Order in Chaos

OBEDIENCE

ONE

The upheaval took Will Sinclair completely by surprise, although, looking back on it, he could see that all the signs of its imminence had been there and he had merely chosen not to see them. Some of the brethren muttered about it afterwards as a revolt, or a mutiny, but Will himself was never sure what to call it. If revolt it actually was, it was not widespread, and it was quickly quelled, but its ramifications were profound because it ran counter to the Temple’s centuries-old traditions of brotherhood, tolerance, and obedience to authority within the Order, and it demonstrated the extent to which discipline had declined in the preceding years. Those truths alone made the events of that day, the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, significant enough to trigger an explosion of displeasure from Sir William Sinclair the likes of which none of his chapter had ever seen.

He literally walked into the fight that began and ended the affair, and for several moments he stood blinking, unable to come to terms with what he was seeing. But then, as awareness swept over him, so too did anger, and the unexpectedness of both combined to propel him instantly from deep concentration into cold and implacable fury.

He had been awake since the wee hours of that cold January morning, roused long before Vespers with the news that Sir James Douglas, newly arrived from the mainland in pitch darkness and a raging storm, sought urgent audience with him. Those words had banished all sleepiness from his mind, and within the quarter hour he had created a stir that had serving brothers bustling everywhere—lighting fresh fires and refueling old ones against the bitter winter chill; preparing tables, chairs, candles, and tapers for instant use; and arranging for hot food and dry clothing to be provided for the famished newcomers. Douglas’s visit would be brief, Will had learned, for his ship had not come to Arran apurpose. He and his men were on their way to Ireland, carrying messages for King Robert’s brother Edward Bruce, who was there attempting to raise mercenaries and create alliances on his brother’s behalf with some of the Irish kings. But they had run afoul of a squadron of English ships soon after leaving the sea arm of Loch Awe, and although they had evaded them with relative ease, the maneuvers of the night chase had left them at the mercy of the storm in the Firth of Clyde, with little option but to run for Arran, which they had expected to visit only on their return journey.

By and large, though, the tidings that Douglas brought with him were good: Bruce’s progress through the Highlands of his realm was going well and, as Douglas gleefully declared in the course of the short time he was able to spend with Will, the house of Comyn had fallen upon ill times long overdue. The proud Earls of Buchan and Ross had surrendered and bowed the knee to Bruce, he reported, almost crowing with satisfaction, and the seething Comyn brood, including the contentious MacDougalls of Lorn and Argyll, would never again pose a danger to King Robert.

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.

Moments later he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and Tam Sinclair came around the base of the tower, followed by the man Talressin. Tam drew up short as soon as he came into view, his gaze sweeping along the kneeling men and coming to rest on the pile of weapons at Will’s feet.

“You want them locked up, Sir William?”

“I do. And in chains, hand and foot.”

Tam nodded abruptly, his face expressionless. “Aye. My men will be here quickly, and we’ll have these fellows out o’ here.” He stepped smartly backwards as Sir Richard de Montrichard came hurrying towards them, accompanied by two of his officers, all three of them bareheaded and wearing the new, closely trimmed beards that signified the new order. De Montrichard held up a hand to stop his two companions and made his way directly to Will, although he never took his eyes from the kneeling men in front of them. The helmeted one was recovering quickly, reeling drunkenly but still propped up by his neighbors on each side.

“What has been happening here, Sir William?” De Montrichard spoke from the corner of his mouth, his eyes on the prisoners, and still distant, Will heard nailed boot soles thumping in double time, Tam’s hastily summoned guards approaching.

“A breach of discipline,” Will answered, his voice a monotone. “Fighting among themselves, with full intent to kill. One of them, as you can see, sustained a wound. His assailant attacked me when I sought to stop them, and I had to deal with him.”

De Montrichard gasped. “Are you injured?”

“No, I am well enough. He caused me no difficulty.”

“I’ll have him flogged for this. Who is he?”

“No, Sir Richard.” Will took de Montrichard by the arm and led him aside to where they could not be overheard. “You will not punish him, nor will I. This transgression goes well beyond the bounds of normal punishment within the ranks. What happened here was an assault against the Rule that binds us all, and it must be dealt with formally, in full chapter, as soon as may be arranged. The brethren in chapter, after due process, may decide to have him flogged, but that decision is beyond the jurisdiction of you or me.”

De Montrichard glanced sidelong at Will, then nodded and turned back to face the brawlers, clasping his hands at his back as the arriving guards clattered up and were ordered by Tam Sinclair to take the eight prisoners into custody. But before they moved away, De Montrichard stepped forward and held up a hand to stay them, then indicated the knight in the helmet.

“That man. Remove his helmet and show his face.”

One of the guards unlaced the tight cap covering the prisoner’s head and pushed it back to reveal the fellow’s face, freeing the unkempt mass of the beard that had been concealed beneath it in defiance of Will’s recent order that all beards should be close-trimmed if not completely shaven. Will looked closely at the man but felt no stir of recognition. The prisoner was clearly one of the garrison knights from La Rochelle, and most of those were still unknown to him, despite the close quarters in which they had all lived for more than a month now.

De Montrichard, on the other hand, clearly knew the man now standing before them.

“Martelet,” he said, his voice cold with distaste. “I should have known. The rest of you, show your faces.”

One by one, the group surrounding the man called Martelet loosened the thongs binding their armored caps and pushed them back to expose their bearded faces. Without exception, they were closely shorn, all of them showing varying degrees of recentness in their barbering.

De Montrichard nodded. “Take them away,” he ordered.

Tam barked a string of commands, and the entire column of prisoners and guards straightened in response and was soon following him away towards the building in the inner bailey that held the iron storage cages that served as temporary cells. Will watched them go, one arm across his waist, its wrist supporting his other elbow as he stroked his lower lip with the side of his finger.

“What should I know of this Martelet, Sir Richard?”

De Montrichard sniffed. “A malcontent and a hothead. Did you hear about the affair off the Isle of Sanda, when several knights tried to go ashore and their boat had to be sunk in order to stop them?” Will nodded. “Well, that was Martelet, the ringleader as always. It is good that he be tried in chapter. Perhaps the seriousness of that will have an effect on him.”

Will straightened, dropping his hand from his mouth to his shoulder. “I doubt it. He strikes me as being too arrogant, and too far gone from the way of the Rule, to change his ways now without … redirection. A flogging and a month of bread and water might bring him to heel, but it might not. And if not, what then? We will have to deal with him according to the Rule. When was the last time we walled up one of our own to die, can you remember? I can’t. It must have been fifty years ago at least. Not since the fighting years in the Holy Land, as far as I know. But that could be what we are facing here …” He paused, considering what he had said, then nodded. “Thank you for coming, Sir Richard. I regret having had to summon you, but I thought it best you should be informed, as preceptor.”

“And you were correct. You spoke of convening a chapter meeting. When will that be?”

“The day after tomorrow, in Brodick Hall, if that suits you. But I know it is your right to choose the time and place, so if you wish—”

“Not at all. You are the senior here, and charges of this seriousness cannot be made to wait on convenience. I am content.”

“My thanks, then. I will make the arrangements today and send off word to Brodick, so that they’ll be ready. We ourselves, the entire garrison, will march down there tomorrow at dawn. Can you be ready by then?”

“I’m ready now, but tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. The bishops will not be happy to forgo their ceremonies.”

“Regrettable, but they have no choice. We will march before daybreak, and if Fortune serves us well, we will get to Brodick Hall by nightfall. The bishops can then have their postponed ceremonies that day, prior to chapter opening. A day late, certainly, but no less sincere … God knows what we are about, and knows the difficulties that we face here. I have no doubt He will accept the necessity of what we have to do, and will make allowances for us.”

De Montrichard nodded, his face somber. “I agree with you completely. So mote it be. And now I will leave you to your arrangements … Unless you have some other use for me?”

“My thanks, Richard. I will not hesitate to call on you if I do have need of you.”

Will watched as the other man rejoined his officers and went away. Sir Richard de Montrichard was nominally in charge of all garrison affairs, as his rank of preceptor decreed, but he had been a major disappointment to Will, for he had turned out, under pressure, to be a weak reed. As vice-preceptor in La Rochelle, working under the redoubtable Arnold de Thierry, he had shown all the necessary promise of becoming an excellent commander in due time, but in the event—perhaps because of the murder of his superior, or perhaps because of the unsettling events of October thirteenth—he had fallen far short of his promise and had been largely ineffectual as a leader and commander. Will could find nothing to put his finger on that would justify replacing him with someone else, but he felt, nonetheless, that de Montrichard might be better off, to the advantage of everyone else involved, relieved of his responsibilities and relocated, indeed relegated, to a more contemplative and less active role in the Order’s affairs on Arran. It was a problem Will had spent time considering in the month since their arrival on the island, but as yet he found himself unable to decide upon a satisfactory resolution. There was no one at this point, at least no one obvious, whom he could promote to fill de Montrichard’s position satisfactorily, and that troubled him.

Now he found himself having to reassess all his thinking on the matter, for he had seen in de Montrichard more life, and more initiative, and more willingness to become involved in things than he had seen in the previous two and a half months. He resolved to take advantage of the signs, and to test the matter further in the hope that the preceptor might be consigning the safe haven of his earlier life to a previous existence. If that were the case, no one would be happier, more relieved, or more eager to reinstate de Montrichard to his former status than Will Sinclair himself.

