Order in Chaos

POISONED

ONE

Several miles from where the two knights were discoursing and scanning the horizon, Jessie Randolph had been among the first of the fleet’s passengers to notice the storm dying down, although she paid it little heed for some time, her attention fully taken up with more urgent matters. Now she finished what she was doing and straightened up over the sleeping form of her serving woman Marie, using the back of her wrist to push her hair out of her eyes as she dug with the fingers of her other hand into the small of her back, probing at the nagging pain caused by stooping for too long over both of the women whose sole duty supposedly consisted of looking after her. That thought made her smile, for all her tiredness, and she looked down again at the two faithful souls who lay there, drained and sleeping by her feet, their bedding open to the air but protected overhead and on the sides by a number of tightly stretched and skillfully bound leather screens. The beds themselves, though no more than piles of skins and blankets, were set in the angle of the stern bulkhead, barely enough space separating them to allow her to step between them.

Both women were prostrate from seasickness, as were most of the other people aboard the galley, and they had been so since the sudden onset of the storm five days earlier. Jessie, astonished by her ability to tolerate the violent motions of both ship and sea, had nursed both of them throughout the ordeal, patiently ministering to their every need, aware that both of them would have been horrified even to imagine her doing so. But they had been too sick to know anything of that, and Jessie was too grateful to have been spared the torments that devastated them to waste time thinking about the reversal of their roles.

She had no notion of why or how she should have been able to survive the storms unscathed and with a solid, unshakable calm, but she knew that she was one of very few in the ship’s entire complement to have done so. Even her good-brother the admiral, a veteran of decades at sea, had succumbed early to the fury of the incessant squalls and the constantly raging seas, as had his shipmaster and officers, all of them rendered incapable of running the ship, or even of maintaining a semblance of order and discipline aboard, since the ship could not be run under such conditions. The oars, save for the massive steering oar that formed a rudder, had not touched water since the first storm broke, and the men who crewed them had been largely useless for anything else, so that the responsibility of temporary command had been taken over by the sergeant called Tescar, who had commanded the guard at the Commandery of La Rochelle the night Jessie arrived there.

Tescar had never been to sea at all, whereas Jessie had made several voyages, all of them short and blessed with fair weather, and like Jessie, he was unable to understand why he should be able to withstand the fury of the elements when experienced seamen of all ranks had fallen victim all about him. But, being Tescar and accustomed to making the best of things wherever he found himself, he had contrived to keep himself, Jessie, and everyone else alive, foraging for food and drink among the ship’s supplies and finding ample amounts of both. Thus fortified, the two of them, along with fewer than a score of other men in like condition, had been able to tend, at least fundamentally, to the sick throughout the vessel. Not all of those sick were completely immobilized—many of them continued to function at some degree of normalcy and varying levels of impairment—but all were debilitated beyond dispute, so that it had become commonplace to see them stand vacant eyed and wavering at times, as though waiting for someone to shout an order at them, to tell them what to do next.

Now Jessie found herself looking at one such fellow, noting the way he braced himself against the swell as he trudged forward, blank eyed and whey faced, towards the galley’s prow. This was the fourth time she had seen the man, idly aware of him moving from stem to stern and back, and although she had no idea what he was about, she knew he was not without purpose. This time, however, she took more notice of him, aware suddenly that he walked now without clutching at ropes for support, and as she noticed that, she observed, too, that the ship’s crashing, tumultuous momentum had eased, albeit but slightly, and that the vessel’s forward swoop was now more of a glide than a staggering lurch. A gleam of light attracted her eye, and she looked up to see a ray of sunlight glaring in the near distance, clear edged and brilliant, through a break in the cloud cover. It vanished almost as soon as she saw it, but another broke through the wrack not far beyond, followed by another farther off, and she felt her spirits surge for the first time in days, elated by the possibility of an end to the incessant parade of gales and storms that had battered them for so long.

She bent forward and drew a supple leather satchel from between the two sleeping women. She opened it slowly and withdrew a folded blanket that she shook out and tested against her face for dryness before she swirled it up, over her head and across her shoulders. Then, moving carefully lest she disturb her charges, she lowered herself with great care to sit between them, leaning her back into the angle of the bulkhead and tugging gently at the material of the blanket until it covered her completely. Moments later, she was asleep, head tilted back, her lips smiling at some errant thought that had come to her as she sank into slumber.

TWO

She was dreaming that someone was calling her name from a vast distance when she opened her eyes to find Brother Thomas the sacristan standing over her, his pale, widely set eyes staring at her disapprovingly. She blinked in disbelief, attempting to raise her hands to rub at her eyes, but her arms were hampered by the folds of the blanket wrapped about her, and before she could free them she had become fully aware of her surroundings again, remembering that she was sitting between Marie and Janette in the angle of the forward bulwark. Both women were still soundly asleep, and she pressed one finger emphatically to her lips, frowning fiercely in warning to the sacristan to be quiet lest he awaken them.

The man recoiled slightly at her gesture, his face showing a faint repugnance, but she paid him no more attention as she set about raising herself to her feet, with great care for her decorum under his disdainful sneer. He had no regard for her, she knew that; it had been clear from their first encounter that he resented her presence among the brotherhood he regarded as being sacrosanct. She took no real offense from that, for she knew it was not personal; she knew, in fairness, that his reaction would have been no different to any other woman. Her own disapproval of him, however, had been equally spontaneous and obdurate. Sensing his antipathy and intolerance from the way he watched her even before she met him, she had dismissed him from the outset as a vermin-ridden, sanctimonious nonentity with the rankly sour, feral odor of a wild goat, and had refused to recognize his existence thereafter.

Unfortunately for both of them, it transpired that they could neither ignore nor avoid each other, for upon the death of his former master the preceptor, Brother Thomas’s duties and loyalty had been transferred, in accordance with his years of rank and seniority within the La Rochelle commandery, to assuring the welfare of Admiral St. Valéry, the next in rank to the former preceptor, and he was being as assiduous in his new duties as he had been in his old ones.

That meant that in the narrow confines of the admiral’s galley, he was never beyond sight or hearing of his primary charge, and since he considered Jessie, like all women, to be the Devil’s own device for the temptation of all decent men, he had refused her entry to the admiral’s tiny cabin since Charles first fell sick. Jessie railed inwardly at the sacristan’s smug presumption, but she took care to hide her anger, since there was nothing she could do to gainsay him at that point, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he had managed to upset her.

Satisfied now that her dress was in order, she turned back to face the fellow. “What do you want?”

Brother Thomas flushed slightly. “Brother Admiral would like to speak with you.”

“Brother Admiral, eh?” Jessie eyed the sacristan squarely, making no attempt to mask her dislike. “I wonder whether, in his heart of hearts, Sir Charles enjoys such a degree of familial intimacy? My late, dear husband used to say that we may choose our friends, but our relatives are an imposition at birth.” She paused, watching him closely, and had the pleasure of seeing his face flush even more sullenly as the insult sank home, but she gave him no time to retaliate, stepping past him and starting out towards the admiral’s quarters at the galley’s stern. “I have time now. I will attend him.”

She strode rearward, moving effortlessly in concert with the heaving of the deck, taking delight in the sudden, growing brightness of the afternoon, in the growing patches of blue above her, and in the hasty scampering sound of the sacristan’s feet as he scuttled to catch up with her. By the time she reached the small doorway to the tiny space that was the admiral’s quarters, Thomas had fallen several paces behind her, and she had knocked and pulled the door open before he could interfere.

Inside the dark little cabin, fully dressed and propped up among a welter of bed coverings, Charles St. Valéry squinted painfully and raised a spread hand to his eyes in protest against the glaring brightness of the light now pouring in on him. He was unkempt and disheveled, his eyes sunken and his face haggard with deep-graven lines, and Jessie felt herself wince in sympathy at the sight of him. Fortunately, she thought, he had not seen her do it, blinded as he was. Brother Thomas arrived at her shoulder and began to speak, his voice raised in protest, but Jessie cut him short with a savage movement of her hand, then spoke to her good-brother, smiling and attempting to infuse her voice with friendly amusement.

“Brother Charles, I am happy to see you have survived the storm, though I fail to see how you managed it, cooped up in this black little box. Might I induce you to step outside and breathe in God’s clean air? It will do you good, I’ll warrant you.”

