Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“Keep moving,” Sir William growled. “Pay no attention.”

“Halt!” The shout echoed from deep in the alley’s gloom. “You there! Halt in the name of King Philip.” They heard the clatter of running footsteps.

William Sinclair kept walking, lengthening his stride as he spoke over his shoulder. “Challenge them, Tam. Stop them, but no fighting if you can avoid it. Just keep them far enough away from me to keep them from seeing what I’m wearing. If they see that I am not wearing leggings and only have on the sandals of a monk, one of them might be clever enough to guess I’m the monk they’re looking for and we’ll have to spill blood. And they are King’s men, so that might not be a wise thing to do under our current circumstances.”

He strode on, headed directly for the open end of the street less than thirty paces away, and soon stepped into the empty square that stretched as far as the Commandery’s main gates. Once there, he looked back to where his six men had spread themselves in a line across the road with their backs to him, facing the junction with the lane and holding their drawn swords point down on the stones of the street. As they stood there, each with sufficient fighting room to defend himself with ease, a group of unkempt garrison soldiers poured out of the lane and skidded to a halt, their clamorous shouting fading instantly into silence. There were only ten of them, and they had clearly not expected to find a line of six Templars awaiting them with drawn swords.

As he watched the confrontation take shape, Sir William became aware of running footsteps approaching from the direction of the Commandery, but when he glanced over to see who was coming, he recognized the young sergeant, Ewan, who had gone off to escort the lady.

“Sir William!”

Sir William swung back to face the young man, chopping with his hand to quiet him, but Ewan was beside him now, and urgent with tidings.

“Sir William! I—”

“Shush, boy! Be silent.”

“But—”

“Silent! And pay attention here.” He waved his arm towards the street from which he had just emerged.

Tam Sinclair had given the King’s guards no time to rally themselves but had jumped right into confrontation, addressing himself to the lout who seemed to be their leader. The loud, hectoring voice he assumed, speaking flawless street French and betraying no sign of his true nationality, carried clearly down the tunnel of the street to Sir William’s ears.

“Well, filth, what would you have of us? Eh? What? By what imagined right do you dare challenge the Brotherhood of the Temple? You accosted us, ordered us to stand, in the name of the King. Why?”

None of the guardsmen made any attempt to answer him, their ignorance of what to do next betrayed by the way they glanced at each other, avoiding looking at any of the Templars.

Tam raised his voice even higher. “Come now, it is a simple question. And it demands a simple answer. Why did you shout at us to halt? Are we criminals? Do you know what you did , making demands of any of our Order without due authority? Where did you find the stupidity to attempt to interfere in the affairs of the Temple?”

Still no one answered him, despite the open insult in his words, and he gave them no respite. “Are you all mute? Or are you simply even more stupid than you look? You are King’s men—at least you wear the uniform—so you must know who we are. And you must know, too, that you have neither the right nor the capability to call us to account, for anything. We are sergeants of the Temple and we answer solely to our Grand Master, who answers, in his turn, to the Pope. Your king has no power to bid us stay or go in our affairs. No king in Christendom has such a right.”

He paused, as though sizing up his now bemused opponents. “So what is it to be? Will you search us and die, or merely question us and die, or fight us and die? Your choice. Speak up.”

The leader of the King’s men finally found his voice at this. “You can’t threaten us,” he said, his tone more of a whine than a complaint. “We are King’s men. We wear the King’s uniform.”

Tam Sinclair spoke as though nothing had been said. “On the other hand,” he said, “you have a fourth option. You may stand here, as you are, and without argument, and watch us as we walk away leaving your blood unspilled. Then, once we are gone, you will be at liberty to leave, too, and none of us, on either side, will breathe a word of this encounter. Are we agreed?” He addressed the man who had voiced the complaint, and he was impatient with the time it took to gain an answer. “Well, are we? Do we walk away or do we fight?” He raised the point of his sword to waist height, not threateningly but emphatically.

The other man nodded. “We walk.”

“Excellent. Stand you there, then, until we be gone.”

Sir William’s men turned their backs on their hapless challengers and, swords still unsheathed, walked down the now dark street to join him. Only then did he turn to the young man beside him, and Ewan began to speak immediately.

“My lord, I have—”

“Hush you. I know you have something to say, but it will wait until later. I have more pressing matters on my mind. Rejoin the others now, and don your surcoat.”

As the sergeant walked away, crestfallen, Sir William turned back towards the Commandery, knowing he had been seen from the gates as soon as he emerged into the open square, and that the senior guardsman on duty would immediately have summoned the Guard Commander. Now, striding towards the main gates, Sir William smiled in recognition as a veteran sergeant walked swiftly from the gatehouse, followed by four men, and then stopped short, frowning as he took in the bare ankles of the beardless man approaching him in the white surcoat of a knight and followed by an escorting group of sergeants. He raised one hand slightly in a restraining gesture to his men, until the man in the knight’s surcoat had reached the gateway.

“Tescar, well met. You look distrustful. Do you not know me? Or are you to bar me from the Commandery for a shaven chin?”

The sergeant’s wrinkled frown smoothed out in astonishment. “Sinclair? Sir William, is that you? God’s holy name, what happened to you?”

“A long tale, old friend, but I have urgent tidings from Paris for the preceptor. Is he within the walls?”

“You, too? Aye, he is, but you might have to wait in line. It’s first come, first served tonight, it seems, and you’re the third to come seeking him within this half hour.”

“Then I must claim priority, Sergeant. As I said, I bring urgent tidings from Paris, from Master de Molay himself. Is the admiral, too, inside?”

Tescar grinned. “Aye, he is, and the Master’s tidings are well delivered. Your brother knight arrived not ten minutes past, straight from the South Gate, no doubt with the same message.”

“What brother knight? We came in through the South Gate just as it closed, and we had to wait. There was no other Templar knight there. We would have seen him. Are you sure he said the southern gate? Who is he?” The Sergeant of the Guard shrugged his wide shoulders. “That’s what he said, the South Gate. As to who he is, he’s a new one on me. I’ve never seen the man before. But he and another are here from Paris, bearing tidings from the Master for the preceptor and the admiral.”

Sir William Sinclair’s hands had dropped to his sword, one on the hilt, the other on the scabbard, as it occurred to him that this must have been the urgent message that had so agitated the young sergeant Ewan. He drew Tescar away by the sleeve, out of hearing of the others, and spoke in a low voice. “Listen to me, Tescar. There’s something wrong here. There is no other messenger. I am de Molay’s sole messenger to La Rochelle. What did this fellow look like?”