Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Will looked at the old man, who nodded eagerly, and Tam began unpacking the food from his leather satchel, while Mungo arranged some stones for them to sit upon while they ate.

In the event, the toothless old man had no trouble eating the dried venison, chewing it with gusto between hardened gums and making small noises from time to time with the pleasure of it, and while he did so, Will told him all about the events of the previous month in France. Gaspard showed no surprise, merely grunting and nodding in acknowledgment; it was the natural ending of a whited sepulcher, from his viewpoint, an inevitability that might have been postponed, but not for long. What then, he wanted to know, did Will and his friends seek to achieve in Scotland?

When Will told him he had been charged personally with the safety of the Order’s Treasure, the old man’s eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. He offered no comment, however, since he knew, but could not say so in front of the others, that the Treasure was the Treasure of their own Order, protected by, but never really belonging to, the Order of the Temple.

“So what will you do now?” he asked when they had finished eating. “Whom do you seek?”

Will sniffed. “We seek the King of Scots.”

There was a long silence during which the old man stared at Will, then glanced slowly at each of the others before asking, “You seek the King of Scots on Eilean Molaise?”

Will laughed. “Well, no. Not here. We are hoping to find safe anchorage in Arran. From there, we will cross to the mainland to seek the King.”

“You will leave your galley here? How then will you cross over?”

“We’ll take this galley, but we have other ships with us. At present they are awaiting word from us, off the Mull of Kintyre at an island called Sanda.”

“I see, and you now wish to know who, and with what force, might be on Arran?”

“That is correct. Can you help us? Have you been there recently?”

“To Arran? I was there two years ago.”

“Two years ago?”

The old man spread his hands. “I have little need to travel.”

“But surely you must go there for food and supplies?”

“Why surely? God supplies us with all the food and goods we require, right here. We have sheep, goats, and birds and their eggs, water aplenty for drinking, oats in our little field, and the sea is full of fish. What more could we need?”

There appeared to be no answer to that, and Will shrugged. “So you can tell us nothing?”

“I did not say that. I said I was there two years ago. There were English soldiers there, building a fortification not far up the coast from here. You see the other bay there, to the north?” All three of his listeners turned to look where the old man was pointing and saw the spur of land jutting out into the sea, concealing another, deeper bay behind it. “That is where they were, scurrying about like ants, building a motte and bailey. Mind you, the motte was there before they came—a flat-topped knoll of stone atop the cliff. But they were fortifying it, erecting palisades and digging a defensive bailey in the soft ground to the fore, above the beach. It would be a strong place, I thought, when they were done.”

“How many were there? Are they still there?”

“There were a hundred men, perhaps more. I took no time to count them and I spoke to none of them. But they are not there now. A fleet of galleys attacked them and burned their ships a year and more ago. In the late summer or early autumn. We saw the galleys come at dawn, and then we heard the sounds of a great fight carried on the wind. We saw much smoke, and no English ships sailed out of the bay afterwards, so that made us think the smoke came from burning ships.”

“How many galleys did you see?”

The old friar thought for a moment. “Seven went in.

Five came out again afterwards.”

“So there may still be two crewed galleys there? Who owned them, could you tell?”

“How would I tell such a thing? They meant nothing to us. But the fact that they were galleys, in this part of the world, means they would have come from the Isles, to the northwest. As to whether they are still there, I know nothing. They might have sailed away at any time, unknown to us. But two more craft—perhaps the same ones—sailed in about a week ago and have not come out since. We seldom look at such things, you understand, and we pay attention only if something takes place that we can see openly. Otherwise, we tend to our beasts and our prayers.”

“Aye, of course.” Will sat silent for a spell, then sighed. “Well, Brother, thank you for telling us. I suppose we will have to go and find out for ourselves if any remain.”

“Aye … This King of Scots, who is he? King Alexander died long since, I know, and we heard once of a new King called Bailleul, something French-sounding, but that was some years ago, and he had already gone by then, I think. Or does he still reign?”

“King John Balliol. His name was French once, like my own and many others. No, he no longer reigns. He lives in exile in France, a prisoner of King Philip for all intents and purposes. He abdicated the throne when he could not dispute the dominance of England’s embittered King, Edward, who died this year.”

“Edward Plantagenet is dead? He was a great man.” Will raised an eyebrow. “Aye, so I have heard said of him, when he was young. Men named him among the foremost knights of Christendom. But as he grew older, he grew vicious, I am told, laying claim to Scotland as its liege lord. You will hear few Scots speak highly of him.”

“Few common Scots, you mean, I think?”

“Do I? I believe I disagree with you there. What did you mean by that, Brother?”

The old man clawed at the thick hair on the back of his head. “What should I mean?” he said, scratching harder. “Edward’s claim to Scotland was a just and dispassionate one in the eyes of many. He demanded allegiance from the Scots nobles, most of them of Norman descent and holding their lands and titles from the English Crown. Where is the vice in that? Their allegiance was to him, as King of England, and had been so since the first Norman landholdings were granted here. And until recently, before the death of King Alexander, it was freely paid. That is the way of the world, Brother William. The feudal code takes precedence over all, and the Scots nobles have been ever bound by it. If they fight against it now, it is for venal reasons of their own—a lust for power, the whitening on sepulchers.”

Will cleared his throat. “I hope you will forgive my saying so, Brother Gaspard, but for a man who claims to have forsaken the profane world you are most well informed.”

The elder let out a delighted cackle. “Blame that curiosity of mine again. It might be a sin of pride, but I seem unable to keep my mind from being inquisitive, and thus when I meet someone who can converse beyond a series of grunts, I listen and I learn.” He cackled again. “And from time to time, I even speak, like now!”

Mungo, whose French was less fluent than the old man’s but perfectly adequate to understanding, could sit quiet no longer. “That’s a’ very well,” he growled in Scots, “what ye were sayin’ about the English claims, but we had kings in this land while the English were still worshippin’ emperors in Rome. That was then, and this is now. The Scots folk dinna want foreign Englishry in Scotland,” he growled.

“Ah, the Scots folk …” The old monk’s face sobered and he turned to Mungo, including Tam in what he was to say with a lift of one bushy brow. “That is another matter altogether. The Scots people are like any other. If they do not own land, they have no voice—they are chattels, dependent upon the landholders for what little they may have. Faceless and lacking identity or cohesion, they are therefore weak and worthless for anything in the way of protest. And as long as they cannot unite, they remain constantly at risk from those to whom they are beholden.” He drew himself erect and inhaled a great draft of air, and at that moment no man there saw him as old or impotent. “Unless and until they organize themselves, the common folk of any land will count as nothing in the affairs of kings and noblemen.”