The admiral lowered his shielding hand slowly, blinking yet against the glare of the afternoon, then squeezed his eyes shut and grasped the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, wrenching it from side to side as though attempting to break it loose from his face. Finally he took his hand away and shook his head hard from side to side, like a dog ridding itself of water, after which he opened his eyes wide and blinked again, owlishly this time, before asking, “What day is it?”

“It is Friday, Admiral. We have been beset by storms these past five days.” And you look as though you have been dead for four of those, she added silently; this was the first time she had ever seen him less than perfectly coiffed and trimmed.

He sat peering at her, his mouth working silently as though chewing, and an expression of distaste growing on his face. “My mouth tastes like death itself.” His gaze went by her to where the sacristan hovered at her back. “Thomas, fetch me some water, will you?”

She smelled the sacristan’s departure, the air sweetening immediately as he took his sour stench away with him.

“A seasick admiral,” St. Valéry murmured. “That is most unusual, even for me, with all my human weaknesses. I am … unused to seasickness. Unused to any kind of sickness, truth be told. It has been years since I last felt this way. And may God grant me many more before I feel this way again.” He pounded the flat of his hand against his breastbone, coughing at the congestion in his chest, then made a sucking sound before continuing. “Friday, you say? A week since La Rochelle already? And where are we now?”

“Still afloat, thanks be to God, but I can tell you no more than that. Sergeant Tescar and I, although we have no right to be, are the two healthiest beings aboard this vessel. Landsmen or not, he and I have been unfazed by the storms, our stomachs calm and our legs solidly beneath us … It’s strange, but after a while the smell of vomit seems to lose its strength. There are fifteen more like us, also in good health, but not a one of them knows any more of the sea than we do, and so we have no idea where we are. We are upon the waters and not beneath them, and for that, at least, we are grateful.”

“What are you saying, Sister? What nonsense is this? Where are my officers?”

“Abed, sir, all of them as sick as you.”

“But that is … that is unthinkable. What of my men?”

“In the same condition. Sick. All but a score or so. And Tescar told me three have died in the storm.”

“How, in God’s name?”

“Of the sickness … the seasickness.”

“The—” St. Valéry stopped and shook his head. “Seasickness does not kill, Jessie. I have never known anyone die of seasickness, although at times everyone afflicted by it expects to die and might even wish to. Do you recall, did all the men fall sick at once?”

Jessie frowned. “Aye, I think so, but I was sick myself for half a day and night, the first day the storm struck, and by the time I began to mend, everyone else was down with it, including you.”

St. Valéry’s head tilted slightly back as he stared into the distance. “There is something more afoot here, something sinister. This sounds to me like poisoning. I lived through something of the kind before, off Araby … That meat, the first night out. I thought at the time there was a taint to it.” His gaze sharpened, returning to Jessie. “Tell me, that first night at sea, after we picked up the Treasure. Did you eat anything that night? And did Tescar?”

“No.” Jessie shook her head slowly. “I lost all desire to eat as soon as the seas started to rise, and I spent the next hours in agony, so I cannot speak for Tescar, although I know he fell sick, too, that first afternoon, even before I did.”

“Then that must be the cause of what ails the rest of us. We had salted pork. The bread with it was fresh baked in La Rochelle the previous day. Would that the meat had been as fresh!” He looked around the cabin, taking in its condition. “I had best be up and about.” St. Valéry pulled himself slowly to his feet, although he was unable to stand upright beneath the low ceiling. He grimaced again and flexed his shoulders cautiously in the cramped space. “What of the others, the rest of the fleet? Are they in view?”

Jessie shrugged as Brother Thomas came bustling back, carrying a horn cup and a bag of water. “I have not looked recently, but the last time I did, and that must have been this morning—it was daylight, certainly—we were alone, nothing visible in any direction. Mind you, we were still being wildly tossed about, so I could not see far.”

“My thanks for this,” St. Valéry said to Brother Thomas, stepping out onto the deck and holding the cup while the sacristan poured for him. “Tell me, Thomas, have you been sick like the others?”

The sacristan shook his head slowly. “No, Brother Admiral, thanks be to God.”

“Did you not eat of the meat the day the storms came up on us?”

“I ate nothing, Brother. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and so I fasted for the entire day.”

“Hmm.” St. Valéry drank the contents of his cup in one quaff and held it out again, taking time to look about him this time as the water was being poured. “It’s broken,” he said, plainly talking about the storm. “Visibility’s about four miles.” He then straightened up to his full height, peering off the horizon before beckoning to Jessie. “Look, there’s one mast, over there, and where there’s one, there will be more.” He glanced around at his ship, noting the displaced coils of rope, a broken spar and other detritus of the storm caught in the scuppers on both sides of the deck. “First things first, though. I have to rally my crew and bring this ship back into working condition. Thomas, find Captain de Narremat for me. I care not what his condition may be, so be it he is breathing. If he is, bring him to me here … And find the other officers, as well. If they were poisoned, as I suspect, it will be wearing off now and they’ll recover more quickly working than they will lying around feeling sorry for themselves. I know I shall.”

THREE

The admiral and his honored guest, the Lady Jessica, had dined upon a meal similar in every detail to that eaten by the lowest-ranking oarsman on the ship: a thin slice of dried, salted beef, carefully checked for freshness this time, with smoked dried sausage, hard goat cheese, and all the hard-baked bannock one wished to eat, sweetened with a handful of dried grapes. But he and his brother’s wife had enjoyed the privilege of eating on the tiny stern deck, where they were able to enjoy at least an illusion of privacy, and, rank having its privilege as always, they were able to share a cup of wine from the admiral’s own stock. The great single sail was now set above their heads, bearing them steadily westward, along the northern coast of the Iberian landmass.

Jessica swallowed the last, thoroughly chewed mouthful of the tasteless bannock and allowed herself to think for a moment of the crusty French bread that she had loved so much when she lived in France. But she was concerned for her host more than anything else, for St. Valéry had been sitting silent now for the better part of half an hour, gazing vacantly out at the sea, and his face was lined and tired looking in a way that she now thought had little to do with his sickness.

“You miss him greatly.” She had spoken in her own tongue, but St. Valéry had understood the idiom and responded in his heavily accented, almost distorted English.

“Hmm?” He looked at her with one eyebrow slightly raised. “Miss whom?”

She reverted to French. “Forgive me. I thought … for a moment there, I was convinced you were thinking of your friend Master de Thierry. But I spoke without thinking and I had no wish to intrude upon—”

He smiled, his eyes clouded with what she decided was regret. “There is no need. You are correct. I was thinking of Arnold. Such a cruel end to a noble life …”

“Tell me about him, for I did not know him well. What I knew, I admired, but you and he were friends for a long time, no?”

His smile remained in place and he dipped his head gently to one side. “Yes, we were, for a very long time …” She was beginning to think he would say no more, but then he continued, as though musing aloud. “They called us the Twins—les jumeaux—did you know that?”

Her eyes widened. “No. Why?”

He turned his hands in towards each other in a very Gallic gesture denoting bemusement and ignorance at once. “Because we looked alike, I suppose, for so many years. We wore the same mantle, as commanders of the Temple, and the same armor beneath it. Our personal insignia were different but not noticeably so, and I have been told many times that we were often indistinguishable from a distance, both of the same height and physique, with the same bearing—the result of many years of the Order’s training and discipline. And naturally, both of us wore the same tonsure and were gray-bearded these past ten years and more …” His smile became a grin. “Of course, we were not supposed to know what the brethren called us. None of them would ever have dared to refer to us as the Twins within the hearing of either one of us, so we pretended to be unaware.

“We joined the Order together on the same day, you know. On the island of Cyprus, the fourth day of July in 1276, thirty-one years ago … And we had met each other for the first time mere days before that, aboard the galley that took us there as postulants. It picked us up in Rhodes and carried us to Limassol, and from the moment we met, we became, and we remained, close friends.”

He turned and stretched out his booted legs on his own side of the table, twisting his body to sit up straighter and drawing the folds of his heavy mantle around him. “Arnold was twenty-one years old at that time—I myself was five and twenty—and he was already widowed, having lost both wife and son in childbirth. But he was filled with fire and zeal for our Order and its mission, and he became one of the Temple’s most honored knights, spending fifteen years on constant campaign in the Holy Land before taking part in the final siege of Acre in 1291.”

“He was at Acre and survived?”

“Yes and no. He was gravely wounded in the earliest stages of the fighting, long before the end, and was shipped out by sea to the island of Rhodes, where he eventually recovered under the care of the Hospitallers. But in the meantime, Acre fell and our presence in the Holy Land came to an end.”

