Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“No, Admiral, because I think you and I are considering the same eventuality. Were either of us in de Nogaret’s shoes in this, we would impound all three vessels, imprison the commanders and their crews, then take the galleys out to sea again, crewed by our own men, to pursue this fleet. Is that what you are thinking?”

“Aye, it is. Captain Parmaison, you can see for yourself that we have no time to waste. Rejoin de Lisle as quickly as you may and bid him wait, well out of reach, to see if those galleys emerge from La Rochelle again. If they do, at the first sign of them, you are to make all speed to return and let us know. Understood?” Parmaison nodded, and St. Valéry rose to his feet. “Then may God be with you and grant you all speed. Wind and oars, Sir Geoffrey, wind and oars. Sir William, we must inform Admiral de Berenger of this at once.”

They could hear Parmaison shouting orders to his crew before they reached the entry port where Tam and their boat waited for them, and before they arrived back at the wharf his galley had already veered away from its anchorage.

FIVE

Vice-Admiral de Berenger’s administrative and organizational skills were beyond dispute; his crews had every piece of Sir Kenneth Sinclair’s convoy—wagons, livestock, and cargo—sorted, dismantled where necessary, and stowed aboard ship in ample time to sail upon the evening tide, leaving the tiny village looking abandoned behind them. Sinclair, who had not really expected that they would complete everything in time to catch the tide, made a point of seeking out the vice-admiral before returning to his galley, which had already shipped the Templar Treasure, and congratulated him on the speed and efficiency of the entire operation. De Berenger, still preoccupied with the final details of dismantling their lading gear and leaving the small wharf clear of debris, thanked him with a slightly distracted smile and told him he would see him aboard within the hour. Sir William left him to it, returning to where Tam Sinclair awaited him patiently in a boat at the end of the wharf. As soon as he was safely aboard, Tam gave the order to the four oarsmen to take them back to the galley, about a hundred yards away.

It was only as they crossed the water that Sinclair zrealized that he had not seen the Baroness leave the beach, and that he had not thought of her in several hours, and he grunted to himself in satisfaction. Intense concentration on other things had obviously shut her out of his awareness for some time, and he resolved to remember that technique and apply it to her in future. He could see Admiral St. Valéry’s galley already disappearing hull down on the horizon, and the few ships left in the small inlet were all in the final stages of preparing to leave the land again. Sinclair’s galley, de Berenger’s own command, would be the last to go, and Will found himself hoping that the villagers they were leaving behind would waste no time in erasing all sign that they had ever been visited this day.

By the time he boarded the galley, the last members of de Berenger’s party were already climbing into two boats tied to the wharf. The surface of the pier at their back had been swept clean, not a single piece of debris remaining that might be linked to their visit, and after seeing the boats’ oars bite into the water, Will turned away and went in search of his cramped quarters in the forecastle. There he cast off his outer clothing and dropped onto his narrow bunk, remaining there as the ship rocked to and fro before finally putting out to sea. At some point, because there was no urgency for him in anything that was happening, he nodded off to sleep, aware, just before he lost consciousness, that in his mind’s eye he was staring at Lady Jessica Randolph’s face and that she was meeting his gaze, her eyes wide but expressionless, noncommittal, masking whatever she was thinking.

Seven days later, out of sight of land and clinging to a straining rigging rope in the waist of the ship in a howling storm, he was thinking of the woman again and straining to catch sight of the admiral’s galley on the port side, where he had last seen it days before, but he could see nothing. Whatever might be out there, it was hidden from his sight by swooping waves, wind-whipped spume, and horizontally driven rain that stung exposed skin like needles of ice. Twice since leaving the fishing village, and both times on the first day, he had seen her muffled figure looking out over the galley’s rail, once from the stern and once from the prow, but since the weather had begun to worsen on their second day at sea, he had seen no sign of her and had not expected to.

The Bay of Biscay was renowned for the ferocity of its storms, and most especially so at this time of year, with the inexorable approach of winter. Sinclair was well aware of that, just as he knew that the vessel in which he was riding had been designed to survive such storms, and that they would be safe as long as they held far enough out to sea to preclude any possibility of their being blown onto the rocks along the shoreline. His intellect knew that; his heart and his brain knew it; but there was some other part of his being that remained staunchly unconvinced. That part of him had been telling him for days now that he had no business being here on a heaving ship in the middle of nowhere, confronting a successive chain of storms and howling gales; that he should be safe ashore some place, on solid ground, with a strong horse under him and his feet firmly planted in the stirrups.

As he thought about that yet again, he heard his name being shouted, and clutching his anchoring rope, he turned to see Tam Sinclair within arm’s reach. He let go of the rope with one hand and reached out, suddenly conscious of the weight of his sodden mantle, to grasp Tam’s wrist and pull him to where he, too, could grasp the rigging and turn his hunched back to the gale.

“De Berenger sent me to get you,” Tam shouted into Sinclair’s ear through a cupped hand. “He’s in his cabin.”

Sinclair felt his heart sink into his boots as he heard the summons. He was up here on the galley’s central deck for one reason: he had survived his first attacks of seasickness several days earlier, although he could still hardly credit the violent misery he had endured, but even so, the minor degree of tolerance he had since developed for the lurching, pitching, and yawing movements of the ship could not survive in the fetid atmosphere, the darkness, and the chaotic, unpredictable motion belowdecks. The galley’s crew appeared to think nothing of it, and knew the layout of the ship so well that they could find their way about down there in total darkness, but Will Sinclair knew that was a skill he would never possess, and the mere thought of remaining aboard for long enough to develop it appalled him. Now, knowing that he had no alternative but to go aft and belowdecks, he turned and looked back towards the high stern of the ship, where he could see a pair of helmsmen straining against the weight of the tiller, struggling to keep the ship headed directly into the wind and the incessant line of combers bearing down on them from the northwest. Below, in the waist of the vessel, the oarsmen sat huddled and miserable on their benches, waiting patiently, their oars shipped and secured vertically, ready to be deployed at the shout of an order.

“What’s happening, d’you know?”

Tam shook his head. “He came up on deck and sent me to fetch you. Something’s up, but I’ve no more idea than you.”

“Well, let’s find out. I’ll be glad to get out of this.”

“Aye, and so will I. Off this whoreson box and back on dry land. Sooner the better.”

Together, choosing each step with great care, they fought their way back to the stern, where Tam crouched down out of the wind, in the shelter of the ship’s side, while Sir William approached one of three doors in the wall below the stern deck where the helmsmen stood. He knocked, and without waiting for a response, swung the door open and leaned inside. De Berenger was sitting on one side of his sleeping cabin, facing the ship’s wall, in front of a small tabletop that was hinged to the vessel’s timbers so that it could be folded away when it was not in use. He had been writing, for his fingers were stained with ink.