Order in Chaos

A CATALOGUE OF SINS

ONE

Jessie Randolph sat on a stone outcrop overlooking the vale of Nith, where the river meandered peacefully from the low hills to the north on its way past her home and to the Solway Firth and the English border, several miles to the south. She sat without moving, drinking in the scene before her and listening to the silence of the late-summer afternoon, a stillness broken only by the occasional shouts of the children playing on the hillside behind her and the incessant song of a single thrush perched somewhere on one of the low buildings two hundred paces away to her left. At her back, the sun was well into its decline, casting the shadows of the hillside down in front of her towards the river, and she felt a tingle of excitement stir in her stomach as she reached into the neck of her tunic and pulled out the soft cloth bag that nestled between her breasts, feeling the springy tension of the tightly rolled parchment it contained, and shivering as a sudden rush of gooseflesh swept over her shoulders and arms. The bag contained a letter, and its very existence seemed outrageous, waxing in significance now from moment to moment. Its content, and the tantalizing possibility of actually sending it off, made her stomach flutter in a way she had not experienced in years, since she was a young girl dreaming of her first love.

She looked over her shoulder, almost laughing to herself at the formless guilt she was feeling, and seeing that she was still alone, she loosened the drawstring and pulled the letter out, then untied the silken bow that held it shut. It was written on several sheets of fine, extremely valuable parchment, carefully trimmed to a uniform size, part of the hoard she had begged and won from Master Bernard de Linton, the Abbot of Arbroath who had recently become King Robert’s secretary and whom she had met and come to like during her stay in the north, while she was tending to the King’s illness. Now she held the scrolled sheets in one hand, her elbow resting on an upraised knee as she gazed down towards the water, her eyes unfocused, completely unaware of the picture she presented.

Had she been aware of it she might have laughed again at the thought, for she was wearing what she thought of as her scandalous suit, since it had scandalized every woman in her district when they first saw her wearing it. In all probability, she had often thought, it had scandalized their menfolk too, but none of those had ever dared to comment on it. In fact, she was wearing men’s clothing, altered to her own use, that she had brought with her from France—long, loose-fitting breeches, tight in the seat and flared from the knees and made of chamois leather. The snugness of their fit was disguised by a knee-length wraparound tunic of the same material, belted at the waist and worn over a plain square-necked bodice of soft, finely woven wool, cinched at the waist by a heavy, well-worn, and pliable leather belt from which hung a long, sheathed dagger. Her boots, made by a master craftsman on her late husband’s estate, were of the same soft leather, thicker, and heavily soled and heeled, but unmistakably made for her feet and as supple as well-worn gloves.

From a distance, she might pass as a man, but as the distance dwindled there could be no mistaking her startling femininity. Her hair, auburn in the afternoon light, hung down past her shoulders, tied loosely at the back with a leather thong, and her face and arms were tanned with the summer sun so that her wide eyes seemed to flash and sparkle, thrown into prominence by the smooth luster of the taut skin of her cheekbones with its scattering of light freckles. The color of her eyes, and she had been told sufficiently across the years to believe it, defied description by most men. Predominantly gray, they changed according to the light, sometimes pale blue, sometimes dark, and at other times more green than anything else.

A movement by her feet made her glance down to where a vole was scuttling past her, and she watched tolerantly as it darted towards the base of her perch and vanished somewhere behind the crossbow and quiver of bolts that leaned against the rock. The sight of the weapon made her turn her head again and stare briefly towards the Cairn Woods below on her right, one of the few belts of trees in the area, where one of the local men had seen a bear the day before. She did not expect to see the animal, but the possibility had been enough to prompt her to carry the crossbow with her that afternoon. Nothing moved over there, though, and she flapped the parchment in her hand, checked again to be sure there was no one in sight, and then began to read aloud, but quietly, what she had composed painstakingly over the past few days. She read a word or two, hesitated, began again, and after two or three sentences stopped and flapped the letter in frustration.

My God, Will Sinclair, have you any idea of the trouble you put me to? How can I—? No, you have no idea, you stubborn, upright, stupid man. How could you have? You are over there on your silly little island, playing the sanctimonious monk while all your benighted brethren in France rot in Philip Capet’s prisons, tortured and abused by the very men who … Ach! God, give me the strength to be patient!

She rose to her feet, rolling the scrolled parchment sheets tightly again while she looked around for the silk ribbon that had bound them. It had fallen from where she dropped it, lodging deep in a narrow fissure in the stone outcrop, and to reach it she had to place one booted foot on the stone to bear her weight while she bent forward, stretching down into the crack. She retrieved the ribbon with difficulty and straightened up, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, and as she did so she saw the length of her own outstretched thigh, its shape tightly outlined by the stretched leather of her breeches. It made her laugh.

Sweet Jesus, Will, if you could see me, dressed like this, you would not be able to pray for a fortnight. There would be a sight to interrupt your most chaste thoughts and make your frown like a thundercloud, would it not?

Well, sir knight, I am going to send this letter to you. I’ll have my young cousin Hugh take it to Arran in person. Too much time and work have gone into the penning of it to let it go to waste. Besides, why should I not send it? It will bring you tidings of your sister Peggy and the joy your gift brought her. And it will bring you tidings of our King and what he has heard from France concerning your Order. You are in disgrace, Will Sinclair, with all your brotherhood, whether or no the cause be justifiable. Time to forget about returning there, and to find yourself a new life here in Scotland. A real life, as a real man, with a wife who would make you happy. Dear God, listen to me! Talking about marriage to a monk! I must be mad … But ’tis a gladly borne madness, I must say. Now …

A high-pitched shout made her turn and look up to where twelve-year-old Marjorie Bruce—her supposed niece but in reality King Robert’s—had left her friends behind and was bounding down the hillside, calling. Jessie had spoken nothing but French to the child since she first met her, since for their current purposes, and for her own protection, Marjorie was supposed to be French, and the girl, gifted with an ear for sounds, had learned quickly, so that now she spoke the language effortlessly, with no lingering trace of the tongue she had learned from birth. The child was still a distance away, too far for Jessie to make out what she was shouting, but she sensed an urgency. “Wait you there!” she called. “I’m coming up!” She quickly collected her crossbow and quiver, slinging the latter over her shoulder, and started to climb the hillside.

“What is it, child?” she asked when she reached the girl. “What’s wrong?”

“There are men coming, Auntie, from over there, beyond the hill.”

“From the west? From Annandale? How many?”

“I don’t know. They are too far away to count, but they’re coming.”

“Show me.”

The girl turned and started to run up the hill, and Jessie stretched out her pace to keep up with her, remembering when she, too, had been able to treat steep hillsides as though they were flat ground, but she was concerned about who might be coming her way from the west. The Annan lands had belonged to the King’s father, Robert Bruce of Annandale, but they, like her own Nithsdale, had always been a major invasion route from the south, and during the wars of the previous few years they had become sparsely populated as the local people fled into the safety of the higher hills to avoid being harried by the ever-present English. The vales of Annan and Nith, with the rest of Scotland’s south, had both been burned bare many times in the previous decade in order to deny sustenance to King Edward’s armies.

She breasted the top of the hill eventually to find the children hopping up and down with excitement as they jabbered and pointed into the distance. Jessie, fighting for breath, held up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sinking sun ahead of her. The light was fierce, but her eyes adjusted quickly, showing her the unmistakable reflection of light on weapons, armor, and saddlery. They were still more than three miles away, she guessed, not yet having passed the distinctive stone outcrop known locally as the Leopard, which reared up two and a half miles from where she stood. She was aware of Marjorie close beside her, craning on tiptoes as she tried to see all that she could.

“Your eyes are better than mine, child. Can you see how many there are?”

“No, Auntie, but there’s a lot of blue among them.”

Jessie could see no blue, but she did not question the girl’s assertion. The men were coming from Annandale, Bruce country, and James Douglas’s colors were blue and white—Douglas, whom the King himself had appointed governor of all the south mere months before. Her mind went at once to what she was wearing. Her scandalous suit was no fitting garb in which to receive the King’s young envoy. She spun suddenly, grasping her ward by the shoulder.

“It is Sir James Douglas, here on the King’s affairs. I must run back to the house and dress to receive him. I leave it to you to round up all the others and bring them back safely. Can you do that?”

“Of course, Auntie.” Marjorie Bruce swung away and began calling to the other children, but Jessie was already striding off, her crossbow balanced on one shoulder as her long legs bore her effortlessly down the slope towards the cluster of houses less than half a mile away.

She was half undressed by the time she entered her own house, but fortunately no one was around to see her remarkable condition. Calling loudly for her companion Marie as she swept inside, she pulled the cloth bag from its resting place between her breasts and dropped it on the table just inside the door of her own room before unlacing the bindings at the front of her leather breeches, pushing them down over her hips, and stepping out of them. The open tunic fell beside them, and she grasped the edges of her undertunic and pulled it swiftly over her head. Then she crossed naked, except for her high boots, to the large French armoire that held most of her more formal clothing.

There were few dresses there to choose from, so her selection did not take long, and before long she was standing erect, tapping her foot impatiently as Marie fussed with the lacings of the bodice of the rich green dress. It was a magnificent gown, as out of place among the women of Nithsdale as a preening peacock would be among a local flock of geese, but it set off her eyes and her hair wondrously well, as she had been told by many an ardent admirer, and she knew it would have the required effect on the King’s young warden.

“Your hair, madam,” Marie said, concern in her voice. “It needs … something.”

“Then do something. But be quick. Our guests will be here at any moment.”

During the few minutes that she knew Marie would require to pin up her hair into something resembling what she thought a lady’s hair ought to look like, Jessie eyed the cloth bag containing the letter. It was a very special bag, although no one else ever glanced twice at it. But it was his, made from the kerchief he had pulled from within his tunic to wrap the gift he had sent to his sister. Jessie remembered taking it from him, remembered the feel of it in her fingers, warm as it was with the heat of his body and scented, as she discovered moments after leaving his tent, with the clean, intimate odor of his skin. She had delivered the gift to Peggy Sinclair, and taken joy in Peggy’s pleasure at receiving it, but she had kept the kerchief, sniffing at it fondly from time to time when she was alone—and foolishly, she sometimes told herself—long after the faint, lingering odor of his presence had faded and died. But she could not bring herself to part with it, and so she had sewn it into a rectangular bag, a reticule that she used to contain the things that were essential to her every day … her combs; her sachet of rose petals and dried lavender; her needles and fine thread, carefully protected in a tiny etui of flat, polished ebony from some exotic land; a palm-sized mirror of polished silver in a velvet bag; and now the daring letter that broke her promise not to disturb his peace once she had returned to Nithsdale.

