From Death, into Death
It seemed to Jessie Randolph that all the
world was coming to Arran that first week of May in the year of our
Lord 1314. The northwestern harbor of Lochranza was crowded with so
many galleys that the unthinkable had occurred and the harbor had
been closed, incapable of accommodating a single vessel more. Four
of the eight remaining Temple galleys were moored there, but they
were invisible among the others, visiting craft from the isles and
sea lochs to the north, many of which had borne the MacDonald
blazon of the new Lordship of the Isles on their sails as they
approached the anchorage beneath the cliff. There were more than
MacDonald vessels down there, though; she had seen the emblems of
Camp-bells, MacRuaries, and MacNeils as well, along with several
others unknown to her that Will told her had come from the isles
far to the north. They had filled the harbor, which had never
seemed small before, occupying every foot of the wharves that lined
the water, and in places so many of them were lashed together side
by side that they appeared to form a series of floating bridges
across the waters directly below where Jessie stood looking down
from the castle walls.
She had been in Lochranza for nigh on a year and a
half—the time had flown by almost without her awareness—and as
chatelaine of the castle she had become accustomed to the
always-busy harbor beneath the walls, with its constant procession
of ships and galleys coming and going, but she had never seen
anything like what was happening now. The narrow strip of land
between the wharves and the castle itself was thick with men, all
of them scurrying about like ants, but she knew that what she was
seeing was nothing; beyond her sight, behind the curve of the walls
to each side, the yards and buildings of the castle enclosure were
even more crowded, and the mob of men spilled out beyond the
postern gate to fill up the meadow at the rear.
She half smiled as the word mob came to her,
for although the men below bore no resemblance to the kind of
soldiers she had known most of her life in mainland Scotland,
France, and England, to call them a mob was wrong. Although there
was no uniformity of any kind among the Gaels, and none of the
imposed restraints of chivalry, each man among them was a warrior,
self-equipped and self-reliant, present upon his own decision to
support his chief, and should the wishes of his own chief concur
with the wishes of any other, each would decide for himself whether
or not to continue to extend that support. She knew they were no
mob, no mere disorderly rabble. She had heard enough from many
sources to know that these fiercely independent men, so apparently
undisciplined, were savage and unrelenting fighters who could tear
down conventional military formations and overwhelm fortifications
with ease, imposing their own form of discipline upon themselves
when the need arose. Islesmen and Highlanders all, they lived by
their own standards, beholden to no man.
Beneath her, two floors removed, their leaders were
meeting with King Robert’s representatives, Sir Robert Keith, the
Marshal of Scotland, and Sir James Douglas, looking far older and
more grim than he had when Jessie had first met him, a mere five
years earlier. Two prominent members of the Scottish clergy
completed the royal delegation: William Sinclair, the Bishop of
Dunkeld and uncle to her own Will, and the formidable Bishop David
Moray, dressed as always in the mail hauberk and steel cuirass of a
fighting soldier and looking not one whit like a lord of Holy
Church. Meeting with these four were Angus Og MacDonald, now the
self-styled Prince of the Isles; Fergus MacNeil, the Lord of Barra;
MacGregor of Glenorchy, chief of Clan Alpine; and a pair of
taciturn chieftains from the islands of Lewis and Uist whose names
she did not know, although she suspected that they were kinsmen to
the MacNeil. They had been in discussions for three days now,
taking over the main hall on the second floor of the castle and
ousting its chatelaine for the duration, so that she spent most of
her time now either in her own chambers with her women, including
young Marjorie, or here on the battlements, overlooking the
activities in the harbor below whenever the unpredictable spring
weather permitted it.
Jessie, swathed now in a richly furred mantle of
soft sealskin, was untroubled by the loss of her domain, content to
let the visitors have the run of it. She understood the urgency of
this gathering and so she simply left them to get on with their
affairs, confident that the faithful Hector and his staff from
Nithsdale would keep them well supplied with food and drink. She
had other, more weighty matters to think about.
Will, her Will, whom she now gloried in calling her
man, was deeply involved in convening another, completely different
gathering at Brodick Castle. There, too, she knew, would be a great
gathering of ships in the nearby bay of Lamlash, in the lee of the
Holy Isle, Eilean Molaise, because in four days’ time the last
formal chapter of the assembled knights and sergeants of the Temple
Order within the realm of Scotland was due to assemble there, and
the brethren would already be arriving, openly or secretly, from
all over King Robert’s domain. And when it was concluded, the Arran
community of Templars would disperse, some of them on the quest to
the new land, others to the service King Robert as volunteers,
based in a number of communal centers that had been set up on the
mainland within the previous few months. These centers were few,
but they were in place, widely distributed throughout the realm,
and would be referred to henceforth as lodges; none would ever be
called preceptory or commandery, but they would serve as rallying
points and places of refuge for those who wished to retain their
fraternal identities henceforth, and they would be tacitly
acknowledged by the King’s authority. The men based there,
indistinguishable by now from ordinary men, would continue to
function as Templars, but in a profound secrecy beyond anything
they had known or needed in the past. They would observe their
rituals and rites, nurturing and passing on the secrets and symbols
of their once great Order to other, younger men in days to
come.