He was interrupted in his reverie by the sound of approaching footsteps as Tam returned, carrying a ring of heavy keys. He held them up for Will to see. “I thought it might be just as well to keep these under close guard, if what I saw here was what I think it was.” He tucked the large metal ring securely down behind his belt, leaving the keys themselves to dangle at his waist, and Will smiled wearily, amused and touched, as always, by his kinsman’s concern for him.

“And what was it you thought you saw?”

Tam grunted eloquently and lapsed into the dialect he and Will had spoken as boys. “Well, for one thing, I saw you girnin’ like a madman, mair angry than I’ve seen you in many a month. You had that ‘dinna dare look at me or I’ll cut your heart out’ glower that ye sometimes get on your face. And then there was that Martley fellow, still wi’ a long beard. That tell’t me he wasna about to take your word for anythin’ and that wee bit o’ defiance was his way o’ showin’ it, even though he didna ha’e the guts to dae it openly, where you could see it. He needs to be taken down a peg or two, that yin.”

Will started to respond, but then waited when he saw that Tam was not yet done.

“Forbye,” the other continued, “I didna like the way his cronies there were lookin’ at him for support, even though he’d nane to gi’e them. I didna like that at all … They’re whiners, every whey-faced one o’ them, no’ a real set o’ balls among them, and he’s recruited them to whatever he’s up to … So I thought, if there’s any more o’ their ilk about, I’d save them from bein’ tempted to let him out. And so I kept the keys. Now, will ye be convenin’ a chapter meeting? An’ if so, where and when?”

“What made you think I might?”

Will’s question produced an almost exasperated look. “Because it’s owerdue. Tomorrow’s the Epiphany feast, so there will need to be a full Mass wi’ all the rites an’ ceremonies, the bishops dressed up in their finery. So it seemed as good a time as any, and better than most, wi’ all the work ye have everybody slavin’ on. Besides, it seems to me ye’ve forgotten Master de Molay’s wallet …”

Will frowned. “No, I have not, I’ve merely been preoccupied. But what about the wallet?”

“The date on it, Will. It’s to be opened tomorrow, on the sixth o’ January.”

“I know that, Tam. Did you really think I might have forgotten something so important?”

“No … but ye’ve had other things to occupy ye. What’s to be done about it?”

The question nettled Will, for it was one he had been struggling with, on and off, for weeks. What, indeed, was to be done about it? The Grand Master’s missive would have to be opened and read on the date named, he knew; he had no choice on that aspect of things. But the ramifications of reading it and the speculations arising from that had been keeping him awake in recent weeks. The possibility of the letter’s containing anything good was less than slight. It had been written months before, predating the events with which it must now deal, and those events had been more appalling, more sweeping, and far more destructive than de Molay could possibly have envisioned. Within the intervening months, on the other hand, Will had managed to establish an equilibrium among his charges, focusing tightly on the creation of a new community and their shared need to create order out of the chaos into which they had been thrown. His greatest fear now, barely admitted even to himself, was that Master de Molay’s words might undo all that Will had worked so hard to achieve here. He had had nightmares about opening the letter to find orders instructing him to return to La Rochelle with his companions and their ships; orders written in complete ignorance that such a move would be suicidal after four months of persecution and banishment.

He realized that Tam was waiting for a response, and nodded brusquely. “Aye, well, I’ll read it tomorrow, and all we can do is hope that what it contains has not been rendered senseless by what’s happened since it was written. I had already decided on that, while you were locking up the prisoners. Their case is too urgent to be set aside, Tam. It needs to be dealt with as soon as may be. So I have called a chapter meeting for the day after tomorrow. Depending upon what the wallet contains by way of instructions, it might make my task less difficult.”

Tam shrugged. “Aye, or more so. Ye never ken, wi’ superiors … If ye unnerstand what I’m sayin’.”

Will ignored the comment and the mischievous grin that went with it, and answered seriously. “Well, so be it, if that’s what comes. So, now I need you horsed and on your way to Brodick with these tidings. Will you take Mungo with you? No? Then get yourself some food and oats from the commissary and be ready to leave within the hour. By then I’ll have written dispatches for Kenneth and Bishop Formadieu, and they’ll be waiting for you to collect on your way out.”

Will walked quickly back to his quarters, aware that the hour he had claimed for writing his dispatches would be barely long enough to accommodate all he required of it.

On the day of the Baroness’s departure—Will had scarcely thought of her since, and when she did happen into his thoughts, he could manage a tiny smile at her memory before turning determinedly to other things—he had addressed a plenary gathering of his men and expressed his wishes concerning their conduct from that day on. He made no attempt to underplay his concerns, and clearly described the threat that they now represented to the monarch through their very presence in his realm. The brethren listened in silence, heeding everything he had to say, and no one made any demur when he issued commands that, henceforth, all forked and therefore recognizably Templar beards should be cut severely, all heraldic symbols and devices bearing Temple associations were to be painted out or otherwise concealed, and their distinctive armor was to be stored away. They faced no danger of pitched battle here in the safety of their island refuge, he pointed out, and therefore plain armor—mailed shirts and leggings, with hammered leather guards—would be more than ample henceforth. Horses were not to be ridden in disciplined formations, and were to be stabled in small groups of eight or fewer, far enough apart from their neighbors to offer no curious stranger an opportunity to assess their type or overall numbers.

He had then split his entire force, leaving his brother Kenneth in command of his own one-hundred-strong contingent of knights and sergeants, to occupy the great English hall at Brodick, assisted by the veteran knight Reynald de Pairaud as adjutant and by Sir Edward de Berenger as naval adviser whenever he was in residence. Brodick would become the de facto headquarters of the Temple force on Arran, and as such would become the home of Bishop Formadieu and his chancel of clerics and lay brethren. Their task would be to establish the community that would nourish the Brotherhood of the Order. The neighboring bay of Lamlash would serve as anchorage for the trading vessels of their little fleet, and the majority of their horseflesh, mainly the lighter breeds, would be scattered throughout the rolling moorland inland from Brodick.

The remainder of the land-based fighting men, approximately a hundred plus one score, would be relocated to the northwest coast of the island, to Lochranza, the castle formerly owned by the disgraced chieftain of Menteith. The castle there sat high above a secure and easily defensible harbor that would serve as the home base of the galley fleet, and its garrison would be the former garrison of La Rochelle. More than half of the heavy horseflesh would be taken up there, too, and kept in the steep-sided, amply grassed mountain valleys surrounding the castle, as secure as they could possibly be from prying eyes.

There had been other details, and not all of them had been well received by the brethren. There had been muttering and disgruntlement among the ranks in the days that followed, but apart from keep an ear cocked for real trouble, in which he was unobtrusively assisted by Tam and Mungo, Will had ignored the grumblings, content to let time and habit erode the resistance to his changes. Clearly, though, he had missed at least one pocket of willful resistance, and that was what he intended to stamp out.

Finding writing materials at his work table, he quickly wrote out his instructions to Kenneth regarding victualing and accommodations for the arriving garrison from Lochranza. They would be arriving after a twenty-mile march and would be hungry and weary, perhaps more so than usual, he warned his brother, because Will intended to push them harder on this occasion than he normally would, testing their endurance for the first time since their landing, and using the opportunity to remind them of the discipline they might have been tempted to neglect.

The second missive he penned was to Bishop Formadieu, ordering immediate preparations for a chapter gathering to be held the day after Epiphany. The gathering of the knights would take place in darkness, as always, and under guard, shut off from outside eyes and ears. It would begin before Vespers and would last until all the business of the chapter was concluded. Although it was uncommon for chapter meetings to extend beyond the break of day, it was not unknown, and certainly on this occasion Will was concerned over the amount that had to be accomplished in this one session, even without the additional drama of a trial for disobedience, conspiracy, mutiny, and assault upon a superior. He took greater pains with his instructions to the Bishop than he had with those to his brother, despite knowing that the cleric needed no instruction in the details of what was required in chapter, because he wished to be as precise as he could be, and he had no desire to have the clerical contingent of the chapter overreach itself in seeking to gain too much influence over the flow of things. Will had had enough of that nonsense, although he knew it would never stop as long as there remained a priest who aspired to wear a miter someday. But the ambition of bishops, prelates, and clerics in general he could handle with ease. Because he had no fear of any of their threats, they were powerless to browbeat or manipulate him. The law of the Order stated that, in chapter, all men’s voices were equal; the newest knight among them could raise his voice in argument with the most august Archbishop, and that was the equality that Will wanted to safeguard most.

From that viewpoint, he wanted the trial of Martelet and his associates out of the way first. Then, once they had been removed, he wanted to read the parchments from the Grand Master, in the hope that the contents would provide instruction for their group at this most difficult time. After that, once all the judgments were ratified and the instructions from the Master had been admitted to the records of the chapter, there would come a plenary assembly of all the members of the Order, irrespective of rank, at which the instructions of the Master and the wishes of the chapter would be made known.

By the time he had finished that second letter, signing and sealing both documents, Tam was already there, waiting to take possession of the dispatches. He left immediately, buckling them carefully into the scrip that hung from his belt as he went. Will sat for a moment, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, then rose to his feet and went to talk to Bishop Bruno, the senior cleric in Lochranza, and then to review the final details of the preparations being made by de Montrichard’s officers for the gathering of troops and livestock for the following day’s journey.

