Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“Eleven heavy chests of specie, Sire, six of gold and five of silver, each in bars and coin.”

“Glory be!”

“It should meet your needs, for a while at least.”

“And it could not have come at a better time. I have broadswords to buy, forbye fighting men to wield them. But we will talk more of this later. In the meantime, we have other matters to discuss.” He broke off and stared into the fire for some moments before continuing. “Davie Moray was right when he said that your presence here brings me problems, but I have been neck deep in problems since the day I took the Crown, and they are seldom insoluble—albeit time is the one thing I never have enough of.

“If I remember rightly, you have somewhere in the range of a thousand men with you—galley crews, mariners, the garrison from La Rochelle, and your brother’s men. A round thousand, give or take, am I correct?” Will nodded, and the Bruce did, too. “Aye. Tell me, then, if I were to suspend all my concerns and give you leave to stay and shelter here in Arran, what would you do next?” Perhaps to give Will time to think, he bent forward to throw a fresh log on the fire, then pressed it into place with one foot before sitting back in his chair. “I ask that for a reason, for the first thing I learned commanding men in war was that as easy it as it may be to raise an army, the task of feeding them for any length of time will break your heart and wear you out. Have you thought of that? For let me tell you, you could hide your men from all the world on Arran, but there is precious little here to eat. There are trees and stones to build huts and shelters, and sedge for thatching them, and peat to burn in their hearths, but there is little land suitable for farming, and less in the way of creature comforts. How would you feed your people, were you free to bide here?”

Will had been thinking of little else since leaving La Rochelle, and he nodded in acknowledgment of the other man’s point. “I’ve thought much on that, Your Grace, and I believe I have the means to deal with it, using my ships.” He saw Bruce’s eyebrows twitch, and he half smiled. “Not the galleys. I am not intending to go raiding. I mean the trading ships. We have ten of them, and I would send them off to ply their trade, purchasing foodstuff and basic living supplies—tools, not weapons. We have enough weapons for our needs. But once we have unloaded our horses and few kine, we will be able to buy more and ship them here … cows, sheep, swine, goats, and the like.”

“Where would you buy them, and with what?”

“Wherever they are to be found. In Ireland at first, I think, but then in England and even in France. My trading ships are able to come and go wherever cargo may be available. They bear no insignia, nothing to mark them as belonging to the Temple, but they are crewed by Templar mariners for all that. And to pay for them, we would use gold. It is a potent aid to commerce, I have found.”

“Aye, and it’s scarce. Whence would it come, this gold?”

Will grinned, sensing the monarch’s fear for his own funds. “From the Temple, the funds I have in trust in my own holds. When we left La Rochelle we took all that it held belonging to our Order, and, as you doubtless know, every commandery has its own vaults, wherein is kept the specie required by our trading system, which, if I may digress, reminds me of my duties here. Can you tell me who is now the Master of the Temple in Scotland?”

The King of Scots hitched himself around in his seat to look directly at Will, scanning the Templar’s face with steady eyes. “The Master of the Temple here died soon after I was crowned. He was old, and he was not replaced. You’ll find a commandery in Edinburgh, if you go looking for it, but it lies empty.” He gazed down at his hands, aware that what he was saying would not be welcome news to his listener. “There is no Temple now in Scotland. It could not maintain neutrality in a civil war.” He looked at Will directly, almost defiantly. “There are Temple knights here, certainly, but they are Scots first nowadays, of the old houses, and they stand with me as Scots. The others are all in England, recalled by the Temple there.”

He saw Will’s frown and grimaced in return. “Politics, Sir William … The need to politick is ever stronger than the need to pray, it seems, and men of God can always find a way to shape God’s needs to reflect theirs. The Temple knights in Scotland were mainly French and Normans, their primary duties owed to the London Temple and to the Order in France. They saw less trouble in placating Edward Plantagenet than in defying or offending him … Longshanks was ever easy to offend. And thus the Temple quit Scotland. Does that cause difficulties for you?”

Will released pent-up breath in a loud hiss. “No, Your Grace,” he said. “It is a disappointment, but no more than that, and your explanation makes sense. You have the right of it on the matter of prayers and politics. It’s just that …”

“Just that what?”

“Loyalties, Sire, and the way they shift … It leaves me wondering if there is any sense, any logic or reason, to life itself once we step out of our own small concerns. Here am I at this moment, for example, calling you Sire and coming within a breath thereby of breaking my own oath as a Temple knight, for I swore to pay obedience and fealty to no one but our Order’s Master.”

“And the Pope … not so? Do not forget the Pope.”

Will’s mind returned unbidden to the conversation he had had mere weeks earlier with the former admiral St. Valéry, about the duality of their role as members of both Orders, the Temple and the Brotherhood of Sion, and how, at bottom, they lived a lie in even appearing to be loyal to the papacy. “Aye,” he agreed reluctantly, “and to the Pope … although but to a lesser degree. Our own Master comes first in our loyalties.”

“And your Master is now in prison, betrayed by that same Pope—by the man in Saint Peter’s chair, if not by the office itself.” The King fell silent for a moment, then resumed. “Well, we can ease your mind on part of that, at least the Sire thing. Call me Robert when we are alone. I’ll call you Will, for I heard your kinsman Sinclair call you by that name. When others are around, add you the ‘Sir,’ for I am plain Sir Robert Boyd of Annandale here on Arran. Tell me now, though, and speak plain as your conscience will allow: what do you plan to do with your galleys while you are here as guest of the King of Scots?”

Will grinned. “ Quid pro quo ?”

Bruce spread his hands. “What would you? It will come up soon or late, but soon would be my guess.”

“No doubt, and you are right. Here is what has been in my mind since we set out from France. From what I have gleaned from Douglas, listening as much to what was left unsaid, you have been seeking aid from the clans of the West, the Highlands, and the Isles, so far with some success, but not as much as you would wish. I gather, too, that many of the chiefs with whom you have been dealing think of themselves as kings of their own little realms. Am I correct?”

“Aye, you are.” Bruce sniffed and crossed his legs, turning away from the fire that was now blazing fiercely. “Angus Og MacDonald is the most active local chief here in the southwest. His territory is mainly Kintyre but stretches north, and he has a base in Islay nowadays. He likes to call himself Lord of the Isles, and he is working hard—and to this point successfully—to become the acknowledged head of a federation of neighboring clans, the MacNeills, MacCruaries, and McNaughtons prominent among them.” He grinned. “He has been known to call himself King of the Isles, too, and although the rank far outstrips his true status, that is, in effect, how he sees himself at this time. He calls me King Bruce, an equal with no claim upon his loyalty other than that which he chooses to grant, or that which I buy in the form of mercenaries … galloglasses, they call them in these parts.”