Of course, the King’s royal leave for the Scots
Templars to attend the chapter gathering had not been given without
conditions, and Will had discussed those conditions with Jessie,
seeking her advice. The King knew of the resources Will had
nurtured on Arran, and he was more than aware of the wealth of
horseflesh, particularly the heavy horses, under Will’s command. In
all of Bruce’s Scotland there were fewer than forty destriers, the
enormous war horses that made the chivalry of England and France so
powerful, and the worth of each one was incalculable. The small
cavalry force that Scotland could field, seldom more than five
hundred strong, was all light horse: scouts and skirmishers and
mounted men-at-arms and bowmen, suitable enough for diversionary
tactics and for nuisance raiding but utterly ineffectual against
the fearsome, overwhelming bulk of massed English chivalry. Thus it
was natural that King Robert coveted the Temple destriers, and
knowing the King’s needs and the dangers facing his realm, Will had
had no difficulty in agreeing to provide them. After all, as he had
said to Jessie, they could not take the beasts to Merica. They had
more than seventy of the huge animals on Arran now, and they would
have difficulty transporting them even across the narrow channel to
the mainland, for the ships that brought them here from France had
all long since been reconfigured for other cargo.
Jessie had agreed with everything that Will was
saying, advising him to make an immediate start on reconfiguring
the ships’ holds yet again to accommodate heavy livestock. But then
she had asked him about the knights’ armor. King Robert would
assign the destriers to his knights, she pointed out, but would
those knights have armor sufficiently heavy and strong for the
tasks they had to face aboard their new and massive mounts? Very
few of them would, she suggested, since Scots knights, less wealthy
than their English counterparts, had traditionally been unable to
afford, or even to find, such enormous mounts, and consequently had
no use for such bulky, reinforced armor. Their need had always been
for lighter, stronger armor, mail that was more supple and less
restrictive than the solid, unyielding plate worn by the English
chivalry. Besides, she added, had he thought about how many of his
own Templars would wish to volunteer their services as chivalry to
Scotland?
That took Will aback, for he had not thought of it
at all. His overriding concern in recent months had been the
composition of the group that would set out across the sea for the
new land, ensuring that only the best, most versatile and resilient
of his people would be included. De Berenger had crossed safely to
Genoa late in the previous July, avoiding the English blockade of
the North Sea coast, and had been able to buy two newly built
ships, both commissioned and partly paid for by the Temple before
its dissolution, along with two similar vessels that were
unfinished when he arrived, their construction suspended in the
absence of a purchaser. All four, he had reported back, were
suitable for their expedition and in fact better than he had hoped
to find. He had promised to have the four new ships back in Arran
by mid-June, and all Will’s efforts had been geared towards being
ready to set out at that time.
Thus, in the hubbub of all the ongoing activities,
Will had made a fundamental error in his calculations. For more
than five years now, revolving shifts of armed and mounted men from
their Arran community had been fighting with the Bruce armies, and
Will had taken it for granted that they would continue to do so
after their relocation to the mainland. But those riders, knights
and sergeants alike, had all used smaller, lighter horses and mail
armor, easier to transport across water. He had not considered the
great destriers, or the fact that many of his men, the French
knights most assuredly, would wish to rearm themselves with their
own huge war horses and plate armor once that became possible. Now
he had to plan to present King Robert not only with horses but with
the armored knights to ride those horses. Chagrined at first to
have overlooked such an apparently obvious development, he had
nevertheless soon found the grace and humor to acknowledge, once
again, his new-won spouse’s value as an adviser. He had immediately
issued orders to have all the Templars’ heavy armor and weaponry
brought out from storage and refurbished for use in the coming
English invasion.
And so, as soon as the chapter meeting was
adjourned, the business of transferring the horses, armor, and
weapons to Scotland would begin, for they had no time to waste. She
herself would have been in Brodick now, organizing the score and a
half of women who would sail with the expedition to the new land,
had Will not asked her to remain behind in Lochranza to act as
chatelaine and hostess to the gathering there. That was a waste of
her time, in Jessie’s opinion—though she kept her silence—since she
had contributed nothing but her presence, and that had been largely
ignored, as she had known it would be.
A sudden upsurge in the noise from below attracted
her attention. The apparently aimless seething of the crowd down
there had altered since she had last looked, and now men were
moving purposefully, pouring aboard the galleys, spilling from one
to the other as they sought their own berths.
A discreet cough came from behind her, and she
turned to find Hector standing at the turret door, holding it open
for Sir James Douglas, who was stooped in the entryway, smiling at
her.
“Sir James! Is something wrong? Do you need
anything? I—”
Douglas doffed his feathered cap and bowed low in
the gesture she had come to associate with him, but the smile
remained in place on his dark-skinned, strangely attractive face.
“No, Baroness, nothing is wrong. We are done our work and I need
nothing . . . except time—a few more months between now and the
coming week, if you could arrange that?”
She laughed back at him. “Would that I could, Sir
James. But are you leaving?”
“Aye, on the rising tide, ’gin we can board and
clear the sea wall in time. It is gey tight down there.” He stepped
to her side and they stood together for a moment, watching the
still-increasing activity below. “MacNeil, at the back there, will
go first,” Douglas told her, “and that will clear the harbor mouth.