“There, madam. It is finished. No one would ever know it newly done. But the boots …”

“The boots are very comfortable. No one will see them.”

Jessie stood up, taking the metal hand mirror that Marie offered. She checked her reflection once, briefly, then nodded her thanks. “You are a miracle, Marie. Now, my reticule from over there, if you please, and we may go and greet our guests.”

TWO

The leading group of the visiting moss-troopers—the garron-mounted raiding Scots horsemen of the long-disputed border country between Scotland and England—was clattering into the courtyard of the farmhouse as Jessie reached the front door, and she had no trouble finding a smile with which to welcome King Robert’s dashing young lieutenant. James Douglas saw her immediately as he cantered into the yard, and he grinned, whipping off his bonnet with its blackcock feather and bowing from the saddle.

“Lady Jessica!” he shouted. “Seldom has weary traveler ever beheld such a wondrous sight as you present there in your doorway.” He prodded his horse forward until it could approach no closer, then slipped from its back and took her proffered hand in his own, bowing over it. “My lady, you must pardon my arrival unannounced, but I had little choice. We chanced across some Englishry two days ago and they outnumbered us heavily, so we chose to run and hide.” He smiled as he said that, but Jessie knew he was quite serious. King Robert had expressly forbidden his commanders to engage the enemy in anything resembling formal battle—a directive, logical and judicious though it was, that did not sit well with many of his staunchest commanders. Among those, young Douglas was the ablest and the most fiery, so she could guess at what it had cost Sir James to run away, as he put it.

She looked him in the eye and nodded. “Then you are welcome here, my lord of Douglas. Are they far behind you?”

“The English?” He laughed. “No, my lady, they are miles away, seeking us in some distant part of Galloway. We gave them the slip easily, left them slaistering through dub and mire last night and heading westward while we doubled back and came this way. I wouldna bring them howling here to bother you. But I have brought another to amuse you … one I picked up last month.”

He gestured over his shoulder with a pointing thumb, and Jessie looked to see what he was talking about. There were about forty men crowded into the yard now, climbing down from the garrons and beginning to mill about in the enclosed space, but one of them stood out from all the others, a tall man wearing half armor and the polished steel helmet of a moss-trooper. He stood with his back to her, his eyes apparently looking over the outbuildings around the yard.

“He’s shy,” Jamie said, then raised his voice. “Thomas, have you no words of greeting for our hostess?”

The tall man seemed to stiffen, and then turned around slowly, and even from a distance Jessie could see the color suffusing his face as Douglas called again. “Come over here, man, and play the civil courtier.”

Jessie felt her jaw sag open as she gazed at the stranger, whose eyes only now met hers, clouded with what she could only discern as shame and embarrassment. She knew the man, recognized him easily, but yet her mind seemed incapable of accepting his presence here.

“Thomas?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. Then, more strongly, “Thomas, is that you?”

The man ducked his head in acknowledgment, then moved forward slowly, his fair-skinned face burning with blood. “Auntie Jessie,” he said. “Forgive me for this. I fear you may not want me ’neath your roof.”

Her eyes went wide with astonishment. “My roof? What are you talking about? It is your roof, Thomas. This is your house. But you were … I thought … How come you here?”

Sir Thomas Randolph, her eldest brother’s son and nephew to the Bruce himself through a half-sister, stepped closer, his face a portrait of misery and shame. “You thought me in England, a willing vassal to the Plantagenet, a traitor to my home and kinsmen. Is that not what you wished to say?”

Jessie gasped, then bridled in protest. “Well, yes and no, in equal measure. In England, certainly. A prisoner of England, willingly or no, taken at Methven field. But traitor? No. That thought never entered my mind. No man who bears the name of Thomas Randolph could ever be traitor. So have done with the self-pity if you would please me, for it ill becomes you. Now, tell me true, how do you come to be here?”

Before the other could answer, Jamie Douglas moved away and began barking orders to his men, bidding them settle down and dispose themselves quietly and without fuss, and Jessie turned to interrupt him.

“How many are you, Sir James?”

“Forty-four, my lady, including ourselves … young Thomas and I.”

“Then we can put them all under roofs. There are four bothies behind the farm, apart from the main buildings. They can hold twelve men apiece in comfort. Have your men move into those and set up picket lines for your horses at the rear. There’s ample grazing in the paddock back there, and I’ll have my people—Sir Thomas’s people—start preparing food for everyone. We had to kill a stirk that broke a leg four days ago, so we have ample meat. I had feared much of it might go to waste, but now we’ll make good use of it, though it will be well after dark, I fear, before we sup.”

She turned back to her nephew to find that the angry color had receded from his face and he was looking at her now with something akin to gratitude and wonder in his eyes. “Well,” she said. “Are you going to stand there fidgeting all night, Thomas Randolph? Come you inside. I have been keeping your house clean and warm in your absence, but now that you are home again, I am become your guest.”

He threw up his hand immediately, then bowed from the waist, smiling suddenly, and it seemed the sun itself shone from his eyes. “No, Auntie Jess. Do not even say the words. I am … in transit. No more than that. This house is yours for as long as you may need it. And I am grateful.”

“Grateful? For what?”

“For your forbearance … your goodwill. Sir James has told me you are close in the King’s regard. Nursed him while he was sick. I had thought you would bear me ill will for taking arms against him.”

“Aye … Well, you were wrong. We talked of you, the King and I, when word first came to us last winter that you were riding with the English. He bore you no ill will, even then, knowing you for what you are, a knight yet unschooled in the realities of the wars he fights today. He said you reminded him of himself, when he was your age, full of the bright awareness of knighthood and honor and chivalry and not yet dulled by life’s realities. He feared that you saw him as a brigand, unfit to bear the title of knighthood. And he grieved for that. But we will talk of that later. I have much to do to feed your company, and the day grows late already. Come you in when you have finished what you have to do, and bring Sir James with you. I will have something more than water to slake your thirst by then. Go now.”

His face flushed again, though not so shamefacedly this time, and she felt the beginnings of a smile upon her lips, for she thought he might be quite the most attractive man she had ever seen, tall and broad shouldered and fair of hair and face. He would be more than half her age, she thought, twenty at the most, to her thirty and six, and he had his father’s easy, upright carriage and his mother’s length of limb and her maternal family’s golden hair and bright blue eyes. He shrugged the sword belt from across his chest and over his head as he went from her, and she admired the easy confidence with which he threw the long, sheathed weapon to a waiting, gray-bearded moss-trooper before he strode through the entranceway and out into the fields beyond, headed towards the bothies at the back. And then she remembered what she had to do and spun back to the doorway.

From that moment on until late in the night after the huge but plain supper of spit-roasted beef, fresh oatmeal bread, and boiled greens served with vinegar and butter, Jessie barely had a moment to herself, making herself available and visible everywhere, supervising the details of the meal’s preparation and the arrangements for housing more than two score unanticipated visitors. And so it was with great relief that she sank into a solid, upholstered chair by the fire in the farmhouse’s main room shortly before midnight, taking pleasure in the fact that her two guests were there already, comfortably seated and awaiting her arrival.

Douglas had been dozing when she came in, but had leapt to his feet as quickly as her nephew and ushered her towards the room’s main chair, situated directly in front of the peat fire that glowed in the stone hearth. She thanked him with a smile and murmured word of thanks, then allowed herself to relax into the chair and look around the shadowed, comfortable room. It was spacious but low ceilinged, with a roof of hammered beams, and furnished for comfort, with four massive armchairs and a deep couch, besides the enormous table of ancient, hand-carved black oak and the twelve matching high-backed chairs surrounding it. Candles were scattered throughout, some in sconces, others in scattered holders, and a half score ranged in each of the two candelabra on the old oak table, and their light reflected on all the upright surfaces, casting the four corners of the room into dark, flickering, shadow-filled places. She sighed contentedly and waved away the proffered cup of wine that her nephew held out to her.

“No, Thomas. Too late at night and we must be astir at daybreak. So come and sit down and tell me, for you never did, what brings you here thus unexpectedly.”

Randolph grinned. He poured the wine from the cup he had offered her into his own, then gestured with it towards where Douglas had subsided back into his chair. “Sir James, my captor here, thought we should visit you.”

Jessie glanced from him to the other man. “Your captor?”

“My captor. He took my sword at Peebles last month. And he now holds my parole that I will not attempt to flee back to England.”

Douglas shook his head ruefully. “What you are listening to is guilt and nonsense, Lady Jessica. I captured him, that much is true. But then I took him directly to the King, who forgave him all his follies and received him back into his peace in return for an oath of loyalty. So this of the captivity is but a nonsense. Your nephew is being harder on himself than any other is.”

“I see …” But clearly she did not. “So why is he here with you now?”

Douglas sat straighter and held out his empty cup to Sir Thomas, who carried it to the table and refilled it from a silver jug. “I am his penance, Lady. For his sins, he must bear with me and my brigandage … until he learns the rules of war.”

Jessie was frowning now, more perplexed than before. “Brigandage? I do not understand—”

“It is my lord of Douglas who spouts nonsense now, Auntie.” Thomas carried the replenished cup back to Douglas, then sat down again, his forehead creased in a frown.

“I thought to judge my uncle Robert as being unworthy of the name of knight. You know that already, but it is simple truth. When I was captured after Methven fight, they took me to King Edward, who received me with great kindness and treated me with much largesse. And then for the ensuing months he played upon my gullibility and my … credulity and sinful arrogance. He sought to convince me—and I am ashamed to say he succeeded—that no true king would wage war as this ingrate upstart—that was his name for King Robert, the Ingrate Upstart—sought to do in Scotland, ignoring all the protocols of warfare, burning and pillaging and slaughtering from ambush, then running away to hide in the hills, playing the savage cateran and all the while not daring to stand and fight like a man of honor. And I, to my eternal shame, gave credence to everything he said.”

