He eventually became aware of the sound of the oars pulling in unison again and looked up briefly to find himself already among the fleet, ships and galleys ranged in disciplined lines on both sides of him. The sound of ropes squealing through a pulley attracted his eye, and he watched the admiral’s rigidly framed standard, the naval baucent with its skull and crossed bones on a black field, being hauled to the top of the mast. Its sighting was a signal to all ships’ captains to assemble, and it had clearly been awaited, for within minutes boats were pulling towards the galley from all directions.
By the time all the captains were assembled, the stern deck was crammed with men, and de Berenger swung himself up onto the deck’s rail to address them, bracing himself easily against the rigging. He waited until he had all their attention and then launched into a crisp series of succinct orders, consulting Will’s list from time to time and missing nothing. He named each captain and listed his individual requirements from each one: personnel and equipment to be unloaded and shipped ashore, and the precise order, ship by ship, in which the business was to proceed. He named several senior officers from each of his galleys, none of them present there, to be delegated by their captains as quartermasters for the disembarkation, to handle the logistics of the landward exodus, and he emphasized that only a minimal crew should remain aboard each vessel when the landing was complete. When he was finished, he asked for questions and was grimly pleased when none materialized. He dismissed them all to return to their ships, then made his way, accompanied by Will, to his own cabin.
As Will followed him he saw several boatloads of Sir Kenneth’s men already close to the beach, while above their heads, clearly visible on the hillside leading down towards the plateau, the contingent of cooks and workmen was struggling with the weight of the laden carts they had brought with them from Douglas’s place at Brodick.
THREE
Noon came and went without the Mass being celebrated, but arrangements were well enough in hand by then that Will was content simply to wait in the concealment and privacy of his massive pavilion, paying close attention to the proceedings by looking through small observation slits in the pavilion’s walls.
The lay brothers from the preceptory of La Rochelle had been the second party to land, following Sir Kenneth Sinclair’s group, and had been working hard since they arrived. They had begun by setting up two large pavilions behind the central square, one facing the beach on the right of the altar, for use by the bishops who would conduct the ceremonies, and the other on the left, where Will now stood, for Sir William Sinclair himself as senior officer of the Order in attendance. That done, they had then erected the altar on the knoll above the beach and were still fussing around it so that now its gold and silver vessels and candlesticks stood out against the snowy white cloths and napery and the surrounding natural colors of the grassy bench above the beach, while above and behind the altar the looming shape of the tocsin, suspended from a tripod of ships’ spars, added an air of even greater solemnity for the participants.
The tocsin was a symbol of the Temple that was almost as old as the Order itself, a great bronze bell taken in battle against the Seljuk Turks almost two centuries earlier and used ever since to summon the brotherhood to assemble. Its last use in battle had been at the siege of Acre, more than two decades earlier, when it had roused the rapidly dwindling garrison of the doomed fortress to face the relentless attacks of the Muslim hordes each day. It had been shipped out of the fortress to safety along with the Temple Treasure mere days before the final collapse of the stronghold and the loss of the Templars’ last presence in the Holy Lands. It had lain concealed and almost forgotten since then, until it came to light in the activities surrounding the removal of the Temple Treasure from the forest of Fontainebleau before the events of October thirteenth. Now it sat high above the waters of a Scottish island, ready again to stir the hearts of the Temple brethren.
Sixty of Kenneth’s people, knights and sergeants, now lined three sides of the venue; the remaining forty were meeting the incoming brethren as they came ashore and directing them to their assigned positions around the altar. The ships and galleys had almost finished disgorging their personnel now and the assembly was close to being complete. Knights from the various ships stood shoulder to shoulder in four ranks, facing the altar with their backs to the sea, and behind them were ranged the remaining members of the garrison of La Rochelle. On the left side, ranked laterally behind the cordon of Sir Kenneth’s men and facing inward, stood the crews of the fleet’s trading vessels, the nonmilitary mariners, while opposite them on the other side of the central space, the crews of the naval galleys stood easily, waiting for whatever might develop. The lay brethren of the former garrison of La Rochelle were formed up in a black-robed block to the right of and slightly behind the altar on the knoll.
“They’re coming, Will.”
Will grunted in acknowledgment, the opening chord of plainsong from the lay brothers almost drowning out Tam’s comment and rendering it unnecessary. It signaled the departure of the last longboat from the fleet, with a full cargo of robed churchmen, and the chanting would continue until the three green-robed Templar bishops, Bishop Formadieu of La Rochelle senior among them, had disembarked and made their way in procession, accompanied by their cadre of canons, deacons, and subdeacons, to the altar.