As soon as they have room to dip their oars, the others will
follow. I would venture, though it seems impossible, looking at
that, that your harbor will be empty again within the hour from
now. These caterans know their business.”
He looked at her again and stepped back a pace,
inclining his head. “I have come to thank you, Baroness, from all
of us who have gathered here these past few days, depriving you of
house and home. Your hospitality and forbearance have been much
appreciated, and we have achieved all that we hoped for. The
Islesmen of the West will stand with His Grace when England comes
chapping at our door, and those tidings will do much to soothe our
noble Robert’s cares. But I must now travel hard and fast to tell
him, for he is on his way to Stirling to assemble our host, such as
it may be. And so, ’gin you will grant me leave to go thus rudely,
I must away forthwith. The others are waiting for me.”
“Go then, and Godspeed, Sir James. Carry my
blessings and good wishes to the King, and tell him I will keep his
niece safe for him.”
“I will. Adieu, then, Madame la Baronne.” He bowed
again, sweeping the ground with his bonnet’s plume, and then he was
gone, the sound of his booted feet dwindling rapidly down the
narrow spiral staircase.
Jessie stood staring at the spot where he had
vanished, her eyes narrowed in thought. She had been less than
truthful with the King in the matter of his niece, for she had said
nothing of taking the girl with her beyond the seas, and even now
she was unsure what she would do when the time came to decide. It
would all depend upon what happened in the weeks and months ahead,
and if she decided that Marjorie’s life would be safer in the new
land, then she would take the child without a moment’s
hesitation.
That Scotland would be invaded was a certainty.
Edward Bruce had ensured that when he made his foolish truce with
the English governor of Stirling the previous summer. England’s
King had used the ensuing year to settle his own internal wars with
his barons and whip them into a frenzy of greed and offended
chivalric honor, playing upon their lust for Scottish lands and
wealth. The sole question remaining was the exact timing and
strength of the incursion, and even that was finite. Midsummer Day,
the date of settlement of the Stirling truce, was June
twenty-fourth. England had until that date, now six weeks distant,
to relieve Stirling or lose Scotland.
Edward of England had begun summoning his earls and
barons months earlier, just before Christmas. Word had soon reached
Bruce’s ears, generating the urgency that had brought about this
gathering of Scots and Gaels here in Lochranza, forging alliance
between King Robert and the reluctant, independent Islesmen and
Highlanders, for if King Robert’s Scotland fell to the English so,
too, would the Western Isles and the Highlands.
A chorus of horns and shouts from below brought
Jessie’s attention back to the present, and she looked over the
battlements to see, to her astonishment, that the harbor was indeed
emptying rapidly, the sea beyond the entrance dotted with departing
galleys, all of them using wind and oars to reach their various
destinations as soon as possible. Another roar of approval reached
her, and she looked straight down, recognizing Douglas and his
three companions as they and their attendants moved quickly to
board their own vessel, the massive galley lent to the King of
Scots by his Arran Templars.
How long she stood gazing down at the King’s galley
as it was warped away from its berth and headed out to see she
could not have said afterwards, for her mind was filled with
worries of another sort as she wondered what her own man would now
do. He had told her that he would remain on Arran to complete his
work; that the affairs of Scotland were Scotland’s own; that he had
made and would continue to make his contribution to King Robert’s
cause with men, horses, and weaponry; but that his overriding
responsibility was to his own people and their journey to the new
land. She had believed him at the time, but that had been a full
month earlier, and now she was not so sure. Sir William Sinclair
was not the kind of man who could turn his back upon his friends in
time of need, and Robert Bruce and his closest supporters had
become Will’s friends. Knowing that, she knew too, in her heart of
hearts, that as the threat of invasion drew nearer, her man must be
undergoing torment from his divided loyalties.
He would do the right thing. She had no doubt of
that. But the unease over what that might be, the decision he might
finally make, had kept her awake every night since he had left for
Brodick. She had waited far too long for him to come to her, and
now that he had, she could barely tolerate the thought that she
might lose him in the squalor of some muddy battlefield,
slaughtered in the mire because his sense of honor and his
conscience would not permit him to stand back and look to his own
affairs.
She was still standing there, gazing sightlessly
out to sea and hugging herself beneath her sealskin mantle, when
she felt his hands close over her upper arms. She knew them
instantly and whirled about, throwing himself into his embrace and
kissing him wildly, feeling him stiffen at first at her unexpected
ardor, and then enfold her, pulling her tightly against him as he
returned her kiss.
Finally, after a time she thought was all too
short, he broke from the embrace and turned her in his arms so that
she leaned back into him, but in the turning, she had time to see
the lines in his face and the deeply troubled look in his eyes, and
she felt her heart fill up with apprehension, knowing that he
should not be here.
“So, they are gone,” he whispered into her ear,
holding her steadily as he looked out at the last of the departing
ships. “They reached an agreement?”
The question was rhetorical, but she answered it
anyway. “Aye, they are gone. Sir James told me the men of the West
will stand with the King when the time comes.”
“I had no doubt they would. They have no
option.”
His voice was quiet, a mere murmur, but she twisted
out of his grasp. “What is it, Will? Why are you here?”