“And what about you, Admiral? Where were you when all this was going on?”

“I was at sea, where else? I spent my entire life at sea before becoming shore-based in La Rochelle. I was born into a powerful mercantile family, as you know, since you were wed into it, and because of that, when I joined the Order at five-and-twenty, I was assigned to the fleet. And there I remained.”

“So how did you come to La Rochelle?”

“Because of my friendship with Arnold. And then, too, since we are speaking the truth here, there was the matter of our superiors’ collective common sense. It was a matter of compatibility, at root. La Rochelle is the Order’s primary base, its center of operations, and it serves two masters in situ, two commanders who must interact with each other from day to day—the land-based preceptor and his naval counterpart. Ideally, these two should know, like, respect, and admire each other and be equally dedicated, above all else, to the ongoing welfare of the Order.

“Unfortunately, because such is human nature, that is not always possible to achieve. There are very few highly placed equals, it appears, who genuinely like, respect, and admire each other to the extent that they can share command without jealousy. Personal ambition has a way of confounding such arrangements.” He shrugged again, in self-deprecation. “Because of that, the long-standing friendship between Arnold and myself—together with the reputations we had each achieved, of course—recommended us to our superiors. There was no jealousy between us, and we enjoyed joint stewardship in La Rochelle for more than ten years. Ten wonderful years.”

He glanced out into the body of the ship and raised a hand to summon a crewman, signaling to him to clear away the remains of their meal, and both of them sat watching as the man removed the leftovers and another folded the small table and took it away.

When they were alone again, facing each other across the space where the table had been, Jessica asked, “What will you do now?”

He looked at her levelly. “I am considering a quest.”

“A quest? We are already on a quest, to deliver your Order’s Treasure to safety in Scotland, and to deliver my treasure safely to the King of Scots.”

His lips quirked in what might have been the beginnings of a smile, but he shook his head. “What you are defining is a task, not a quest, and that particular task can be effectively carried out by others, without my participation.”

He left that hanging in the air, tantalizing her and piquing her curiosity so that she frowned slightly, trying to decipher his meaning.

“That is … cryptic.”

The admiral met her gaze without blinking, his intelligent blue eyes revealing nothing except their own brilliant color. She waited for a moment, to see if he would respond, and then decided that he was waiting for her to continue. She cleared her throat and glanced away for a moment, looking out towards the horizon to give herself time to think of what she should say next. If he had a quest in mind, it must lie at their journey’s end.

“This quest you speak of must then lie ahead of you, in Scotland … Have you been in Scotland?”

St. Valéry smiled slowly, the crow’s-foot wrinkles at the edges of his eyes the only sign that he was doing so, for the wind was ruffling the hair of his beard and moustache, obscuring his mouth.

“I have never been in Scotland, and I have no wish to go there now. I have been to England, twice, and have no wish to go there, either. I speak a very small amount of English, very badly, as you know, but the Scots tongue to me is unintelligible gibberish.”

She knew he was teasing her, for she had heard him say the same thing to her husband, years earlier, but she chose to humor him. “That is not unusual. Many of the people in Scotland speak gibberish in the ears of the others.

We have several languages, and several different groups of so-called Scots—Northmen, Gaels, Norwayans, and the oldest of all, the ones the Romans called the Picti, the Painted People.”

“Do any of your differing groups ever talk to one another?”

“All the time, Admiral, though seldom in friendly tones, I fear. King Robert is trying to change that, to unite the country against Edward’s England and his lust to own our land.”

“Edward is dead, Jessie. You heard Master Sinclair.”

“He may be dead, but his barons are not, and his iron hand was the sole thing that kept them in check. The son that follows him onto the English throne will be the worst thing that could ever happen to Scotland, for he is a weakling and his own barons will trample over his wishes and please themselves in what they do. And what they will do is invade Scotland.” She checked herself, then set her jaw. “But that is neither here nor there for you, is it?” She paused for a moment, then forged on. “So if you have no wish to remain in Scotland, where will you go thereafter? Unless you intend to return directly to France?”

“That is what my heart tells me I would love to do most, but my head tells me that it could be years before our Order sees the light of day again in France, if indeed it ever does. So no, I will not be returning to France.” He fell silent, staring out over the rail, then turned to gaze off to his right, over the stern, before standing and crossing the small deck to where he could examine the entire horizon.

“Look,” he said, beckoning her to rise and join him. “Did I not say that where there was one there would be more? There are eleven masts now, you see? And three more vessels in plain sight. When we can see only the mast, like that, we say the ships beneath them are hull down. Our fleet still exists.”

Jessica stood beside him for some time, scanning the horizon as he had and counting the masts. The sky was almost bare of clouds now and the sun was close to setting. She took notice, too, of the orderly calm aboard their own vessel and the unmistakable air of discipline and renewal that was evident in the posture of the steersman behind them. She was pleased with all she saw, and she moved back to resume her seat and the conversation that had been interrupted.

“Then what is this quest of yours to be?” she asked, talking to his back. “Where will it take you?” She hesitated as he turned to face her, then went on. “I know I am probably being intolerably inquisitive, but I do not think you would have brought the matter up at all had you not wanted me to be aware of it.”

Richard St. Valéry nodded his head slowly, and she saw that his eyes had changed upon hearing her question; now they looked troubled. “Do you know that you constitute the last family I possess?” He saw her eyebrows rise and waved a hand to silence her before she could begin to protest. “Oh, I know there are others, cousins and distant kin, I know that, but I was speaking of close family, people who matter to me. I am the eldest and last of four brothers, two of whom I knew and loved well, and a squad of sisters, none of whom I ever knew well.” His teeth flashed suddenly through the thicket of his beard, and she remarked, as she often had before, on the whiteness and strength of them. “You, dear sister, constitute my entire adult knowledge of the feminine world, and for a time, when I first met you, you frightened me greatly—”

“Frightened you? Why, in God’s name?”

“Because, in God’s name as you accurately suggest,

I am a monk, sworn to chastity and solitude, and as my brother’s wife, without willing it or being in any way blameworthy, you made me see how fragile could be the wall of chastity behind which I and all my peers crouch. You were, and you remain, a creature of great beauty, Jessica, and that beauty unnerved me, unused as I was to associating with women in any way. I seek not to flatter you—I have neither need nor desire to do that. I speak the simple truth. Your beauty frightened me, just as it does Sir William.”

Jessica Randolph missed what her good-brother said next, because her mind was instantly full of what he had said last about William Sinclair. The idea that Will might be afraid of her took her aback. Jessie was not at all naïve, but what experience did she have in dealing with the knights of the Temple brotherhood? The few Templars she had known as a child had all been relatives or family friends, warriors who treated her as what she was: a small girl to be ignored or patted on the head in passing. By the time she grew to be a woman, she seldom saw any of them at all, and as a married woman, living in France and England, she had glimpsed them only occasionally and from a distance, recognizing them by their dress and insignia. Her husband’s affairs, as a King’s agent, had all been conducted at the court of Philip Capet, and there she had quickly learned how to contend with salacious approaches from indolent courtiers and the importunings of men of all ranks and stations, and she had become adept in deflecting their attentions, when she could not avoid them altogether, but with the sole exception of her good-brother Charles St. Valéry, she had never really encountered, or had any dealings with, the knights of the Temple. That they were distant and disdainful she had taken for granted, accepting it as a consequence of their secretive mystique, but the possibility that they might live in fear of her and of all women had never crossed her mind. So that was it: William Sinclair was afraid of her, simply because she was an attractive woman.

“… and so I find little pleasure in contemplating new beginnings at my age.”

“Pardon me, my dear Charles,” she interjected, bluntly honest as she always was. “I was distracted for a moment and missed something of what you were saying. What new beginnings are you talking about?” The look he directed at her might have been a tolerant smile, but she could not be sure.

“All of them,” he said quietly. “There are several facing me at this point, all of which, save one, I would prefer to avoid.” He saw from the quirk of her eyebrow that she was waiting and would not interrupt him.

“First, and most important, dear sister, I am too old to find pleasure in the prospect of starting a new life in a new country. My time in France has been cut short, and I had no control over the events that brought us here. I would, however, like to have some control over what I do from this point onward.”

“And can you do that? Exercise control over your future?’

He made his familiar Gallic shrug. “Easily, if God permits it and if I can obtain permission from Sir William, who now appears to be my sole remaining superior. But I doubt he may be willing to grant me that permission, simply because so few of us are left free.”

