Satisfied now that her dress was in order, she turned back to face the fellow. “What do you want?”
Brother Thomas flushed slightly. “Brother Admiral would like to speak with you.”
“Brother Admiral, eh?” Jessie eyed the sacristan squarely, making no attempt to mask her dislike. “I wonder whether, in his heart of hearts, Sir Charles enjoys such a degree of familial intimacy? My late, dear husband used to say that we may choose our friends, but our relatives are an imposition at birth.” She paused, watching him closely, and had the pleasure of seeing his face flush even more sullenly as the insult sank home, but she gave him no time to retaliate, stepping past him and starting out towards the admiral’s quarters at the galley’s stern. “I have time now. I will attend him.”
She strode rearward, moving effortlessly in concert with the heaving of the deck, taking delight in the sudden, growing brightness of the afternoon, in the growing patches of blue above her, and in the hasty scampering sound of the sacristan’s feet as he scuttled to catch up with her. By the time she reached the small doorway to the tiny space that was the admiral’s quarters, Thomas had fallen several paces behind her, and she had knocked and pulled the door open before he could interfere.
Inside the dark little cabin, fully dressed and propped up among a welter of bed coverings, Charles St. Valéry squinted painfully and raised a spread hand to his eyes in protest against the glaring brightness of the light now pouring in on him. He was unkempt and disheveled, his eyes sunken and his face haggard with deep-graven lines, and Jessie felt herself wince in sympathy at the sight of him. Fortunately, she thought, he had not seen her do it, blinded as he was. Brother Thomas arrived at her shoulder and began to speak, his voice raised in protest, but Jessie cut him short with a savage movement of her hand, then spoke to her good-brother, smiling and attempting to infuse her voice with friendly amusement.
“Brother Charles, I am happy to see you have survived the storm, though I fail to see how you managed it, cooped up in this black little box. Might I induce you to step outside and breathe in God’s clean air? It will do you good, I’ll warrant you.”
The admiral lowered his shielding hand slowly, blinking yet against the glare of the afternoon, then squeezed his eyes shut and grasped the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, wrenching it from side to side as though attempting to break it loose from his face. Finally he took his hand away and shook his head hard from side to side, like a dog ridding itself of water, after which he opened his eyes wide and blinked again, owlishly this time, before asking, “What day is it?”
“It is Friday, Admiral. We have been beset by storms these past five days.” And you look as though you have been dead for four of those, she added silently; this was the first time she had ever seen him less than perfectly coiffed and trimmed.
He sat peering at her, his mouth working silently as though chewing, and an expression of distaste growing on his face. “My mouth tastes like death itself.” His gaze went by her to where the sacristan hovered at her back. “Thomas, fetch me some water, will you?”
She smelled the sacristan’s departure, the air sweetening immediately as he took his sour stench away with him.
“A seasick admiral,” St. Valéry murmured. “That is most unusual, even for me, with all my human weaknesses. I am … unused to seasickness. Unused to any kind of sickness, truth be told. It has been years since I last felt this way. And may God grant me many more before I feel this way again.” He pounded the flat of his hand against his breastbone, coughing at the congestion in his chest, then made a sucking sound before continuing. “Friday, you say? A week since La Rochelle already? And where are we now?”
“Still afloat, thanks be to God, but I can tell you no more than that. Sergeant Tescar and I, although we have no right to be, are the two healthiest beings aboard this vessel. Landsmen or not, he and I have been unfazed by the storms, our stomachs calm and our legs solidly beneath us … It’s strange, but after a while the smell of vomit seems to lose its strength. There are fifteen more like us, also in good health, but not a one of them knows any more of the sea than we do, and so we have no idea where we are. We are upon the waters and not beneath them, and for that, at least, we are grateful.”
“What are you saying, Sister? What nonsense is this? Where are my officers?”
“Abed, sir, all of them as sick as you.”
“But that is … that is unthinkable. What of my men?”
“In the same condition. Sick. All but a score or so. And Tescar told me three have died in the storm.”
“How, in God’s name?”
“Of the sickness … the seasickness.”
“The—” St. Valéry stopped and shook his head. “Seasickness does not kill, Jessie. I have never known anyone die of seasickness, although at times everyone afflicted by it expects to die and might even wish to. Do you recall, did all the men fall sick at once?”
Jessie frowned. “Aye, I think so, but I was sick myself for half a day and night, the first day the storm struck, and by the time I began to mend, everyone else was down with it, including you.”
St. Valéry’s head tilted slightly back as he stared into the distance. “There is something more afoot here, something sinister. This sounds to me like poisoning. I lived through something of the kind before, off Araby … That meat, the first night out. I thought at the time there was a taint to it.” His gaze sharpened, returning to Jessie. “Tell me, that first night at sea, after we picked up the Treasure. Did you eat anything that night? And did Tescar?”
“No.” Jessie shook her head slowly. “I lost all desire to eat as soon as the seas started to rise, and I spent the next hours in agony, so I cannot speak for Tescar, although I know he fell sick, too, that first afternoon, even before I did.”