His eyes examining the whole of her face, and then
he shrugged and grunted softly, smiling sadly. “I am here to see
you, Jess . . . to look at you and feel you in my arms, soft and
warm against me . . . and to talk with you . . . to share some
tidings.”
“Ill tidings.”
He hesitated, his eyes narrowing, then nodded.
“Aye. As ill as might be.”
“Come then, for this is no place to be sharing
them.”
She took his hand and led him from the roof,
retaining her grip as she led him down the narrow, winding
staircase to their bedchamber on the floor below. Young Marjorie
was there, sitting before the fire with Marie and Janette, and all
three of them glanced up in surprise as Jessie entered, still
leading Will. She told them to leave, to go and help Hector and his
staff in cleaning and readying the great hall below, and to stay
away until she called for them again, and when they were gone, she
turned again to Will, reaching up to touch his face, fingering the
stubble on his cheek. “I want you, here and now, in that bed, but
you have more need to talk than to make love. I can see it in your
eyes.”
She swung away, waving to the chair to the right of
the large fireplace. “Sit then, and tell me, and when you have told
me once, no matter how bad it may be, you can tell it to me again,
in bed. I will listen closely both times, I promise you. And then I
will tell you what I think.”
He moved to sit obediently and she settled herself
opposite him, her eyes on his, waiting until he had settled. “Now,
tell me.”
He nodded, complacently enough, but then sat
silent, and she could see that his eyes were unfocused, his
thoughts far away as he searched for words. She waited, and after a
while he blinked as though awakening and dropped one hand to finger
the hilt of the dagger at his waist.
“I have just received news from France,” he said,
his voice lifeless. “Jacques de Molay is dead, after seven years in
jail. By now he would have been seventy-two, perhaps seventy-three.
An old, done man, destroyed by seven years of abominations and
abuse. They had sent cardinals to try him and his three remaining
companions yet again, but he rejected their authority. He would
speak only to Pope Clement, he said, and in person, in accordance
with the oath he had sworn so long before. But Clement was in
Avignon, at odds with Philip once again, and he would not go to
Paris. And so, de Molay rescinded his confession once again. It had
been drawn from him by torture, he proclaimed, and he now abjured
it, denouncing Philip Capet for the greedy thief he is . . .” He
blew out a long, shuddering breath.
“Capet was in Paris, and he reacted swiftly. They
burned the old man at the stake that very night, on an island in
the middle of the Seine, by the church of Notre Dame. The date was
the eighteenth of March. My old friend Antoine St. Omer was there
among the hundreds that witnessed it. He said our Grand Master died
well, cursing both Pope and King from the smoke and flames and
calling upon God to witness that he and all his Order were innocent
of the charges brought against them.”
Jessie stood up and crossed to him, cradling his
head against her breasts, and she said nothing. He sat with his
face against her for several moments more, then pushed her gently
away.
“So there we have it, Jess. The final betrayal of a
grand old man and all he stood for, by the Pope he served
faithfully and the King he would not serve.
“He did not die alone, though. The Preceptor of
Normandy, Geoffrey of Charney, burned with him, close by. Nor did
he die unheard, and the last call that he uttered was a summons to
both Pope and King to meet him before God’s throne within the year.
St. Omer spoke of that, and he would not lie in such a
thing.”
“Oh, my dear Will, I am so sorry.” He looked at her
and twisted his mouth wryly, inclining his head in acknowledgment,
and she asked, “How was the news received among the brethren in
Brodick?”
“No one yet knows. These are ill tidings, my love,
and their timing could not have been less opportune. And so I
decided to hold them close until the time is right to divulge them
. . . although God Himself knows that time will never be.”
“I see . . . So, what will happen now?”
He expelled his breath slowly, wearily. “Now, Jess?
Now I have to tell the brethren assembled at Brodick. Now I am
Grand Master in fact, God help me, with nothing to be Master of.
And now I must appoint a Master in Scotland, to guide the brethren
who remain behind after we are gone. Does all of that sound as
futile to you as it does to me?”
“Shush now. Come you.”
She took his hand and led him to the bed.
Afterwards, while he lay sleeping by her side, she
thought about what he might do, and arrived at a decision. It was a
grave decision, and she refused to consider it at first, but she
knew she had no choice but to accept it, though it might be the
death of her.
She sat up and turned sideways to wake him up, and
he looked sheepish as he realized that he had rolled off her onto
his back, and there fallen straight to sleep, but she merely smiled
at him and ran a barely touching fingertip down the line of soft
hair that ran from his chest to his navel. Then she slapped his
flat belly and told him to get up and dress.
When he was clothed again and sitting by the fire,
she curled up in the chair across from him.
“Tell me now, what of the English? Have you heard
anything new?”
“Aye, new and ever growing since Edward sent out
his orders, calling eight earls and eighty-seven barons to assemble
at Berwick with all their strength. The tenth of June was the
assembly date he named, but more than two and a half thousand
mounted knights, heavily armored and armed, were already there by
March. And each of them brought two or three mounted men-at-arms to
back him. By March, Jess, with two months in hand! The English
crows are hungry for Scots flesh . . .