“I see … And what brought about your change of heart?”

“The sight of the Lady Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Fife and wife of the Earl of Buchan, hanging naked in an open cage from the walls of Berwick.” The words hung in the air for a long moment before the young knight continued. “I had not believed it until I saw it with my own eyes … Edward Plantagenet’s chivalry. The English took great delight in it, their King’s vengeance on the woman who crowned Scotland’s King in defiance of him and of her whole family. And when I saw her there, a living truth I could not deny, I began to question all I had been told. What kind of a man, be he knight, king, or both, would besmirch the very essentials of honor to stoop to such a thing?” He gazed directly at Jessie, making no attempt to avoid her eyes. “From that point on, I began to take note of what was being done to my fellow countrymen in the name of the King of England’s justice, and I soon saw it for what it was: a grasping, willful lust for power in the heart of a once great but now demented man. And so I began to think about returning home, but my shame was too great … My shame and, I fear, my humbled pride. By the time I met Sir James in the field, though, I was prepared to throw down my sword and face the King I had dishonored.”

“And so he did, as I have said,” Douglas put in. “And spoke most eloquently of his disenchantment. The King believed him, and so did I.”

Jessie looked at Douglas. “So why is he now with you, as penance?”

The young man smiled at her. “Because I, too, am what he thought of as a brigand. He rides with me today to complete his education, seeing at first hand how I operate to rid this land of Englishry, and seeing, too, ever more clearly, why it must be so. His Grace thought it more fitting that it should be I, rather than he, who teach young Thomas what is involved in bringing peace to this sad realm of his. We cannot fight the English in pitched battle—a matter of strength rather than willingness or mere determination. We have less than one-tenth their strength and not one-twentieth part of their resources. The reserves they keep at home in England outnumber us beyond counting. And yet we must fight, with everything and every man we have. To do less would be to guarantee their victory. We cannot give them time to rally or opportunity to consolidate their forces. And so we harry them, playing the cateran, as Edward said.

“The old Plantagenet Lion is dead now, thanks be to God, and so the pressure is relieved, but though his son, Caernarvon, will never be fit to cast a shadow like his father’s, his barons are more powerful than ever, threatening to rise against him, sensing his weakness and deploring his pederasty. But they want Scotland, too, for the scent of blood and power is rank in them and they seek to rip our realm apart and divide it among themselves. Gloucester and Leicester, Northumberland and Hereford are but the leaders of the pack, and any one of them can field more men from his own earldom within a seven-night spell than we can raise through all this land in a twelvemonth. So Thomas is my student, and I will admit to you he shows great promise. We will make a brigand of your nephew yet, my lady, and the English will take note of where he goes. Believe me.”

Jessie nodded slowly. “I do, my lord … And the King is well? He prospers?”

“Aye, Lady, by the grace of God he does, and fortune smiles upon us for once. All of the northeast is in his hands now, for the people of Aberdeen rose up and cast out the English garrison last month, which means we have a seaport of our own for the first time. And his brother Sir Edward has spent these past two months subduing the MacDowals and their hives in Galloway. And subdue them he did. Aided by Angus Og and his Highlanders, he thrashed the MacDowals and their English levies under Ingram de Umfraville and Aymer St. John. Outnumbered by more than two to one, and with only fifty knights, he swept them into ruin. We have just come from there, with dispatches from Sir Edward to the King, and we must now ride north and west, for the King himself is marching there, against the MacDougalls in Argyll.”

Jessie’s frown was quick. “There is a truce with the MacDougalls.”

“There was, my lady. It expired last month, and the old chief’s son, Lame John of Lorn, had spent it raising men in arms to continue his fight to depose His Grace. But the King has men, even among the MacDougalls, who now incline to his cause, and he is well aware of what’s afoot. And so he moves to stamp upon the snake, marching to invade Argyll through the Pass of Brander. We ride to join him there, Thomas and I, and are to meet with him in ten days’ time, at Loch Awe. If we succeed in Argyll, and Lame John goes down—and he will—then only the Earl of Ross will remain to stand against King Robert in the north. And when that arch schemer sees the error of his ways and recants, as he surely must, Robert Bruce will be King indeed through all of Scotland. Pray that it be so, my lady.”

“I will. You need never fear. Now tell me, my lord, have you heard ought of how things progress in Arran?”

Douglas’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her and slowly shook his head. “No, Lady Jessica, I have heard nothing. But that must surely mean that there is nothing ill going on there. Bad news travels fast, and had there been cause for such, we would have heard of it. On the dexter side, though, I know the corps of riders from the island was renewed at June’s end, and the numbers increased. King Robert is well pleased with the unflinching support he has received from Arran.” He hesitated before adding, “And from Sir William.” Again he hesitated. “Forgive me for asking, my lady, but do you communicate with the brotherhood there?”

“No, sir, I do not, although I have in the past, on King Robert’s behalf. Why would you ask me such a thing?”

Douglas had the grace to look embarrassed, but he shrugged his wide shoulders. “Because I have tidings that the monks on Arran should know of. King Robert has received word privily, from Archbishop Lamberton in England, that the Pope has sent a communication regarding the Temple to all the kings and princes in Christendom. King Robert himself did not receive the missive because he is excommunicate.”

Jessie’s breath caught in her throat, because she could see from Douglas’s expression that this communication would offer no solace to Will Sinclair and his men. “What did it say, this missive?”

Douglas cleared his throat. “It bore a title, Pastoralis Praeeminentiae. In it, the Pope asked all who received it to arrest all the Templars in their lands, and to do it—and these the King took to be important words—prudently, discreetly, and secretly. That done, they were to confiscate all their property and hold it in safekeeping for the Church.”

“But that is infamous! All Templars, everywhere in Christendom?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“So Sir William was right. He foretold this …” Jessie stopped, thinking hard, then looked at her nephew. “Did you know anything of this, Thomas?”

Randolph merely looked back at her, utterly mystified as to what she meant, and she turned back to Douglas. “When did this happen?”

“The Archbishop wrote that the letter was dated November the twenty-second, last year.”

“Barely a month after the arrests in France. Surely they could not have proven any of de Nogaret’s lies by then?”

“So it would seem, my lady … but I know nothing more than I have told you.”

Jessie fought to keep her face expressionless, merely nodding in acceptance of what she had been told, but her mind was full of the knowledge that the letter over which she had spent so much time and thought was now outdated and would have to be rewritten.

THREE

In the north anteroom of the Great Hall at Brodick, Will Sinclair set down his pen on the long refectory table that served him as a desk and stretched, arching his back and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as he grunted aloud with the pleasure of flexing his shoulders and straightening his spine. He had been working without rest since dawn, digging his way through the mountain of papers and parchment that had confronted him after weeks of neglect caused by other priorities. Most he had merely read and marked with his name, as evidence of his examination, before setting them aside on a smaller table to his left. Others he had examined more meticulously, making occasional notes to himself to remind him of their content and what had been achieved in recent months, and these he had also set aside, to his right.

His companions and brethren had achieved great things in a short time. Each of the two Arran chapters now had its own Chapter House, and each of those administered its own affairs and resources, from devotions and ritual procedures to stables, barracks, houses, crude farms, and warehouses. The program of horse breeding, training, and maintenance was now firmly established in both chapters, and military drill, albeit discreet, had come back into its own as a sine qua non of their daily practice. A strong and resilient trading schedule had been set in place, too, with their ships coming and going to and from both Brodick and Lochranza at regular intervals, plying the waters of Britain for the most part but venturing into Ireland and France, and occasionally, in the summer months, crossing the northern waters eastward to reach Norway and Denmark and the Germanic coastline to the Low Countries. Food was now plentiful, in sufficient supply to be stored and husbanded, and even livestock had been brought ashore in small numbers—swine, sheep, and goats in the main, but also a few cattle and oxen, tame geese with clipped wings, and fat white ducks whose eggs were a luxurious addition to the island diet, which consisted mainly of fish and oats.

Housing had sprung up throughout the island, but it was hidden in most places, carefully concealed from any stranger looking from a distance. The buildings were long and low, their walls and even their roofs made from peat and sod, their floors frequently excavated to provide the building material for the walls, so that although the height of most roofs was less than that of a man, the tallest man could stand easily inside. The first of the longhouses had been designed and built by a brother called Anselm, who had in better times been one of the Order’s most gifted architects and builders, and when Will, surprised by the apparent gracelessness of the construction, had called in the elderly monk to question him, Anselm had looked at him in surprise. Was it not their intent to keep their presence on the island secret, he asked, and was it not also true that they would not be remaining on Arran forever? When Will agreed that it was, the monk had shrugged expressively and spread his hands. That was what he had set out to do, he said: to keep their presence shrouded from strange eyes, and to ensure that they would leave little trace behind when they returned to France. Besides, he said, they had insufficient supplies of wood and lumber to do otherwise. The peat-built buildings could be quickly torn down when the time came to leave, and within a few years their walls would return to the ground from which they were made, leaving no trace of their existence. Will had been unable to argue against the old man’s logic, and so he had given his blessing to the project and decreed that all their impermanent buildings would be made from peat thenceforth.

Now he was tired, but he had completed his work and could speak out loud and clear at the chapter gathering in two days’ time, giving praise and credit confidently where he felt each was due. He called in his earnest, humorless assistant, Brother Fernando, and instructed him in what he wished done with the different piles of documents, and then he sat thinking while the emaciated cleric bustled around him, collecting all the documents.

As soon as the brother had left, carrying a heavy basket full of scrolls, Will bent forward and took a fresh sheet of parchment from the pile at the back of his desk, then picked up his pen again, playing idly with it while he thought of what he would say in the report he had been planning for his superiors in Aix-en-Provence. He had sent three reports already, in February, April, and June, detailing the progress of the works he had set in motion in Arran, and requesting information on the status of the Temple in France. The third of those, in which he had labored long and hard to outline the dilemma he might face in the bleakest of all possible futures and the possibility of releasing the younger brethren from their vow of chastity, thereby permitting them to marry and procreate, had thus far gone unanswered, to his intense chagrin, for he had been hoping for some solid words of guidance. And the two replies he had received to his initial reports had both been terse, lacking in specifics and generally discouraging.