TWO

Ever since joining the Order at the age of eighteen, one of Will’s greatest pleasures had been listening to the plainsong chants of the assembled brotherhood in chapter. The heavy resonance of massed adult male voices singing within the confines of a vaulted church filled with the aroma of precious incense and illuminated only by candles and tapers in the dark hours before the dawn provided him with an experience that was as close to mystical as anything he had ever known. The amalgam of song, echoes, incense, and flickering light encouraged him to believe, although infrequently, that God was up there somewhere, looking down on such activities with benign approval.

At Brodick Hall, however, there was no vaulted ceiling over their heads. The chapter was convened in the large southern antechamber, and armed men guarded the doors against intrusion. The music was as deep and resonant as ever, but the high-ceilinged room dwarfed the proceedings and muted the effect. Now, as the last notes of the antiphon died away into silence, the assembled knights began to shuffle their feet and clear their throats, but before anyone could speak, Sir Reynald de Pairaud rose to his feet and stood in plain view, one hand upraised in the traditional plea to be given leave to speak in chapter. The old man, whom Will had fully expected to oppose him on the changes he wished to make, had in fact been surprisingly supportive and, according to his brother, had been performing admirably as Kenneth’s adjutant in the month since Will’s departure for the north.

Will, as the sole representative of the Governing Council, was the senior member in chapter, superseding the preceptor, de Montrichard, who would normally occupy the Chair in the East. And so Will sat alone on the dais on the east side of the darkened chamber, with the preceptor on the Northern dais to his right and Vice-Admiral de Narremat, representing the naval presence in the absence of Sir Edward de Berenger, on the South, to his left. Bishop Formadieu, the green-robed senior prelate of the Order, sat facing Will at the far end of the floor, on the Western dais, and behind him sat the clerical members of the secretariat who would record every word of the proceedings. The brotherhood of the chapter at large sat ranged on chairs on the northern and southern sides of the squared floor.

It fell to Will, as Master-in-Chapter, to recognize the speakers and to decide whether they should be allowed to speak when they wished. He glanced around the chapter chamber, taking note of where the accused mutineer, Martelet, stood to his left with his co-accused, in chains and under guard. Will could not see the man’s face, but the length of his beard, defiantly pulled into a forked split with bare fingers, underlined his obduracy. Will turned his gaze back upon de Pairaud.

“Brother Reynald, Brother Preceptor has informed me that you wish to address the brethren.”

“I do, Brother William.” De Pairaud turned deliberately to look at Martelet, then turned to face Will again. “It concerns the matter of the letter from our beloved Master de Molay that is to be read here today, Brother. I raised the point with Brother Preceptor when it first occurred to me, and he was most insistent that I bring it your attention here in chapter, deferring to your senior rank.” He cleared his throat. “The sequence of events for our deliberations in chapter has traditionally been to deal with disciplinary matters before moving on to the business of the community at large.” He hesitated, glancing down at his hands, and then looked back at Will again. “It has occurred to me—and I emphasize that what I am about to suggest is no more than that, a suggestion—that it might be of value, in this present instance, to read the letter from the Master now, in the presence of the accused miscreants.” The stillness in the large room was absolute, with every pair of eyes fixed upon the aging knight, who now scratched his beard delicately before continuing.

“We have had no guidance of any kind from our superiors within the Order since leaving France, and it seems clear to me that we stand in grave need of such guidance. I know that the letter in question does not truly fit that need, since it was written prior to the events that led to our leaving France. But it is, at least, a message from our Master, and one can only presume that it was written in the light of the dilemma in which Master de Molay found himself at the time of writing.” Again he stopped, as though waiting to be interrupted, but no one sought to question him or challenge what he was saying, and eventually he shrugged his shoulders. “I merely feel, in my heart, that the accused here, all eight of them, should be permitted to hear whatever the Master might have said to us before they go on trial. It might be that the advice and guidance therein, intended for all of us, could have some effect on them and their behavior. That is all I wished to say.”

Will had known what the veteran knight was going to say, for he had discussed it with de Montrichard the previous night, and now he merely inclined his head in agreement towards de Pairaud before rising to his feet and moving to stand behind his ceremonial chair.

“So mote it be. In recognition of Sir Reynald’s eloquence and plea, the prisoners will be permitted this privilege on this unique occasion. And unique it is, for it will never be repeated.” He picked up the heavy leather wallet that had been lying on the small table beside his chair.

“This is the first occasion of our gathering as a community in this new land. Not the first gathering, for that was on the beach in Lamlash, but certainly the first gathering we have had as a community beginning to establish itself. I know I have no need to tell any of you how difficult a task we face, attempting our own rebirth here on Arran, and particularly so since we must do it without guidance, solving our own problems for the first time in two hundred years without recourse to our annals, records, and histories. But we are not without resources of our own. We may not have our complete written records in our possession, but thanks be to Almighty God, we have our memories, our lessons, our awareness of how things ought to be according to the Rule by which we are sworn to live. We have sufficiency of all of those, working together in concert and in mutual goodwill, to achieve what we must achieve, and to begin again, if need be.”

The mention of beginning again, of starting over, brought a chorus of muttering and speculation, and Will held up one hand to quell it.

“I know what all of you are thinking, and it is all contained in those last words of mine … if need be. We might have no such need, but at this time we do not know, one way or the other. We have ships homeward bound at sea, and by this time, God willing, they are on their way back from France, and they will bring us tidings of how things are for our brethren there. But until they come we cannot know the truth, and it has been three months now, lacking but six days, since we left in obedience to the Master’s command. But the Master gave me this to bring with us, and commanded that it be opened this day … well, yesterday, in fact. But here it is, and since our good Brother Reynald reads better than most of us and has a loud, clear voice, I will invite him to come here to me, in the East, and to deliver the tidings of our Master to your ears. Brother Reynald, will you come forward?”

De Pairaud stood and walked the length of the chamber to where Will, who had opened the leather wallet by that time, handed him the letter it had contained.

“Check that the seal remains intact, if you will, and then announce it to everyone, so there is no misunderstanding.”

De Pairaud glanced at the inscription and then, slightly baffled, looked up at Will from beneath bushy gray brows. “But this is for you, Sir William. Your name is clearly inscribed here.”

“It is addressed to me because I am the conduit between Master de Molay and the brethren here. Open it and read it to them. There will be nothing contained therein that was not meant for other eyes to read.”

The knight addressed himself to examining the package. He held the seal close to his eyes, peering at it intently, then held the package high in the air.

“Brethren, I have here, as you can see, a sealed package inscribed to Sir William Sinclair and bearing the unbroken seal of our Master, Jacques de Molay, and although it is addressed to himself directly, Sir William has requested that I read it now to you, from the Eastern Chair, in earnest of the importance of the tidings, guidance, and instructions that it may contain. Thus, if you will grant me a few moments, I shall do what Sir William asks of me.”

He inserted his thumb beneath the seal, scattering shards of wax as he opened the wrappings and took the contents in his free hand. It fell into three parts, the first a rolled letter, loosely bound with a leather string and written on several heavy sheets of hand-cut parchment, the second another letter, more tightly rolled and bearing the Master’s personal seal. The third piece was an oblong packet tightly encased in thick waxed cloth, again bearing Will’s name but clearly marked as being for his eyes alone. De Pairaud set it down wordlessly on the table by Will’s chair, where it landed with a solid, heavy sound. De Pairaud held the second, smaller letter out to Will, who shrugged but made no attempt to take it. De Pairaud shrugged in return and set the sealed missive down on the table, too, and then pulled open the primary letter, clearing his throat reflexively as he held the text up, turning it towards the light.

“It says here—” He stopped, recognizing the banality of what he was saying, then began to read the letter aloud in a high, clear voice.

The Temple in Paris

To our good and faithful brother, William Sinclair, Honorable Member of the Governing Council of the Order of the Knights of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon; Greetings from Jacques de Molay, Master.

My Dear Brother,

Having delivered my instructions to you on the matters currently unfolding here in our Homeland of France, and in the full and confident knowledge that you will obey them in their entirety, I now feel a need to enlarge upon my thoughts, expressed to you in our recent colloquy, in order to ensure that no man, of any rank or station, might be enabled to question you regarding the propriety of anything that you might hereafter pursue or attempt in my name or in the name of our Holy Order.

Accordingly, I have decided to confide in you at greater length, explaining some elements of my thoughts and beliefs that I have not thought appropriate to reveal to my fellow Councilors for reasons that will become apparent as I continue.

I have now come to believe, with great reluctance and frustrated incredulity, that the warnings I have received are correct in every aspect, and that our Holy Order, despite its well-accredited record of exemplary service and unstinting support for the Church and its Christian beliefs and objectives, has become the target for an unscrupulous campaign of calumny and perfidious lies aimed at destroying our reputation and the credibility we achieved over two hundred years of faithful service.

