“Aye, it is. It is also tomorrow.”
“This is preposterous.”
“I agree. No argument on that from me. But it is also true. The King’s men will be hammering at these doors tomorrow morning at first light.”
St. Valéry sat dumbstruck, and Sir William could guess the thoughts that must be surging through his head. Every Templar in the realm of France, arrested and imprisoned in one day? That was preposterous. There were thousands of Temple brethren in France, from one end of it to the other, and very few of them were soldiers. For the past hundred years the vast majority of so-called Templars had never borne arms of any kind. In reality they were honorary or associate brethren: merchants and bankers, clerics and shopkeepers, traders and artisans, guildsmen and local governors; the men who made the massive empire of the Temple function smoothly. The Order of the Temple was the richest civil institution in the world, and for two hundred years its military arm had been the standing army of the Church, the only regular fighting force in all of Christendom, with never a blemish on its record of probity and service. The vaunted Hospitallers were rivals nowadays, but beside the Templars, the original military order, their record was unimpressive. Small wonder that the admiral was stricken dumb by the mere idea that such an edifice as the Temple could be even threatened, let alone toppled, by a single, greedy King.
St. Valéry, however, was showing his mettle. Rather than fulminating in disbelief, he had brought his attention to bear on the situation with which he was faced. He looked now at Sir William, his jaw set in a hard line. “So what are my instructions? Am I to surrender my fleet?”
Will Sinclair actually smiled. “Never. You are to work all night tonight, in preparation for tomorrow, and then withdraw your laden vessels to safety offshore, where they cannot be reached. There is still some doubt in the Master’s mind about whether the warning is real or not, but there is none in mine.
“If tomorrow brings disaster, as I expect it to, you are to take your fleet out of France to safety, to await a resolution of this affair, for reason demands that it must be resolved eventually. But until it is, and reparations have been made by either side, you will remain at sea if need be, husbanding your resources. And you will take me with you, as escort to our Order’s Treasure.”
The admiral’s jaw dropped. “You have the Treasure here? The Templar Treasure?”
“Not here in La Rochelle, but close by.”
“How did you get it out of Paris?”
“It was not in Paris, has not been for the past ten years. It has been buried safely in a cavern in the forest of Fontainebleau since then. The Master ordered it moved secretly at that time, to keep it safe.”
“Ten years ago? Safe from whom, in God’s holy name?”
“From the men now seeking it, Sir Charles. From Philip Capet and William de Nogaret. There was no threat at that time. Master de Molay was merely being a careful steward, as is his duty.”
“So …” St. Valéry cleared his throat. “Am I to understand that you two men, accompanied by a small group of sergeant brothers, transported the entire Treasure of the Temple half the length of France unaided? How large is this treasure? Has it grown much since last you saw it?”
Sir William shook his head. “Not at all, Commander. The Templar Treasure is not the Order’s worldly wealth. Those are two different things. I saw the same four chests that were shipped out from the siege of Acre, and as closely as I could calculate, they contained the same bone-crunching weight they owned formerly.”
St. Valéry looked directly at the younger knight and posed the question foremost in his mind. “What do they hold? Did you ever learn?”
Sir William smiled. “You know I am bound by oath to tell no one anything on that subject, Sir Charles. Even so, I know no more than you.”
St. Valéry nodded. “Of course. And yet neither I nor my dear friend Arnold, God rest his soul, after our lifetimes of service, ever set eyes on the Treasure, whereas you have been entrusted with its safety twice now.”
“Not quite, Admiral. I have accompanied the Treasure twice and seen the chests containing it on both occasions. But the responsibility for its safety on the first occasion lay with our late Master Tibauld Gaudin. His was the charge to bear it northward to safety from Acre to Sidon. I merely sailed with him.”
“But this time the charge is yours. How did you transport it here?”
“Under heavy escort. I told you the Master had been planning ever since he first heard of this plot. He summoned me to Paris as soon as he received the first warning, and at the same time he began assembling a substantial force for the duty of protecting the Treasure.”
St. Valéry sat forward intently. “Substantial? How many?”
“Five score, a hundred of our brotherhood, fully equipped and supplied: horses, armor, weapons, squires, grooms, smiths, everything.”
“A hundred knights? Where did you find so many at one time?”
“In one place, you mean? We didn’t. Forty of the hundred are knights, Admiral. The remaining three score are sergeants, and the force was summoned in secrecy from all across the country. Master de Molay sent out the word a month ago for volunteers to assemble immediately, but discreetly and in small numbers, at several gathering points, and from those points they made their way to the forest of Fontainebleau, where my brother Kenneth was waiting to marshal them. Tam and I joined Kenneth in the forest and recovered the Treasure, and once our expected men were all assembled, we led them here to the coast by routes that kept us hidden from hostile eyes.”
“And the Treasure is safe now?”
“Completely, Admiral. Else I would not be here. It is safe, and my brother and his men have it secure.”
“And if they are betrayed? Such things can happen.”
Sir William Sinclair nodded. “True, they can. That is why we are here today with such appalling tidings. Treachery is bred of greed. But betrayal’s barely possible in this case. A thief would have to know in advance where the Treasure had lain hidden, in which case it would have been gone when we arrived to dig it up. Failing that, he would have to know that we have it, that we recovered it from Fontainebleau, and that we would then go where we went to hide it again. We scarce knew that ourselves until the last possible moment.”
“I see. And what will become of your hundred brethren should events come to pass as predicted tomorrow?”
“They will escape to fight another day.”
“On my galleys.” St. Valéry’s voice was wry. “Sufficient of them to transport a hundred armed men and their mounts.”
“Aye, and all their gear, grooms, and smiths, together with the Templar Treasure. Of course, Admiral. Those are the Master’s specific instructions.”
St. Valéry grunted, then grinned. “Of course. So, if we have to leave, we will take more than one treasure in our train …”
“That is the truth, Sir Charles. But any of your vessels that we leave behind will quickly be put to his own uses by the King of France, and that, I think, would please none of us.” The admiral nodded, and then waggled the package he still held. “You know, had you come to me yesterday with this tale, I would have thought you as mad as you thought de Molay. But with the murder of my friend Arnold tonight, and the fact that someone sent assassins into this commandery, I believe your tale as told. And now I must read these documents.”