What happened?”
“We considered his application, in accordance with our laws and customs, and the matter went to secret ballot.”
The admiral nodded. “Common practice, even at the Inner Circle level, I suppose.”
“Aye, but Philip was blackballed.”
St. Valéry and the other knights gasped.
“Blackballed!” the admiral repeated. “Someone voted him the black ball?”
Sinclair shook his head. “No, Admiral. Eleven of us voted that day. There were eight black balls.”
“What does this mean, this talk of black balls?” The Baroness was standing over them, frowning.
St. Valéry looked up at her. “We use two balls in voting on important questions within our Order. One is black, one white. Each man places one of the two, unseen, inside a bag that passes from hand to hand in secret ballot. The white ball means yea, the black, nay. In the overall vote, a single black ball holds the veto, the denial.”
Now it was the Baroness who appeared nonplussed. She blinked at Sinclair. “You are a member of the Inner Circle?”
He dipped his head. “The Governing Council. I am.”
“And you refused the King admission to your ranks? You denied Philip Capet?”
Sinclair nodded again. “Aye, we did. Eight of our Council members that day believed, as had been discussed in our preliminary hearing, that the King was seeking to join us for the wrong reasons: not to serve our brotherhood but to avail himself of the opportunity to assess and gain access to the Order’s wealth.”
Oh, you honest, self-deluding fool. You have no idea of what you did, do you? “You turned away the King of France and yet you did not foresee this day?” She shook her head, keeping her face expressionless. “Well, you were correct, both in your assessment and in your honorable behavior thereafter, but your insult was a fatal one. The Order of the Temple was destroyed that day by eight black balls. It ceased to exist the moment Philip Capet found out you had rejected him. It has merely taken all the time from then until now for the word to reach you.”
Sinclair nodded mutely, accepting the truth of what she had said, and she turned then to St. Valéry.
“So what will you do now, my lord?”
The admiral smiled at her, although his face was tired and drawn. “God bless you, my dear sister. How typical it is that you should have no thought of yourself, with de Nogaret approaching our doors.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked from her to the other men before continuing. “We will do much, have done much already. The fleet has been provisioning for sea these past five hours and more, allegedly preparing for an exercise tomorrow morning. Your funds are safe, tallied and loaded already on my galley. You will sail with me and we will see you and your gold delivered safe to Scotland. Go you now and find your women, if you will. Tam will go with you and see the three of you set safe aboard. You will not find your quarters wide or spacious, for our galleys are built for war, with little thought of comfort, but they will be sound and safe, and warmer than any of de Nogaret’s dungeons. Once aboard, you should try to sleep, although that may prove difficult, with all the comings and goings tonight. We will set sail on the morning tide, and later, if weather, time, and chance permit, we may transfer you to one of the larger cargo vessels, depending upon how fully they are laden. Tam, will you take Lady Jessica to her women?”
3
"Iwas surprised to find Sir William in agreement with me.” Jessie Randolph spoke in Scots, and Tam Sinclair, walking ahead of her, was taken by surprise at her unexpected words and looked back over his shoulder at her.
“How so, my lady?”
“How so? Because he obviously does not like me. Is he like that with all women? Ill mannered and surly?”
Tam stopped walking and turned back to stare at her for a moment, and she stopped, too, waiting for his answer. Then his mouth crinkled into a wry grin and he bobbed his head once. “Aye, you could say that. In every conversation I have heard him have with a woman in the last twenty years, he has been exactly like that. Ill mannered and surly soundin’.”
“Is he a woman hater, then? I would not have thought so before speaking with him.”
Tam’s grin grew wider. “No, Lady Jessica, Will’s no woman hater.”
“What’s wrong with him, then? You said he is like that with all women.”
“He’s just rusty, my lady. Very rusty. What I said is he has been like that with every woman I’ve heard him speak wi’ in twenty years. But you’re the first and the last of them.”
“The fir—? In twenty years? That is impossible.”
“Aye, so you might think, but it’s far frae impossible, lass. It’s both possible and true. The last woman I heard Will Sinclair talk to was his mother, Lady Ellen, and that was on the day he left home for good, dreaming even then of joining the Order…thirty years ago, that was. Will avoids women. Always has. He’s fanatical in that, and his life as a Templar monk makes it easy to do. It’s an extension of his vow o’ chastity, no more than that. And he’s very conscientious.”
They were still standing in the long passageway outside the Day Room, and now Jessie looked both ways along the empty hall, for no other reason than to give herself time to adapt to this staggering piece of information. Tam began walking again, and she followed.
“He is a monk. I can accept that. But he does not live in cloisters. He is a knight, too, so he moves about the world.”
“Aye, he travels constantly, especially since this business wi’ the Governing Council. But can you no’ see that that’s how he keeps himsel’ chaste? He never stops working, except to pray.”
“Then he must be a saint…an anchorite.”
“No, my lady, he’s a man. He’s no smooth-tongued troubadour, I’ll grant ye that. If it’s charm and courtly wit you’re lookin’ for, you’re lookin’ in the wrong place in Will Sinclair. But he’s the finest man I know, and I’ve been wi’ him since the outset. He was just a lad of sixteen when he left Scotland, and he went directly to the Holy Land. Spent years fighting there and was one o’ the few men to survive the siege o’ Acre.”
“He was at Acre? I did not know that. Were you there, too?”
“Aye, I was.”
“How did you get out?”
“Wi’ Will. I was his sergeant. He went nowhere without me.”
“But he escaped, and you with him. How did that happen? Everyone else in Acre died, did they not?”
Tam Sinclair heaved a deep sigh. “Aye, Lady, that they did…Not everyone, exactly, but close to it.”
“So why not you and he? How did you manage to escape?”
“He left under orders, lass. Ordered out, wi’ Tibauld Gaudin, who was commander of the Temple at that time—second in command there to the Marshal, Peter of Sevrey. The Marshal, y’ unnerstand, is the supreme military commander o’ the Order in time o’ war.”
“Who’s who is not important, Tam. Why was William Sinclair chosen to be saved?”
Tam shrugged his wide shoulders. “Because he was. He was chosen. It’s that simple, lass. Gaudin the commander liked him. Will had saved the commander’s life a couple o’ times, in skirmishes wi’ the Heathen. Besides, Will was very good at what he did—a natural leader and a bonny fighter. When Gaudin got his orders to take the Treasure o’ the Order into his charge, an’ to take it away to safety on one of the Temple war galleys, from Acre to Sidon, he wanted men around him he could trust.