Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Will gazed at the tabletop, seeing the grain in the long slabs of wood that had been used to make it. Across from him, his audience of two sat patiently. He could feel their eyes watching him, waiting.

“This … this potential for rebellion, as you put it, could present a novel situation,” he said finally, speaking almost to himself, so that the others leaned closer. “The chances are strong that it will not arise, but if it should, I will have to deal with it.”

He looked from one to the other of them, then continued in a louder voice. “You must understand that the matter of the punishment of brethren who offend the Rule is one that is strictly held, and privily, among the Order. It is not, nor can it ever be, a matter for discussion or debate outside of chapter gatherings. But I can see why it is you ask.” He stopped again, wrestling with words. “When we … disembark … and reassemble from our ships, we will be a community again—a single entity and a self-contained chapter. My first duty, as a representative of the Governing Council within that community, will be to convene a gathering of the chapter and give blessings and prayers for our deliverance from the perils thrust upon us by King Philip and de Nogaret.” He smiled, briefly.

“Not that I will officiate myself in the praying. We have three of the Order’s own bishops with us, by the grace of God. But, that done, and the specific requirements, regulations, and obligations of the Order and its sacred Rule completed in this, our new communal home—for no matter how temporary our stay here might be, the obligations are unchangeable—it will remain for me to supervise the election of the community’s officers, and with them, to define the brethren’s tasks and duties in this place. And by that time, with the establishment of a community again and the reinforcement of our duties, the threat of disobedience should be slight. It ought to be unthinkable, in fact, but … it will be slight.”

He sighed, then twisted his head, loosening his neck, which had grown stiff from the force of his concentration. “And if it is not, then I will have to build some kind of jail, some means of holding the miscreants apart, for the good of the community and the salvaging of their own souls. The value of a month of enforced solitude, existing on bread and water, is an inestimable thing.”

Bruce spoke into the silence that followed. “There are storehouses on the ground floor with stone walls and stout iron bars. Jail cells, if you need them.”

Will looked at him and nodded. “Thank you for that. Those would serve in the short term … and that is all we should need, a short-term solution. But we would have to build a Chapter House of our own for the duration of our stay. A religious community cannot share common lodgings with laymen. I trust you can see that?”

The King nodded slowly, then turned to the Bishop. “Davie, you must have more?”

“I do, Your Grace.” Moray drew both palms down his face from forehead to chin, then leaned forward towards Will. “Here then, Sir William, is the gist of my thinking, and before I say it I must make a point, not to insult or demean anyone or anything, but simply to make myself clear. Were you to enter this room and look at me now, for the first time, what kind of man would you take me to be?” He saw the puzzled look on Will’s face and stood up from the table, dragging his chair aside and stepping back so that he could be clearly seen. “Come now, what would you take me for?”

Will shrugged, his eyes taking in the figure facing him: short hair, enormously strong shoulders, a solid, confident posture, large, capable hands, a well-worn shirt of rusted mail, and a sheathed dirk hanging from a belt about his waist. “A knight,” he said. “A well-born fighting knight in need of a new shirt of mail.”

“Aha! And were I to walk out and come back in wearing miter and chasuble? What then?”

“I would see a bishop.”

“Yes, you would, and though both warrior and bishop would be accurate descriptions, you would be hard put to see either one in the other, am I right?”

“You are.”

“And I am right in this matter of the beards, for at the heart of that lies the solution we require. If you can make the manner of your people’s dress and appearance a matter of obedience, then you and yours might remain here in perpetuity.” He raised a swift hand to cut short Will’s reaction, pressing on with what he had to say. “Strip off the outer marks of what you are and you will not be seen, will be perceived as being other than you are. Command your knights to cut off their forked beards, to leave their tonsures to grow out, and dress them commonly, like ordinary men. Remove the Templar crosses and visible emblems from their clothing and military devices—armor, shields, and surcoats—and above all, be careful with your horses. Keep them apart and well concealed from casual view, and permit no displays of chivalry for idle folk to gawk at and talk about later. Become ordinary men, to outward view at least, even farming the little land that’s there to till, and you may rest secure here, as we may rest secure knowing you are here, unseen.

“Unseen? But we will be seen. God knows there are enough of us, and this is a small island. How can you think that we will not be seen?”

“I don’t. I am not talking about sorcery or magic. You will be seen, but you’ll be seen as ordinary men—soldiers and men at arms. We are at war here in Scotland. There are men in arms everywhere throughout the realm, and no one pays them any notice until it comes time to fight. But a strong force of disciplined men, religious, well-horsed fighting men in red Crusader crosses and the black cross of the Temple Mount, based upon the Isle of Arran? Think you not that would be remarked, a topic for discussion throughout the land?”

Will’s mind reeled as he grappled with what the Bishop was suggesting. Here, he thought, was blasphemy, issuing from the mouth of a bishop of Holy Church. His every instinct told him to rise up against it. And yet, even as he contemplated doing so, seeking the words that would reject the notion, the edge of his outrage softened and he began to think more logically, and to perceive that the outrage might be confined to his own mind alone.

“This could not be,” he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “It is too much—”

“Too much of what?” Moray asked. “It was you who said the beards were but an affectation.”

“And they are. The matter of the beards is nothing. But the tonsure …”

“Do you know whence came the tonsure, Sir William?”

“Whence … ? No, I do not.”

The Bishop of Moray smiled, as though he were enjoying himself. “Well I do. Like you, I have a mind that retains such trivial, meaningless things. Eight hundred years ago, in the dying days of Rome’s empire, a shaved head was the symbol of slavery. Slaves were forbidden to wear hair, lest it make them indistinguishable from ordinary citizens. And so their heads were shaved bald, shaved unnaturally in a square, to mark them as slaves for all the world to see. And those were the days in which the first monastic Orders were being formed. The early monks took up the practice of shaving their heads, too, to demonstrate that they chose to be the lowest of the low, the very slaves of Christ.” The Bishop paused. “Few people know that today, and fewer still regard the tonsure as what it has become, now that its true meaning has been lost to history. It is an affectation. No more than that. Just like your full, forked beards.” He waited for a reaction from Will, and when he saw the knight’s jaw sag in amazement, he changed course, his voice deeper and more conciliatory.

“Look you,” he said. “You will establish a new community here on Arran. It will have a new chapter, new appointments, and new rules befitting the new reality you face here. Believe me, there will be nothing sinful or slothful in what results from banning tonsures and forked beards as part of those new rules.” He bent farther forward. “It is your community that is important here, Sir William, your very survival that is at stake. Your community will not fall about your ears because its members grow hair on the crowns of their heads. Discuss it with your chapter if you like, but if you explain the situation as it stands, and then propose your solution and its goals, I am certain that few complaints will be uttered. And if any are, I am equally sure you will rise to the task of meeting them. Prior to that time, though, King Robert and I will be long gone from here, and we’ll require an answer ere we go. What say you?”