“That same month, word came from Lamberton, in a
letter smuggled from where he is held in England, that Edward has
increased his levy. He has called for an additional fifteen
thousand infantry from the north and Midlands, and three thousand
archers from Wales, and he has requisitioned more than two hundred
heavy carts and wagons for his supply train. As I was leaving for
Brodick four days ago, Douglas himself told me the latest numbers
indicate that there are more than twenty thousand men at Berwick,
all of them well equipped and slavering with thoughts of victory
and plunder.”
“Twenty thousand?”
“Aye, lass, that’s what I said. Twenty thousand.
And in all of Bruce’s Scotland, even were he to raise every
able-bodied man in the realm, there are less than half of that
number, mayhap even less than a quarter of it, to withstand
them.”
Both of them stared into the sinking fire until
Jessie asked, “Would you like to hear my advice?”
He almost smiled. “You would advise me even in
this? Aye, I would. You have not failed me yet.”
“Nor will I now, for I love you more than life
itself, and because of that I will tell you what is in my mind.”
She looked down to where the fingers of her hand were pleating the
fabric of her gown. “I thought about this long and hard, Will, and
I believe I know what you should do—must do. So listen to me
carefully, my love, and pay close attention, for I might change my
mind later and try to tell you I was wrong. But right now, I know I
am right.”
2.
The Great Hall at Brodick, the Chapter House as it
was now known among the brethren, was full, with men packed
shoulder to shoulder even on the alternating black and white
squares of the ceremonial square painted in the center of the
floor. Only two open aisles, edged by ropes and forming a cross,
permitted access to the four rostra that held the chairs at the
four cardinal points of the compass. The Eastern dais was the
largest of these, holding the Master’s Chair, and it formed the
front of the assembly, the focus of all men’s eyes.
The closed rites of the knightly brethren were
complete, conducted according to the Rule, in the darkness of the
night, and now with the coming of daylight, the sergeants had
joined the knights for the less formal portion of the ceremonies.
There was a profound, almost palpable air of solemnity about the
occasion, for everyone knew that this would be the last such
gathering—the last plenary assembly of the surviving members of the
Order of the Temple in Arran, perhaps the last anywhere. Any
gathering would hereafter be clandestine, private, of necessity—and
that awareness lent an aching piquancy to the rumbling sound of the
massed voices chanting the canons of the Rule.
Will stood high above the assembly, looking down
from a curtained window in the carved wooden screen that concealed
the suite of rooms at his back and waiting for the last of the
canons to reach its end. He had planned this event carefully,
bearing in mind everything that Jessie had said to him, and he was
still astonished at the degree of insight she had shown into events
about which she could have known nothing. She had divined the mood
of this assembly, if not the content of it, and had considered
aspects of this day that might never have occurred to him at
all.
The chant reached the point he had been waiting
for—he had heard it sung a thousand times and more over the
years—and he turned and nodded to the men lined up on his right,
then watched as they turned in unison and began to move in
procession towards the door at the top of the wide stairs that led
down along the east wall to the ceremonial floor. All four were
dressed in bright white woolen robes over which each wore the
emblems—the jewels—of his individual office. As they reached the
door, each one in turn knocked loudly, and when the door was opened
by the inner guard, the man who had knocked leaned forward and gave
the password in a voice that only the guard could hear, then passed
through, closing the door behind him.
Will watched them go, feeling love and admiration
for each of them swelling in his breast. Richard de Montrichard,
preceptor here since their arrival, went first. His was the Chair
in the North, and none of the gathering below would dispute his
right to hold it. De Montrichard had been a fine preceptor, and
Will felt a familiar stirring of discomfort as he recalled his own
doubts about the man’s suitability when they first landed here. De
Montrichard had blossomed at his post and had commanded from the
outset with a sure and steady hand.
After him, the senior galley captain, de
l’Armentière, knocked and was passed through. On the floor, he
would occupy the South Chair, deputizing for Admiral de Berenger,
who had not yet returned from Genoa. And behind him, bound for the
West Chair, the two remaining men sought entry in their turn. The
first was Bishop Formadieu, the senior bishop of the Arran
community and the rightful holder of the West Chair. But Formadieu
had recused himself from the Chair more than a year earlier,
claiming to be unfit to represent the brotherhood because of his
failure to influence the Church’s decision to do what it had done
to the Order. No one in the community had wanted him to give up the
Chair, and no one believed that any portion of the fault was his,
but the old man had been adamant, and Will had reluctantly acceded
to his wishes, with the single but absolute proviso that Formadieu
remain on the West dais, behind, and at the shoulder of, the man
selected to replace him. Of course, the selection of that successor
had been Will’s, and he had chosen to appoint Sir Reynald de
Pairaud, now an old and wizened man, in recognition of the veteran
knight’s staunch but unexpected enthusiasm for what they had been
able to achieve since landing on the island.
The sound of the door closing behind de Pairaud
brought Will back to awareness that it was now his turn to request
entry to the proceedings below. He glanced down at himself and at
the black leather bag in the crook of his arm, checking that all
was as it should be, then walked forward and knocked on the door,
which opened immediately. He whispered the password into the
doorkeeper’s ear, then stepped across the threshold to where the
other four, already in order of precedence, waited for him on the
narrow landing at the top of the steep wooden stairs.