He turned his back on her again, staring out into the gathering darkness for some time, before returning to face her, bracing himself against the rail. “If he chooses to deny my request, then I shall accept his decision, learn to live with my regrets, and do my duty to the best of my abilities, in Scotland or elsewhere, as need arises. If he does permit me to go, on the other hand, then I shall be in my element again, doing what I was born to do, and my life thenceforth will be under my own control.”

“Thenceforth? You mean forever?”

“For as long as remains to me.”

“You say this quest would remove you from the authority of your superiors. How may that be? Where would you have to go to achieve that?”

“Beyond the seas.”

“To Outremer, you mean? But Outremer is lost now.

There is no Christian presence in the Holy Land today. To travel back to Outremer would be suicide.”

“I am not speaking of Outremer ...”

“Where, then? Where else is there?”

He faced her squarely, and now there was no hint of levity in his gaze. “Nowhere,” he said. “At least, nowhere in the known world.”

She was genuinely bewildered. “Are you suggesting that there may be unknown places in the world?”

“I am.” He watched her struggle to absorb what he had said, seeing the play of her thoughts clearly mirrored on her face. “Such places may exist. My quest will be to find them.”

“But … how? Where?”

“Far to the west. Have you ever heard the word ‘Merica’?”

“No, never. Should I have?”

“No, not at all. I can think of no good reason why you should have, and several excellent reasons why you could not have. Merica is a mystical and legendary place, and I suppose I will be breaking some vow or other in telling you of it, although I cannot think where the transgression might lie.”

He lapsed into silence, and Jessie waited avidly, careful to make no move that might distract him. Eventually he cleared his throat and moved back to sit beside her again.

“As I said, you are the sole remaining member of my close family, and so I am going to tell you something that perhaps I ought not to mention. Our sacred Order is secretive. I know you are already aware of that, as is all the world, but the truth is even greater than the appearance of secrecy. The Order, the Brotherhood of the Temple, is founded upon a necessary secrecy, the substance of which is”—and here he flashed her a dazzling grin—“of course, a secret. There are many aspects of our code and our beliefs about which we are completely forbidden to speak, under oath and upon penalty of the most grievous punishment. There are other elements, however, that are less stringently circumscribed. Do you understand the distinction?” When she nodded he continued.

“Excellent … Among our ancient lore, which is extensive, there are several areas that lack coherency and proof of … what is the word? Authenticity, I suppose, covers it best. And one of those areas, a fragment, a report, the merest shadow of a tale, perhaps a legend, deals with a place that lies beyond the Western Sea, the ocean we call the Atlantic. It is a vast expanse of land, according to the fragmentary documents we possess, that is overlooked by a brilliant evening star that the natives—and apparently there are native peoples there—call Merica. But there is no proof, from any source, that such a place exists. As I said, it is a shadow.”

“How ancient?” She saw the lifting of his eyebrows and pushed ahead. “You spoke of your ancient lore, but your Order was founded less than two hundred years ago, when the Armies of Christ first took Jerusalem. That is old, but it is not ancient, and you spoke with the authority of belief when you spoke of ancient lore.”

“Bravo, dear sister.” He dipped his head slowly to one side in an obvious gesture of admiration and respect. “Few men I know would be sufficiently astute to make that observation, and women are not supposed to be capable of such objective reasoning—a supposition, I am beginning to suspect, that allows men to cling to their illusions of superiority. I am impressed, and you are correct. Our Temple Order is measurably old, but the lore upon which its core was formed is ancient. I can say no more than that without violating my oath.”

Jessica nodded again, accepting that, although the suggestion of a frown remained on her face. “So … an ancient record, an unsupported allegation, the merest fragment of a tale that by your own admission might have no basis in reality … and you intend to dedicate the remainder of your life to the search for this place? Forgive me, but that seems like the most obvious kind of folly. Where would you begin, and how? And who would go with you?”

“It may turn out that no one would, in which case I could not go … But I hope and believe that there will be enough intrepid souls among my men to fill out a sufficiently large crew to undertake the venture.”

“You mean to sail with you into almost certain death?’

“Yes, if you wish to put it that way. But the certainty of death would not be nearly as great as your tone implies. Our brotherhood is founded upon faith … faith in God, and faith in ourselves and in our mission. The great Treasure that we are shipping with Sir William is proof, in itself, of the validity and reality of our lore. Until it was discovered in the bowels of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, its existence was uncertain, its discovery predicated upon the faith of the men who would spend years searching for it. Our founder, Hugh de Payens, had nothing more to guide him than the instructions contained in ancient documents, yet his faith and certainty enabled him, with his eight companions, to dig down into the living rock of the Temple Mount for nine long years before they found it. It had been there all the time, despite all the odds dictated by logic and reason.”

“What is it? What does it contain? It is obviously very precious.”

“Aye, it is, and with potency to match its value. But above all else, it is a secret, and I can tell you with absolute honesty that I, even as admiral of the Temple fleet, have no idea what it comprises. Until the moment I saw it on the wharf of that fishing village a week ago, waiting to be loaded, I had never set eyes on it, and to the best of my knowledge, no one that I know within the Order has ever seen the chests opened. The last I heard of the Treasure was when it was shipped to safety from the fortress at Acre, just before the city fell to the Saracens. That was nigh on twenty years ago.”

“Hmm. I have heard that tale and it is a striking one. But the Treasure is an established fact, dear Charles, its existence long since known. The matter you are describing, on the other hand, is altogether different. Even were you to find a crew as loyal as those who supported your founder in his search, I would be surprised that men would give up everything to leave the world they know and go with you on such a quest, sailing out into the Western Sea in the hope of finding an end to it. They would risk falling into the Abyss.”

“All men risk falling into the Abyss, Sister, simply by living in this world. I have no doubt that if I can find the right kind of men—and I believe they are already aboard my own galley—they will come with me.”

“And what of your superior? Why should Sir William Sinclair permit you to sail off with some of his few remaining men, on what most people would deem a fool’s errand?”

The admiral shrugged. “On the face of it there is no reason, but I believe I might be able to offer him something of value as a quid pro quo for granting me leave to go … As you know, we are currently being pursued by some of our own ships, three galleys that we believe were captured by de Nogaret’s men in La Rochelle. They are several days behind us, for I doubt that they could have gained on us during the storms, and that gap of days would permit us to do what needs to be done. I would require one day to unload my portion of the Treasure and stow it aboard another ship. After that, while the remainder of this fleet moved to concealment along the westward-facing coastline of Portugal, I would fall back and await the vessels pursuing us, then lead them in a merry chase out into the Atlantic.”

“What makes you think they would follow you, a single ship?”

“Because they will know no different. All they will see of me when they arrive is my shape, and perhaps that of one of my escorts, if I have any, disappearing below the horizon. They will assume that I am the rearward lookout that has been ahead of them since they left port, and that the remainder of the fleet lies beyond me, below the horizon. By the time they discover the ruse, Sir William, along with you and the remainder of the fleet, will have vanished into the northern seas, bound for Scotland, with no one the wiser.”

Jessica Randolph stared at her good-brother through narrowed eyes as she mulled over what he had told her. “You really believe you can find this Merica, don’t you?”

“If it exists, I believe I will find it. And I believe it exists.” He hesitated. “Of course, I have no idea how long it will take, so we will have to carry provisions for the entire crew for … probably two to three months.”

“Is that possible?”

“Barely, but yes. It would be easier with two ships, though. I asked originally for several vessels, but I see now that three might be too many, simply from the viewpoint of finding crews.”

Jessica sat up straight and blew her breath out sharply. “Then you must ask Sir William for two ships, and be prepared to man them both with only one full crew. Would that be enough for your needs?”

St. Valéry grinned. “Aye, it would, easily. But why are you so suddenly convinced Sinclair will let me go?”

“Because it makes sense. You can rid him of the threat of being followed to Scotland. And besides, if you succeed, and find this place—”

“And manage to return—”

She shot him a glance that was almost a frown.

“Oh, if you find it you will come back to brag of it, I have no doubt. And when you do that, you will have provided Sir William Sinclair and all his Order with a place of refuge that, should such a thing ever be required, would be unassailable … a place that no one knows, beyond the end of the world. You must speak to him as soon as possible, and with more conviction than you have ever used in your life.”

