, the other five almost as large as the main treasure chests. They’re closed wi’ straps for the most part, so a few of them were easy to open and I took a look inside, just to see what we were lugging. They’re stuffed wi’ studded chalices and crucifixes and church vessels, that kind of thing. Clearly the Master didn’t want them falling into de Nogaret’s hands. We had to turn the country upside down to find more wagons to carry them.”