Below them, the last, sustained note of the deep
chant faded to silence just as Will murmured to the white-robed
brethren to start down. He himself was dressed from head to foot in
black, in the cowled robe of a mendicant friar, save that the robe
was of rich and heavy wool, unrelieved by any decoration and belted
with a thickly plaited girdle of black-dyed, glossy linen fiber. He
waited until the others began to move down the stairs, then hitched
his leather bag higher and followed them, aware now of the silent
faces that stared up at him and the expectant stillness that
awaited his arrival.
He paused at the bottom of the last flight, then
stepped directly to the Master’s Chair on the East dais, one pace
to his left. His four companions waited for him to take his place,
then moved on to the junction of the cruciform aisles, where de
l’Armentière turned left and De Montrichard right, South and North
respectively, leaving De Pairaud and Bishop Formadieu to make their
way together to the dais in the West. When all four were in place,
Will stood looking out at the assembled brethren, sensing the
silence growing even deeper, as though everyone in the crowd was
holding his breath.
He made himself count slowly to ten, dragging out
the stillness, then lowered his bag to the table in front of him
and unbuckled it before raising his head again and starting to
speak, pitching his voice carefully so that it resonated in the
crowded hall, and articulating his words slowly and clearly.
“Brethren, we are here together to mark a momentous
occasion, one that none of us could ever have imagined when we left
La Rochelle seven years ago. Since then, we have built a life for
ourselves here on this little island, and we have struggled
diligently to live by the Rule of our Order and to preserve our
ways and our responsibilities against the day that every one of us
once believed must surely come . . . that day when we would be
redeemed and would return to France, our names and that of our
Order restored to honor, the spurious charges against us finally
expunged. We have lived here in hope and in brotherhood, and within
the past year, we have been joined and strengthened by our Scots
brethren from the mainland.
“But within those same seven years, our hopes for
justice and an honorable reinstatement of our Order have been
crushed, dwindling steadily in the face of ever-increasing tidings
of grief and disaster, treachery and malice emanating from France
and from its King.” He stopped there, giving his listeners time to
accept what he was saying, and as soon as he saw heads beginning to
nod in agreement, he resumed in the same voice.
“And so we have made changes—dire changes, indeed,
but necessary in a swiftly changing world.” He drew a deep, audible
breath. “Now I have learned of one more such, one last, appalling
change that has made exiles of us all, forever . . .” The silence
in the room was absolute, and he looked about him before he spoke
again, making eye contact with as many of the assembled men as he
could, and seeing the same tension of uncertainty and dread in
every face.
“On the eighteenth day of March this year, the year
of our Lord 1314, our beloved Master, Sir Jacques de Molay, was
burned alive in Paris. The murder—for it was nothing less—was
performed as a public spectacle by the direct order of Philip
Capet. An obscene atrocity was treated as a festivity.”
It was as though a silent gale had blown into the
hall, its force rocking the packed crowd visibly, but before they
could begin to react further, Will launched into the tale as he had
heard it from St. Omer, omitting nothing and ending with the
challenge—amounting to a curse—that de Molay had issued from the
flames, summoning both King and Pope to join him before the throne
of God Himself within the year. Then, when he had finished, he
raised a hand into the profound silence.
“So there you have it. Our noble Order has ceased
to exist beyond this realm of Scotland. It is finished, dead with
the death of its noble Master and the simultaneous deaths of honor,
justice, and nobility in our sad land. And with the passing of our
Master, by his own written command, I am now become Grand Master of
what remains.” His eyes swept the crowd. “Master of what
remains.
“And what is that? What does remain, what
can remain, after such infamy and gross injustice? What
remains, brethren, is here with us now, within this Chapter
Hall. It is our enduring spirit, our honor and our ideals, our
clear understanding, unsullied by venality or envy, of our duties
as knights and men, and our responsibility to ourselves and those
who stand with us. We hold those tenets safe within us, untarnished
and undiminished by the betrayals of Church and state and the
horrors unleashed upon our innocent brothers by the Holy
Inquisition.
“In the eyes of the world, then, our Order is dead,
but we know, all of us, that that is not true. As long as one of us
remains alive to nurture its memory and serve its purposes, our
Order will continue to exist, and that becomes my greatest
responsibility as Master now: to protect and nourish what remains.
We must change, adapt, reform ourselves completely. We have
changed, greatly but not yet sufficiently. And now we are about to
conceal ourselves completely from the eyes and ken of ordinary men.
We will become as ghosts and phantoms. But we will continue to
observe our rites and ceremonies, to maintain our beliefs and to
coexist in amity, as brothers, equal in the all-seeing eye of God.
Henceforth, we will pursue our goals and dreams in utter secrecy,
our existence veiled and hidden, our true identities unknown. This
is my oath to you: we will survive and thrive, though hidden from
the eyes of others, and the day will come when this Order will
arise again, from out of this realm of Scotland, to honor the
memory of the last, true Grand Master of the Temple, who died on
the island in the Seine last March. And thus I think it would be
fitting, as our last act in this, our last gathering, were we to
sing ‘Dies Irae’—Day of Wrath—to mark the passing of a great and
noble man.”