I am equally convinced that the source of this scurrilous campaign is the King himself, Philip, the fourth of that name of the House of Capet, and for the first time in a lifetime of service to this Order, I am experiencing both fear and despair, because in our coming hour of need there is no source of succor and support to which we may safely turn. The worldwide resources of our Order are of no use to us in this extremity, since we have insufficient time to marshal those resources and broadcast what we know, and even were that not the case, we have no proof to offer in the area of our suspicions: nothing has yet occurred to justify our misgivings, and by the time it does, we will be faced with a fait accompli.

My despair stems from our loyalty to, and support of, the Pope, the Vicar of Christ and the See of Rome. We swear our sacred oath of loyalty and obedience, as an Order, to the reigning pope, and have done so ever since our founding, and for more than one hundred and fifty years, our Brotherhood has stood staunchly by that oath and formed the standing army of the Church, dedicated to enforcing and supporting the will of the pontiff.

But now I fear we have a pontiff who is more concerned with pleasing and propitiating the King of France than he is with safeguarding the welfare of the Church of Rome and its faithful adherents. Clement V was created by Philip Capet, for all intents and purposes, and may be just as quickly uncreated. All men of conscience know, within themselves, that Philip, through the machinations of his chief lawyer, William de Nogaret, has already effected the certain death of one pope who displeased him, and is suspected of having poisoned that one’s successor, clearing the way for Clement’s accession to the Throne of Peter. Clement himself requires no reminders of that truth, and so will bend to the wishes of his grasping, money-hungry master.

These words I can say to you alone, knowing from our discussions that you are of like mind. What then can we do, who are bound by oath and honor itself, to escape the malevolence, or even in this case the indifference, of our titular earthly Master, when he chooses to accept the case being argued against us in absentia?

In that light, I must assume that the events foretold for Friday the thirteenth of October will come to pass, and that you, God willing, will read these words of mine three months thereafter, on the Feast of the Epiphany in the coming year. Within those three months, one of two things will have—must have—taken place.

The first, most reasonable, and devoutly wished of those is that the King of France will have admitted himself to be in error in suspecting our noble Order of whatever might have precipitated his actions in the first place, and will be in consultation with the senior Administrative Council of the Order to seek a resolution to the entire affair. The sole alternative, failing that, is that the Crown will have completed its machinations against the Order, and the Holy Inquisition will be in full pursuit of the adherents of the Temple at every level of French society, in every stratum of involvement, and the State, allied with the Church, will be immersed in the process of confiscating all the assets, liquid and fixed, real estate and specie, of the Order of the Temple in France.

It is a bleak and dismal prospect that lies stretched ahead of us, dear Brother, but should the former instance prove to be the case, and our Order be judicially and morally absolved of sedition and treasonous intent, then it is not unreasonable to assume that word of such amicable resolution might not yet have come to you in whatever place you happen to be. Therefore you should bestir yourself, for the good of all, to ship envoys back to France as soon as may be practicable, taking care that they bear no mark, insignia, or rank that might identify them as Temple adherents and thus endanger them. These men should go ashore, comporting themselves as simple merchants with no interest in the affairs of France, and should discover for themselves the condition of the Temple fraternity within the French state.

The second alternative is far less pleasant to contemplate and will demand great fortitude from you since, by definition, it entails the virtual extinction of the Order of the Temple in France—and I must add that this is now my personal expectation of what is about to happen. Capet, I firmly believe, is heart-set upon the destruction of the Temple. It may be because we refused him entrance to our own ranks—a slur his pride will not let him digest—but I believe that is but a contributory factor. Morally and financially bankrupt, Capet is envious of our wealth, and his treasury is permanently empty. In our hands he sees the great accumulation of lands and holdings, shipping and trading specie on earth, forever unavailable to him without indebting himself further, and the thought of it has been too overwhelming for him to contemplate without lusting to possess it.

Should that come to pass, Brother William, then the Order of which I am the twenty-third consecutive and duly consecrated Master will in all probability cease to exist within this land. And if that be the sin of Despair, then I know not how to avoid it, for I am become sufficient of a Cynic to recognize another such, and this one of overwhelming capacity, in the distant, unapproachable, and inhuman personality of our anointed King, Philip IV of France.

Despite our power and strength, Philip will win this struggle, for he has the Church at his beck and call, the Pope securely in his pocket. With that support, the compliance and even the complicity of the Pope himself, he is become invincible against us. And only such support would embolden him, powerful as he is, to mount such an obviously avaricious and covetous attack against the first and greatest and most honored of the Church’s military Orders. And Philip will do his worst. I anticipate torture and coercion, to gain our secrets, besmirch our honor, and establish our guilt—albeit for what, and to what end, remains to be seen. And therein lies the reason for my reluctance to share these thoughts with any other. Such thoughts are treasonous. But no man may reveal, under torture, things that he does not know. And for that good and sufficient reason, rather than endanger any of my clerics with the possession of such knowledge, I have seen fit to entrust the writing of these lines to a trusted scribe who will have returned to his home in Cyprus before the date of which we speak and will thus be safe from whatever might take place in France.

It is my belief that we will be fortunate to retain anything tangible at the end of the purge that lies ahead. Everything our Order holds will vanish into the coffers of Philip’s treasury and the Vatican’s vaults—not necessarily in evenly divided portions. Thereafter, if any of our brethren remain alive, they will face a return to the earliest days of the Order itself, when each knight personally and voluntarily abandoned normal life in search of spiritual satisfaction and salvation, swearing the three Great Oaths and accepting utter poverty, laying claim to possession solely of those things, such as weapons, clothing, and horseflesh, that the Order and its adherents held in common. Our days of power and influence within France, at least, are strictly numbered, but my greatest fear is that, beyond the shores of France, the other kings of Christendom will follow Philip’s example, seduced by the prospect of uncountable wealth, there for the taking and unprotected by the Church.

Such matters are beyond my control, Brother William; I merely register them here as matters of concern to me. I myself will stand or fall with our Order in France, wherein it was conceived and brought forth, and since my own vows prevent me from raising a weapon of any kind against my legal superiors, I will submit to whatever judgment or action may be prosecuted against me, irrespective of what I may perceive as its moral worth.

One thing yet lies within my control, my jurisdiction, and my grant as I write this: the delegation of authority within our Order wherever I think fit. To that end I have included with this missive a formal letter of appointment and recognition, duly witnessed by the senior members of the Governing Council and signed and sealed with my official seal as Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, naming our faithful subordinate, Brother William Sinclair, Knight of the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, as Master of the said Order within Scotland, or wheresoever said William Sinclair might find himself upon the cessation of his travels, so be it that he is still among a company of the knights and sergeants of the Order and remains dedicated to the preservation of the ancient secrets and rites of the Order duly passed down to him by his peers, brethren and companions within the Order.

That missive accompanies this letter. Read it aloud in chapter when the time is right, and proceed with my full blessing. May the God of our Fathers watch over and protect you and yours.

In humble fraternity, this seventh day of

October, Anno Domini 1307

Jacques de Molay, Knight and Grand Master

For some time after de Pairaud fell silent no one moved, and there was absolute silence. But then from somewhere among the men on the right of the Eastern dais came a slow and rhythmic sound as one of the knights began to beat his right palm against the side of his leg, in a seldom-used tradition that had become known over the years as the chapter applause. The beat was at once taken up by others and spread quickly until the entire assembly was clapping, the sound of their mailed arms striking the heavy chain mail on their armored sides adding a pronounced, heavily metallic background to the clapping of their open palms against their legs.

Will had experienced similar approval only twice before in all his years in the Order, and on both occasions he had contributed to it in support of others. Twice in a lifetime had now become thrice, and this time he felt the neck hair stirring on his nape, for knights in chapter were more than simply sparing in such applause; the conferral of the honor indicated wholehearted approval of some signal development or deed. Strictly speaking, it went against the rules of chapter, since no voice was ever to be heard therein that did not belong to an approved speaker, but technically, no voice had spoken, and so the point was moot.

Will felt his face flush with pleasure, and he had to fight to maintain his composure, allowing no trace of his feelings to show on his face while he thought about what he should do now. The applause, flattering though it was, was illegal and had to be stopped, but he was loath to curtail it abruptly, for the circumstances of this chapter meeting were already unusual. He glanced sideways to where Martelet and the other prisoners stood in chains, and took note that the ringleader was standing stiffly upright, arms unmoving at his sides, glowering with disdain.

Will looked back at the assembled brothers and raised his hands to shoulder height, slowly and steadily, palms outwards in a request for order, and was glad to hear the steady, pounding beat diminish slowly until it died completely. That way, the silence he had gained was voluntary, not commanded. He stood then and looked out at them, aware of their eyes and their expectancy, but for long moments no words came to him. And then he knew, in a flicker of understanding, what he wanted to say, and he cleared his throat and spoke out clearly.

“This chapter meeting is unique, Brethren, as is our celebration here today. Unique … incomparable and unprecedented. Think upon that word and what it means … Unique. It means singular in all respects; it means unequalled and without parallel. It means new and never previously experienced. And as a word to describe this gathering, it is in every way appropriate.

“Within the history of our Order, there has never been a letter penned that has approached the one that you have heard read here today, or one that has more clearly demonstrated the inner beliefs of our Grand Master concerning the status and welfare of this organization, the safety and propagation of which had been entrusted to his care. That, in itself, is unique.

