Order In Chaos. Jack Whyte

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      “Aye, it must be. And thus today has been the first time in the history of this preceptory that Vespers has gone unsung beneath its roof. As I said, this news you brought us has changed everything. And Lady Jessica has no idea of it.”

      “Why should she have any idea of it, Admiral? She is a woman, and we are speaking of Temple matters. Since when has any of that had significance for any woman?”

      The admiral glanced at him sharply, as though on the point of rebuking him. “That particular aspect of our situation has no relevance for her, obviously, but there are other aspects of our circumstances here that do concern her, and directly so. She has placed her trust, her mission, and her very self in our hands, in the hands of the Temple, which has been protecting her interests for a long time now.” He glanced towards the door to the passageway outside, and the gesture reminded Sinclair that the two deputies would soon be coming to join them.

      The admiral tilted his cup to drain the last precious drops, then peered into it through narrowed eyes, licking his lips fastidiously before he continued. “Jessica’s is a long story, but not directly concerned with our current plight, although there is some overlap…” Again he glanced at the door, then turned back, dismissing for a second time whatever had sprung into his mind. “She must be rested now. She has been sleeping for hours. Would you like another small dram before de Berenger and Montrichard come?”

      “Aye, I would.”

      “Excellent. And so would I. But just a small one. The beverage, delicious though it is, is potent beyond belief.” He returned to the table and poured a small amount more of the amber liquid into each of their cups. Then he sealed the bottle carefully before returning and touching his cup to Sinclair’s. “Since I first discovered this potion, Sir William, I have come to appreciate that we no longer tip in libation from our cups. That would truly be a waste of Heaven’s nectar. Let us drink to tomorrow and damnation to de Nogaret.”

      “Gladly. Damnation to de Nogaret. But tell me more about your good-sister, for her situation intrigues me. Why is she here at all, and why is de Nogaret hunting her? Did you not say she lives in England?”

      “She did. And as her story involves William de Nogaret, if this warning you have brought to us proves valid, her life will be in grave danger, for that devil will put her to the torture to gain what he is after.”

      Sinclair had no illusions about de Nogaret’s malevolence. “He will indeed, if he catches her. No doubt of that. But what is he after? And why is she even here in France if she is on de Nogaret’s black list?”

      “Money, Sir William. The King’s minister smells money. What else ever motivates that man, other than hatred?” St. Valéry sighed. “I told you my brother Etienne was an agent of the King, sent to live in England to administer Philip’s affairs there at the English court of Edward Plantagenet.” He sat down in the nearest chair and leaned back, his fingers laced over his midriff. “He found opportunities for himself, there in England, opportunities for trade, all of them legitimate and of the kind he judged would hold no interest for his master. And on an early return visit to France, he traveled south into the Languedoc before returning to England, specifically, as I have discovered, to set up a trading venture there with a man whom he had befriended years earlier, a Jewish merchant in the coastal town of Béziers, called Yeshua Bar Simeon.

      “Etienne said nothing of this to anyone at the time, not even to us, his own family, preferring, as he ever did, to keep his own affairs secret and safely shielded from the eyes of others. He then went back to England, leaving the running of their activities in the hands of this Bar Simeon, and their venture prospered beyond belief, it would appear, for almost twenty years, until Bar Simeon fell ill two years ago. He was very old by then, a full score and more years older than Etienne. He knew that he was dying, and the nature of his agreement with my brother forbade him from delegating the work or passing it on to anyone else to execute.

      “And so the old man sold off all their holdings everywhere and deposited the entire proceeds with our brethren, in the preceptory at Marseille. The preceptor there at the time, a fine man called Theodoric de Champagne, issued all the proper recordings of the transaction, but instead of taking them into his own possession, Yeshua Bar Simeon requested that the documents—the principal one being a letter of credit to be drawn on the Preceptory of Marseille—be sent directly to Etienne in London.”

      St. Valéry set his tumbler down carefully beside him on the floor and then rose from his chair and began to pace the room, his hands now clasped at his back and his head bent to splay his long, forked beard against his chest. “Unfortunately, that was a request that could not be met, because it contravened our rules…the rules of our system.”

      He stopped pacing and glanced sideways at Sir William. “You are a man of action, Sir William, a knight and a member of the Governing Council, but I suspect you may have had little experience in the commercial side of our undertakings, and so I know not if you are familiar with the precise way in which these things work.” He stopped, waiting for Sinclair to respond, and when the other man shook his head and waved for him to continue, he resumed his pacing, holding one hand still behind his back and gesturing with the other to emphasize the points he was making.

      “Above all else, and I know you are aware of this, it is fundamentally simple. A man facing a long and dangerous journey brings his money to whatever Temple or commandery is closest to him. We take the specie into custody and issue him with a document, a formal letter of credit attesting to the amount of the deposit he has made, and he then carries that on his person and presents it to the nearest Templar presence when he arrives at his destination. In the meantime, using our own fleet as a direct courier, we have supplied a record of the transaction, including an enciphered code word for recognition, to whatever preceptory the man has decided to use at his journey’s end.

      “Once there, our traveler presents his bona fides and proves his identity—a necessary precaution against fraud—and provides the code word, upon which he receives the full value of his letter of credit, minus a small administrative fee. It works very well as a system, but it has limitations. The man designated in the letter of credit must carry it and present himself in person. The letter of credit cannot be transferable to anyone else—no deputies, no assignees—for if that were possible, the system would break down, with no one truly able to verify anyone’s right to claim the monies involved.

      “Thus, in this particular case, an impasse had been reached. Bar Simeon knew he was dying. He suffered a virulent attack of some kind, there in the preceptory, and was convinced he would last no more than a few days. He told de Champagne he had been ill for months, growing worse all the time, and did not expect to live to see his home again, and from the look of him, and the convulsions he had witnessed for himself, de Champagne knew it was the truth. Thus it would be useless for the old man to have the letter issued in his own name, for with his death the unclaimed deposit would be lost forever, declared forfeit and absorbed into our system. And for the same reason, he was in no condition to withdraw his funds again from Marseille and take them away with him. That left Theodoric in a moral quandary.”

      “Aye, it would. So what did he do?”

      St. Valéry had stopped pacing and now stood staring into the fire basket. “He prayed. And then he made a decision that ignored the rules that were impeding him, in this instance, from doing what he knew to be morally correct…

      “Old Bar Simeon had told him the entire story, probably in desperation, once he realized that he had placed himself unwittingly in a cleft stick, so de Champagne knew that the monies belonged rightly and legally to my brother Etienne. He therefore acted upon his own authority, defying all our rules, and wrote the letter of credit in Etienne’s name. He then sent the documents СКАЧАТЬ