Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Behind the strange-looking galley, its two escorting craft were standard Temple vessels, each of them shipping eighteen double-banked oars to a side, so that he estimated their fighting force to be anywhere from eighty to a hundred men apiece, dependent upon the size of their relief crews, and his guess was that they would not have sailed from Cyprus without a full complement. So another two to three hundred fighting men had been added to their force, and from the look of them, they were all veteran Temple sergeants.

He stood watching until he saw boats being lowered from the strange-looking leader, and then, as he turned away, he spotted the Baroness St. Valéry watching the newcomers from the corresponding deck on the ship’s forecastle. Inexplicably flustered by the sudden sight of her and feeling slightly breathless despite having known he would probably see her somewhere during his visit, he averted his eyes and went below, moving very deliberately, to await the new arrivals in the ship’s main cabin.

FIVE

The commander of the leading galley, Sir Antoine de l’Armentière, was precisely the kind of man Will Sinclair had expected him to be, the kind of Templar he thought of as a Temple Boar: a fighting monk, largely devoid of humor and thoroughly dedicated to the affairs of the Temple to the exclusion of all else. Not that there was anything amiss with that, Will thought, examining the captain as he arrived. Such men served a necessary function, and their loyalty to the Order was unassailable. De l’Armentière strode into the cabin as if it were his personal domain and came to attention in front of the admiral, ignoring everyone else.

St. Valéry greeted him courteously, then introduced him to the others in attendance, most of whom de l’Armentière already knew. Finally he brought him forward to introduce him to Will.

“May I present Sir William Sinclair, Sir Antoine. He is a member of the Governing Council, here on direct business for Master de Molay himself concerning the recent matters of which you may or not be aware.” He turned to Will. “Sir Antoine is from Burgundy, Sir William. His family has provided members for our Order since its beginnings in Jerusalem.” And having delivered his message that de l’Armentière was definitely not of the Order of Sion, the admiral gestured to everyone to be seated. “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”

Sinclair and de l’Armentière exchanged nods, and then the men took their places around the long, narrow table that filled up most of the main cabin.

As soon as they were all seated, St. Valéry motioned to de l’Armentière. “Your report, if you please, Sir Antoine. We know you arrived in La Rochelle mere hours after our departure, but our lookouts were too far away to prevent you from entering the harbor. Since then, we had thought your galleys confiscated. When they emerged again, we had no choice but to assume them crewed by the enemy. Plainly we were mistaken. Please tell us what occurred.”

De l’Armentière knew how to savor a moment of attention. He sat frowning for some time, looking at no one, as though gazing inwardly, making a display of collecting his thoughts, then looked slowly from man to man around the table. “Who is the enemy?” he asked eventually. “We arrived directly from Cyprus, after ten days at sea, and we saw the King’s colors among the men on the quays. But even before that we had seen a pyre of burning ships and a harbor devoid of Temple shipping. And the Order’s banners were missing from the battlements, something I had never seen before.

“And so I gave orders to drop anchor out of bowshot from the quay. But once they had seen that we were not going to approach them any closer, they fired upon us uselessly nonetheless. I waited to see if anyone would approach us, but not a single boat was launched towards us, and it soon became quite obvious that the crowds on the quay were leaderless and there was no one willing to assume the authority to deal with us. And so I remained at anchor, to see if someone might return to assume command. But no one did. I waited for three hours, by which time the tide was in full ebb, and then I took my ships out of there under oars … truthfully, with no idea of what I should do next.”

“So what did you do, Captain?” Sir William asked him.

De l’Armentière offered a half smile to his questioner. “As soon as we had cleared the harbor mouth, my lookouts reported masts on the horizon to the south, and so I set a course to follow them. I did not know who had occupied La Rochelle, but if these ships were coming in support of whoever it was, then I intended to debate with them. But as it turned out, they were sailing away from us and keeping their distance.”

St. Valéry cleared his throat politely. “And you had no suspicion that these vessels you were pursuing might be your own? Temple galleys?”

The other smiled again, more broadly this time. “I had many suspicions, Admiral, but not that one. The thought of Temple galleys fleeing a fight simply did not occur to me. Besides, they were hull down on the horizon most of the time, no matter how we sought to catch them … which told me, indeed, that they were in fact galleys of one kind or another. Not all galleys are alike, as you may see by looking at my own.”

He looked again around the table, meeting each man’s eye before continuing. “I accepted that they had no wish to close with us, but neither had I any wish to abandon the chase. We had returned from a long voyage, our stores depleted, to find our own harbor closed to us, and so I found myself loath to give up and turn away. And so their flight became our pursuit … until, of course, they approached and identified themselves, early yesterday. Since then I have gathered some information, enough to form some notion of what has been happening recently, but my sources were mainly officers and sergeants who knew little or nothing of what is really involved. And so, if I may ask without being ruled impertinent, will someone tell me what has been going on in my absence?”

The question brought about a general surge of noise that the admiral quelled by thumping on the table, and when silence had returned he himself spoke to de l’Armentière.

“Folly and chaos and treachery has been going on,” he said, his voice flat. “Suffice for now to say that the King’s chief minister, William de Nogaret, has moved against our Order with the full support of the King himself and, it would seem, the Pope. The atrocity was perpetrated the morning you arrived, and it is our understanding that it occurred on a massive scale, throughout France. You will learn all about it later. For the moment, we have other things to discuss.

“We were forewarned by Sir William here, who came to us with the written authority of Master de Molay, and it was the Master himself who first learned of the plot against us. He issued orders for us to embark on the night of the twelfth and to await whatever might develop the following morning, for even he was unsure of the truth of the warnings he had received. We waited, and de Nogaret’s men arrived as predicted. And now we are making our way in search of sanctuary elsewhere, away from France.”

“Where, in God’s holy name?”

St. Valéry glanced at Sinclair, who responded, “In Scotland, where the King is excommunicate and therefore unlikely to be influenced by the Pope.”

“Unless,” de l’Armentière said, “the Pope offers to lift the excommunication in return for our capture. Have you thought of that?”

The response verged on insolence, and in fact Will Sinclair had not thought of that at all. He bit back an angry response and busied himself in leaning back in his chair and stretching his muscles for a moment to give himself time to think.