“Since the birth of our Order, two centuries ago, even in the seething chaos of the campaigns in Outremer against the Seljuk Turks and against the Syrian Sultan Saladin and his Muslim hosts, there has never been a time when any new preceptory of our Order has had to set down roots without any guidance or support from the senior authorities of the Governing Council. We here in this chapter are the first such instance. And that, more solemnly and somberly, more chasteningly and more regrettably than anything else imagination might encompass, is unique.”

He looked around at the assembled faces of the brotherhood as he gave them time to absorb what he had said, seeing the frowns of consternation spreading as his words sank home.

“We are alone here, Brethren, in a situation and place that half a year ago would have been inconceivable. And so we must govern and constrain ourselves. Without hope of help from any source. Our closest associates, the Brethren of the Temple in England, are shut off from us, unaware of our existence here, and I fear, because of politics and our obligation to King Robert, we dare not trust them with the knowledge of our presence. Therefore we must govern ourselves. And we must begin now, today, this minute.”

He paused again and turned his head to cast a meaningful look towards where the prisoners stood watching him disconsolately, and no man there misunderstood the solemnity of that gesture.

“Before we move to trial, though, we must address the matter of the Master’s solemn charge, as contained in the second document that accompanied his letter.” He turned to de Pairaud again. “Brother Reynald, will you be good enough to break the Master’s seal and read his announcement to our chapter?”

De Pairaud was ready this time, and nodded curtly before taking up the second letter, breaking the seal firmly and without hesitation, so that the sound of pieces of the shattered sealing wax hitting the wooden floor were clearly audible. He then held the tightly rolled parchment up in front of him and pulled it open with his other hand, scanning the contents for a few moments before he harrumphed and began to read again. To All Brethren and Adherents of the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, and to All Men at large, of whatever Rank or Station:

Be It Known that I, Jacques de Molay, threeand-twentieth Grand Master of the aforesaid Order, with full approval and support of the Brotherhood of the Governing Council of the said Order, do hereby announce the Appointment and Elevation of our well-beloved and distinguished Brother, Sir William Edward Alexander Sinclair of Roslin in the Realm of Scotland, to the position of Master in Scotland.

And be it further known that should it come to pass that I, as Grand Master, along with my senior Brethren of the Order in France, be prevented, either by death or incarceration, from performing our Duties or Appointing suitable Successors to Our Offices, then the aforesaid William Edward Alexander Sinclair, Master in Scotland, will be Raised, ipso facto, into the Title and Entitlements, Responsibilities and Duties of Grand Master of the Order, becoming the four-and-twentieth Holder and Executor of that High Station.

So Mote It Be

By My Hand, this fourth day

of October, Anno Domini 1307

De Molay, Grand Master

Will Sinclair was as stunned as any man present. Master in Scotland had been surprise enough; he had never dreamed, even fleetingly, of such an honor. But elevation to the Grand Master’s Chair defied belief. But as he recovered and his thoughts began to race again, he saw this elevation for what it was—the strongest possible gesture of support from de Molay, who well understood the task facing Will.

The thump of hands began again, but this time Will was quick to wave it into silence with a single slash of his hand. “I thank you for your support, Brethren,” he said. “But it is misguided. There is nothing to support at this time, and pray God there never will be. Master de Molay, to the best of our knowledge, is alive and well, along with the other officers of our Order. It has been nigh on a month since we sent off four of our ships to trade along the coasts of France in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean seas. I expect the return of any or all of them daily now. But tidings we will have, very soon. Only then, armed with sound knowledge, will we be able to do anything realistic to address the situation in our homeland. In the meantime, we have more than enough to occupy us in building a home for ourselves here, temporary though we hope it might be. I shall speak more of that later, but at this time we have graver matters to consider.” He pointed without looking towards the clump of prisoners on his left.

“Mutiny and disobedience.” The words reverberated in the silence they produced. “Eight men stand here in chains, accused of both these sins against the most basic tenet of our Brotherhood. Some might argue that their infringements are but minor, in the overall view of what has happened recently. That is for you to decide here in chapter. I will take no part in this trial. Brother de Montrichard will sit in charge, as is his right as preceptor. But regarding the serious nature of the accusations, I must say this. All of us, every man here present, swore the triple oath upon entering the Order: to adhere to poverty, chastity, and obedience to our superiors in all things. And obedience is primary among those, because without obedience, to the Rule and to our superiors, we are but a rabble, a mob more dangerous than any other, for we are trained to fight and kill, and as a mob, we threaten mayhem to ourselves and all around us.”

He turned deliberately and swept the ranks on either side of him with eyes that held no trace of humor. “Heed me. I speak now as a man, not as the senior member present but as a brother among brethren and a veteran member of this Order, and I speak from my heart. We have been too long away from our daily discipline these past few months—that is a simple truth that you will all acknowledge. But the truth is far greater than that, and far more disquieting. We have drifted too far from our beginnings in recent years. We have grown lax and lazy, all of us, and I can say so loudly and openly here in chapter knowing that the only ears to hear that truth are ours alone.

“Since the fall of Acre and the loss of our holdings in Outremer, we, the knights and sergeants of the Order, have in many respects become a rudderless ship, because our raison d’être, for more than a hundred and fifty years, was the defense and protection of the faith and the Church in the Holy Land. When we lost the struggle there, we lost our way, and, I regret to say, we lost our status in the eyes of men. The fall of Acre fortress, which had been seen as invulnerable and indestructible, was attributed to us, the fault laid at our door. We were the custodian of the Church’s interests in Outremer, and we are seen now as having been negligent in caring for our charges. That is untrue, as every man here knows, but people think it true, and we can now do nothing to change that. Too many decades have elapsed. No one cares about the roll of honor we have earned since we began. No one remembers our successes or the valor of our exploits in bygone days. All they see is failure and the loss of Outremer.”

He lifted his voice to a shout on his next words, seeing the impact of the unexpected sound among the suddenly stiffening ranks. “And we encourage this! The Temple encourages it, through its policies past and current! We make it easy for our scowling enemies to hate us. The Temple pays no taxes, anywhere, and neither do its adherents—the merchants, moneylenders, and guildsmen who gouge and steal for profit under the Temple’s auspices, calling themselves Templars in defiance of the fact that they have never owned a sword or swung a blow in defense of anything other than their own greed … And that includes the so-called Brethren of the Temple, none of whom serve as we do.

“Think upon that, and how it looks to others less fortunate. They see us as laden with privilege, tax free and wealthy beyond credence, while they struggle daily to survive. They see our trading empire and resent it. The churchmen see our letters of marque and credit, and the bullion in our vaults, and the fees we charge, and they think of us as usurers. And all men see us—and rightly so, I fear—as arrogant, intolerant bullies, swaggering about in our forked beards, with rich clothing and the finest horseflesh, behaving with ingrained smugness towards everyone we see as lesser than ourselves, which means they themselves—all of them, everywhere, who are not Templars.”

He stopped, his voice fading as quickly as it had swelled, and then resumed in a quieter, more solemn tone. “That is the truth. And that, at root, is what has undone us in France, and possibly elsewhere. Men may give it different names and ascribe what happened to other causes, but at the bottom of it all, we brought our troubles upon ourselves in recent years by giving people reason to be envious, and resentful, and angry at us for what they perceive us to be. No man here, I believe, can deny the truth of what I have said, if he but takes the times to think on it in conscience.

“But we are here in Scotland now, where, thanks to the efforts and goodwill of our predecessors in this troubled realm, our Order remains highly regarded. I intend to maintain that high regard while we are here. I will explain my plans and issue my commands as Master in Scotland when I return, but for now, I will withdraw and leave it to this chapter to conduct the trial of these men with only one advisory from me: past misdeeds may be forgiven in good conscience and goodwill, but in this instance forgiveness, if such you choose, should be weighed judiciously against the prospects of future behavior. I will say no more. You know the procedures, and you know the punishments involved should your judgment go against them. Commander de Montrichard, if you will send for me when your deliberations on this matter are concluded, I shall then conclude what I wish to say to chapter. In the meantime, the East is yours.”

Will stepped down from the dais and marched swiftly from the chapter meeting, returning directly to his chamber on the second level. Tam Sinclair, just leaving the chamber with an empty basket, having replenished the log supply by the fireplace, stopped as Will came into view and stood, lips pursed, eyes asquint in the dim light.

“Well, are they for entombment?”

Will barely paused. “D’you think they should be?”

“That’s no’ for me to say, but I think a man would have to ha’e done something awfu’ terrible before I’d sentence him to that … bein’ sealed up in a hole in the wall, wi’ no fresh air to breathe. I canna think o’ a worse way to die—ither than bein’ buried alive in a coffin. Come to think o’ it, it’s the same damn thing, except that you gi’e the prisoner bread and water to keep him alive while’s he’s waitin’ to die o’ suffocation. An’ just because he wouldna shave off his beard?”

Will stopped in his tracks and stood motionless for the length of several heartbeats before he shook his head and turned to look at his kinsman.

“No. No, no, no, Tam, that has little to do with it. The beard is unimportant in the overall. It’s the mutiny that’s important—the arrogance, the pride, the example that they set for others by such willful misheed. That is what needs to be nipped in the bud before it can flower and seed itself. And besides, entombment is not an option in this instance. Entombment is the last resort against intransigence. These fellows will probably be sentenced to a month of confinement with bread and water. Martelet might get two months or even three. But he won’t be walled up.”