What he had not done, to this point, was set down in writing a description of what he had discovered when he opened the chests committed to his care upon leaving France. He had sent word, in his third report, that the Treasure now lay safely concealed, and had included a map of its location in the underground vault on his father’s lands in Roslin, but he had made no mention of having opened the chests and viewed the contents. Nor had he identified the location shown on the map. That information would be supplied in this next report, once he had confirmation that the map had arrived safely in the hands of the Order in Aix.

Quite simply, as he had long since admitted to himself, much of his failure to describe what he had seen in the chests was based upon fear: his very real fear of betraying the secret by committing anything to writing. Unwritten, the secret was safe in his mind. Written down, it would pose a constant danger of discovery. He knew the contents of the chests were familiar to the highest members of the ancient brotherhood, for it was they, or their forebears from two hundred years before, who had commissioned Hugh de Payens and his small fraternity to find the Treasure, described in minute detail in the Order’s ancient lore. He knew, too, that certain portions of the Treasure had been taken back to France for study, to Aix itself, to furbish truth of their ancient records, but he had no idea at all of why the brotherhood had wished to send the Treasure to safety beyond France.

Certainly it made sense that it should be kept away from King Philip and de Nogaret, but neither one of those depraved souls had the slightest scintilla of suspicion that there was such an entity as the Order of Sion, and no senior member of the Order of Sion had any overt connection with the Order of the Temple, for obvious and necessary reasons. No man could reveal under torture what he did not know, and even if any of the lesser brethren, who served both Temple and Sion, were to reveal something under duress, the secrecy and intricacy of the Order’s structure was such that nothing could be proved or would be found. The major certainty of Sion’s security lay in the fact that the Inquisitors could not possibly conceive of another, far more ancient, secret, and non-Christian structure underlying the Order of the Temple, their sole target. They could not possibly ask questions about something whose existence they did not even suspect.

That knowledge was a more than sufficient reason for Will Sinclair to have grave doubts about committing anything to writing.

Dear God, he thought. How can I write anything of this?

He was interrupted, his pen still undipped, by footsteps in the hall outside, and then came a quiet knock. The door swung open, and young Ewan Sinclair leaned into the room, his hand on the door handle.

“Your pardon, Sir William. My father says can you come at once. There’s a galley coming in, from the north. It’s the admiral.”

“What brings him back so soon? Wait you then, and walk with me.”

He put his pen down by the inkwell and replaced the sheet of parchment, trying not to think about what the new arrival might bring with it. He glanced from side to side of his table desk, making sure that he had left nothing of importance for idle eyes to scan, then stepped away and turned to where Ewan stood waiting. They crossed the empty hall together to the outer door, Will glancing down and sideways to eye the slight limp with which the younger man favored his right leg.

“How is the leg? Does it still bother you as much?”

“No, sir, it’s mending nicely. Brother Anthony seems pleased with it, although he warns me, every time he sees me limping, that I shouldna be so soft on mysel’. The harder I use it, he says, the stronger it will mend.” He grinned, a cheerful, infectious grimace. “Mind you, I fancy it easier to tell others how to act when you’re not the one bearing the pain.”

Will grinned back and resisted the urge to slow his pace. Young Ewan had been warring on the mainland with King Robert, part of the last rotation of fighting men on that duty, and towards the end of his threemonth tour, while riding with the King’s brother, Sir Edward, in Galloway, he had taken a wicked slashing wound above his right knee from a heavy broadsword wielded by a MacDowal warrior. Luckily for him, he had been well tended immediately after the skirmish by one of their own men, a veteran physician who had spent years in Spain tending to wounds sustained by Templar knights in the wars against the Moors.

“What of your father? Does he have ought to say of your progress?”

Again the young man grinned, but this time he answered in his native tongue, so that Will had to listen closely to understand the fast-flowing rattle of his clipped words. “You know my father, Uncle Will. He glowered like an angry bear when I came back and he first set eyes on me … but that was to mask his concern.

He wasna frowning at me. But that was the extent o’ what he’d say. Since then he hasna mentioned anything about it … Hasna even asked me what happened.”

“What did happen?”

“I don’t know … I canna remember. I mean, it was a tulzie … and there were people everywhere, screamin’ and shoutin’ and fightin’ wi’ one another. There was a lot o’ spillin’ blood, I mind, but to tell ye the truth, I didna know who was who, because they a’ looked the same. There was no way o’ tellin’ Bruce men from MacDowals. So I was sittin’ there on my horse, gowpin’ around and ready to swing at anyone who came at me, but I didna dare swing at anybody else, for fear o’ hitting one o’ our own men. And then I felt this big dunt on my leg, and when I looked down, there was a big sword hangin’ out o’ it. Nobody holdin’ the sword, I mind. Nothing holdin’ it at all, in fact, except the edges o’ the gouge it had made in my leg.” He shrugged. “I must ha’e fell off my horse, for I didna mind anythin’ after that.”

“Passed out. I’m not surprised. Did you kill anyone over there in Scotland?”

“No, Uncle Will, I didna.”

Will looked at him sideways. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“No, sir. But I will, one o’ these days.”

“Don’t wish it on yourself, lad. It’s not as thrilling as it’s made out to be. Aha, that was quick. De Berenger is wasting no time, so something must have happened.”

The admiral’s huge galley was still approaching the wharf below the hall, but a boat had already been launched from it and was pulling quickly to the shoreline, its thwarts crammed with people, some of them wearing brightly colored clothes that marked them as strangers to Arran. Will recognized Tam Sinclair among the small crowd of men lining the waterside, waiting to pull it up onto the beach, and although he could recognize none of the newcomers from this distance, he felt an urgency that compelled him to rush down the long flights of steps to meet them.

Less than halfway down, however, he hesitated, slowing to a stop in stunned disbelief as he recognized one and then another of the newcomers. The first ashore, being aided onto the firm shingle by Tam himself, was a stooped, elderly man with a shock of silvery white hair. He looked up as Tam released his arm, saw Will on the steps above him, and waved.

“Stay here,” Will said to Ewan, and walked quickly down the remaining steps to the steep pathway that led down to the beach, his mind in a whirl.

Etienne Dutoit, Baron of St. Julien in the province of Aix-en-Provence, was one of the senior and most influential members of the Order of Sion, but he had also been Will’s sponsor on the occasion of Will’s Raising to the brotherhood, and the second man being helped ashore behind him had been Will’s co-sponsor, Simon de Montferrat, seigneur of the distinguished clan that claimed precedence among the federation of ancient bloodlines known as the Friendly Families, whose ancestors had fled Jerusalem before the destruction of the city by the Romans. These two were lineal descendants of the founding fathers of their Order, and the significance of their presence on Arran was so overwhelming that Will was scarcely able to think about what it portended.

He reached them moments later and fell to one knee in front of Etienne Dutoit, but the old man refused his obeisance and seized him by the shoulders, pulling him upright in a flurry of expostulations meant to convey that Will had no need or reason to kneel. Instead, the Baron embraced him closely, murmuring greetings in his ear, then pushed him towards his companion, and de Montferrat greeted Will the same way. Behind them stood two tall, richly dressed young men whose fine weapons and breadth of shoulder pronounced them knights, and whose unmistakable vigilance proclaimed them bodyguards.

Will stepped back from de Montferrat’s embrace and looked from one to the other of his former mentors, shaking his head in bewilderment. But then he remembered who and where he was, and spread his arms, smiling at both of them. “My friends and brothers, you are welcome here … how much, I have no words to express. But how came you here? And why? And aboard a galley from the north? You have much to tell me, it seems, But here is no place for it. Come you up to the hall, where we may be at ease. You will find it a far cry from the comfort of your homes in Provence, but it has comfortable chairs and a sound roof to keep out wind and rain.” He looked now at the two straight-faced young knights. “You gentlemen are welcome, too, since I presume the safety of my guests here is your prime concern.” He held out his hand to each of them. “I am William Sinclair.”

The two knights bowed formally and named themselves, and then Will turned to lead them up to the hall, calling up to Ewan Sinclair, who had remained on the steps above, to run ahead and order food and drink to be prepared for their visitors. Will glanced back at his guests. “You will have baggage, I presume?”

“It’s all here in the boat, Sir William,” Tam Sinclair told him. “I have it in hand. I’ll see it safely up as soon as it’s unloaded.”

“Aye. My thanks, Tam. Take them to the rooms over the hall.” Again he hesitated, glancing at each of the newcomers in turn. None of these men were Templars, but everyone in the press surrounding them on the beach was, and Will knew speculation would be lively afterwards with wonderings of who these people were and why they had come here from France. And so he decided to limit the imaginings of his men from the outset.

“Brethren,” he cried, seeing how every eye present turned towards him. “These knights are very dear to me, friends and mentors of long standing. I cannot say exactly why they come here today, for I do not yet know, but I suspect they bring us tidings of the welfare of our Order in France.” He looked questioningly at Dutoit and de Montferrat, and when both men inclined their heads gravely in acknowledgment, he turned back to his men. “Therefore we will have information we may trust, and as soon as I know of what it consists, I will pass it on to you. Now you may return to your interrupted tasks.”

As the small procession began to climb the stairs, with Will leading, flanked by the two elders, the Baron St. Julien answered the first of Will’s questions, speaking in the same measured tones that Will remembered from years before, his vibrant baritone unchanged by the years that had elapsed since then.

“We sought you first in the north, at Lochranza, only to find you had already returned here. Admiral de Berenger received us—he had just returned himself, he told us—and seeing our chagrin at having missed you, he brought us south in his galley, much faster than our own ship would have. He will join us as soon as he has put his ship to order.”