Across from Will, on the West dais, Bishop
Formadieu stepped forward and began to sing the first line of the
solemn, sonorous chant of the requiem hymn, and by the end of his
first phrase he had been joined by the massed voices of the
assembly, singing with a fervor and solemnity that Will could not
remember ever having heard. He stood listening intently, feeling no
urge to join in although the hairs stirred on his neck as the waves
of sound swelled and washed over him. He had always preferred
listening to music rather than marring it with his own tuneless
contribution, and now he pictured the dead man as he had last seen
him, grave, dignified, and deeply troubled by the seemingly
preposterous warnings he had received. Remembering the Master’s
reluctant decision to act upon those warnings, Will now realized
how appropriate the words of this dirge were to that memory: Day
of wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
As the hymn ended, Will pulled the bag towards him.
He laid both hands on it.
“This would not have been a day of celebration,
even without these evil tidings, but it must not—will not—end in
despair. Few of you, I suspect, ever laid eyes on Master de Molay,
for he lived most of his life far from France, beyond the seas,
working without pause for the good of our Order. But I know there
is not a man among you who is unaware of the reverence, even the
awe, with which he was regarded by all who knew him. He was a
knight without peer, and it was, alas, his destiny to die in
office, the last of an unbroken line of twenty-three Grand Masters
of our Order, beginning with Hugh de Payens in 1118.
“Twenty-three men, Brethren, and one hundred and
ninety-six years of rectitude and devotion to duty, all of it
destroyed by one greedy, venal king. Philip Capet, known as le
Bel—the Fair. Such fairness brings to mind the whited
sepulcher of scripture . . . But no more of him. He is not worthy
of your time or of your thoughts. Think instead of Jacques de Molay
for the remainder of this day, as you work at your appointed
tasks.
“Before we stand adjourned, however, I have a few
things—personal things—I want to say to you as Master here. I will
not keep you long, for most of our work is done in preparation for
this day.” He looked around at their watching faces as he spoke,
noticing, not for the first time, that few among them could be
described as young looking.
“When we leave here today, we will begin the final
stages of our preparations to quit this place for good. Horses,
armor, weapons, and provisions, along with most of your personal
possessions—those of you who have any—are all in place on the
beaches by the wharf below, and the ships are waiting to take them
on board. You all know what to do and you know we have no time to
waste. I want to add a reminder, if you will.
“When we came here, we were exiles, homeless
fugitives who still could not believe what had happened to our
ordered world. We were confused and disbelieving, not knowing what
to think and waiting, blind and deaf, for news to reach us telling
us it had all been a mistake and that we must return home. But that
word never came, and the world we had known fell into ruin.
“Yet we sat safe here, on this island, sheltered
from the chaos by the goodwill of one man, Robert of Scotland, and
his friends. Of course, we were able to support him in return, from
our own strength, limited though that was. And when we leave here
today, most of you will continue to support him from your new homes
in the lodges we have founded in Scotland, and your strength will
hearten him in his time of need, as his understanding and goodwill
heartened us in ours.” He tapped his clenched right fist into the
palm of his other hand. “But now the King of Scots faces the
greatest challenge of his reign. England is set to destroy him
utterly, and all who stand with him. I know you are all aware of
that. It is not new. England has been determined to destroy the
Scots for years now, yet the Scots remain unbroken. I know, too,
that you are all aware of the new invasion now being prepared. I
wonder, however, if you know the true extent of what is afoot this
time.
“Edward of Caernarvon has assembled more than two
and a half thousand heavy chivalry at Berwick. Two thousand
and five hundred armored knights, each of them backed by mounted
men-at-arms. He has raised four thousand longbows and fifteen
thousand infantry troops. He has a supply train of hundreds of
wagons, all of them poised and ready to move north at his word. And
he has a fleet of ships already sailing up the coast towards the
River Forth, where they will wait, with fresh provisions and
supplies, until his armies reach them.
“Twenty thousand men, at modest count, poised to
strike into Scotland. And King Robert will confront them close to
Stirling, the narrowest point of their invasion route and perhaps
the only spot where they might be stopped. The odds against the
Bruce’s army, including those of you who choose to stand with him,
will be at least four to one, and perhaps greater.”
He drew the black bag towards him, raising the flap
with one hand while he reached inside with the other, and he drew
out the great blazing jewel of red and white enameled metal
depicting an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid that marked his rank as
a member of the Governing Council of the Temple. He held it up for
them to see, suspended from its heavy chain of silver links.
“I set this aside last night, in chapter, for the
last time, laying down my role and rank as Knight Commander of the
Temple Council. I will not wear it again because for now the
Council has ceased to exist and I see no reason to replace it,
since we are so few. And so I speak to you now as plain Sir William
Sinclair, one of you—no more and no less. I have done my duty as
prescribed, with the help of my own counselors, and all the
arrangements are in place for our dispersal as a community,
everything as planned, and for the good of all.
“But now I find that, as a man, I am far from happy
and farther from content. I am, in fact, sick at heart. We have
changed ourselves outwardly, disguising who we were. We have
accepted what has been done to us, in silence and without open
protest. We have been meek, and turned the other cheek, accepting
undeserved shame and degradation from the hands of those we once
were proud to serve. Well, I have had my fill of that!