“You hope,” Tam grunted. “You’re no’ even there to keep an eye on the trial. What if he defies them an’ some idiot loses his head and condemns him? Stranger things have happened.”

“Then I will veto the punishment. But now I have to write, while the trial’s going on. Is there ink ready?”

Tam looked sideways at him, scowling, and did not even deign to answer such a silly question as he swept out, bearing his empty basket.

THREE

Less than an hour had gone by when Will was summoned back to the chapter meeting, and he strode into the assembly carrying the sheet of parchment on which he had listed the points he wished to address in the aftermath of the Master’s letter. He saw at a glance that the prisoners had been removed and that the remaining brethren were standing at attention, awaiting his arrival, but he showed no curiosity about what had transpired. Instead he nodded courteously to the preceptor, who was also on his feet, waiting to relinquish the Eastern dais and command of the chapter gathering to him, but invited him to remain on the dais, in a chair by his side. As soon as de Montrichard was seated, Will invited the brotherhood to be seated.

“Brethren, I will take little more of your time, for this assembly has already been prolonged, but hear my words now, spoken with the authority bestowed upon me as Master in Scotland by the hand of our Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. I have spoken before of my wishes with regard to our deportment while we reside here. I will now repeat them as solemn charges, with, on this sole occasion, some explanation of my reasons, for I cannot underestimate the importance of what you must all understand from this day forth.

“We have been given sanctuary in this land by the grace of its monarch, Robert Bruce, King of Scots, and I have accepted, on behalf of all of us, a firm and moral obligation in return for the privilege of being here.” He paused, aware that every man before him was listening intently. “King Robert stands excommunicate in the eyes of Pope Clement and his adherents in Rome. But he stands thus with the firm and unwavering support of the senior bishops of the Church in Scotland, headed by the Primate of Scotland himself, William Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews in Fife, and William Wishart, Bishop of the See of Glasgow. Such support, in defiance of the papal writ of excommunication, is without equal in the annals of the Church in Christendom, and the most surprising outcome of that support is that the Scottish bishops themselves have not been condemned in their turn by the Curia in Avignon for disobedience. But the reason for that is straightforward enough: the King, through the intermediation of the Scottish bishops, has friends in the Curia, and the excommunication was obtained by the King’s political enemies, arguably for their own ends and for reasons far more political than religious. Accordingly, the writ lies under dispute, and Bishop Moray, acting for Archbishop Lamberton, who is held prisoner in England as a supporter of King Robert, remains confident that the excommunication is reversible in canon law and that the ban will be lifted.

“But here is our dilemma, and the King’s: the excommunication of the King applies to all his people. Under canon law, held in abeyance here by the goodwill of the bishops of the land, all the people of the realm of Scotland stand excommunicate with their King, until such times as they renounce and depose him. Until they do so, no Sacraments may be dispensed to the people of Scotland. But the King is duly and solemnly crowned as Robert I, the crown laid on his brow according to the oldest and most hallowed traditions of this ancient kingdom, and is legally recognized as monarch by the ancient Scottish families of the realm and the noble houses of the Norman French.

“By our simple presence here on this island, we in this chapter pose a greater threat to the eventual resolution of this excommunication than any other source, now that King Robert is well on his way to establishing peace with his enemies. We, the surviving brotherhood of the Temple in France, are a potential embarrassment and an impediment to the King and his bishops, for we ourselves are fugitives, fleeing papal displeasure. We know not, at this point, to what degree we stand formally condemned in the eyes of Holy Church, although we will discover that truth in the days that lie ahead, but we know beyond a doubt that Pope Clement sided with King Philip to bring about the downfall of our Order in our homeland.

“And based upon that, we may know with certainty how great the danger we represent to the King. Should it become known that we are on Arran, under the protection of the King of Scots, his enemies will make great use of our presence here to discomfit him and blacken his character in the eyes of the Church. They will claim that he openly and willfully defies the Pope and militates against the King of France. How can we deny the truth of that, having undergone this baseless royal purge and our ensuing exile these three months past? When matters of state and untold wealth are at stake, men of power may be relied upon to bend their strongest wills towards the confounding of justice and the corruption of truth and moral right. And Robert Bruce stands in defiance of powerful men, here and in England and in the Roman Church itself. That is the stark and simple truth, Brethren.”

He stopped again, and his silence lasted long enough for men to start stirring in their chairs, glancing at one another, the expressions on their faces as different and distinguishable as the faces themselves. And as he watched them he found himself wondering at his own ability to hold them and to speak as he had spoken, aware that he had said more, and more eloquently, than he could ever recall.

“So here is my decision, as Master here, and I announce it now as a resolution in chapter, to be observed and obeyed by this community. We have been working towards this end already, but the need now clearly exists for me to change my previously expressed wishes to an absolute command, enjoining every one of you to absolute obedience, so hear me clearly. As of this day, the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon will vanish from the eyes of men upon this isle of Arran.” He waited for the shock of his words to register and start to dissipate. “It will be simply done.

“Our task, indeed our obligation, from this moment on is to disguise our presence here, protecting ourselves and our identity and in so doing, ensuring the welfare of our gracious host, the King of Scots, from our hands, at least. Therefore the matter of the beards will henceforth stand as law. In addition, all our brethren, save only our bishops and their acolytes, will abandon the monkish tonsure, permitting it to grow out naturally. That is another affectation, dating from the early days of the Church, to distinguish monastics as the slaves of God. We know who we are, we know our duties and responsibilities, and that is all that is required of us. Everything else that could mark us as Templars will be concealed from sight. We will have weapons enough, and we have no enemies here. If enemies do come, we will not lack the means to arm ourselves quickly and prevail, but we will do so as fighting men defending themselves and their possessions, not as armored knights massing in disciplined French squadrons … though there will be time for that, as well, should the need occur.

“We will become invisible, Brethren. Certainly we are many, and we have no womenfolk, but that will pass notice by all but the most inquisitive eyes, and we can deal with those. Scotland is a land at war, and Arran is part of the King’s own personal lands—a safe place to raise and train fresh troops and to house mercenaries. The fact that we are French may become known, but we will be seen as hired warriors, not as Temple brethren. But let me be clear, Brethren, there is nothing in any of what I have said that will change, or contravene, our strict adherence to the Rule that is our way of life. All rites and ceremonies, duties and obligations will continue as before, and strict adherence to the Rule will remain sacrosanct.

“In the matter of battle readiness, training will continue as before, but in small groups, with major exercises and maneuvers regularly scheduled in locations where they may be carried out without being observed by hostile eyes.”

He stood up. “That is the gist of it, Brethren. The recording clerics here will work out all the details and present them to you as they complete them. But there is one thing more that I require of you, and it springs directly from all I have said until now. It is needful, I believe, that we take steps to split our community, in order to lessen the need to travel north and south in noticeable numbers in the prosecution of our tasks, and so I would like to see a subsidiary commandery established in the north, at Lochranza, with its own duly appointed chapter.” He looked down the length of the hall to the assembly of green-clad bishops around the Western dais. “Brother Bishop Formadieu, may I request that you direct your attention towards the completion of that task? I will leave it in your hands to arrange the division of forces and the appointment of a sub-preceptor and officers.” The Bishop stood up and bowed in formal acceptance of the task, and Will looked quickly around the assembly.

“So mote it be. And now, my lord Bishop, if you will lead us in the closing rites, the brethren may depart and think upon all that has been said here today. Senior officers and brethren will join me thereafter in my quarters.”

FOUR

“I have never heard you say so much at one time in all my life, Brother, and I confess, you said it remarkably well. You gave the brethren sufficient food for thought to keep them chewing at the cud for days. What are we drinking?”

Kenneth Sinclair was the first arrival, following Will into his quarters less than a minute after his brother’s own arrival. Will grinned and waved towards the table where Tam had set out cups and jugs of wine.

“I was ever the clever one in the family. What happened at the trial?”

Kenneth busied himself pouring wine for both of them and handed a cup to Will just as approaching footsteps announced the arrival of others. “Solitary time, on bread and water. Two months for Martelet, who showed not a whit of remorse, and one month for the others, including the wounded man, Gilbert de Sangpur. Some think they got off lightly.”

“Enter!” Will shouted as someone rapped on the door, and as de Narremat, de Montrichard, and several others began to come in, he turned back to his brother. “And you, what do you think?”

“I agree, particularly in the case of Martelet. That one is a bad apple that could corrupt the whole barrel. He’ll not be broken and he will not change easily.”

“He will, when he finds himself alone and obvious in his truculence. He will stand out like a splinted limb and will start to behave himself soon afterwards, you mark my words. Gentlemen! Make yourselves comfortable.”

Will moved away to welcome his guests and busied himself pouring wine for each of them in turn, the simple courtesy of his gesture betraying, his brother thought, that special quality that made Will Sinclair who he was. Will himself, on the other hand, was already regretting having invited his guests to come here, his mind full of curiosity about the third package from the Master’s wallet. The realization that he might now have to wait several hours to open it filled him with a sudden impatience that he sought to neutralize by being attentive to his officers, who appeared both tentative and diffident, plainly uncertain of what he might expect from them and probably of what they might now expect of him after the dramatic announcements he had made in chapter.

