Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

This was a man, too, he could see now, and not the boy he had taken him to be at first. He, too, was set apart by his dress and bearing, but even more so by his youth. He wore a plain but rich and costly quilted tunic of bright blue, cinched at the waist with a heavy leather belt from which dangled a plain, unadorned dirk. There was an emblem of some kind on his tunic, still too far away to be discerned, but clearly embroidered in white upon the left breast. His legs, solid and muscular, were encased in thick, knitted leggings of a paler blue than his tunic, and were wound about with black leather bindings that rose up from heavy, thick-soled boots. He wore no cloak, this one, and he stood comfortably on spread feet, brawny forearms exposed by the elbowlength sleeves of his tunic, his hands loosely clasped about the cross-guards of a large broadsword sheathed in a highly decorated scabbard.

Will and his party halted just short of the four and Will inclined his head courteously, the gesture one of equality containing no hint of subservience. “I bid you good day, gentlemen,” he said, allowing his voice full resonance. “I am William Sinclair, Knight Commander of the Order of the Temple in France. My companion here is Sir Edward de Berenger, Admiral of the Temple Fleet.”

Menteith nodded, graciously enough. “Welcome to Arran, so be it you come in peace.” His French was so poor that his words were barely understandable, which made his next question almost inevitable. “Sinclair, you say? Do you speak Scots then?”

Will smiled. “I do. Sir Edward does not.”

The young man in the blue tunic cut in before Menteith could say anything more. “Then we will speak in French, through common courtesy—those of us who can—lest we embarrass an honored guest. Sir Edward, you are welcome here in Scotland, as knight, if less so as admiral. May we ask what brings you here? Forgive me. I beg your pardon. Here is no place to be asking such questions. Will you come with us up to the fort? We can scarce call it a castle yet, since it is incomplete. But there, at least, we can be comfortable … and private. Not to mention warm. An ill wind is rising, and it looks as though we are about to be rained upon.”

De Berenger glanced at Will, who nodded, and then both men looked up at the clouds; thick and angry looking, they were lower and more menacing than they had been earlier in the day. “Yes, sir, we will,” the admiral said.

“And what of your men? Do you wish us to send them back to your galley? They can return later.”

The admiral barely hesitated, then called to the lead sergeant on his boat, which was still drawn up on the strand less than fifteen paces behind them. When the man had run up the slope and snapped smartly to attention, de Berenger instructed him to return with his crew to the galley and await his further summons, and then he turned back to his hosts. “My thanks,” he said, smiling easily. “The men will be far more comfortable aboard ship.”

“They could have stayed here,” the young man in the blue tunic said. “They would have been welcome to eat with our own men.”

“True, sir, but they might have been uncomfortable … as might your own. My men do not speak your language.”

The young man nodded. “True. That had not occurred to me.” He paused, then gestured to his three companions. “Some names, gentlemen. Menteith, here, you know already. The other fellow there, the big, fierce one, speaks no French at all. He is Colin, son of Malcolm MacGregor of Glenorchy, chief of Clan Alpine, and he likes to claim that his race is royal, directly descended from Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Alba.” He was smiling as he spoke, and the MacGregor, having heard his own name mentioned, inclined his head, his face unreadable. “Beside me here is Sir Robert Boyd of Noddsdale, who accompanied me here on the King’s business, and I am James Douglas, son of Sir William Douglas of Douglasdale. I am nominally the King’s custodian in Arran, but for the past year I have been more than glad to leave the running of the place to Sir Alexander here, who is hereditary chieftain of the Menteiths of Arran.” As he finished speaking, a gust of chill wind blustered around them, and he raised his eyes to the clouds overhead. “As I thought, and just when expected. Let’s away from here, my friends. Others you will meet later. Come, if you will.”

He turned and walked away without another word, swinging his sheathed sword up to rest over his right shoulder. They followed him, the four Templars flanked by the MacGregor and Menteith on one side and Sir Robert Boyd on the other, and the entire assembly, some two hundred men, tailing after them in an undisciplined herd, albeit a noisy, talkative herd now that it seemed the formalities were dealt with.

Will walked in silence, his eyes on the man ahead of him, surprised for the second time that day by finding perfect French spoken where he had least expected such a thing. James Douglas was young, indeed—Will guessed his age as barely twenty, if he was that old—but the young man’s self-assurance was nothing short of astonishing, and nothing about him, other than his youth, suggested to Will that he might be unworthy of holding the post of King’s custodian. Now, as he followed Douglas up the steep slope to the motte, watching the lithe, easy step so similar to his own at the same age, he found himself wondering where and how the young nobleman could have learned such flawless French, for there was nothing of the guttural Norman accent—the accent of most of the English and Scots descendants of the Conqueror—in his voice.

The motte was crowned by a large, rectangular building, the massive-walled ground floor built of heavy stones. Windowless and fireproof, it was intended purely for defense and storage, the only means of entrance being a heavy portcullis of wrist-thick wrought-iron latticework set into a tunnel-like doorway, more than two paces deep, that had been cut through the wall itself. The portcullis, Will knew, would be controlled from the winding room in the hall overhead. On each side of the portcullis entrance, heavy, serviceable wooden stairs led up to the great hall above, which appeared to have been built from alternating panels of stone and heavy logs, although the gable walls at either end were of solid stone, too, rising from the walls of the storage rooms beneath and chimneyed to hold flues. Moments later, climbing the sturdy wooden stairs and seeing the collection of men awaiting them beyond the hall’s open doors, he realized that the formalities that he had assumed were over had barely begun.

FIVE

Sir James Douglas’s hospitality, albeit unplanned in the middle of the day, was unstinting if plain. Tuns of both wine and ale had been broached, supplied, Will suspected, from the stores of the former English garrison, and fresh bread and cheese were brought to the tables that lined one wall. The men refreshed themselves liberally, the sound of their voices increasing in volume as they drank. There was no hot food, for the supper hour was still far ahead, but the rituals that went hand in glove with the hospitality lasted for more than two hours and involved a constant procession of greeters, all of them curious and eager to meet the Temple knights. The seemingly endless parade of names and faces, most of them Highlanders and Islesmen wearing a bewildering array of brightly colored clothing, had a stultifying effect on Will, and he knew, without a word being said, that de Berenger felt exactly the same way. Tam Sinclair and Mungo MacDowal stood apart, their backs to the wall by the entrance door, and took no part in the activities.

Leaving de Berenger deep in conversation with a couple of French-speaking Scots who had engaged him, probably because they enjoyed the opportunity merely to speak the tongue, Will took advantage of a temporary lull to look around the room more carefully than he had before, scanning the gathering as a gathering rather than as a chain of unknown faces. Several men present among the throng had impressed him, a few of them favorably, and he watched two of those now from across the hall. One was a Highlander, the chief of Clan Campbell of Argyll, whose first name had escaped Will for the moment, and he was deep in conversation with one of Douglas’s commanders, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with a close-cropped beard who was evidently a cousin of the knight Boyd, since both men bore the same name. The Robert Boyd on the beach had been Boyd of Noddsdale, and the one talking to the Campbell was Boyd of Annandale, another Robert. Will had met him some time close to the start of all the greetings, and he had been struck by the fellow’s eyes: the sheer brightness of them, a blazing, silvery gray, and the way they bored like augers into his own. They had not said much to each other on meeting, but Will had believed the man when Boyd said he would look forward to speaking with him later, when there would be more time and space.