He turned away and stood in silence for a spell, his chin sunk on his breast as he reviewed what he would say to the assembly when his turn came. The Mass would take precedence, as it must, and the churchmen would, as always, have the ordering of the rites, but when it came time to address the urgencies and realities of what faced the displaced community beyond this tent as a whole, Will knew that his would be the words most closely heeded, and his the voice that would be either obeyed or ignored. He pursed his lips, absently rehearsing what he would say, and his fingers toyed idly with the heavy pendant hanging at his breast, supported by the massive chain of silver links. He had laid aside his white knight’s mantle for this rigidly formal occasion and now stood vested in the stark regalia of the Governing Council of his Order: black chain-mail armor surmounted and covered by a formal garment of incalculable value, an elaborately embroidered heraldic surcoat known as a tabard. It was fashioned of multiple hand-worked, coruscating layers of black upon black—beadwork and shell work of contrasting hues and textures; beadwork upon shaved sable fleece and blackened silver wire—its dark magnificence illumined by a single equal-armed cross pattée appliquéd in tiny white seashells upon the left breast, and by the heavy silver chain about Will’s neck and shoulders, with its thumb-thick lozenge of red and white enameled metal. A massive shield hung from his left arm, black with a blazoned cross pattée in white at its center, and his long two-handed sword hung at his side from the blackbuckled, polished leather belt slung across his chest.
He stood patiently throughout the events that followed, unseen in his pavilion and unaware that he was frowning, and remained practically motionless as the bishops and their acolytes landed on the beach and made their way in procession to the altar knoll. There they launched immediately into the celebration of the High Mass, concelebrated by the three bishops and supported by the massed voices of the choir of lay brothers, assisted by the congregation of monks. He was unaware that he stirred only three times during the entire ceremony, flexing the fingers of his right hand each time as he changed his grip upon the enormous black war helm that rested against his hip bone.
Eventually the ceremonies at the altar ended, and as the bishops and their acolytes filed off, Admiral de Berenger stepped forward to address the assembled company. As he did so, Will raised his arms and lowered the great war helmet into place on his head. The silence that greeted de Berenger’s arrival was absolute and respectful, and he stood silently for several moments as his eyes roamed across the assembled throng. Finally he nodded and raised his right hand, palm forward.
“Brethren,” he said, “I know you have been awaiting this moment, so I will m
ake no attempt to delay it. Pray silence for our superior and sole representative of the Grand Master and the Governing Council of the Order of the Temple of Solomon.”
He stepped back and gestured towards the large tent where Will stood waiting, and as he did so, Tam Sinclair pulled strongly on the cords that controlled the tent flaps, and Will strode through the opening to mount the knoll and stand in front of the altar, flanked on either side by the two senior knights of the chapter of La Rochelle in their formal regalia. The sound that greeted Will’s appearance was more a sigh than anything else, for few among the assembly had ever actually seen the ceremonial garb worn by the members of the Governing Council, and this richly black and glossy apparition was more than most of them could have visualized. Its mere presence before them emphasized, more than anything any of them had seen before, the power represented by and vested in the organization that controlled their entire lives. The great crested helmet of shiny black steel with its towering black and white plumes concealed the identity of the man beneath the costume, but in these opening moments of the drama that was to unfold, the man within was unimportant; the embodiment of power that was the black apparition with its crested shield, its heavy chain of office, and elaborate enameled medallion was paramount.
Will waited patiently until the silence of the crowd was absolute, and then, feeling every eye focused upon him, he lowered his shield and raised his clenched fist to his left breast in a formal salute, and the entire assembly snapped to attention and returned it in a rattling roll of sound as metal struck upon metal. The senior knight on Will’s left, the veteran Reynald de Pairaud, stepped forward one pace and relieved him of the heavy shield, while his companion on the right, an equally grizzled elder called Raphael de Vitune, reached out to take possession of Will’s sword belt and weapons as Will released the heavy black buckles. Then, free of encumbrances, Will reached up slowly and undid the clasps securing his helm before lifting it slowly from his head and settling it in the crook of his right elbow, its rim against his hip bone once again.
“Hail, Brethren,” he intoned, and “Hail, Brother,” came the response. Will raised his voice. “In the name of Master de Molay, I summon you to chapter here in this fair place.”
“So mote it be!”
The response was deep and sustained, and when it faded away, Will turned and waved his hand to indicate the great bronze bell that hung behind the altar. “You all know the tocsin, though few of you have ever seen it before now. For nigh on two hundred years its tone has called our brotherhood to assemble in times of dire need. Now it will sound again, here in this new land, for the first time since it left the fortress of Acre, for once again our Order’s need is dire.” He nodded to his brother Kenneth, who had been waiting for the signal, and two men swung a heavy log between them until its end struck the tocsin and a thunderous bronze tone crashed out and echoed across the waters of the bay, sending birds flying in fright. No one moved or spoke until its echoes had died away.
“This island is called Arran, and it will be our new home for the next while, a temporary base for our operations, extended through the good graces of Robert Bruce, King of Scots. Here we will establish ourselves as a community again, for as long as may be required of us, while we do all that we must do to discover what is happening to our Order and its brethren in France and elsewhere. Until such times as we discover the truth and the effect it will have upon our future, we will conduct ourselves here exactly as though we were in our community in La Rochelle … save that we will have to build ourselves a home before we can enjoy it.”