The admiral inclined his head, his beard masking his smile again. “So mote it be,” he murmured. “I will do so, rely upon it. But it occurs to me that my task will be much simpler—convincing him to permit me, I mean—if you appear to have no knowledge of my proposal and no interest in supporting me.”

She stared at him. “You mean you want me to pretend I know nothing of this.”

“I do. Sir William distrusts women—all women—instinctively. It is part of his training and he has not yet learned to cope with other … accommodations.”

Her face hardened and then she nodded. “That is true. I deplore it and I think him foolish and pigheaded in that, but I will say nothing and keep my distance while you plead with him.”

“Thank you, dear sister. I am in your debt.”

FOUR

To the considerable amazement of both plotters, Sir William Sinclair raised no insuperable objections to the admiral’s proposal when he had listened to it in its entirety, but then, although he said nothing at the time to St. Valéry, he had been mulling over the admiral’s idea for several days by then and could see nothing objectionable or unworthy in it. He accepted that a churchman might argue, on the grounds of morality, that Sir Charles might be seeking and risking suicide in such a venture, but Will Sinclair was a realist and had decided that the Order owed Sir Charles, after a lifetime of faithful and outstanding service, an opportunity to spend his final days in dedication to a quest he believed to be important.

But it was not until St. Valéry mentioned the notion expressed by his good-sister the Baroness, that success would provide a new haven in a new land to the survivors of the Order should it ever be needed, that Sinclair became convinced of the soundness of the admiral’s idea. The idea of hoodwinking the pursuing galleys and leading them out into the ocean appealed to him, too, for he was concerned about keeping the whereabouts of the fleet concealed from de Nogaret and his grasping master, but that faded to insignificance beside the potential outlined by the admiral. Charles St. Valéry was no man’s fool, and Sinclair trusted the older man’s instinct and judgment as he would his own. If St. Valéry believed this place called Merica was out there within reach, then it was a conviction arrived at only after much thought and grave deliberation over the pros and contras of what he was considering, and it was simply not in the admiral’s nature to lead any man dependent upon him into certain death. That truth, more than any other, led to Will’s conclusion that he should grant permission to St. Valéry’s request. Once that was decided, plans to implement the venture were quickly drawn up.

The weather had been perfect for sailing since the abatement of the storms, and the fleet sailed smoothly and swiftly along the northern coastline of Navarre towards Cape Corunna, where it would round the headland within the following two days and sail south by west again thereafter to Cape Finisterre. The fleet had reassembled on the second day after the last of the storms, with not a single vessel lost, an outcome that Brother Thomas the sacristan attributed to a miracle but which the admiral attributed to the skills of his captains and the seaworthiness of his ships.

Sir William kept the admiral and his men hard at work on the details of what had to be done if St. Valéry’s scheme were to have a hope of working. The following morning, a fifth galley was sent back to contact the four that already screened the fleet from the pursuing galleys from La Rochelle. Its captain’s orders were to gather information on the current situation vis-à-vis the pursuit craft; to discover the distance and sailing time separating the suspect galleys from the main fleet; and to return with that information as quickly as possible, but not before instructing the senior officer of the four screening galleys, Sir Charles de Lisle, to abandon his strategy of keeping distant and to determine the true status of the three galleys from La Rochelle, be they friend or foe. As soon as he knew beyond doubt, he was to send word immediately to Admiral St. Valéry.

In the meantime, taking advantage of the fine weather, St. Valéry sent out messages by boat asking any man who had intimate or special knowledge of the coastal waters between the two capes of Corunna and Finisterre to report to him in person. Three men responded, rowing from other ships to join him on his galley, where he awaited them on the small foredeck with Vice-Admiral de Berenger, Will Sinclair, and Captain de Narremat, the admiral’s shipmaster, in attendance. Two of the newcomers were sergeants, both veteran mariners, and the third a knight who had been born and raised on that harsh coastline. The admiral instructed them to decide upon a sheltered spot, if there were such a place along that ocean-battered littoral, where he could safely send at least some of his fleet ashore for a day.

There was one such place, they told him: a natural harbor that lay approximately forty miles south of Cape Corunna. It was close to where the knight had grown up and it was uninhabited, because the cliffs surrounding it were high and dangerous, undercut by thousands of years of relentless attacks by breaking waves so that they now loomed outwards above the beach, threatening any vessel foolhardy enough to linger in the bay below. All three men agreed that the bay was large and spacious and would easily accommodate the entire fleet in safety and secrecy for as long as they wished to remain there, but acknowledged that it could also be unpredictably dangerous because of falling rocks. The knight, whose name was Escobar, was confident that their pursuers, if they were really French and employed by de Nogaret, would be unlikely to know of the bay’s existence, since the only use he knew it served, and in this he was backed by one of the two mariners, was for the beaching of the occasional ship in order to scrape the barnacles from its hull.

St. Valéry looked at Sinclair, who nodded. “It sounds as though it might suit our purposes, but you are the seaman, so what think you? How long will you require to do what must be done?”

St. Valéry glanced at de Berenger, whose face showed nothing of his thoughts. “A few hours to transfer the remaining treasure from my hold to whichever vessel you select to take it, and then to transfer as many provisions as we might need from other ships. Half a day at most.”

When St. Valéry asked for distance and sailing time to the bay from where they now were, the two mariners conferred again and offered an estimate of three, perhaps four days, depending upon winds and offshore tides. They did not yet know exactly where they were in relation to the shore, but estimated that they were within two to three days’ sail of Cape Corunna, with another day beyond that to reach the bay.

Sinclair was still thinking about the length of time they would spend there. “How many ships do you wish to take with you, Admiral? Much will depend on that. I am thinking of your estimate of half a day’s work.” Sinclair saw the hesitancy in the admiral’s eyes and continued. “The length of time does not concern me; the sufficiency does. I think we will need a full day to see this thing well done. You may be at sea for months, and it would be galling to run out of something simply because we did not take the time to load sufficient supplies. Now that we have made the decision to proceed in this, I want you to do it properly.”

St. Valéry shrugged and looked up at the sail above him with its great painted cross of black on white. “Ships would be better than galleys, sturdier … with more storage room. Galleys would be worse than useless out on there on the ocean, months at a stretch … Cargo ships, Sir William. Four of them, if you can spare so many.”

“We can. We have four spare and available now, according to your own tally, so you may have them—given that you can find the men to crew them voluntarily. Think you that would be sufficient to ensure your success, as far as you can ensure anything in this venture?” He was aware of the three visitors standing close by, their eyes moving from one speaker to the other, their faces alive with curiosity, and he held up a hand to St. Valéry. “Wait, if you will.” He turned his attention to the three watching men. “Have you all heard of the legend of Merica, spoken of in the Order’s lore?”

The three men nodded, but looked mystified.

“Admiral St. Valéry has decided to sail in search of it, to find out once and for all whether it be there or not beyond the Western Sea where it is supposed to be, and I have given him the blessings of our Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, to do so. In finding it, he and the men who sail with him will prove the truth of another great piece of our ancient lore, just as Hugh de Payens and his companions did with the discovery of the Temple Treasure. He will be seeking volunteers to sail with him into the unknown upon a great and daunting quest. How think you his request might be received by your fellows?”

The three men stood for a few moments, looking at each other, rank apparently forgotten, and then the knight spoke up. “I can speak for no one but myself, my lord Admiral, but I can think of nothing I would rather do than sail on your quest with you.”

St. Valéry inclined his head graciously, but said nothing, and Sinclair intervened. “What is your name, sir? We have not met before, have we?”

“Antonio Escobar, Sir William, and no, we have not met before now.”

“Well, sir, I shall remember you as the first knight of the Temple to join Sir Charles’s quest. And what of you two men?”

The elder of the two sergeants spoke up at once, saying he might think about going since he had no family to concern himself about, but the second man shook his head regretfully and declined.

“Well, Sir Charles, two out of three at first sweep. If you continue thus you will take full two-thirds of my strength.”

“No chance of that, Sir William. I seek but to crew four ships. If I have more than that number, I shall select those I need and wish the others well with you.”

“What about water? You’ll need as much as you can carry.”

The knight Escobar raised a hand, and when Sinclair looked at him he said, “There is sweet, fresh water in the bay we spoke of, sir. A spring-fed stream near the top of the cliffs falls to the beach.”

“Good, then we’ll use it. Thank you, gentlemen. Which of you knows the coastline best? We need only one of you to lead us in; the other two may return to your ships.”