It was the preceptor, Richard de Montrichard, who asked the question that, on reflection, Will wryly acknowledged must be bothering all of them. They all had cups of wine in their hands and were at ease, talking among themselves, some sitting, others standing by the roaring fire, and several leaning idly against walls and tables as they discussed the chapter meeting. Will was standing slightly apart, watching all of them and making no attempt to assert himself, when he saw de Montrichard turn and seek him out with his eyes, then raise a hand to indicate he wished to speak.

“Sir William, I have a question to ask, if you will permit me.”

“You have no need of permission, Sir Richard. We are at leisure here, for the moment. Ask away.”

“Well, sir, it concerns the matter of our raiment … our habiliments …”

Will smiled. “You mean our clothing.”

“Exactly. I agree with everything you said this morning on that topic. It makes perfect sense, for both our own protection and King Robert’s cause. We must become invisible, as you said. But … if we set aside our mantles and surcoats as you suggest, along with our mailed coats and blazoned armor, what will we wear instead?”

Will had to fight the urge to laugh, reminding himself that these were men whose every movement and behavior, from dawn to dusk through each day of their lives, had been dictated by the Rule that governed them all. They possessed no concept of personal liberty in matters of clothing or deportment; they had spent their lives wearing the clothing issued to them by the Order. Solid but stolid men for the most part, they lacked the imagination to conceive of anything different from what they had always known. And so he nodded solemnly, accepting the question gravely.

“Why, Brother Richard, we will wear what we have always worn—plain, simple tunics, unadorned, and comfortable leggings against the chill. We will merely set aside our outer clothing, replacing it with the plain cloth or waxed woolen cloaks and other overgarments worn by the common folk in these parts—leather jerkins, and bossed leather armor of boiled and hammer-beaten hides. We shall not freeze from exposure, I promise you. And if your next question be, where will we obtain these things, then I will tell you they are here already. There is a large family of weavers along the southern coast, who supply clothing for all weathers to the local fishermen. And another family of tanners, in the cove below Lochranza. I have spoken with the tanners, although not with the weavers, but I am sure that both families will be eager to work hard to clothe and equip us in return for solid silver coin … and most particularly so if we provide them with hides and woolen yarn, which our ships are already collecting abroad. So set your mind at rest on that, Brother.” Yet he saw confusion lingering in the preceptor’s face. “You appear unconvinced. Was I unclear?”

“No, Sir William, not at all.” The protestation was almost apologetic. “I was merely wondering how we will distinguish ourselves … in rank, I mean.”

Will’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. “Why would we need to? We are less than two hundred here at any time. Is there a man in your commandery whose name and ranking you do not yet know?”

“No, of course not.”

“And is there any among them who would fail to recognize you, or any other here?”

De Montrichard began to look slightly crestfallen, and Vice-Admiral de Narremat came to his rescue. “I think Brother Preceptor might have been referring to procedures in time of conflict or battle, Sir William. I confess the same thought had occurred to me, for all men look alike in the midst of action. An admiral needs to be recognizable to his men as does a land commander.”

Will nodded. “A valid point, and one that had already occurred to me. But we were speaking here of normal activities, and there is little need for detailed recognition in the daily grind. We have our regimen of daily prayers and ritual, and that alone will suffice to maintain discipline now that it is re-established. In times of war, though, should such ever arrive on Arran, we shall identify ourselves by using colored patches and plain colored banners.” He glanced at the preceptor again. “That is already in hand, Sir Richard, the preparations being set in place, and all men will know the colors before a month has elapsed from now.”

De Montrichard nodded his acceptance, and from there the conversation became general, with questions coming from everyone present, requiring Will’s illumination on all points raised. In consequence, the hours passed quickly, and when his fellows left him alone at last, Will felt great satisfaction. He had achieved more than he had hoped, and had encountered no opposition even on the details he had expected would be thorny.

Tam had come in to replenish the fire as soon as the last visitor had left, and he cast a glance at the unopened package on the table where Will had laid it.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet. Part of the package from Master de Molay, for my personal attention.”

“So when are ye goin’ to open it?”

“Once you’ve gone. I told you, it’s for me alone at this point.”

“Hmm. What would it be like, I wonder, to be a Templar without secrets? I jalouse ye’ll be itchin’ to be rid o’ me then, seein’ as how you’re no’ noted for your patience when it comes to bein’ kept waitin’ … well, let me finish here an’ I’ll leave ye to your business. Oh—what was the verdict in the trial?”

Will told him.

“So we’ll all ha’e bare faces from now on?”

“No, not bare. You sergeants won’t have to change your hair or beards at all, except for letting your tonsures grow out. But the knights will trim their fabled forks. And all the signs that we are Templars will be hidden.”

Tam grunted, pressing the last of an armload of logs into the fire with the sole of his heavy boot, and dusted off his hands. “Well, I’ll be interested to see what changes that will make.”

“It will make very little difference to who and what we are, Tam. But it should fool a casual eye from a distance. We don’t want to hide ourselves, but we do want to hide our identity, as you well know. Now, out of here and leave me to my labors.”

Tam merely nodded amiably, then closed the door firmly behind him as he went out.

Will reached for the heavy, cloth-wrapped packet on the table. It felt slick in his grasp, for the entire thing had been dipped in sealing wax, forming a smooth, solid, yet brittle protective skin. He hefted it for a moment, gauging its weight and wondering what it could contain, then took his dagger from its sheath and rapped the hilt down hard against the wax covering, pieces of which scattered across the floor. But wax adheres strongly to coarse-woven cloth, and he had a minor struggle to free the contents, finally resorting to his dagger’s edge to cut through the packaging.

A plain black slender iron key fell onto the table before he could catch it, and he sat still for a moment, staring down at it. It was slimmer than most such keys, almost delicate in appearance, and as long as his hand from heel to fingertips, its only decorative feature being that the handle formed the unadorned cross pattée of the Temple. He gazed at it, frowning slightly, then looked inside the wrappings in his hand to see the edge of a piece of parchment. He pulled it out and unfolded it, and as he read it he felt the small hairs stirring on his neck.

William

Should you become my successor you may have need to access the contents of the chests in your possession, for reasons yet to be discovered. There is among them one smaller than the rest, bound in brass and with a single padlock, sealed in wax. This fits that lock. Guard it well. It is the Master’s Charge. The chest contains the keys to all the others. Open them alone, in your own time, and view the vindication of our ancient Order of Sion, so that you may know what must be done to safeguard them, intact or apart, should a time of great need arrive. May God keep you, and all of us, in safety and in health.

D.M.

Will sat back heavily, aware only now that he should have been expecting this development, since it made no sense that he should be permitted to transport the fabled Temple Treasure without the means to open it. But the mere thought of now being able to do so, possessing the right to open the great chests and gaze upon their legendary contents, shrouded for so long in mystery, made him reel with dizziness.

Contemplating that reminded him that the Treasure itself was still floating aboard one of their remaining ships in the bay of Lamlash, awaiting the discovery of a safe hiding place. It was covered in sailcloth and not even under formal guard, and by now most people there had been kept busy enough to forget its existence. But more than a month had elapsed and no good hiding place had been discovered by any of the trusted men assigned to the task. That, he now saw clearly, was neither acceptable nor even tolerable. And as he thought about the problem, the answer came to him without warning, raising gooseflesh on his shoulders with its aptness. There was no place on Arran safe enough to hold the treasure; several large caves and caverns there were, certainly, but they were far from inaccessible to anyone determined to enter.

The perfect place, and, he instinctively believed, the only place made for such a use, lay far from Arran Isle on the Scottish mainland, in his father’s own lands of Roslin, deep in the forested hills southwest of Edinburgh and far inland from the sea. To the best of Will’s knowledge, no one but he and his brothers, three of whom he had not seen or thought of in many years, were aware of the existence of the place, a vaulted, subterranean cavern with a single narrow slit of an overhead entrance, discovered by sheer accident years before by Will’s elder brother Andrew when he fell into it while searching for an errant arrow and found himself rolling down a slope of scree into a vast black, empty space. The brothers had used the cavern as their secret place for several years after that, swearing fearful oaths that they would never reveal the place to others. Will had not thought of the cavern for years, having used the place for no more than two summers during his boyhood, and he would have wagered that his brothers, too, had forgotten about it. But now he recalled it perfectly, its single, narrow entrance, a black slash in the level ground at the base of a hill, invisible beneath an overgrown mass of ancient brambles.

The entrance would have to be enlarged, he knew, for it had barely been wide enough to admit small boys, and it was a fracture in solid rock, not a subsidence of soft soil, but he barely spared a thought for the difficulty involved. The brethren of the Temple had been building fortresses and palatial buildings for more than a century, using mathematical and geometrical methods handed down, by the Order of Sion, from the architects of ancient Egypt. And a result, stonemasonry, the greatest of the builder’s arts, both ancient and modern, had become an honored craft among the Temple knights, who referred to their lore as sacred geometry. Will knew a score of expert stonemasons among his own circle within the brotherhood, and there were five of them among his current command. To them, he knew, the task of enlarging the entrance and then concealing it completely afterwards would be a simple one, quickly completed.

He felt his stomach stirring in anticipation, knowing that, as a place of concealment for the Treasure, the cavern would be unbeatable, even safer and more secret than the cavern in the forest of Fontainebleau where the chests had lain in safety for decades.

