Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“I am glad you’re here, David,” Douglas said, speaking in French again and nodding to the admiral as he did so. “Sir William has been asking me about the state of King Robert’s realm today. But I thought it better he should speak with you, to hear the Church’s reasoned view of things, rather than my bloody-handed version of what is going on and who deserves to die.” He turned to Will. “David has been one of our King’s staunchest supporters since the beginning. He can tell you all you need to know—things I could not tell you. He is less priest than fighter, as the dints in his mail will attest, but priest he is, nonetheless, with views more sober and long-headed than mine, so I will leave you with him.” He pointed at one particularly bright slash of silver on the Bishop’s rusted skirts. “You were lucky with that one, David. That could have taken your leg off.”

“It almost did,” Moray drawled, smiling. “But God was watching at the time, even if I was not.”

“Of course He was. I’ll leave you to it, then, and be back as soon as I can be.”

Moray turned to Will. “Well, sir, what think you of our young Jamie?”

Will watched the younger man bound up the stairs leading to the upper floor two steps at a time. “A remarkable young man … and very young, it seems, to hold the trust he evidently holds.”

The Bishop laughed. “Granted, he’s young indeed, but Jamie is a Paladin. For all his youth, he’s one of our best commanders, and if he lives, he will become the best. The lad learns quickly and he never makes the same mistake twice. But he has grown from boy to man in desperately short time, and it shows on him to those of us who know him. He is also become one of the King’s closest and most trusted friends and advisers, despite his having been unknown to any of us until last year. King Robert knighted him in person upon meeting him, the day before his coronation at Scone.” His hand fell naturally to toy with the dirk at his waist. “So, you have questions. Ask away, then, and I will answer them as well as I may.”

“Thank you, my lord Bishop. I scarce know where to begin.”

“Begin by calling me David, then, and go forward from there. As Jamie said, I am become more fighter than bishop these past two years, and outside the chancel, away from my cope and miter, I find I prefer my name to my title … Mind you, it took me months before I could convince Jamie Douglas to call me by name. What do you need to know most?”

“About the King and his status. He is excommunicate, I heard.”

“Hmm. In the eyes of some, he is. But there is more of politics than of theology in that belief. Within the Church in Scotland, there are those, thank God, who can see things from another viewpoint, and prime among those are our Primate, Archbishop Lamberton, and Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, who is second in seniority and influence after the Archbishop. These two, in good conscience and for the good of the realm of Scotland, believe sincerely that the Holy Father has been misinformed about what came to pass between the two guardians that day in the chapel at Dumfries. They believe that His understanding of the situation has been warped and twisted by advisers desirous of promoting their own visions. Pope Clement passed his judgment in absentia , far removed from Scotland and its troubles, and it is the devout hope of the Archbishop that the Holy Father may be convinced of this someday soon and lift his interdiction. In the meantime, the Primate has refused, still in good conscience, to prosecute the excommunication … and that, in turn, permits the King to govern the realm in its time of sorest need.”

Will frowned. “Think you, then, that Archbishop Lamberton might know where the King is to be found?”

“No. On that I can be definite. The Archbishop is in England, a prisoner of the English, as is Wishart of Glasgow. Once again, betrayed and sold by fellow Scots. We are told they are well enough treated, as befits their station, but they are held fast nonetheless.”

“I see. And what of the other bishops of the realm? Is all the Church in Scotland united behind the Archbishop?”

Moray snorted in disgust. “No. As I said, there’s more politics here than theology. The bishops who support the Comyn faction stand against the King, united in treason. They hope still to see him overthrown and their own candidate anointed in his place.”

Will nodded, accepting the Bishop’s explanation. “I have already told Sir James Douglas this, but no one else. I am a member of the Governing Council of our Order, appointed to my current task by our Grand Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, and I am entrusted with a large sum of gold and silver, although not from the Temple’s treasury, intended for King Robert’s use. Did you know Sir Thomas Randolph, the former Sir Thomas?”

“Tom? I knew him well. Why?”

“Knew you then his youngest sister, the Lady Jessica?”

“Aye, but not well at all. I met her but once, long since. She was wed to a Frenchman … a baron, I believe.”

“The Baron Etienne de St. Valéry. He is dead, too, but he amassed a sum of wealth ere he died, and through a long chain of circumstances it was entrusted to our keeping in the Temple. His widow, the Baroness, is here aboard one of my ships, at anchor off the isle of Sanda, on Kintyre coast, and she wishes to donate this treasure to the King of Scots. And if ever we can find him, we will deliver it.”

The Bishop scratched his beard. “How large is it?”

“Large enough to buy an army. Six chests of gold and five of silver.”

“That is a great treasure …” Moray’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Depending, of course, upon the size of the chests. Yet I find myself wondering whether it be large enough to warrant accompaniment by a Knight Commander and the admiral of the Temple fleet?”

Will had trusted Douglas instinctively, and now he decided to trust this bishop, too. “You have not heard all of it—nor yet one-tenth of any part of it. We barely managed to bring the treasure out of France ahead of King Philip’s grasping fingers. And the reason we were able to do so was that we were warned in advance.”

“You were warned that the King of France was coming for the Baroness’s gold?”

“No. The Baroness’s gold was already in La Rochelle. Our saving it was mere good fortune. We had received warning that the King’s chief lawyer and first minister, William de Nogaret, planned to attack and interdict the Temple in France on the morning of October thirteenth.”

The silence that followed seemed long, and Moray’s face was a picture as he grappled with what he had heard. Finally he shook his head. “Tell me that again. What exactly did you say?”

“At dawn on the morning of Friday, October thirteenth, mere weeks ago, the French army, acting under the instructions of William de Nogaret, the chief lawyer of France, moved concertedly against every commandery and every Temple installation in the country. All the occupants—knights, sergeants, brethren, and lay brethren—were arrested and imprisoned. All of them, at one swoop.”

The Bishop’s mouth was hanging open. “That is … that is inconceivable. But how then come you here?”

“I have said—we were warned. Our Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, had word of it more than a month before. He scarce believed what he was told, but he took steps to safeguard the fleet against such treachery, should it be true. At the last moment, in the increasing belief that it might be true, he sent me to La Rochelle, to warn the garrison and make preparations to secure the fleet and take it safely offshore the night before the threatened raid.”

“And it came to pass?”

“We stand here as witnesses. From all we understand, the Temple in France no longer exists.”