Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“All the time, Admiral, though seldom in friendly tones, I fear. King Robert is trying to change that, to unite the country against Edward’s England and his lust to own our land.”

“Edward is dead, Jessie. You heard Master Sinclair.”

“He may be dead, but his barons are not, and his iron hand was the sole thing that kept them in check. The son that follows him onto the English throne will be the worst thing that could ever happen to Scotland, for he is a weakling and his own barons will trample over his wishes and please themselves in what they do. And what they will do is invade Scotland.” She checked herself, then set her jaw. “But that is neither here nor there for you, is it?” She paused for a moment, then forged on. “So if you have no wish to remain in Scotland, where will you go thereafter? Unless you intend to return directly to France?”

“That is what my heart tells me I would love to do most, but my head tells me that it could be years before our Order sees the light of day again in France, if indeed it ever does. So no, I will not be returning to France.” He fell silent, staring out over the rail, then turned to gaze off to his right, over the stern, before standing and crossing the small deck to where he could examine the entire horizon.

“Look,” he said, beckoning her to rise and join him. “Did I not say that where there was one there would be more? There are eleven masts now, you see? And three more vessels in plain sight. When we can see only the mast, like that, we say the ships beneath them are hull down. Our fleet still exists.”

Jessica stood beside him for some time, scanning the horizon as he had and counting the masts. The sky was almost bare of clouds now and the sun was close to setting. She took notice, too, of the orderly calm aboard their own vessel and the unmistakable air of discipline and renewal that was evident in the posture of the steersman behind them. She was pleased with all she saw, and she moved back to resume her seat and the conversation that had been interrupted.

“Then what is this quest of yours to be?” she asked, talking to his back. “Where will it take you?” She hesitated as he turned to face her, then went on. “I know I am probably being intolerably inquisitive, but I do not think you would have brought the matter up at all had you not wanted me to be aware of it.”

Richard St. Valéry nodded his head slowly, and she saw that his eyes had changed upon hearing her question; now they looked troubled. “Do you know that you constitute the last family I possess?” He saw her eyebrows rise and waved a hand to silence her before she could begin to protest. “Oh, I know there are others, cousins and distant kin, I know that, but I was speaking of close family, people who matter to me. I am the eldest and last of four brothers, two of whom I knew and loved well, and a squad of sisters, none of whom I ever knew well.” His teeth flashed suddenly through the thicket of his beard, and she remarked, as she often had before, on the whiteness and strength of them. “You, dear sister, constitute my entire adult knowledge of the feminine world, and for a time, when I first met you, you frightened me greatly—”

“Frightened you? Why, in God’s name?”

“Because, in God’s name as you accurately suggest,

I am a monk, sworn to chastity and solitude, and as my brother’s wife, without willing it or being in any way blameworthy, you made me see how fragile could be the wall of chastity behind which I and all my peers crouch. You were, and you remain, a creature of great beauty, Jessica, and that beauty unnerved me, unused as I was to associating with women in any way. I seek not to flatter you—I have neither need nor desire to do that. I speak the simple truth. Your beauty frightened me, just as it does Sir William.”

Jessica Randolph missed what her good-brother said next, because her mind was instantly full of what he had said last about William Sinclair. The idea that Will might be afraid of her took her aback. Jessie was not at all naïve, but what experience did she have in dealing with the knights of the Temple brotherhood? The few Templars she had known as a child had all been relatives or family friends, warriors who treated her as what she was: a small girl to be ignored or patted on the head in passing. By the time she grew to be a woman, she seldom saw any of them at all, and as a married woman, living in France and England, she had glimpsed them only occasionally and from a distance, recognizing them by their dress and insignia. Her husband’s affairs, as a King’s agent, had all been conducted at the court of Philip Capet, and there she had quickly learned how to contend with salacious approaches from indolent courtiers and the importunings of men of all ranks and stations, and she had become adept in deflecting their attentions, when she could not avoid them altogether, but with the sole exception of her good-brother Charles St. Valéry, she had never really encountered, or had any dealings with, the knights of the Temple. That they were distant and disdainful she had taken for granted, accepting it as a consequence of their secretive mystique, but the possibility that they might live in fear of her and of all women had never crossed her mind. So that was it: William Sinclair was afraid of her, simply because she was an attractive woman.

“… and so I find little pleasure in contemplating new beginnings at my age.”

“Pardon me, my dear Charles,” she interjected, bluntly honest as she always was. “I was distracted for a moment and missed something of what you were saying. What new beginnings are you talking about?” The look he directed at her might have been a tolerant smile, but she could not be sure.

“All of them,” he said quietly. “There are several facing me at this point, all of which, save one, I would prefer to avoid.” He saw from the quirk of her eyebrow that she was waiting and would not interrupt him.

“First, and most important, dear sister, I am too old to find pleasure in the prospect of starting a new life in a new country. My time in France has been cut short, and I had no control over the events that brought us here. I would, however, like to have some control over what I do from this point onward.”

“And can you do that? Exercise control over your future?’

He made his familiar Gallic shrug. “Easily, if God permits it and if I can obtain permission from Sir William, who now appears to be my sole remaining superior. But I doubt he may be willing to grant me that permission, simply because so few of us are left free.”

He turned his back on her again, staring out into the gathering darkness for some time, before returning to face her, bracing himself against the rail. “If he chooses to deny my request, then I shall accept his decision, learn to live with my regrets, and do my duty to the best of my abilities, in Scotland or elsewhere, as need arises. If he does permit me to go, on the other hand, then I shall be in my element again, doing what I was born to do, and my life thenceforth will be under my own control.”

“Thenceforth? You mean forever?”

“For as long as remains to me.”

“You say this quest would remove you from the authority of your superiors. How may that be? Where would you have to go to achieve that?”

“Beyond the seas.”

“To Outremer, you mean? But Outremer is lost now.

There is no Christian presence in the Holy Land today. To travel back to Outremer would be suicide.”

“I am not speaking of Outremer ...”

“Where, then? Where else is there?”

He faced her squarely, and now there was no hint of levity in his gaze. “Nowhere,” he said. “At least, nowhere in the known world.”

She was genuinely bewildered. “Are you suggesting that there may be un known places in the world?”