Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“What happens now?” His voice rang out clearly. “Every man of you out there is asking yourself the same question, are you not? What happens now? What do we do next? Where do we go from this point forward?” He turned again as he shouted out each question, shaking the wallet above his head so that every eye in the assembly was fixed on it, and when he had finished asking, he lowered his arms and tucked the package beneath his left arm.

“Well, now I will make a start on answering those questions for you, and the answer to the first question, What happens now? is that we eat !” He waited for the storm of cheering to subside. “The cooks whose work you smell now behind us are sent to feed us by Sir James Douglas, guardian of this island and deputy of Robert, King of Scots, our host in days ahead.”

The men cheered again, for they had been aboard ship for weeks and the prospect of fresh-cooked meat must have been the stuff of fantasy to them since they left France. As the noise began to subside Will raised his arm again, the wallet firmly clutched in his hand. He had judged his timing perfectly and the crowd fell silent again, poised for his next words.

“As to what happens next, we have guidance here, inside this wallet. Look you now.” He lowered his arm and loosened the buckled straps binding the pouch, extracting a heavy bundle as large as the container itself. “I have here a package of documents sent under the seal of our Grand Master himself, Sir Jacques de Molay. Inside it are Master de Molay’s instructions for our conduct from this time forth, entrusted to me, on your behalf, on the occasion when I saw him last. I call now upon the senior knight here, Sir Reynald de Pairaud of the former garrison of La Rochelle, to examine the seal and to attest that it is, in fact, the seal of our Grand Master and that it is intact and undisturbed.”

He stood with his arms extended, holding the bundle in both hands until the veteran knight had turned and examined the seal on the documents, nodding his head profoundly and bowing from the waist, pronouncing himself satisfied that the seal was intact. Only then did Will return the package to Tam Sinclair and raise his voice to the assembly again.

“And so for the remainder of this day we will feast and give thanks for our deliverance, and tomorrow our senior brethren will convene for their first chapter meeting here in our new home. Therein, they will examine the instructions from our Master and will decide, in commune, what must be done henceforth to concur with the wishes of the Council as expressed therein.

“In the meantime, there will be much to do for all the rest of us, I promise you, for we are greatly exposed and at risk here on this open beach, and we shall remain so until we have secured our foothold. Go then in peace, all of you, and set about the task of becoming a devout community again after so long a disruption of our way of life. Our friends from Brodick will summon you to the tables when it comes time to eat, and I suspect you might be ready to attend when that occurs. Go with God.”

As the assembly began to break up, Will nodded his thanks to the two veteran knights who had assisted him and turned back to his pavilion, aware that Tam Sinclair, who still clutched the wallet with its sealed package, was watching him closely.

“What is it?” he asked as soon as they were inside and the tent flaps were closed behind them. “Did I forget something?”

“No,” Tam growled. “Nothing except the women. You’ve left them stuck aboard ship all day while everyone else was allowed to go ashore. Can I invite them to come ashore now and eat on land, or will I have something sent to them?”

“Damnation, I had forgotten about them.” Will frowned, quickly rejecting the possibility, tempting as it was, of keeping the three women aboard ship. He made a grunting sound, part disgust and part denial. “Aye, go ahead and bring them ashore. Our business for the day is largely done. But see you set them well apart from the brethren. I have enough difficulties to face in dealing with men too long away from the discipline of the Rule. I see no point in adding to them by parading women where they can be seen and talked about. Keep them hidden, Tam.”

FOUR

While all the knightly Templar rigmarole had been going on ashore, Jessie Randolph had been far from unhappy. She had, in fact, been rejoicing in the freedom to set aside her role as Baroness St. Valéry for the first time since leaving La Rochelle, and to make and enjoy a more thorough and extensive toilette than she would formerly have believed possible aboard a Temple galley. That she could do so at all, of course, was the result of the complete absence of Templar personnel aboard the ship for the duration of the shore-based ceremonies. Every man in the expedition, it appeared, was crowding onto the beach in front of the rows of ships anchored in the bay, and all of them had their backs to her, their entire attention taken up by whatever was unfolding in front of them. Jessie could hear the massed voices of the Temple monks raised in ritualistic chant, and she knew that there would be no swift return to the ships for anyone on the beach that day. And as that awareness dawned on her, she recognized her opportunity and made a decision that would have greatly shocked the brethren assembled ashore, could any of them have known of it.

Calling her two women to attend on her, she ordered them to have the few crew members remaining on the galley start heating water for a bath for her, using the craft’s cooking fires. And then, glorying in the almost total absence of men, she took possession of the great cabin for her own needs, laying out her entire wardrobe, scant though it was, for examination and repairs. Thereafter, while the solemn and secretive rituals of the Temple were carried out on the beach, the far less solemn but no less secretive rituals of womanhood were observed and celebrated by Jessie and her two women, Marie and Janette, so that by the time the solemnities on land were concluded and the first men began to head for the cooking fires in search of food, the three women were ready to join them, newly bathed, coiffed, groomed, and attired, and feeling cleaner, fresher, and more attractive than they had since the beginnings of this venture.

“Wait!” she called to Tam mere moments after landing from the boat.

Tam stopped and looked back at her, waiting. Accompanied by two of the oarsmen from the boat who were now carrying the women’s baggage, he had been leading them obliquely towards the far edge of the main assembly.

“So, we women are to sit farthest from everything, behind the clowns and jesters, behind the harpists and jongleurs, even behind the camp followers and mendicants, were any such here? We are to be fed last, with cold food? Where is Sir William? I really must offer him my thanks and appreciation for such consideration.”

Tam knew Jessie well enough by then to ignore her tone of voice, and he responded as though she had merely made a passing comment. “Your food will no’ be cold, my lady. I’ll see to it mysel’. I made arrangements for it to be served and covered and set aside before I left to fetch you. And before you say anything more, I told them to wait an hour before doing anything, so they should just be about ready to look to it now.” He pointed off in the direction they were heading. “See, Mungo’s ower there, waiting for us. I don’t think you’ll ha’e met him yet, but he’s a good man, born and bred in these parts. He’s dour, and he doesna say much, but ye’ll like him. He’ll have a fire built by now, and fresh wood to hand to keep it going. We’ll get you seated and comfortable, wi’ a good fire, and then I’ll go and bring your food back … with wine, the yellow kind you like, from Anjou. Now come away and let’s get you settled, or none of us will ever get to eat. And when you’ve finished dining, why then ye may go and find Will Sinclair and thank him yourself … as long as I’m no’ there.”