“Then it should be one of these two men, sir, since I am not a mariner,” Escobar said, and drew himself up to attention. The other two muttered briefly to each other, and the younger of the two turned to St. Valéry. “I will stay, Admiral.”

St. Valéry thanked all three men before dismissing them, sending the one who would remain behind to the stern with the galley’s captain, and when the four senior officers were alone again Sinclair struck straight to the heart of the matter at hand.

“Very well, then. We will have half a day to effect our changes, perhaps longer, depending upon how closely we are being pursued. Now we have much planning to do, and we need to send out the word to all our ships of what we are about in this endeavor. Can you attend to that, Sir Charles? We should do it quickly and clear our minds for other things. Among which is the disposition of your passenger and her cargo. I presume the Baroness will not be accompanying you on your quest … What, then, are we to do with her?”

St. Valéry shrugged his shoulders. “She will remain aboard my galley, which will become de Berenger’s command. Captain de Narremat here will assume the rank of vice-admiral and take over Sir Edward’s present command.” He glanced at de Narremat, whose face was flushing with surprised pleasure. “Before doing that, Captain, you will appoint another from your own officers here to fill your present position as admiral’s shipmaster.” He broke off, turning to Sinclair. “Unless you object to any of that, Sir William?”

The inflexion of the admiral’s voice turned that last statement into a question, but Sinclair shook his head. “You are still admiral, Sir Charles, and you know your people far better than I do. The choice of captains is yours. I will remain aboard the vice-admiral’s galley for now, if the new vice-admiral has no objection. And now, gentlemen, we have other matters to deal with. Shall we begin?”

But at that moment a hail from the lookout on the cross-spar at the mast top announced that he had seen another vessel bearing down on them, and even as they absorbed that, they heard him counting aloud as more distant sails became discernible far behind them to the northeast.

“Five galleys!” the lookout shouted. “One ahead of four! And … and more behind those … Two, three more in pursuit.”

St. Valéry looked at Will Sinclair. “Five Temple galleys, fleeing from pursuit by three? That is not possible. There must be another explanation … The three rearward galleys must be our own, escaped from La Rochelle before they could be taken.”

WITHIN TWO HOURS of the first distant sighting, Will Sinclair stood on the upper deck of the admiral’s stern castle, watching the approach of the three strange galleys, and he could see plainly why the naval officers had spoken earlier of de l’Armentière’s galley, the leading one, as being unmistakably different. The Templar galleys, irrespective of individual size, were all modeled upon the massive biremes of Roman times and built in the shipyards around Genoa, where generations of shipwright families had been building the same kind of vessels for hundreds of years. Huge and solid, with double banks of oars and an elongated ram beneath the prow, they had been virtually unchanged since the days of the Roman navies, the single difference being that now the sails were made of heavy cloth rather than of leather. De l’Armentière’s was different; longer, lower, and sleeker, it shipped thirty-six oars, he saw, but in two long, single banks of eighteen a side. The mast, too, was different, neither as tall nor as thick as those on the Temple’s vessels, but there was no mistaking the fact that this vessel had been designed for speed and battle. Its long battering ram, clad in copper sheeting, curved up and projected from the water ahead of the craft like the horn of some ferocious beast.

Behind the strange-looking galley, its two escorting craft were standard Temple vessels, each of them shipping eighteen double-banked oars to a side, so that he estimated their fighting force to be anywhere from eighty to a hundred men apiece, dependent upon the size of their relief crews, and his guess was that they would not have sailed from Cyprus without a full complement. So another two to three hundred fighting men had been added to their force, and from the look of them, they were all veteran Temple sergeants.

He stood watching until he saw boats being lowered from the strange-looking leader, and then, as he turned away, he spotted the Baroness St. Valéry watching the newcomers from the corresponding deck on the ship’s forecastle. Inexplicably flustered by the sudden sight of her and feeling slightly breathless despite having known he would probably see her somewhere during his visit, he averted his eyes and went below, moving very deliberately, to await the new arrivals in the ship’s main cabin.

FIVE

The commander of the leading galley, Sir Antoine de l’Armentière, was precisely the kind of man Will Sinclair had expected him to be, the kind of Templar he thought of as a Temple Boar: a fighting monk, largely devoid of humor and thoroughly dedicated to the affairs of the Temple to the exclusion of all else. Not that there was anything amiss with that, Will thought, examining the captain as he arrived. Such men served a necessary function, and their loyalty to the Order was unassailable. De l’Armentière strode into the cabin as if it were his personal domain and came to attention in front of the admiral, ignoring everyone else.

St. Valéry greeted him courteously, then introduced him to the others in attendance, most of whom de l’Armentière already knew. Finally he brought him forward to introduce him to Will.

“May I present Sir William Sinclair, Sir Antoine. He is a member of the Governing Council, here on direct business for Master de Molay himself concerning the recent matters of which you may or not be aware.” He turned to Will. “Sir Antoine is from Burgundy, Sir William. His family has provided members for our Order since its beginnings in Jerusalem.” And having delivered his message that de l’Armentière was definitely not of the Order of Sion, the admiral gestured to everyone to be seated. “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”

Sinclair and de l’Armentière exchanged nods, and then the men took their places around the long, narrow table that filled up most of the main cabin.

As soon as they were all seated, St. Valéry motioned to de l’Armentière. “Your report, if you please, Sir Antoine. We know you arrived in La Rochelle mere hours after our departure, but our lookouts were too far away to prevent you from entering the harbor. Since then, we had thought your galleys confiscated. When they emerged again, we had no choice but to assume them crewed by the enemy. Plainly we were mistaken. Please tell us what occurred.”

De l’Armentière knew how to savor a moment of attention. He sat frowning for some time, looking at no one, as though gazing inwardly, making a display of collecting his thoughts, then looked slowly from man to man around the table. “Who is the enemy?” he asked eventually. “We arrived directly from Cyprus, after ten days at sea, and we saw the King’s colors among the men on the quays. But even before that we had seen a pyre of burning ships and a harbor devoid of Temple shipping. And the Order’s banners were missing from the battlements, something I had never seen before.

“And so I gave orders to drop anchor out of bowshot from the quay. But once they had seen that we were not going to approach them any closer, they fired upon us uselessly nonetheless. I waited to see if anyone would approach us, but not a single boat was launched towards us, and it soon became quite obvious that the crowds on the quay were leaderless and there was no one willing to assume the authority to deal with us. And so I remained at anchor, to see if someone might return to assume command. But no one did. I waited for three hours, by which time the tide was in full ebb, and then I took my ships out of there under oars … truthfully, with no idea of what I should do next.”

“So what did you do, Captain?” Sir William asked him.

De l’Armentière offered a half smile to his questioner. “As soon as we had cleared the harbor mouth, my lookouts reported masts on the horizon to the south, and so I set a course to follow them. I did not know who had occupied La Rochelle, but if these ships were coming in support of whoever it was, then I intended to debate with them. But as it turned out, they were sailing away from us and keeping their distance.”

St. Valéry cleared his throat politely. “And you had no suspicion that these vessels you were pursuing might be your own? Temple galleys?”

The other smiled again, more broadly this time. “I had many suspicions, Admiral, but not that one. The thought of Temple galleys fleeing a fight simply did not occur to me. Besides, they were hull down on the horizon most of the time, no matter how we sought to catch them … which told me, indeed, that they were in fact galleys of one kind or another. Not all galleys are alike, as you may see by looking at my own.”

He looked again around the table, meeting each man’s eye before continuing. “I accepted that they had no wish to close with us, but neither had I any wish to abandon the chase. We had returned from a long voyage, our stores depleted, to find our own harbor closed to us, and so I found myself loath to give up and turn away. And so their flight became our pursuit … until, of course, they approached and identified themselves, early yesterday. Since then I have gathered some information, enough to form some notion of what has been happening recently, but my sources were mainly officers and sergeants who knew little or nothing of what is really involved. And so, if I may ask without being ruled impertinent, will someone tell me what has been going on in my absence?”

The question brought about a general surge of noise that the admiral quelled by thumping on the table, and when silence had returned he himself spoke to de l’Armentière.

“Folly and chaos and treachery has been going on,” he said, his voice flat. “Suffice for now to say that the King’s chief minister, William de Nogaret, has moved against our Order with the full support of the King himself and, it would seem, the Pope. The atrocity was perpetrated the morning you arrived, and it is our understanding that it occurred on a massive scale, throughout France. You will learn all about it later. For the moment, we have other things to discuss.