Will said nothing. De Berenger, too, belonged to the Brotherhood of Sion, and he would be as interested as Will in whatever urgency it was that had brought these two so far from home. But the steps ahead of them were steep for two elderly men, and so he asked no more questions, concentrating instead on assisting his guests to climb the long flights of stairs that had been made for use by men much younger than they were. Time enough for questions and answers once they had refreshed themselves and regained their wind.

FOUR

Aresinous knot exploded loudly in the iron grate, and the burning logs collapsed upon themselves, sending a storm of sparks whirling up to be sucked into the chimney, but ignored by the small group of men who sat ranged around the hearth, staring silently into the roiling flames, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Outside in the cooling night the air was yet warm from the late-August sun, but within the hall the temperature reminded its occupants that they were in Scotland, where the sun’s warmth seldom penetrated walls of stone and timber.

Etienne Dutoit, Baron de St. Julien, rose to his feet and picked up a heavy iron poker from the grate, then used it to break down the burning logs further, stirring them into an inferno before moving to select several logs from the pile in the big iron fuel basket and throw them onto the pyre. He pulled them this way and that with the poker until he was satisfied that they would burn properly. That done, he set the poker down again in its place and turned to face the men now watching him.

“You live in a cold country, my friends,” he said.

Edward de Berenger grunted and sat up straighter. “It’s not so much cold, Baron, as it is damp. Cold you can live with, and you can dress to fight it. But the dampness here is an internal thing … it chills your bones in summer as well as winter. The only way to combat that is from within, with solid, hot food in your belly.”

Dutoit smiled. “Aye, well, none can deny we have had our fill of that tonight. Your cooks are remarkably good.” He drew himself up to his full height, his back to the fire as he looked at the group facing him in an arc, his eyes shifting from face to face. His traveling companion de Montferrat sat on his far right, combing his fingers idly through his sparse gray beard, and next to him sat Bishop Formadieu, the senior Bishop of the island community. On Formadieu’s right sat Admiral de Berenger, and beside him was de Montrichard, the preceptor. Sir Reynald de Pairaud, the acting preceptor of Lochranza, who had accompanied Will to Brodick for the coming chapter meeting, sat next to the preceptor. Will himself made up the last of the gathering, seated next to Dutoit’s empty chair on the right end of the arc.

“And so to our affairs, the reasons for our presence,” the Baron began. “Neither Sir Simon here nor I myself have any overt association with your Order, so we and our affairs have been largely unaffected by the upheavals in our homeland these past long months. Unaffected, I say, but not unmoved, and I was happy when my dear friend Sir William thought fit to send to me with a request for assistance in gathering information on the status of the continuing investigation into your Order.” He held up a hand, palm outwards, to forestall a protest that did not emerge, and when he heard nothing but silence he quirked an eyebrow and nodded briefly.

“So be it … A request to gather information on the status of the investigation. I will not insult you by offering any opinion on whether or no that investigation is justifiable. I will say only that I myself, along with Sir Simon and many other men of probity and sound mind in France, deplore the actions of our self-righteous King and the creatures with whom he surrounds himself to carry out his bidding. That truth, allied with my long-standing fondness and admiration for Sir William Sinclair and the Order he represents, made it a pleasure rather than a burden to gather all the information available to me and to my friends throughout the land.”

He turned slightly to look at Will. “I discovered, though, and Sir Simon agreed with me, that although your questions were exhaustive, Sir William, the answers to them were even more demanding, and the upshot of that, after several wasted weeks of trying to write down an adequate summation of what we had learned, with all the conflicting elements of rumor and conjecture accompanying it, was that we decided the only way to present the information was in person, where we can listen to your reservations and respond to them.” He looked around again. “So, before I begin, does anyone wish to ask me anything? Or does anyone wish to challenge my right, as a non-Templar, to speak to you on this?”

Bishop Formadieu cleared his throat. “On the contrary, Baron Dutoit. What you have to tell us will add clarity, both to what we know and what we fear, for you will deal with it through the eyes of a dispassionate observer. I cannot think of any reason why my brethren should object to that.” He looked left and right at his brethren. “Does anyone disagree?”

No one did, and Will spoke up. “Proceed, sir. We are eager to hear what you have to say.”

The Baron’s face remained solemn. “Your eagerness might not outlive the first thing I must tell you,” he said somberly, then took a scroll of tight-wound parchment sheets from the scrip at his waist. He loosened the single leather binding and scanned the first page before looking up again.

“Let me begin with the wording of the King’s order for the arrest of the Templars in his own domain. He began to read. “‘To effect the detention of all members of the Temple for crimes horrible to contemplate, terrible to hear of … an abominable work, a detestable disgrace, a thing almost inhuman, indeed set apart from all humanity.’” He looked up again. “No mention, you will note, of what this so-called abomination was … But on the one day in October, close to five thousand members of the Temple were taken into the King’s custody within his realm of France. Among them were knights, of course, but also sergeants, chaplains, laborers, and servants of the Order. Five thousand souls in one short day.”

“Did anyone of note escape the purge?” This was Reynald de Pairaud.

Baron Dutoit shook his head. “From the information I have managed to gather, it appears that, apart from yourselves, about whom nothing has been released, less than a score of knights escaped. Two preceptors managed to avoid the net, but no one knows where they are now.”

“Who were they?”

“The Preceptor of France, de Villiers, and Imbert Blanke, Preceptor of the Auvergne.”

“Who else?”

Dutoit shook his head again. “Only one other that I know of by name, and he failed. A knight called Peter of Boucle. He shaved off his beard and dressed in common clothes, but someone recognized him and betrayed him. He, too, ended up in prison.”

“But on what charges?” Edward de Bergeron was coldly angry. “You yourself pointed out the lack of substance in Capet’s orders. This fellow, king or no, has dared to lay hands on an exempt Order—exempt from allegiance to him and answerable only to the Pope. That is sacrilege.”

The Baron pursed his lips beneath his mustache, and then he nodded slowly. “You are correct, Sir Edward. But he went even further. He claimed to have proceeded on this path after consulting with, and gaining the permission of, the Pope himself. And that was a lie. A lie that came quickly to the Pope’s attention.”

Will spoke up. “And what did he do? The Pope, I mean.”

“He wrote the King a letter … Here, I have a transcript of it, provided at grave personal risk by a dear friend. Let me see …” The Baron shuffled through the sheets in his hand, then held one out at arm’s length, peering down his nose as he read aloud: “ ‘You, our dear son, have, in our absence, violated every rule and laid hands on the persons and properties of the Templars. You have also imprisoned them and, what pains us even more, you have not treated them with due leniency … and have added to the discomfort of imprisonment yet another affliction. You have laid hands on persons and property that are under the direct protection of the Roman Church. Your hasty act is seen by all, and rightly so, as an act of contempt towards ourselves and the Roman Church.’ ”

“Pardon me, Baron,” the Bishop said. “Would you read that again?”

Dutoit read the letter again, and every man there sat frowning as he listened. When he had finished, the Bishop turned to him. “It is as I thought on first hearing it. The Pope deplores the King’s actions, but he is more concerned about the flouting of his own authority than he is with the outrage perpetrated upon our Order. But what is this ‘other affliction’ to which he refers?”

“Torture.”

The word dropped into the silence like a stone falling on a wooden floor. “William of Paris,” Baron Dutoit continued, “the Chief Inquisitor of France, is King Philip’s confessor, and there can be little doubt that he was privy to the King’s plans for the Temple long before any action occurred, for his Dominican Inquisitors stood shoulder to shoulder with the King’s officers and explained what had occurred at a public meeting in the King’s own gardens two days after the arrests.”

“What …” Richard de Montrichard’s voice failed him at first and he cleared his throat before trying again. “What kind of … tortures are we speaking of? What do they do, these priest Inquisitors?”

Bishop Formadieu was the first to answer him. “Nothing too severe. Torture was authorized in defense of Church doctrine fifty years ago, by Pope Innocent IV. The Inquisitors are constrained to stop short of breaking limbs or spilling blood.” He stopped, perhaps to continue, but before he could say anything more, Baron Dutoit intervened.

“That is the theory, Bishop, but the reality is far more harsh. The term is torture, not sympathy or compassion. The use of explanations such as yours entails an inclination to believe in the humane and tender mercies of the Inquisitors. But they have none. They use the rack and the strappado to obey the rules. The rack stretches a man’s limbs, painfully and slowly, to the point where the joints separate and may be torn asunder. Not broken, but ripped apart. The strappado is even more effective. You tie a man’s wrists behind his back, then hoist him into the air by a pulley fastened to the bindings on his wrists. He will talk very quickly after that, provided he is sane enough, and that you have sufficient capacity to decipher his babbling. And then of course there is a third method of loosening unwilling tongues. It has no name, but it is a simple procedure, involving neither broken bones nor bloodshed. You rub fat on a man’s feet, then hold his feet to the fire …” Every man there stared at him. He shrugged and spread his hands. “Bernard de Vado.”

“I know Bernard de Vado,” de Formadieu said. “He is a priest, one of our own. I ordained him. What know you of him?”

“He came from Albi. Is that the same man?”

“Yes, that is Bernard.”

“Well, they roasted him. Forgive me, Bishop, but they did it so badly that they cooked his feet until the bones fell out. It was witnessed by a man who reported the incident to a friend of mine in the Justiciary. In all, my friends and I have gathered reports of a number of deaths, varying from twenty-five to forty-four, resulting from torture administered by the Inquisitors, often assisted by the King’s own officers.”

“That is … inhuman. Unacceptable to God or man.” The Bishop’s voice was slack with shock and Sir Simon de Montferrat spoke out for the first time.

“It is, indeed as you say, Bishop, inhuman. But it is being done, and it is being done by churchmen in the name of an all-merciful God. And no less inhuman is the truth that all these prisoners are kept awake at all times, denied sleep, and that they are kept in irons, fed only on bread and water. And it is in that weakened state that they are then submitted to these fiendish tortures.”

“Damnation take all clerics and their hypocritical posturings!” De Montrichard’s voice was barely audible, but his anger was caustic, and Etienne Dutoit turned to look at him directly. “Why is any of this blasphemous infamy permitted to proceed, at any level, considering the Pope’s revulsion to the fact that these things have been done at all?”

