"Katherine Kurtz - Knights Templar 01 - Temple and the Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Less than reassured at the sight, Arnault found himself uneasily aware how the welfare of the entire
Scottish nation was now dependent on the indifferent health of this one small girl. Even as that thought
crossed his mind, he was joined at the rail by his Templar companion, who nodded somewhat
distractedly.

Somewhat older than Arnault, Brian de Jay was a big, muscled man with short-cropped blond hair, a
white-toothed grin within his curly blond beard, and eyes of a glacial blue. Leaning indolently on the
railing, he cast a sour glance upward toward the ship's rigging, where the freshening wind was fretting at
the reefs in the ship's great square sail.
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"I would have preferred the English ship that King Edward sent," he remarked. "Even more, I would have
preferred to sail six weeks ago. I like not these fickle seas in the north."

Arnault shrugged. "No doubt King Eric preferred to entrust his daughter to a ship of Norse crafting."

"The king will have been affronted at the snub," Jay replied. "It makes for a less than auspicious beginning
to the alliance."

"The Norse shipwrights take great pride in their work," Arnault said neutrally, surprised at this somewhat
partisan statement regarding the English king. "King Eric evidently felt that a Norwegian-built vessel
would prove the more seaworthy in the event of a storm."

"Well, the delay makes storms more likely," Jay said with a grimace. "I hope he doesn't have cause to
regret his decision. Aside from the political repercussions, I'd hate to see all our efforts wasted-especially
when we could have been putting our energies to better effect in defense of our domains."

He was referring, Arnault knew, to the Templar strongholds of the East: Acre and Tripoli, Tyre and
Sidon, Athlit and Haifa-all that now remained of the former crusader Kingdom of Outremer. Since the fall
of Jerusalem, over a century before, the great crusading Orders of the Temple and the Hospital had
managed-just-to retain those strongholds, bolstered by sporadic infusions of aid from the West; but their
position in recent years had become increasingly perilous.

"Look at us," Jay continued disparagingly. "We are meant to be men of war. Surely our place is in the
Holy Land, where the danger is-not trailing like lapdogs about the skirts of these diplomats! Our proper
vocation is fighting- not matchmaking on behalf of young children."

Arnault gazed out to sea, reflecting that these militant sentiments might have carried more weight if Jay
had been speaking from previous experience in the East. As it was, the Preceptor of Scotland owed his
present position of eminence to the favor of the Master of England, who had groomed him for
administrative function and then sent him north to oversee the Scottish houses of the Order. Unlike
Arnault, who had seen active service in the Holy Land and carried the scars to prove it, Jay had yet to
match words with deeds on the field of battle.

"We go where we're ordered, and do as we're told," Arnault said mildly. "And don't underestimate the
value of what has been achieved by the Treaty of Birgham. If this marriage succeeds, it could bring us a