“We were forewarned by Sir William here, who came to us with the written authority of Master de Molay, and it was the Master himself who first learned of the plot against us. He issued orders for us to embark on the night of the twelfth and to await whatever might develop the following morning, for even he was unsure of the truth of the warnings he had received. We waited, and de Nogaret’s men arrived as predicted. And now we are making our way in search of sanctuary elsewhere, away from France.”

“Where, in God’s holy name?”

St. Valéry glanced at Sinclair, who responded, “In Scotland, where the King is excommunicate and therefore unlikely to be influenced by the Pope.”

“Unless,” de l’Armentière said, “the Pope offers to lift the excommunication in return for our capture. Have you thought of that?”

The response verged on insolence, and in fact Will Sinclair had not thought of that at all. He bit back an angry response and busied himself in leaning back in his chair and stretching his muscles for a moment to give himself time to think.

“That thought had occurred to me,” he drawled after a moment, knowing somehow that it was important to lie. “But I dismissed it as irrelevant, particularly since we now know you were not de Nogaret’s spies pursuing us. We also know that no one can possibly know where we have disappeared to. Had you, in fact, been enemies, we would have led you out into the ocean beyond Finisterre and either lost you or destroyed you. Relieved of the need to waste time doing either of those things, we may now head directly for Scotland, where we will deliver a treasure of gold and silver bars and coins to the King of Scots on behalf of one of his most loyal subjects. That should win us his gratitude for as long as we require it. The Temple is secure in Scotland, so we will be doubly welcome. If de Nogaret traces us there eventually, it will no longer matter, for this unpleasantness will have dried up and blown away by then, all differences settled.”

The Burgundian knight sat mulling that for a moment, then dipped his head and smiled. “So mote it be. Then I am content, and at your service, Sir William.” He stopped short and looked around the table, one eyebrow raised but this time without giving offense. “I am correct in assuming, am I not, that your rank supersedes all others here?”

Will Sinclair nodded. “Aye, technically you are. In fact, though, the admiral continues to be God at sea, and I am a mere passenger aboard his craft. And having said that, gentlemen, I will leave you to your planning, for you have much yet to do. Admiral, should you need me at all, I shall be in my quarters. It remains to me to commend you, Captain de l’Armentière, on your actions in La Rochelle. You did well. And now, a good day to you all.”

SIX

Will was already looking around for Tam as soon as he left the cabin and he saw him quickly, standing by the ship’s entry port deep in conversation with Baroness St. Valéry. She was wearing a dark green hooded cloak, and the hood’s high peak made it look as though she was taller than Tam. His heartbeat was suddenly loud in his head and his gut twisted in—what? he asked himself. He felt a stirring of pleasure, then a formless guilt quickly smothered in rising anger.

What in God’s name are you doing talking to that woman? was the first clear thought that came to him, and then he drew a deep breath, forcing himself to swallow his anger, which he knew was utterly unreasonable, and to take the time to think about how he could make the inevitable encounter with the woman both courteous and harmless. He made his way towards them, and his spoken order was the first inkling either of them had that he was there.

“Tam. My boat, if you will. Good day to you, Baroness.”

As Tam swung away towards the stern with a grunt, Jessica Randolph turned to smile at Sinclair.

“Sir William,” she said, unperturbed. “We expected you to be detained far longer than this, with all the comings and goings that have taken place today. Are you feeling unwell?”

He forced himself to answer graciously. “No, madam, I am very well. I merely have some matters of my own to attend to, and Sir Charles and his officers have more knowledge of what they are about than I could ever have. And so I left them to it. You and Tam were deep in discussion.”

“Tam is a dear man … Is it true you have granted Charles leave to sail away and leave us in search of some hidden land?”

Damn the woman! “I see Tam has been saying more than his prayers.”

“Untrue, sir. My good-brother himself told me he would seek your leave to go. Tam merely responded when I asked him about it.”

He felt relieved to know that Tam had said nothing untoward, for Will had discussed the plan with him as a matter of course, before making his decision. He had never known Tam to betray a confidence, and to know that this remained unchanged made him feel a glow of warmth inside. But then he realized that the Baroness was gazing at him expectantly.

“Aye,” he said, making a harrumphing sound in his throat, “well, the admiral made his request, and I responded. He will be leaving shortly.”

“In search of this unknown place, this Merica.” It was not a question, and it took him aback.

“He mentioned this to you?”

“He did. Should he not have?”

“No, I am merely surprised.”

“That he should share such confidence with a mere woman, or that he should speak of it at all?”

Sinclair shook his head. “Neither, madam. I meant no offense.”

The woman stared at him through narrowed eyes, but at that moment a bumping sound from close beneath them announced the arrival of the boat Tam had summoned. He glanced over the side to make sure it was indeed his boat, then bowed slightly to the Baroness.

“My boat is here, madam, so you must excuse me. I have much to do.”

“I am sure you have, sir.”

The Baroness dipped her head graciously and turned away, and he had to steel himself not to watch her as she made her way forward, although he could hear the crew members greeting her as she went. Instead, he braced himself and stepped forward to the entry port, eyeing the moving ladder that awaited his cautious descent.

When he was safely in the boat he tucked his cloak about him before looking up to see Tam watching him, his face unreadable.

“What? What means that look?” he growled, speaking Scots so their conversation would be unintelligible to any listening ears among the oarsmen. Tam looked away, saying nothing, but Will was in no mood to leave it there. “You two were having a deal to say to each other, I noticed. What else did you tell her, other than that I had granted the admiral’s request?”

“We were but passin’ the time o’ day. She asked me right out and I answered, but no’ without thinking. She would find out within a day or two, when it comes time for him to leave, so I thought it no harm.” He twitched an eyebrow. “Are ye vexed wi’ me?”

Will watched the oarsmen’s back muscles clench and unclench as they drove the boat away from the admiral’s galley and turned it skillfully towards his own, but finally he sighed. “No, I’m no’ vexed, Tam … It’s just that that woman … upsets me.”

Tam offered no comment on that, asking instead, “What d’ye think o’ the new fellow, wi’ the fancy galley? What’s his name, de l’Armentière?” He pronounced it Arminteer in the Scots fashion. “A Temple Boar if ever I saw one.”

“Aye, he is, but I think he’ll be a good man to have wi’ us, ne’er the less. He has a quick mind on him, and ’gin we can keep him happy and gi’e him lots to fight over, I think he’ll be well enough. His three ships are grand enough, and he’ll have two or three hundred men aboard them. Fine enough if we get into a tulzie at sea, but we’ll ha’e to feed and shelter them once we make land.”

“Aye, right enough,” Tam agreed, low-voiced. They were approaching their own ship now and its hull loomed above them. Their lead oarsman stood up and reached out with a long, hooked pole to catch the rope that would allow them to pull themselves to where the ladder from the entry port hung just astern of the rearmost of the galley’s long oars, and as he did so Tam mused, still in Scots, “But speakin’ o’ twa, three hundred extra men, forbye the ones we had, you said the admiral wondered whether the King o’ Scots will be glad to see a fleet sail into his ken … D’ye no’ think he might be right?”

Will grunted, preparing himself to stand up once the boat had been secured. “He might be, Tam. You never know. But from what I hear, King Robert’s troubles are all land based. He’ll ha’e little use for galleys, I’m thinking, but he’ll be hungry for fighting men. But that reminds me, I meant to ask you if there are other Scots among our fleet. D’you know that, or can you find out?”

“I can ask. But what are ye lookin’ for?”

Will stood up and braced himself cautiously against the choppy motion of the moored boat. “Any man who knows anything at all about Arran Isle, for I know nothing of it. I’ve seen it often, but only frae the mainland. I’ve never set foot there, and it came to me that there might be men, even one man, among the fleet who knows the place.”

“Aye, I’ll try to find out. Mind your step now and dinna fa’ in. I ha’e nae need to spend hours cleanin’ salt and rust off your blades.”

SEVEN

“Step back here and stay away from the edge o’ that cliff. You’re the one who pointed out to me that it’s a’ crumbled away underneath. All we would need now is for it to gi’e way and send you and half a mountain straight down onto the tops o’ our ships.”

Will threw his head back and laughed loud, but at the same time he did as Tam bade him, turning back onto more solid ground, lowering himself to sit on a tussock of grass by his kinsman’s side and gazing out to the west, where the Atlantic Ocean stretched ahead of them.