The Baron’s eyes moved to meet Will’s. “Finally,” he said quietly. “The correct question.”

Will cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

The Baron thought for a moment, his eyes seemingly unfocused, and then said, “Hear me. This much we know of those early accusations of what were called ‘crimes set apart from all humanity.’ Your Order and its members stand accused of being servants of the Devil, dedicated to the worship and the service of Satan himself.” He ignored the sudden hiss of indrawn breath and forged ahead, speaking into the stunned silence that followed. “They say that each of your recruits is taught, and must acknowledge at the moment of his Initiation, that Jesus the Christus was a false prophet. He is then required to proceed through that denial to spit, trample, or urinate upon an image of Christ on the Cross, and then to kiss the Templar who received him into the Order, upon the mouth, the navel, the buttocks, the base of the spine, and sometimes on the penis. And in the aftermath, in the closing ceremonies, the new Initiate is told, in toto, that he may freely have carnal relations with his brethren and that it is, in effect, his duty so to do … that he ought to do and submit to this, for it is not sinful for the brotherhood to do this.”

The appalled silence stretched until the Baron added, “De Molay confessed.”

It took a moment for his words to register, but then the Bishop said, “Confessed? Confessed to what?”

“To everything I have mentioned. Except the matter of the homosexual kisses. Those he denied.”

Will finally found his tongue. “That is … That is not possible. Master de Molay would never—”

“In the face of unremitting tortures and torment such as we have been discussing, any man will confess to anything, merely to stop the pain and find some relief. Jacques de Molay is admirable beyond most men, but he is, in the end, a man. He was arrested on the first day of the purge, and within ten days he had confessed to most of the charges against him. He admitted having denied Jesus Christ and confessed that he had spat upon his image at the time of his Initiation—”

“Great God in Heaven! This is infamy!”

“Aye, and it is also blasphemy. But the infamy is not the Master’s, though the admission of blasphemy is. They put de Molay to the torture first, bringing all their power to bear on him alone from the moment of his imprisonment, and it is to his credit that he withstood their torments for as long as he did.”

“I cannot believe that he confessed to such things.” This was de Pairaud, his voice hushed.

“Believe it,” Dutoit said. “They broke him. They can break any man. Your Grand Master was the first to confess, but far from the last. I have reliable information that of one hundred and thirty-eight Templars arrested in Paris in October, one hundred and thirty-four had, by January of this year, admitted to at least some of the charges brought against them.” He hesitated, then turned his eyes to where de Pairaud sat glowering disbelief at him, his outrage rendering him speechless. “Your brother Hugh, Sir Reynald, Visitor of France, confessed on November ninth, admitting, in addition to many other sins, that he had encouraged brethren troubled by the heat of nature to cool their passions by indulging their lusts with other brothers.” He ignored de Pairaud’s efforts to rise to his feet in protest and kept speaking in the same expressionless voice. “Sir Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, was another. John de la Tour, Treasurer of the Temple in Paris, who had been a financial adviser to King Philip, also went down into despair, condemned by his own voice … And with those distinguished names went many others too numerous to mention.” He paused again. “That was in January of this year. We are now in August and much has happened in the interim, not all of it bad, but unfortunately none of it is yet resolved.”

No one dared ask him what he meant by that, so deep was the disbelief that filled his listeners, but eventually Will coughed to clear his throat. “We have heard tell, through trusted friends who know such things, that the Pope sent out a letter to all the kings and princes of Christendom, requesting them to seize all the Templars in their lands and to sequester their holdings. Can you tell us aught of that?”

“Aye. The Pastoralis Praeeminentiae. That was a recent move, designed to assert Clement’s control of a situation that has long since passed beyond his grasp. But it was sent, and widely acted upon, and the Temple’s assets, beyond France at least, now lie within the jurisdiction of the Church … Which is not, in this instance, necessarily a bad thing.”

“How so? If they have been sequestered, they are lost to us.”

“Not necessarily. They are within the jurisdiction of the Church—not within its coffers. Not yet within its coffers, I should say. There is yet hope.” The Baron looked from man to man around the arc. “Look at yourselves and take note, and try to imagine for a moment that you are plain French knights, not Templars. Think you that you are the only group to feel this outrage, this disbelief that such things can happen in a time of peace? The Pope himself cannot—does not—believe it. And more important than he, nor can his cardinals. Clement is far from being an effective pontiff at this time, and his failure to challenge and stop Philip’s depredations are causing him great difficulties, most particularly with his cardinals.

“By January, as I said, de Nogaret had gathered a sufficiency of confessions that Philip could claim a moral victory, emerging as a defender of the faith and a champion of fervid Christianity. Clement could hardly disagree, faced with the existence of the admissions. But in an attempt to wrest control of the investigation from Philip, he dispatched three cardinals to review the findings of the Inquisitors, and when these three prelates, two of whom were French, had de Molay brought before them, he revoked his confession, stripped off his clothes, and showed them the wounds—the scars not yet healed—that had been inflicted upon him during his ‘questioning’ and had led to his ‘confession.’

“It seems that he was very eloquent. The cardinals believed him. And they believed others who followed him with similar retractions—among those your brother Hugh, Sir Reynald. This was still early in January. The three cardinals recommended clemency and refused to confirm the condemnations of the Order. And they convinced their peers. No fewer than ten cardinals of the Curia threatened to resign that spring, in protest against Pope Clement’s cowardice in refusing to refute the actions and the arguments of the French King, who, in their opinion, did not have a single justifiable reason for his outrageous and abusive behavior, and certainly none for his sneering disdain of the Church and its institutions, of which the Temple was one.”

De Montferrat sat straighter and cleared his throat, and Will’s eyes went to him immediately, for he knew that de Montferrat was the more outspoken of his two mentors, the one who could always be trusted to cut to the heart of a contentious issue and say what was truly on his mind, without mincing words. “You wished to add something, Sir Simon?”

The elderly aristocrat harrumphed, but rose to his feet and began to pace the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. “Not add,” he began. “Not add … clarify, if anything.” He threw a glance to indicate his traveling companion and friend of many years, who was returning to his seat, content to leave the floor to him. “Etienne here has a tendency to dwell on detail. He was about to tell you next that Pope Clement decided in favor of your Order the following month, in February. After conferring with his cardinals, he professed himself convinced that the charges were untenable and that he would rather die than condemn innocent men. So he ordered the Inquisition to suspend its proceedings against the Templars.”

“My God! So it is over?” Bishop Formadieu’s voice was filled with awe and joy, a mixture that Will himself felt stirring inside him. But before any of his listeners could say another word, the blunt-spoken de Montferrat dashed all their short-lived hopes.

“No, it is not. Believe me when I tell you it is barely begun. But the stakes have now been raised so many times that the original case against the Order has been overshadowed.”

“How, in God’s holy name? By what?”

“By the realities of politics, Bishop. This is become a war between Philip and the Pope, for dominance, and Clement is afraid of being ousted, if not from the papacy, most certainly from his supremacy in men’s minds. Nominally, morally, there should be no question of conflicting jurisdiction—Philip’s is temporal; Clement’s is spiritual. The division should be clear, and it would have been with any other ruler than Philip Capet. But this is a king unlike any other before. He is ambitious, greedy, and contemptuous of all opinions that are not his own. His malevolence and his greed know no bounds and never have. Ten years ago, he sent his hellhound, de Nogaret, riding nine hundred miles to lay hands upon another pope, at Anagni in Italy—Pope Boniface VIII—and no one doubts he brought about that old man’s death by doing so. But he has never betrayed a flicker of contrition. De Nogaret remains excommunicate for that outrage, but as France’s chief lawyer he sees no shame—and no hindrance to his arrogance—in that. Nor does his master.

“So here is a war between two men, one of whom has armies, fortified castles, ministers of state who will do his bidding without questioning its morality or justice, and a record of implacable ruthlessness, while the other, despite having the entire wealth of Holy Church at his disposal, owns nothing but a moral right and a record of dithering and procrastination. And the Capet’s strongest weapon in this fight is a powerful means of swaying people’s minds. He claims to rule by divine right, holding himself answerable to none but God. And he believes that to be true, which makes him truly frightening.”

He stopped pacing and looked from man to man. “Heed my advice on this. Take steps from this day on to safeguard yourselves here, for you will never return to France as Templars. Even at the moment when Clement was suspending the Inquisition against you, Philip was already moving to impeach the Pope, threatening to charge him with the same sins of which you stand accused, along with additional charges of heresy for aiding and abetting the Temple’s heresies, and for offering support and encouragement to Devil worshippers. And no one doubted he would proceed with that … including the Pope himself.

“Since then, matters have gone from bad to worse, and the tortures were resumed in April, when Clement submitted to the King’s pressures. Now the days are filled with charge and countercharge, plot and subterfuge, lies and malicious rumors. Campaigns are being waged throughout the land to convince the people that Philip, His Most Christian Majesty, has right on his side and that the people of France themselves are the staunchest guardians of the Christian faith. The Templars have been largely lost sight of, although some are hauled out from time to time to remind the world of how perfidious they were.

“But the struggle, the real struggle, is for the Temple properties … the Order’s wealth. The Church holds it for the time being, since Philip recently bent the knee, ceremoniously at least, to acknowledge Clement’s papacy and power. But even if Clement and his cardinals hold the nominal power over the Templar prisoners, it is Philip the Fair who holds those prisoners in his dungeons. And Philip will win this war. The Temple in France will become nothing but a memory, and even that will fade and die. So look to yourselves. That is the best advice we have to offer you.”

The silence stretched long after de Montferrat had finished, the air of gloom around the gathering almost palpable. A few of the Templars looked at each other worriedly, but no one seemed inclined to speak out on anything until Bishop Formadieu muttered, “Well, here is a moral conundrum …” He said no more than that, however, and no one sought to question him about what he meant, no doubt because each one of them, in his own way, was facing the same realization. The game was over, and their side had been defeated.

It was Baron Etienne Dutoit who brought the meeting to a close, ending the long, embittered silence with a question directed to Will.

