Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

For all of Bruce’s successes, though, attrition had been high. The King had called a halt to his progress in order to refresh and refurbish his following, and to begin his drive to introduce some order and signs of coming prosperity into his beleaguered realm. The news of his increasing successes had worked wonders among the common folk, and recruits were joining his standard in increasing numbers every day. Still, the King would not be happy, Douglas said, until he could convene a legal Parliament—the first to be held in Scotland in more than a decade—and begin to enact new laws for the governance of the land and the protection of its people. In the meantime, he added, the end of the first tour of duty for Will’s mounted Arran contingent was drawing close, and King Robert was so pleased with its performance that he was hoping, and had asked Douglas to suggest, that for this single occasion the schedule of changeover might be accelerated slightly, in order to provide him with a fresh armed and mounted escort to accompany him on his travels throughout the land now that it was at peace.

Will found King Robert’s request reasonable and had ordered the necessary changes in scheduling, and it was about that change that he was thinking as he made his way down the spiral staircase from the tower room where he had sat thinking since Douglas’s departure. The sun had been up for more than two hours by then and the storm had finally died down, but the occasional glimpses of the weather that Will caught from the slit windows of the staircase were enough to show him that no sunshine would break through the clouds this day.

He reached the bottom of the tightly winding stairway and stepped out of the tower into daylight, pulling his cloak about him against the mid-morning chill. As he did so he heard the ringing of steel close by, accompanied by upraised voices, but he paid little attention, assuming them to be the sounds of training men, drifting in from the yard beyond the gate. He shivered in the drab light and looked absently around him, noting the drops of moisture hanging from the open mesh of the heavy wrought-iron gate that served as the tower door, and then he spun to his left and made his way around the base of the building, intending to visit the latrines beyond the gate. Halfway around, though, on the roughly level walkway at the foot of the wall, he was confronted by a knot of struggling men in the yard below, or so he thought. But then he saw that there were only two men struggling, chest to chest, while the others, wide eyed and noisy, clustered around them, shouting encouragement to one or the other.

He stood staring for a moment longer, open mouthed with incredulity, and then his outrage set in, for this was no training bout. These men were set to maim or kill each other, and one of them was already bleeding from a deep gash in his leg. The two were nose to nose, their blades locked between them and grating together as they struggled, each straining to hold the other’s blade captive and gain the advantage, but even as Will began to move, the deadlock broke and the two sprang apart, the wounded man, less agile than the other, catching his heel on the rough ground and staggering backwards, arms outflung in an effort to retain his balance. He kept his grip on his sword, but it was point down and useless for the crucial moment that it took his opponent to rally himself and leap forward, sword already sweeping in a downward slash.

Neither man had heard Will’s shout ordering them to stop, and even the watchers were unaware of his presence as he launched himself down from the low parapet. He was less than two feet above them when he jumped, but that was high enough to suit his purposes. He landed within striking distance of the charging knight and kicked out hard in a straight-legged blow that took the unsuspecting man high on the left hip and sent him crashing sideways to fall full-length on his back in a clatter of armor. By the time the first of the spectators had swung around to protest the interference, Will’s own long sword was screeching from its scabbard. They froze in mid-movement, assessing the threat, and then, as they recognized Will, they blanched, assuming the collective, shamefaced look of miscreants caught in the act.

Not so the fellow on the ground. He knew only that he had been knocked down, and neither knew nor cared by whom. He came up with a roar and threw himself towards Will, hungry for blood and vengeance, his sword upraised and his helmet slightly askew, so that the eye slits of his visor were visibly off kilter. That detail saved his life later, for it enabled the man’s official defender at the ensuing trial to claim that the fellow had not been able to see who had struck him and so had been unaware he was attacking a superior officer. As it was, Will merely threw down his sword, stepped aside, and pivoted, grasping his assailant with both hands, elbow and neck, as he hurtled past. He then leaned backwards, pulled the fellow off balance, and kicked the back of his knee, driving the leg from beneath him and sending him crashing to the ground once again. He then bent down to pick up his sword.

Dazed but unyielding, the fellow fought stubbornly to stand up, failing the first time but then rallying himself until he was on his feet again, weaving unsteadily. Will, still furious, stepped in close, hooked the fingers of one hand into the neck of the fellow’s cuirass, and jerked him violently forward to his knees and then to all fours, where he finished the matter by chopping down onto the man’s helmet with the hilt end of his sword, felling him like a slaughtered ox.

He stepped away and turned to face the others, blade raised towards them, his teeth bared in a rictus of fury. But when he spoke, his voice was low and sibilant, dripping with scorn. “Are you all mad? Are you insane? Have you forgotten your vows along with your discipline? Well then, by the living Christ, I will reintroduce you to the penalties you swore to undergo for laxity and lassitude and disobedience.” He pointed his raised blade at one of them he knew by sight. “You, Duplassy. Go now at the run and find Sir Richard de Montrichard. Find him quickly, if you value your skin, and bring him back here to me. I have no care what he may be doing—interrupt him if you must. But bring him here now . Run!”

As the pale-faced Duplassy hurried away, Will turned to the next man in line. “You, Talressin. Find Tam Sinclair. Tell him I need a squadron of his best men here, for guard duty, and then bring him to me. Go. Now!”

Four of the erstwhile spectators remained, plus the two combatants, the first of whom had now risen to his feet and was hovering nearby, hunched over as he tried to stanch the flow of blood from his leg with a dirty cloth, holding himself apart from his companions and evidently well aware of the trouble he was in. Will looked from man to man, his thunderous expression ensuring that none of them would dare to speak to him, but finally he sheathed his sword and spoke again in that same flat, menacing voice.

“Throw your weapons at my feet. All of them. And one of you strip the sleeping assassin of his.” He waited until the last weapon had clattered onto the pile, then nodded. “Now, on your knees in a row, facing me, and prop the prisoner up between two of you. You will remain where you are, in silence, until you are taken into custody and caged in the cells to await your trial. In silence ,” he barked as one of the men opened his mouth to speak. “Mark me. You are in dire case now. Do not be foolish enough to compound your grief by disobeying further.”

He still had no idea who the unconscious and stillhelmeted man was, but at this stage he did not want to know and nor did he care. If Justice was blind, as the ancients maintained, then Will, as the arbiter of justice and punishment in this small community, was quite prepared to remain blind to the identity of the miscreant in front of him.