“Then that must be the cause of what ails the rest of us. We had salted pork. The bread with it was fresh baked in La Rochelle the previous day. Would that the meat had been as fresh!” He looked around the cabin, taking in its condition. “I had best be up and about.” St. Valéry pulled himself slowly to his feet, although he was unable to stand upright beneath the low ceiling. He grimaced again and flexed his shoulders cautiously in the cramped space. “What of the others, the rest of the fleet? Are they in view?”
Jessie shrugged as Brother Thomas came bustling back, carrying a horn cup and a bag of water. “I have not looked recently, but the last time I did, and that must have been this morning—it was daylight, certainly—we were alone, nothing visible in any direction. Mind you, we were still being wildly tossed about, so I could not see far.”
“My thanks for this,” St. Valéry said to Brother Thomas, stepping out onto the deck and holding the cup while the sacristan poured for him. “Tell me, Thomas, have you been sick like the others?”
The sacristan shook his head slowly. “No, Brother Admiral, thanks be to God.”
“Did you not eat of the meat the day the storms came up on us?”
“I ate nothing, Brother. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and so I fasted for the entire day.”
“Hmm.” St. Valéry drank the contents of his cup in one quaff and held it out again, taking time to look about him this time as the water was being poured. “It’s broken,” he said, plainly talking about the storm. “Visibility’s about four miles.” He then straightened up to his full height, peering off the horizon before beckoning to Jessie. “Look, there’s one mast, over there, and where there’s one, there will be more.” He glanced around at his ship, noting the displaced coils of rope, a broken spar and other detritus of the storm caught in the scuppers on both sides of the deck. “First things first, though. I have to rally my crew and bring this ship back into working condition. Thomas, find Captain de Narremat for me. I care not what his condition may be, so be it he is breathing. If he is, bring him to me here … And find the other officers, as well. If they were poisoned, as I suspect, it will be wearing off now and they’ll recover more quickly working than th
ey will lying around feeling sorry for themselves. I know I shall.”
THREE
The admiral and his honored guest, the Lady Jessica, had dined upon a meal similar in every detail to that eaten by the lowest-ranking oarsman on the ship: a thin slice of dried, salted beef, carefully checked for freshness this time, with smoked dried sausage, hard goat cheese, and all the hard-baked bannock one wished to eat, sweetened with a handful of dried grapes. But he and his brother’s wife had enjoyed the privilege of eating on the tiny stern deck, where they were able to enjoy at least an illusion of privacy, and, rank having its privilege as always, they were able to share a cup of wine from the admiral’s own stock. The great single sail was now set above their heads, bearing them steadily westward, along the northern coast of the Iberian landmass.
Jessica swallowed the last, thoroughly chewed mouthful of the tasteless bannock and allowed herself to think for a moment of the crusty French bread that she had loved so much when she lived in France. But she was concerned for her host more than anything else, for St. Valéry had been sitting silent now for the better part of half an hour, gazing vacantly out at the sea, and his face was lined and tired looking in a way that she now thought had little to do with his sickness.
“You miss him greatly.” She had spoken in her own tongue, but St. Valéry had understood the idiom and responded in his heavily accented, almost distorted English.
“Hmm?” He looked at her with one eyebrow slightly raised. “Miss whom?”
She reverted to French. “Forgive me. I thought … for a moment there, I was convinced you were thinking of your friend Master de Thierry. But I spoke without thinking and I had no wish to intrude upon—”
He smiled, his eyes clouded with what she decided was regret. “There is no need. You are correct. I was thinking of Arnold. Such a cruel end to a noble life …”
“Tell me about him, for I did not know him well. What I knew, I admired, but you and he were friends for a long time, no?”
His smile remained in place and he dipped his head gently to one side. “Yes, we were, for a very long time …” She was beginning to think he would say no more, but then he continued, as though musing aloud. “They called us the Twins—les jumeaux—did you know that?”
Her eyes widened. “No. Why?”
He turned his hands in towards each other in a very Gallic gesture denoting bemusement and ignorance at once. “Because we looked alike, I suppose, for so many years. We wore the same mantle, as commanders of the Temple, and the same armor beneath it. Our personal insignia were different but not noticeably so, and I have been told many times that we were often indistinguishable from a distance, both of the same height and physique, with the same bearing—the result of many years of the Order’s training and discipline. And naturally, both of us wore the same tonsure and were gray-bearded these past ten years and more …” His smile became a grin. “Of course, we were not supposed to know what the brethren called us. None of them would ever have dared to refer to us as the Twins within the hearing of either one of us, so we pretended to be unaware.
“We joined the Order together on the same day, you know. On the island of Cyprus, the fourth day of July in 1276, thirty-one years ago … And we had met each other for the first time mere days before that, aboard the galley that took us there as postulants. It picked us up in Rhodes and carried us to Limassol, and from the moment we met, we became, and we remained, close friends.”
He turned and stretched out his booted legs on his own side of the table, twisting his body to sit up straighter and drawing the folds of his heavy mantle around him. “Arnold was twenty-one years old at that time—I myself was five and twenty—and he was already widowed, having lost both wife and son in childbirth. But he was filled with fire and zeal for our Order and its mission, and he became one of the Temple’s most honored knights, spending fifteen years on constant campaign in the Holy Land before taking part in the final siege of Acre in 1291.”