“Tell me, Sir William, have you heard aught recently from your aged aunt in Aix?” The term “aged aunt” was commonly used among brothers of the Order of Sion when outsiders were present to refer to their dealings with the Order, and Will responded without a blink.

“No, Baron, I have not, not since before I left Paris. She was well then, but like all of us, she grows daily older. It occurred to me, before we began to speak of these other things, that you might have word for me on her condition. Have you seen her recently?”

“Aye, I have, but—” The Baron hesitated. “I … the information that I have for you is somewhat personal and … delicate in nature.” He turned to eye the rest of the group, who were all listening. “Would it vex you, my friends, were I to ask your indulgence in this matter? Our business here is concluded, I believe, but I have yet some information to impart privately to Sir William, concerning his relatives in Provence. Would you mind leaving us now?”

FIVE

As soon as the doors swung closed, Will looked directly at Baron Dutoit. “Have you any resolu-

tion for me on the matter of releasing men from their vows? Guidance, counsel, opinions, advice? Anything will be welcome, for I confess I am utterly lost in this.”

“Words,” the Baron responded. “We have words. Nothing more, nothing less. Together, they address all your requests, from guidance to advice. But the decisions to be made are yours alone. You might take comfort, though, from knowing that many of the most astute members of our brotherhood have been working together on your dilemma, seeking to determine the best route for you to follow here in your tiny community in exile. Simon and I have been involved in those discussions, and that, more than any other reason, is why we are here in person. The retelling of the history of this past year was important, certainly. But what we are really here to discuss is the course of action that lies ahead of you, here on your island of Arran and in Scotland. We hear all the time about how things are changing in this modern world we live in, and it is true that many things are changing, visibly and noticeably. But this change we are living through now is epoch making. Our world—your world in particular, as a Templar—has changed forever. And the changes are numerous, enormous, widespread, and, we believe, permanent. They are certainly so in France, and the rest of Christendom is bound to follow.”

He glanced then at de Montferrat, who grunted and took over from him smoothly. “We are here to remind you of your roots, Will: of where you came from, who you really are. Not because we think you have forgotten any of it, but simply because you have spent so long now with your energies dedicated entirely to the welfare of the Temple and your Templars that we suspect you might have lost your perspective. We are not here to criticize you or your conduct. You have done nothing wrong. But we are here to realign your thinking … your line of sight … and to adjust your mental point of view. Are you prepared for that?”

Will had been leaning forward in his chair, listening intently, a small frown of concentration drawing his brows together. But his gaze had been focused on the long table by the doors, where he had left his sword belt when he entered, and now, instead of answering directly, he stood up and crossed to the table, where he unsheathed his long sword and swung it several times with exaggerated slowness, testing the weight of the weapon and the accuracy of his swings.

“Do you know how long it has been since I last swung a sword in earnest?” He did not wait for an answer. “I’m not exactly sure of what you mean by ‘adjusting my mental point of view,’ but the prospect does not trouble me. I am prepared for whatever you might wish to put to me.”

“Good. Etienne?”

Baron Dutoit stepped forward and held out his hand for Will’s sword, which he then proceeded to use in formal exercise, stepping through the prescribed rules of attack and defense in a way that proved he still knew what he was about with a blade in his hand. He stopped after completing a basic pattern of moves and held the weapon upright in his hands, gazing up at its shining tip, then deftly spun it and reversed his grip, pointing the blade downward and grasping it in both hands about a foot below the cross-hilt, so that it resembled a crucifix held up in front of his face, between him and Will.

“Do you remember this? This symbol? Do you remember what you learned of it when you joined our brotherhood—that it was then and is now other than it seems today? Do you recall the teachings you received about our forefathers and whence they came? Do you remember learning, and believing, that the Cross that Christians revere is a fabrication, an appropriation of the Cross of Light that was the symbol of the Roman god Mithras, adopted and adapted to men’s use today by other men who knew the power of symbols and sought to convert the followers of Mithras—which was, effectively, every soldier in the legions—to Christianity?

“And do you remember learning, and coming to believe, that Christianity itself is a usurpation and distortion of the Way our ancestors followed? The same sacred Way that the man Jesus and his brother James pursued and the secrets of which they died defending? A usurpation because it was taken from the Jews, then stripped of every vestige of its Jewishness, and a distortion because it was thereafter scrubbed and cleansed and reconstituted free of any Jewish taint that the Romans might find offensive, including the person and character of Jesus himself? Do you remember that? Any of it?”

Will, taken aback by the quiet ferocity of this sudden catechism, could only raise his hands as if in self-defense. “Of course I do. I remember all of it.”

“Then the time has come to start living your true life, as one of us, a Brother of the Order of Sion.”

“Do you doubt that I have been doing so?”

“No, not at all. But we believe you need to see things afresh, beginning now.”

“We. You mean you and Sir Simon?”

“No. I mean we and all your peers in the brotherhood. That is the message we bring to you: it is time to take stock of what remains to you and your people here on Arran.”

“All that remains to us, from what you have told us today, is our freedom, and we are fortunate to have that. But what use is freedom if we cannot exercise it?”

“That is true. As things stand now, your freedom is constrained. But that is why we are here, Simon and I. Unless you take steps to alter fate, you will have only the freedom to die off, one by one, until the last of you disappears. You know that already. We were greatly encouraged to see that you had already given this matter much thought before reporting your concerns, because you are correct in thinking that your younger men, at least, should be released from their oath of chastity. Without the ability to procreate, you and your charges will soon be left with no one to whom you can entrust your legacy.”

Will frowned again, more deeply now. “What legacy is that?”

“Your legacy as Templars … the last free Templars. After two hundred years, is that not worth preserving?”

Now Will threw up his hands in exasperation. “I certainly think so … of course I do. But you have just finished telling me it is time to leave all that behind.”

“Did I say that? No. What I said was that it is time to start living your true life again, as one of our brotherhood before all else. But that does not entail abandoning any of the responsibilities that are yours. It involves rethinking them and rearranging them, but there can be no question of abandoning your charges.”

“No more than there can be of releasing my men from their oaths of chastity and then expecting them to remain on Arran.”

Now it was the Baron’s turn to frown, tilting his head slightly to one side. “I don’t follow.”

“I did not expect you to, Baron. But there are no women on Arran. Or only very few, wives of the inhabitants, most of whom have long since crossed to the mainland. There are certainly no young women here, of childbearing age.” He shrugged. “Therefore, if we release our monks from their vow of chastity—even ignoring the fact that most would refuse, along with all the other reasons why such a course would be sheer folly—they would have to leave the island in search of wives, which would decrease our numbers and hasten the end of us.”

The Baron, clearly in need of guidance, looked at his friend de Montferrat, and Sir Simon spoke up.

“When you say ‘the end of us,’ you are referring to the Temple brethren here, is that not so?”

“Of course.”

“But us, to us, refers to our more ancient fraternity of Sion. The Temple, the entire Order since its initiation, has been but a means to an end for us … a convenient way of masking ourselves and our true endeavors from view. There is no end in sight for us, in that sense. Our existence is undreamed of beyond our own brotherhood and our work remains ongoing. That is why we are here, urging you to take appropriate steps to protect yourselves. Your very presence here, ostensibly as Templars, extends the presence of our true Order in this land, for besides yourself and those brothers here among your number, there are fewer than a score of our brothers in Sion in all Scotland. And yet our dearest and most precious possessions, the source of all our efforts, are now here, under your protection.”

“The Treasure chests,” Will murmured, then nodded. “Aye, they are, for the time being.”

“Of course. They will be returned to France and to safety when the time is right, but in the light of current developments it would be folly to risk bringing them back there today. And so you, my young friend, must stay here. That is your charge from your brothers in Sion. And you must prosper here—that is even more important. Our Order needs you here, enlarging and exercising your influence with the King of Scots and his nobles.”

Will shook his head. “But what has that to do with releasing the brethren from the vow of chastity? I fail to see the connection.”

De Montferrat grunted, then sucked in a great breath, clearly willing himself to patience. “Templars take three vows, Will. Which of those takes precedence?”

“Obedience.”

“Precisely. Now, as Master in Scotland, you have supreme power over all of the Templars here. We will find the proper way to explain the situation to them, and though you may be right and many may refuse to renounce their oath, some of them will. But those who do will yet be constrained to obey your commands as Master, and those commands will instruct them to find wives, wherever they can, and then return with them to Arran, where they will still be accepted as members of the community. I am not saying it will be simple to achieve. But I am saying it is necessary.”

“No, by God! Think of what you are saying, both of you … By relieving these men of the need to observe one vow, we debase all three. How can we say in conscience and with authority that one lifetime vow is less important than another, that we will absolve them of the sin of oath breaking in one instance, yet hold them to the sanctity of the others? It makes no sense. It is illogical.”

“Aye, it is. But the lack of logic is not ours. It is the logic of the world within which they have elected to live that has gone awry. We are all sinners. That they know, as Christians. But in this present case they have been punished and condemned by the very authorities they have spent their lives defending: the Church and the society in which they lived and served faithfully. Their priests, from the highest down, have betrayed them mercilessly and callously, and their King, to whom admittedly they swore no allegiance, has declared them treasonous, fit only for torture and the flames of death. If they hold dear to anything now, it must be to themselves and to the thought of survival, for themselves and their ideals. And that survival entails the getting of children to follow them into a new life. These are men who would have gladly died for their beliefs, fighting for Christianity and its beliefs. And now they are declared anathema by the governing body of that Christianity, deprived of any say in their own lives. Believe me, they will listen, and they will understand. And if one-tenth of them accept your absolution, that will make a score of new families here in Scotland. Families who may be taught the truth.”

“The Christian truth, you mean.”

“Aye. Our own truth is not Christian. But the Templars in Scotland must endure, by whatever means they must employ.”

“But still it seems impossible to do what you suggest. There has never been such a thing happen before … the lifting of a collective vow.”