“Look at that vista, Tam. Have you ever seen the like? No, you ha’e not, because you have never seen siccan a vast body of water, and neither have I. We ha’e traveled far, you and I, these past years, but when you think of it, I doubt we ha’e ever been completely out of sight of land, it’s aey been there, behind us or in front of us or on either side but somewhere within sight. But out there, where the admiral will be heading tomorrow, there is nothing. We’ll be going over that way, more northward, towards Ireland and then Scotland, and again we’ll never really be out of sight of land.” He pointed due west. “But over there, beyond the rim o’ that sky, there lies nothing but more water, and within a matter of a day or two’s outward sailing, he and his men will be lost in an ocean so vast that his only hope of reaching land will be to turn around and sail back.”

“He’s no’ an admiral now. Just plain Sir Charles.” That was true. In the two days since the appearance of de l’Armentière and his galleys, the Temple ships had made their way from Cape Corunna to the sheltered, nameless bay they had chosen, and as soon as they had anchored safely and started the transfer of goods and the provisioning of the four vessels he would now take in search of Merica, Sir Charles had resigned his admiral’s rank and bestowed it upon Edward de Berenger, the transfer of title and power of admiral of the Temple fleet witnessed and ratified by Sir William Sinclair. The ceremony had been brief, carried out on the beach of the bay without pomp, in the course of a brief Mass concelebrated by the four bishops who had sailed with them from La Rochelle, and as soon as the rites were concluded, everyone scattered to see to the redistribution of the various cargoes.

Sir Charles’s guest had captured the imagination of the men, and he had no difficulty raising a party of 110 willing volunteers to sail with him in search of the fabled new land, more than enough to crew his small fleet of ships. His party, however, would take no horses with them, an announcement that astonished Sir William Sinclair when he first heard it, although he realized at once that sound reasoning underlay the decision. No one knew how long the voyage would take, or if it would even end in success, but St. Valéry’s belief was that it might take anywhere up to three months of sailing, and the impossibility of carrying sufficient fodder rendered such a thing impractical. Atop that, there was the well-known fact that horses did not take well to sea voyages; after a voyage of mere weeks, it required at least one full day and frequently two to permit the animals to adjust to having solid land beneath their feet. No one cared to think of the effect a journey months in length might have on the creatures. And so St. Valéry’s expedition would disembark in the new land and proceed afoot, unless they were fortunate enough to find replacement mounts in Merica.

“How long will Sir Charles stay wi’ us before he strikes away?”

“Not long. He’ll probably wave us away before we’re out of sight of land.”

“You sound very sure, for a landsman …”

“As sure as any man may be of anything. Aye, I’m sure of it. And in the meantime all’s well below on the beach, and we ha’e nothing to do but wait a while.”

Tam made no response to that. Matters were well in hand on the beach far below them, cargo being transferred from one ship to another so that St. Valéry’s small squadron could set out, at least, with as much as possible of anything they might require on their voyage. Will and Tam had had nothing to do among all the activity and so they had taken advantage of the opportunity to stretch their legs and had ended up climbing the beetling cliffs, by a roundabout route that avoided the perilous overhang, so that now they sat at their ease far above the bustling activities below.

Will smiled and lay back, his eyes closed in enjoyment of the sun, but Tam had more questions.

“What about the ships waitin’ for us off Finisterre?”

“Already taken care of. De Lisle’s already on his way to meet them, if there are any there. They’ll follow us, hugging the coastline until they reach Cape Corunna, then they’ll head north and west for Scotland. We’ll wait for them off the Mull of Kintyre.” He turned his head. “Were you able to find out if there are any other Scots in the fleet?”

“Aye, but only this mornin’. There’s two, one o’ them a graybeard frae Galloway called Mungo MacDowal. I havena seen him or spoken to him, but I left word for him to come and see ye when he was finished workin’ this afternoon. If he’s frae Galloway, he’ll ha’e grown up lookin’ at Arran, maist like. He’ll probably be there by the time we get back down to the beach … Tell me, why did ye have us change ships, you and me? I was just beginning to grow used to where we were.”

His companion opened one eye, squinting against the light, and looked at him as though he were mad. “We haven’t changed ships.”

“No, but we could have. We’ve changed captains, and I liked de Berenger.”

“That is neither here nor there. I had no choice. The admiral’s galley is the only one big enough for the Baroness and her women. Would you have had me throw them out? De Berenger’s transfer aboard changed nothing, with Sir Charles gone, but had you and I moved over, it would have been too crowded. So we stayed. Besides, I could not abide being on that ship with all those women.”

Tam started to respond but then merely lay back on the grass, his fingers interlaced behind his head. “No,” he muttered, “you couldna, could you? That would ha’ been too human. Ye winna thole the women.”

Will did not dignify that with a response, for despite his Scots sarcasm, Tam was correct: Will Sinclair would not, indeed, tolerate the presence of the women and had thus chosen to remain where he was, since de Berenger’s former galley was more than adequate to his needs. The fact that the Temple Treasure was already in the vessel’s modest hold was justification enough to allow him to avoid being saddled with the presence and too-close proximity of the distracting and infuriating Baroness St. Valéry all the way to Scotland.

Tam, unsurprised by the lack of response, lay quiet for a long time after that, feeling the sun’s warmth on his face, then asked, “What are you thinkin’ to do once we reach Scotland? Will you go directly to the King?”

Sir Charles had asked him the same pair of questions, almost word for word, that very morning, and although he had answered straightforwardly at the time, he had been thinking about it ever since, and now he gave a slightly different answer to Tam.

“I don’t rightly know, Tam. Much will depend on what we find when we arrive. I told Sir Charles this morning that I would first seek a safe anchorage—for I can’t be sure Arran will be safe—then make enquiries about the King—his whereabouts, for one thing. But since then I have come to think that neither of those might be as simple as I thought … For one thing, I doubt that I’ll be able to strike out towards the King immediately. There’s too much to be done first among our own. Our party is too large, and many of the knights too proud and stiff-necked to be left too suddenly to their own devices. It comes to me that I might have to spend some time laying down the rules and asserting my authority before I ride away leaving them behind.

“And then again, there is the matter of the King of Scots himself. The last I heard, he was sore beset with troubles, his own lords and barons being as bad as the English. Particularly the Comyns, in the north. They claim the kingship as their right and name Bruce usurper, so the land is steeped in civil war. And then the threat from England atop all of that. Edward Plantagenet may be dead, but his earls and barons are no less hungry than before to subdue the Scots. For all I know, the Bruce may not even be alive by now, although I pray God that that be not the case. It must be considered, nevertheless, and other plans made against the possibility. Thus I must think about approaching Sir Thomas Randolph and the other members of the Temple in Scotland. They will receive me, I know, but whether they will have the power to succor us must remain to be seen.”

“So where will you seek safe anchorage?”

“On Arran first, I think. It has been Scots-held, part of the Bruce holdings, since King Alexander thrashed the Norwayans and dislodged them at Largs Battle. We will go there, find out what holds sway. It lies within the Firth of Clyde but is remote enough to hide us. I doubt it will be much occupied nowadays, for as I recall it is a barren place, yet suited to our purpose well enough.”

“There will be folk there, nonetheless.”

“Aye, probably, but we will talk with them. We mean them no harm.”

“Mayhap. But they’ll no’ know that. They’ll see a fleet o’ foreign ships and they’ll hide in the hills … Scots folk—and Islanders mair than most—ha’e little trust o’ foreigners.”

Will sat mum for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, that’s a bridge we’ll have to cross when we reach it …”

Neither man had any more to say and they lay quiet for a while, enjoying their inactivity and the solid ground beneath them, dozing on the grass as they waited for time to pass, and it seemed to Tam Sinclair that he had barely closed his eyes when the slap of Will’s hand against his thigh startled him awake.

“Come, you, let’s away. The man Mungo should be waiting for us by now. Scotland awaits us, and the tide is rising.”

Tam rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, but before they set out along the winding cliff-top path that would lead them down the long and difficult descent to the beach, he looked out again at the vastness of the waters. “D’you think Sir Charles will find his Merica?”

“No, Tam, I don’t. No more than I believe, in my heart, that King Robert the Bruce is dead. Pray God that neither should turn out to be the case.”

Wordlessly, Tam turned almost a quarter circle and gazed to the north, where the sea looked just as vast and limitless, but he knew that in that direction lay his homeland, and that, weather permitting, they would find it in mere days.