“He was at Acre and survived?”
“Yes and no. He was gravely wounded in the earliest stages of the fighting, long before the end, and was shipped out by sea to the island of Rhodes, where he eventually recovered under the care of the Hospitallers. But in the meantime, Acre fell and our presence in the Holy Land came to an end.”
“And what about you, Admiral? Where were you when all this was going on?”
“I was at sea, where else? I spent my entire life at sea before becoming shore-based in La Rochelle. I was born into a powerful mercantile family, as you know, since you were wed into it, and because of that, when I joined the Order at five-and-twenty, I was assigned to the fleet. And there I remained.”
“So how did you come to La Rochelle?”
“Because of my friendship with Arnold. And then, too, since we are speaking the truth here, there was the matter of our superiors’ collective common sense. It was a matter of compatibility, at root. La Rochelle is the Order’s primary base, its center of operations, and it serves two masters in situ, two commanders who must interact with each other from day to day—the land-based preceptor and his naval counterpart. Ideally, these two should know, like, respect, and admire each other and be equally dedicated, above all else, to the ongoing welfare of the Order.
“Unfortunately, because such is human nature, that is not always possible to achieve. There are very few highly placed equals, it appears, who genuinely like, respect, and admire each other to the extent that they can share command without jealousy. Personal ambition has a way of confounding such arrangements.” He shrugged again, in self-deprecation. “Because of that, the long-standing friendship between Arnold and myself—together with the reputations we had each achieved, of course—recommended us to our superiors. There was no jealousy between us, and we enjoyed joint stewardship in La Rochelle for more than ten years. Ten wonderful years.”
He glanced out into the body of the ship and raised a hand to summon a crewman, signaling to him to clear away the remains of their meal, and both of them sat watching as the man removed the leftovers and another folded the small table and took it away.
When they were alone again, facing each other across the space where the table had been, Jessica asked, “What will you do now?”
He looked at her levelly. “I am considering a quest.”
“A quest? We are already on a quest, to deliver your Order’s Treasure to safety in Scotland, and to deliver my treasure safely to the King of Scots.”
His lips quirked in what might have been the beginnings of a smile, but he shook his head. “What you are defining is a task, not a quest, and that particular task can be effectively carried out by others, without my participation.”
He left that hanging in the air, tantalizing her and piquing her curiosity so that she frowned slightly, trying to decipher his meaning.
“That is … cryptic.”
The admiral met her gaze without blinking, his intelligent blue eyes revealing nothing except their own brilliant color. She waited for a moment, to see if he would respond, and then decided that he was waiting for her to continue. She cleared her throat and glanced away for a moment, looking out towards the horizon to give herself time to think of what she should say next. If he had a quest in mind, it must lie at their journey’s end.
“This quest you speak of must then lie ahead of you, in Scotland … Have you been in Scotland?”
St. Valéry smiled slowly, the crow’s-foot wrinkles at the edges of his eyes the only sign that he was doing so, for the wind was ruffling the hair of his beard and moustache, obscuring his mouth.
“I have never been in Scotland, and I have no wish to go there now. I have been to England, twice, and have no wish to go there, either. I speak a very small amount of English, very badly, as you know, but the Scots tongue to me is unintelligible gibberish.”
She knew he was teasing her, for she had heard him say the same thing to her husband, years earlier, but she chose to humor him. “That is not unusual. Many of the people
in Scotland speak gibberish in the ears of the others.
We have several languages, and several different groups of so-called Scots—Northmen, Gaels, Norwayans, and the oldest of all, the ones the Romans called the Picti, the Painted People.”
“Do any of your differing groups ever talk to one another?”
“All the time, Admiral, though seldom in friendly tones, I fear. King Robert is trying to change that, to unite the country against Edward’s England and his lust to own our land.”
“Edward is dead, Jessie. You heard Master Sinclair.”
“He may be dead, but his barons are not, and his iron hand was the sole thing that kept them in check. The son that follows him onto the English throne will be the worst thing that could ever happen to Scotland, for he is a weakling and his own barons will trample over his wishes and please themselves in what they do. And what they will do is invade Scotland.” She checked herself, then set her jaw. “But that is neither here nor there for you, is it?” She paused for a moment, then forged on. “So if you have no wish to remain in Scotland, where will you go thereafter? Unless you intend to return directly to France?”
“That is what my heart tells me I would love to do most, but my head tells me that it could be years before our Order sees the light of day again in France, if indeed it ever does. So no, I will not be returning to France.” He fell silent, staring out over the rail, then turned to gaze off to his right, over the stern, before standing and crossing the small deck to where he could examine the entire horizon.
“Look,” he said, beckoning her to rise and join him. “Did I not say that where there was one there would be more? There are eleven masts now, you see? And three more vessels in plain sight. When we can see only the mast, like that, we say the ships beneath them are hull down. Our fleet still exists.”