“Not true … or not exactly true. Larger changes have been made. Never in history, you may recollect, had any cleric, any priest or monk, been permitted to kill any man prior to the founding of the Temple Order. But when the time was right and circumstances called for drastic change, that law, which had been immutable since the foundation of the Christian Church, was changed to meet the new requirements of the age. And monks and priests acquired a dispensation that required, even encouraged, them to kill in God’s name. That change, requiring sweeping alterations to what had been God’s own commandment, makes your current dilemma seem very small.”

“Aye, when put like that, it does. We must disappear, then …” Will was aware of both men’s eyes on him, and shrugged. “Something I was told by a churchman here … something with which I agreed at the time.” He fell silent, musing, then looked from one of his mentors to the other. “So, do you and your Council really believe this is achievable, all that we have talked about?”

It was Etienne Dutoit who answered him. “We do, on the most fundamental level. And we will place the entire resources of our Order at your disposal.”

“To save the remnants of the Temple …”

“To save it and preserve it. And we will send you aid, in the form of bright young men from France, the best of the best of the Order of Sion, all of them married men with young families. Scotland and France—our France, our Order’s France—will be allies in this renaissance.”

Again Will sat in silence for a long time, but then he straightened his back and nodded resolutely. “Very well, then. It will not be easy, but it will be done. So mote it be!”

SIX

For perhaps the tenth time in the course of four hours, Will Sinclair flipped over the carefully wrapped oblong packet on the tabletop in front of him. The smooth front bore only his name, written in a hand he recognized with mixed feelings. The reverse bore only a wax seal, impressed with a smooth, blank stamp, and he fought hard against the inclination to break it open and read the letter folded inside. He could not guess why it had been sent, and for some reason he felt reluctant to open it and find out. The woman who had penned it had been in his mind for months, with increasing regularity and utterly against his volition. Her face would appear in his mind unpredictably and at the strangest times, and he had awaked several times from a sound sleep with the memory of her form and the warmth of her skin imprinted on his befuddled awareness. And now, sitting staring at her letter, he acknowledged to himself that his unwilling preoccupation with her had increased since the day when he had released so many of his brethren from their vow of chastity.

He grunted, disgustedly, and flipped the letter again, staring now at the inscription of his own name in the exact center of the flawless vellum sheet. It had been delivered to him that morning by a young man who had arrived aboard de Berenger’s galley, returning from the Galloway coast where the admiral had been meeting with Edward Bruce and Douglas for the previous month. Both leaders, Will now knew, had been in the north all that time, campaigning with the King against the MacDougalls of Argyll. De Berenger himself had been up there, sailing the sea lochs in support of the royal forces, and brought word of a recent victory for the King’s forces, led by the King himself, with his fiery brother and James Douglas in support, at a mountain pass called Brander—the supposedly impregnable rear entrance to the Argyll lands. The taking of the pass, largely due to the genius and improvisation of Douglas, had permitted the invasion of Argyll itself, and the confusion and confoundment of Lame John of Lorn, who had thought his rear secure.

And with that news had come this other missive: a single package brought by a wide-eyed, earnest, and very young man called Randolph, cousin to the Baroness. He had ridden from Nithsdale, he said, at the behest of his lady cousin, with specific instructions to seek out the acting commander of the Bruce army in the south and secure a passage to Arran aboard the next ship sailing there. He had waited for two weeks on the coast until the admiral’s galley returned, and had then crossed the firth aboard it.

Now, with a muttered imprecation, Will pushed himself to his feet, leaving the letter on the tabletop, and crossed to the narrow window, where he leaned on the sill, gazing out at the activities of his men in the yard below.

More than a month had elapsed since the arrival of Dutoit and de Montferrat. In the course of that time, in a closed plenary meeting of the combined Arran chapters, convened in the three-day turnover when one expedition returned from riding with the King of Scots and before their replacements had left for the mainland, Will had outlined his intentions to his Templars. Assisted by Admiral de Berenger and several other senior members of the community, and proceeding slowly and patiently so that even the least gifted of his people could understand what was being said and what it meant, Will had explained the situation now in force in their homeland, with particular and detailed emphasis on exactly how, and how profoundly, those truths had come to affect the life of each and every individual Templar on Arran. And towards what would have been the end of the proceedings, he explained his intentions on the matter of releasing the Arran brethren from their vow of chastity.

He had anticipated strenuous opposition from all sides, but mainly from the three Templar bishops in his community, and from the Boar de Pairaud and his adherents, so he had been at pains to consult with them first, seeking their advice long before making his announcement to the chapter. But to his profound astonishment, not one of them had raised a single quibble. They had asked some penetrating and profoundly concerned questions—particularly on the theological improbability of being able to choose between vows already taken, rejecting one completely while conforming to the others with equanimity—but when he answered all of them straightforwardly, they had, as one man, acceded to his wishes. It was not they who had elected to usurp God’s will in the first place, as one of the bishops pointed out. God’s own churchly deputy had opted to revise the rules governing the worship of his divine Master, and the Templars had merely responded sanely, in self-preservation.

When he made his presentation to the remainder of the brethren, however, his proposal sparked a debate that went on long into the night before it gained acceptance. The vast majority of those assembled were too firmly set in their ways and had no interest in being released from their vow, for any reason, but fifty-seven of the younger brethren accepted, some of them eagerly, some complacently, most with varying degrees of reluctance. Will had been unsurprised, but slightly disappointed against all logic, that the former rebel Martelet had been among the first to accept, although none of his erstwhile companions joined him.

Will had then reconvened the chapter the following day, wearing his full Master’s regalia and formally entreating the blessing of the Old Testament God upon their new course of action and behavior. And the exodus had begun the very next day, with the newly enfranchised brethren having renewed their vow of obedience and undertaken, without exception, to bring new wives back to Arran when they found them. Of the fifty-seven newly released brethren, however, a full thirty had been members of the new rotation of riders to the mainland and King Robert’s service, which meant that they either would have to await the end of their tour before seeking a wife, or would spend the tour looking around them at available prospects.

The two delegates from Aix-en-Provence had left to return to their homes soon after that, both of them well pleased with the way things had turned out, and both promising to send young, married men from the Order of Sion as soon as it could be arranged. These newcomers, it had been agreed, would come as Temple sympathizers, their intentions to support and assist the Arran brethren of the outlawed Temple. Will’s thinking on that matter had not yet extended to how he would welcome the newcomers or to what use he might put them, but he was unperturbed by the prospect. When the time came, he knew, there would be positions available for them to fill.

He turned back to look at the unopened letter on the tabletop, recognizing that there was no logical reason for his reluctance to open it. It had been delivered openly and innocently, and so he knew it would contain nothing inflammatory or outrageous. The woman had written to him before, and in this letter she would probably continue as she had begun, with personal information on the King’s affairs that she had been able to glean through her special, trusted status. He had no fear of any of that; all the fear he felt was for his own reaction to his renewed awareness of Jessie Randolph’s existence. The memory of her—even worse, imaginings of her—had disturbed his sleep on too many occasions, and it was only recently that he had been able to forget about her for weeks on end. Now here she was again, chapping at his door, as his Scots friends would say.

He sighed, then sniffed hard, his mind made up, and strode back to the table, where he seated himself and snapped the seal on the missive with a flick of his thumbnail. The pages of the letter, neatly folded and pressed, were folded tightly inside the enveloping cover, and he saw at a glance that the letter, like the previous one, was written in the tongue of his boyhood, Angevin.

Sir William

You may already be better informed of what I am about to tell you than I myself am, but having spoken with SJD as he passed through Nithsdale on a recent journey, and learning that he had intended to visit you but had been unable to do so because of the restrictions of his campaign in Galloway, it has occurred to me that you might not yet be aware of what is happening in the north.

The truce that has been in force with the MacDougalls of Lorn and Argyll is now at an end, and it is obvious that the recalcitrant Lame John, Lord of Lorn, has been using the time of truce to strengthen his position and his forces in order to intensify his efforts to overthrow His Grace Robert. Aware of that, the King has marched north with his army to invade Lorn’s lands from the rear, through a natural gateway called the Pass of Brander, and SJD and his command are now on their way to join the royal forces. You may be unaware of those developments, but the outcome of the venture will greatly influence your situation on your island for better or for worse. I pray that it will be the former.

By now your plans for consolidating yourselves upon the island must be well in hand, if not absolutely complete. I trust that you and yours have prospered in that regard. I myself continue to enjoy being an honorary aunt, although “mother” might be the better word for this relationship, all-embracing as it is. Be that as it may, I am finding great pleasure in it and the child is a delight, with a very quick ear for languages. She is already speaking French as though she has never known another tongue, after less than a year of practice.

I hope you will not think too unkindly of me for thrusting myself into your awareness yet again, but I think of you often and was born, my father used to tell me, with far more curiosity than was good for me. Peggy is well, and aging beautifully. You would be proud, could you but see her. And she wears your trinket constantly, her pride in her elder brother a self-evident truth.

The young man who bears this letter to you is a cousin—far younger than he appears to be—so I beg you to ignore his pleadings to remain with you, and to send him home again. He will have plenty of time to go to war once he comes of age for it.

Your friend,

Jessie Randolph

The foray into Argyll and Lorn had been a great success, with Douglas playing a major role in the capture of the supposedly impregnable pass, all of which Will had already learned from de Berenger, whose source was more recent than Jessie Randolph’s was when she wrote her letter. But Will was obliged to admit to himself that had her letter arrived by any other means than de Berenger’s galley, he would have been grateful and highly pleased to have received it. It was not the Baroness’s fault that time and events had overtaken her tidings. Her concern for his welfare—and for that of his men, he added hastily—was genuine, and he had no desire to dispute it. And that, in turn, made him feel guilty for having no intention of acknowledging her letter. To the best of his knowledge he had never, ever written a letter to a woman, and he had no desire to begin now. He had not even written to his sister Peggy in response to the letters she had sent to him, and she was a sibling. The prospect of even attempting to write to Jessica Randolph made him quail. He would not even know where to begin, or how to proceed from there. Better, then, he decided, to continue as he had begun, unresponsive to the woman’s blandishments and therefore reasonably safe from ever saying anything he might regret.

He read the letter through again, then folded it carefully and placed it in the small locked chest of sandalwood on his table, atop the woman’s first letter, where he knew it would be safe.