He swept his eyes from side to side, watching the reactions among his listeners and gauging their temper. Most, he could see, were calm, almost fatalistic, waiting to see what would come next, but there were others who looked angry and others yet who looked merely perplexed. He raised his hand high and waited for silence again.
“I know that most of you know little of what happened back in La Rochelle on the day we left, and while we have been at sea there has been no opportunity to tell you what occurred or why. And thus you have been unable to distinguish truth from rumor or from wild imaginings. I intend now to tell you what we know, though even we, your senior officers, have had to bolster the little knowledge we have with intelligently formed opinions and theories. For the time being, here is the gist of what we know …”
For the quarter hour that followed, Will held his audience rapt as he related everything he knew of the events of Friday, October thirteenth, including his summons to Paris by Master de Molay, the Master’s doubts about the veracity of the warnings he had received, and the struggle de Molay had had with his own conscience in deliberating whether to break his solemn vow of loyalty to the Pope for the future welfare of the Order. He spoke, too, with clarity and openness about his own reactions to de Molay’s tidings, and about the uncertainties he had experienced thereafter, despite knowing that the Master himself was acting against his own instincts and solely in the best interests of the Order. He also told them about his brother’s mission to assemble one hundred men in secrecy and then lead them, in great secrecy, to collect the Order’s Treasure from its hiding place in the caverns of the great forest of Fontainebleau and transport it to the coast.
His listeners knew of the success of that venture, of course, for they themselves had picked the Treasure up and stowed it safely aboard their ships, but Will saw the benefit of permitting them to tie themselves into the arrangements that had been made to survive in the face of the French King’s duplicity; it would do no harm, he knew, to encourage them to believe that, even unwittingly, they had each been a part of the operation to ensure their Order’s survival.
When he had finished, he stood facing them for several moments, half expecting that someone would dare to ask a question, but the discipline of two centuries held strong and no man spoke. Finally Will nodded and took one step back, extending an arm to where Tam Sinclair stood behind his left shoulder, a package ready in his hand. Will hefted it twice before tightening his grip and raising it in both hands. It was a large wallet of leather, evidently of solid weight, its bulk approaching a foot in length and breadth, by half as much in depth, and he brandished it high, turning from side to side so that everyone could see its solid substance.
“What happens now?” His voice rang out clearly. “Every man of you out there is asking yourself the same question, are you not? What happens now? What do we do next? Where do we go from this point forward?” He turned again as he shouted out each question, shaking the wallet above his head so that every eye in the assembly was fixed on it, and when he had finished asking, he lowered his arms and tucked the package beneath his left arm.
“Well, now I will make a start on answering those questions for you, and the answer to the first question, What happens now? is that we eat!” He waited for the storm of cheering to subside. “The cooks whose work you smell now behind us are sent to feed us by Sir James Douglas, guardian of this island and deputy of Robert, King of Scots, our host in days ahead.”
The men cheered again, for they had been aboard ship for weeks and the prospect of fresh-cooked meat must have been the stuff of fantasy to them since they left France. As the noise began to subside Will raised his arm again, the wallet firmly clutched in his hand. He had judged his timing perfectly and the crowd fell silent again, poised for his next words.
“As to what happens next, we have guidance here, inside this wallet. Look you now.” He lowered his arm and loosened the buckled straps binding the pouch, extracting a heavy bundle as large as the container itself. “I have here a package of documents sent under the seal of our Grand Master himself, Sir Jacques de Molay. Inside it are Master de Molay’s instructions for our conduct from this time forth, entrusted to me, on your behalf, on the occasion when I saw him last. I call now upon the senior knight here, Sir Reynald de Pairaud of the former garrison of La Rochelle, to examine the seal and to attest that it is, in fact, the seal of our Grand Master and that it is intact and u
ndisturbed.”
He stood with his arms extended, holding the bundle in both hands until the veteran knight had turned and examined the seal on the documents, nodding his head profoundly and bowing from the waist, pronouncing himself satisfied that the seal was intact. Only then did Will return the package to Tam Sinclair and raise his voice to the assembly again.
“And so for the remainder of this day we will feast and give thanks for our deliverance, and tomorrow our senior brethren will convene for their first chapter meeting here in our new home. Therein, they will examine the instructions from our Master and will decide, in commune, what must be done henceforth to concur with the wishes of the Council as expressed therein.
“In the meantime, there will be much to do for all the rest of us, I promise you, for we are greatly exposed and at risk here on this open beach, and we shall remain so until we have secured our foothold. Go then in peace, all of you, and set about the task of becoming a devout community again after so long a disruption of our way of life. Our friends from Brodick will summon you to the tables when it comes time to eat, and I suspect you might be ready to attend when that occurs. Go with God.”
As the assembly began to break up, Will nodded his thanks to the two veteran knights who had assisted him and turned back to his pavilion, aware that Tam Sinclair, who still clutched the wallet with its sealed package, was watching him closely.