“Pride is a sin, they tell us. But those very
speakers, in their arrogance and pride and greed, have stripped us
of everything that made us men and dutiful monks. So if pride be a
sin, I am prepared to die in sin, rather than live in shame.”
As he stooped to his bag again, he heard a growl of
discussion arising among his listeners, shockingly loud in this
chamber where silence was an inviolable rule, but he ignored it,
pulling out a folded square of cloth, which he shook out and held
up to their eyes.
“I doubt any of you will recognize this thing, so I
will tell you what it is.” He held it higher then, above his head,
stretching it between both hands to show it clearly: a broad band
of black forming the top half, against the lower half of purest
white. “This was the first baucent to grace our banners, before we
adopted the cross pattée. This was the Temple’s standard in our
earliest days. It represented the choices and the changes we had
made in embracing the brotherhood of our Order: the black of former
ignorance replaced by the white of enlightenment. This banner
symbolizes everything we were and marks the progress that we made
in assuming the responsibilities of brotherhood: from darkness to
light, from ignorance to awareness, from despair to hope, from
ignominy to honor. A simple standard, but containing more than we
ourselves could ever voice.”
He lowered his arms and stood a moment gazing at
the banner, then raised it again, spreading it wide once
more.
“I had this from the hand of Master de Molay
himself, the last of its kind from the last of his kind. He gave it
to me when we two last met, seven years ago, and bade me take good
care of it and bear it with me everywhere. Look at it well, for you
may never see it again. I am taking it to Stirling, to raise it in
the cause of Robert Bruce. And I will go there as a Templar, fully
armed and armored in my true colors—the white of knowledge and the
black cross pattée of my Order’s glory. I have had enough of hiding
and dissembling! Enough of skulking with a lowered head! This King
in Scotland intends to make one last, defiant stand, and I am going
to stand with him, in defiance of Pope and Church and Kings of
France!”
The roar of approval had begun before he finished
speaking, drowning out his raised voice, and he waited, motionless,
his arms still high, until it had subsided.
“Will you come with me?”
This time the noise was pandemonium and the crowd
began to sway as men turned from side to side to pummel each other,
roaring with enthusiasm. He stood smiling, waiting, and eventually
they stilled themselves again, staring at him hungrily.
“So mote it be, then. But hear me! No red crosses,
for this is no crusade.” He lowered his arms, folding the baucent
again with measured care, then draping it lengthwise over his left
shoulder. “We will ride as Templars, knights and sergeants, in
black and white, and for the last time. As who and what we are, in
pride, and in defiance of all who have disowned and betrayed us.
Knights to wear their white mantles, with black armor. Sergeants
will wear black surcoats, with the white cross pattée. All shields,
the same—white cross on black. And the same for horses’ trappings.
The two stone buildings at the rear of this house contain all of
those, and there is paint, both black and white, to use as
required.” He eyed them now, seeing them straining like hounds at
leash.
As he answered the few questions, Will was aware
that the formal gathering had changed into an extended council of
war, the planning of a campaign. He dealt rapidly with the timing
of the matter—it was already the third week of May, the testing
date of Midsummer Day mere weeks away. But everything had altered.
Instead of riding piecemeal to support the Bruce as mounted
individuals, they would now move as a powerful, unified force of
heavy chivalry reinforced with disciplined light cavalry. Of the
four weeks between now and Midsummer Day, therefore, two would be
spent in renewed training on Arran, regaining their former battle
skills as a single, cohesive entity. At the start of the second
week of June, they would transport their various units, under the
command of de l’Armentière as vice-admiral, from Arran to the
mainland. Their two-day sailing route would take them up the
estuary of Clyde to Dumbarton, where they would disembark and
strike overland, eastward across the thirty miles to Stirling while
avoiding being seen by any English forces that might be in that
area. Two days at sea and four days on the march over the rough
terrain between Dumbarton and Stirling: sufficient time to put them
within easy reach of King Robert well before the English
arrived.
He held up his hands.
“So, Brothers, it is decided, and so mote it be. We
will ride as Templars once again, one final time in honor of our
Order’s ancient glory, and we will make our presence seen and
known, in support of the one man, the single King, who has treated
us with honor and compassion, Robert Bruce, the King of this Scots
realm. And if we die in what we are to do, what matters that? Our
Order is already dead, and so we will but ride from death, into
death. Go, then, and make yourselves ready.”
He had spoken in French, and as he fell silent one
single voice, its owner unseen among the throng, took up what he
had said, repeating it in measured cadence, “From death, into
death,” and as he shouted it others joined him, until all the
men assembled there were shouting it. “From death, into
death!”
“Go, then!” Will turned and crossed to the stairs
against the rear wall without looking back, and as he went he heard
the sounds of moving feet as the assembly broke up, the shouted
chant finally dying to silence. He had no notion that he had just
witnessed, indeed initiated, the birth of a legend that would be
retold down the years, the tale of how a company of unknown
knights, like a deus ex machina from some improbable Greek
tragedy, had swept down, in the moment of Scotland’s greatest need,
to turn the tide of King Robert Bruce’s greatest battle from defeat
into a glorious victory. Instead, as he climbed the stairs to the
gallery above, he was thinking about wearing his armor once again,
and about sending Tam Sinclair to bring Jessie to him from
Lochranza.