Order In Chaos. Jack Whyte

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СКАЧАТЬ crowd surged forward in an orderly manner as Ewan and the mysterious woman climbed in over the right side of the wagon, and the guards casually scanned the passing throng. Sinclair noticed, however, that they were questioning every woman who passed by, while allowing the men to pass unchallenged. He straightened up in his seat and kneaded his kidneys with his free hand.

      “Lads,” he said, speaking the Scots Gaelic in a normal, conversational voice, “you are now promoted to the nobility. For the next wee while, you will be my sons. Ewan, when you speak to any of these buffoons, make your Scotch voice thicken your French, as though you were more foreign than you are. Hamish, you speak only the Gaelic this day, no French at all. You are new arrived here in France with your mother, to join me and your brother, and have not had time to learn their tongue or their ways. Now shift into the back and let your mother sit here.” He turned casually and spoke to the woman behind them. “Mary, come here and sit by me. Throw back the hood from your face, unless you fear being recognized.”

      She pulled back the hood wordlessly, revealing a handsome, finely chiseled face with wide, startlingly bright, blue-gray eyes and long, well-combed dark hair. Sinclair nodded in approval as she took her place beside him, and he jogged the reins and set the wagon rolling slowly forward. “Now hold on tight and be careful. For the time being, you are my wife, Mary Sinclair, mother of my sons here, Ewan and Hamish. You are comely enough to make me both proud of you and protective of your virtue. And you speak no French. If any question you, and they will, look to me for answers and then speak in Scots. And try to sound like a household servant, not like the lady you are. They are looking for a lady, are they not?”

      The woman met his gaze squarely and nodded.

      “Hmm. Then try you not to give them one, or we’ll all hang. Come around the end of the bench there, but mind your step. Hamish, help her, and then stand behind her, at her shoulder. The two of you have the same eyes, thanks be to God, so be not shy about flashing them, both of you.”

      Sinclair reined in his team. “Right, then. Here we go. Here comes the popinjay who thinks himself a knight. Just be at ease, all of you, and let me do the talking.” He brought the wagon to a halt just short of where the guards stood waiting.

      The knight arrived just as the Corporal of the Guard stepped forward to challenge Tam, and he stood watching, making no attempt to interfere as the guardsman questioned Tam.

      “Your name?”

      “Tam Sinclair,” Tam responded truculently. He pronounced it the Scots way, Singclir, rather than the French San-Clerr.

      “What are you?” This with a ferocious frown in response to the alien name and its terse iteration.

      Sinclair responded in fluent gutter French that was thick with Scots intonations. “What d’you mean, what am I? I am a Scot, from Scotland. And I am also a carter, as you can see.”

      The frown grew deeper. “I meant, what are you doing here, fellow, in France?”

      Sinclair scratched gently at his jaw with the end of one finger and stared down at the guard for long moments before he shrugged his shoulders and spoke slowly and patiently, with great clarity, as though to a backward child. “I don’t know where you’ve spent your life, Corporal, but where I live, everyone knows that when it comes to the nobility, there’s no difference between Scotland and France, or anywhere else. Money and power know no boundaries. There is an alliance in force between the two realms, and it is ancient.

      “What am I doing here? I’m doing the same thing in France that hundreds of Frenchmen are doing in Scotland. I’m doing my master’s bidding, attending to his affairs. The St. Clair family holds lands and enterprises in both countries, and I am one of their factors. I go wherever I am sent. I do whatever I am told. Today I drive a cart.”

      The answer seemed to mollify the man, but he cast a sideways glance at his superior standing by. “And what is in your cart?”

      “Used iron, for the smelters within the walls. Old, rusty iron chains and broken swords to be melted down.”

      “Show me.”

      “Ewan, show the man.”

      Ewan went to the back of the wagon, where he lowered the tail gate and threw back the old sailcloth sheet that covered their load. The corporal looked, shifted some of the cargo around with a series of heavy, metallic clanks, and then walked back to the front of the cart, wiping his rust-stained fingers on his surcoat. Ewan remained on the ground beside him as the guard pointed up at the woman.

      “Who is she?”

      “My wife, mother to my two sons here.”

      “Your wife. How would I know that’s true?”

      “Why would I lie? Does she look like a harlot? If you have eyes in your head you’ll see the eyes in hers, and the eyes in my son beside her.”

      The guardsman looked as though he might take offense at the surliness of Sinclair’s tone, but then he eyed the massive shoulders of the man on the wagon and the set of his features and merely stepped closer so he could see the woman and the young man behind her. He looked carefully from one to the other, comparing their eyes.

      “Hmm. And who is this other one?” He indicated Ewan, still standing close by him.

      “My other son. Ask him. He speaks your language.”

      “And if I ask your…wife?”

      “Ask away. You’ll get nothing but a silly look. She can’t understand a word you say.”

      The corporal looked directly at the woman. “Tell me your name.”

      The woman turned, wide eyed, to look at Tam, who leaned back on the bench and said in Scots, “He wants to know your name, Wife.”

      She bent forward to look down at the corporal and the watching knight, glancing back at Tam uncertainly.

      “Tell him your name,” he repeated.

      “Mary. Mary Sinclair.” Her voice was high and thin, with the sing-song intonation of the Scots peasantry.

      “And where have you come from?” the corporal asked her.

      Again the helpless look at Tam, who responded, “This is stupid. The fool wants to know where you’re from. I told him you can’t speak his language, but it hasn’t sunk through his thick skull yet. Just tell him where we’re from.”

      Tam didn’t dare look at the watching knight, but he felt sure that the man was listening closely and understanding what they were saying. “Tell him, Mary. Where we’re from.”

      She looked back at the corporal and blinked. “Inverness,” she intoned. “Inverness in Scotland.”

      The guardsman stared at her for several more moments, then looked wordlessly at the white-and-blue-coated knight, who finally stepped forward and gazed up at the woman and the young man standing beside her. He pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing as he looked from one to the other of them, and then he stepped back and flicked a hand in dismissal.

      “Move on,” the corporal said. “On your way.”

      NOT MANY MINUTES LATER, having passed through the city gates and out of direct СКАЧАТЬ