Now, he decided, his priority must be the safe transportation of the Treasure to his father’s land and its proper concealment there. The thought of seeing Roslin again after so many years, of seeing the faces and hearing the beloved voices of his father and siblings and all their broods, brought him to his feet and set him to pacing the room, already busy selecting the party who would ride with him.

“Tam!” he roared, and the door swung wide a moment later to reveal his kinsman, wild eyed at the urgency of Will’s summons.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, Brother Sergeant! I merely deliver advance warning. Clean yourself up and try to look respectable, and start practicing your manners. We’ll be heading home to Roslin within the week!”

FIVE

The days that followed seemed too short for the amount of activity that had to be packed into them, transportation from the island to the mainland being a high priority. Will had a galley at his personal disposal, commanded by de Narremat, but he decided to take along a cargo ship as well, one of the craft partitioned between decks to accommodate livestock, since he had estimated his traveling party at twenty trusted men, ten of them knights and ten sergeants, and all of them would need riding horses. He limited the number of spares to four mounts, but also had to include four dray horses for the wagon that would carry the Treasure chests, which brought the number to twenty-eight animals aboard a ship modified to carry thirty-six. The extra space he dedicated to the men of the expedition, since his galley could not easily carry all of them plus the space-consuming chests, and he was unwilling to leave the chests aboard the ship, where they would be out of his sight and control.

One of the galleys they had lent to Angus Og MacDonald visited Brodick on the second day of their preparations, in the course of a normal patrol of their own waters, and Will took advantage of the opportunity to quiz the MacDonald’s captain on the safest route to follow in crossing from Arran en route to Edinburgh. The captain, a wiry-bearded, bushy-eyebrowed veteran with a face weathered to a mass of leathery wrinkles born of years at sea, spoke both Scots and Gaelic and even had a smattering of French at his command.

“You will go by the dear green place,” he said, his soft, island-bred accent softening the harshness of the Scots in which he responded. “Straight north from here, up the Firth and then veering to the northeast along Clyde vale as far as you may go before the shallows cut you off. From there, it is journey of four or five days to Edinburgh on a sturdy horse. Where did you say you are going?”

“A place called Roslin. My father’s home.”

“Aye … I have never heard of the place.”

“Why should you have? It is small and lies far inland. But you yourself named a place I have never heard of. What was it, the dear green place? Where is that?”

“Och!” The captain threw back his head and laughed in genuine pleasure. “I forgot you are not from these parts. It is the place founded by the great saint Kentigern, hundreds of years ago—the mainlanders call him Saint Mungo, but he is Kentigern to us of the Isles, and his church town there at the top of the Firth is Glasgow, which is a Gaelic name, o’ two words, glas and gow, meaning dear an’ green.”

“I see. And are Englishmen garrisoned there?”

“I do not know, for I avoid the place. But there might be. It’s a strong place, wi’ a cathedral, so they’ll think it important. Anyway, take no chances. Keep you to the north bank of the Clyde and stay well clear of the town. It’s well wooded all along the vale o’ the river, and there’s few folk about nowadays. Just keep guards out ahead o’ you and ye should be fine. Edinburgh will lie about ninety miles to the east o’ you. The place you’re looking for, I canna help you wi’.”

Will thanked the man and left him to his work while he himself went in search of Mungo MacDowal, to whom he repeated the captain’s words. Mungo nodded. He knew the route, he said, having traveled it several times as a boy, with his father.

The next day, an hour before sunset, the watch atop Brodick Hall reported sails approaching from the south, and as dusk thickened around them Will was on the beach, awaiting the arrival of the pair of ships returning from the Channel ports of France, but apart from a brief and discouraging indication of the state of affairs there, he had to wait until late in the evening, after the communal prayers and meal, to hear the full extent of their discoveries. Immediately after dinner, he removed himself from the assembly and led the two captains to his quarters.

Trebec, a laughing, amiable man when not on duty, hailed from the Breton port of Brest, and so he had covered the ports to the south of Brest, down as far as the Spanish border, since there was less chance of his being recognized there and remembered as a Temple captain. The younger man, a swarthy native of Navarre in northern Spain, whose name was Ramon Ortega, had visited the northern ports, from la Rochelle itself, where he was unknown, north to Brest and on through Cherbourg as far as Dieppe, calling in to all of them and sending trusted men to find out what they could.

Neither man smiled as he made his report, and Will paced the floor as he listened to them, too tightly wound to be seated. True to the predictions of the original warning to de Molay, it appeared that every senior officer of the Order had been arrested on the appointed day in October and thrown into prison to await interrogation by the Holy Inquisition, the grimfaced Dominicans who called themselves the Hounds of God and whose implacable zealotry for the absolute sanctity of Christian dogma had spread terror and dread among ordinary Christians for the past hundred years, keeping them in abject subjugation through the fear of death by fire and torture. Both captains could attest to the involvement of the Inquisitors from numerous observations. The length and breadth of the coast of France, the tavern talk was all about the imprisonment of the Templars, and rife with speculation as to what was happening to them behind the forbidding walls of the King’s prisons.

Will listened in mounting anger and frustration to the reports, his frown deepening until he could stand no more of it and whipped up one hand, cutting both men into silence.

“That’s all well and good,” he growled, “and plainly there’s no lack of it. But where’s the sense of it? Where’s the meat of the matter? It’s one thing to execute a coup like that, but it’s another altogether to maintain it in the absence of hard truth. What are our people charged with? What’s the nature of the crimes of which they stand accused? You have told me nothing of that.”

Both men fidgeted, and neither one would meet his eye.

“Come then, speak out. You must have heard something of the accusations and I can but presume it deals in heresy of some kind. So what is it? What are we accused of? Apostasy? Usury? Both of those I could see, preposterous though they be, but usury in itself could not justify the extent of this malice. What else is there?”

Trebec looked at Ortega, who met his eyes and shrugged as though helpless, and the older man drew in a great breath and straightened his back and shoulders, turning to look Will straight in the eye. “There’s more than that, Sir William. Much, much more.”

“Then tell me, Captain Trebec. I am not a diviner.”

The mariner’s face was bleak, his voice flat. “Black arts and Devil worship. Crimes against God and Holy Church. Pederasty. Blasphemous rites and ceremonies involving obscene kisses and acts, man upon man, as part of Temple rites and initiations. Oaths against God, witnessing the Devil’s supremacy … The Temple Council and the knights stand accused of worshipping an idol, a mummified head called Baphomet, a creature of Satan, given to them to adore in token of his mastery and carefully kept and treasured in the Order’s secret vaults. All that, and many other things I have no wish to mention.” He looked down at the table. “Mutilation and abominable sins perpetrated against women … cannibalistic rites involving the sacrifice of infant children and the eating of their flesh.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “It seems, Sir William, that there is no sin, cardinal or mortal, and no crime conceivable, with which the Temple has not been charged. And the Holy Inquisitors are busy even now, torturing confessions out of broken men through the entire land of France.”

Will Sinclair stood as though thunderstruck, the blood draining from his face, and then he groped sightlessly for a chair and collapsed into it, shaking his head in mute denial of what he was being told. Neither of the captains spoke another word, merely staring at him wide eyed as they waited for him to gather his scattered wits.

“God damn them all,” he said at last, his voice barely audible. “This is infamy beyond the ken of ordinary men. God damn them to the deepest, darkest pits of nether Hell. God curse their evil, petty, miserable, money-grasping souls … Grasping King and weakling Pope and mindless, brutal minions—sound, solid, praying Christians every one …” He fell silent again, his frown growing even darker, and the silence stretched until he sat up straight again, grunting in anger and disgust. “So be it, then. I’ll think on that and decide what we must do. But even so, we still do not know all there is to know. Two ships are still to come back, from the Mediterranean coasts, though I doubt their tidings will be any brighter. Tell me, did you drop St. Thomas and Umfraville off without incident?”

Trebec nodded. “Aye, off the coast by Bordeaux. They were to head straight to Aix-en-Provence and then make their way south to Marseille, where Charlot de Navarre was to pick them up. They would have lots of time, because the outgoing weather was stormy and de Navarre had to make his way south and around by Gibraltar to reach Marseille. They should be fine.”

Will nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. Marcel de St. Thomas and Alexandre d’Umfraville were both members of the Order of Sion, and would be bringing back information and instructions from the Order’s secret sanctuary in Aix—all of which would offer better insights than the collected impressions of the seafarers. He was now trembling with impatience to hear from them.

“How much longer will the others be, think you? I am no mariner, so I know nothing of wind speeds and journey lengths.”

Ortega shrugged one shoulder. “A week to ten days at the very least … but realistically up to twice that long. They are at the mercy of wind and weather, and neither one of those is amiable at this time of year, especially in the south Bay of Biscay. I would expect them in a month. From now.”

“That long?” Will could not conceal his chagrin, but then thought better of it. “Well, that may be good, when I think about it. We are bound to leave for Scotland tomorrow, and we should be gone for two or perhaps three weeks. That would make the timing just about right.” He gripped the arms of his chair and stood upright, nodding to both captains. “My thanks, Brothers, for your reports. You have done well. Now I must ask you to keep this knowledge to yourselves until I find a means of informing all the brethren simultaneously. In the meantime, I am sure you must have matters of your own to attend to. You may go.”