The Disorderly Knights (86 page)

‘So he was interested in our young friend for two reasons. He might, by evangelical fervour, incite Lymond to kill the Grand Master, or start an insurrection which would lead to his death. Gabriel himself could not do this and hope to obtain the appointment himself either from the Emperor or the Pope with his hands sullied so. Or, he might discover from the young man all that was possible about his own land of Scotland, and whether a welcome might await a long-lost son who might be forced to leave his life-long vocation. In this case, there was more: he found Lymond knew Dragut, and was able to size up that old corsair long before he met him with his offer.

Graham Malett might have thrown in his lot with the Turks, had he not learned of Lymond’s plan for this army of St Mary’s. He had already made approaches. That was why he advised against fortifications, why he persuaded the knights the Turk would attack St Angelo, and not Gozo as he did. That was why Sir Graham was one of the seven men—the seven brave men, my friend—who went with de Villegagnon from Birgu to beleaguered Mdina. If Lymond had not kept him in sight throughout the whole of that journey, Dragut would have known by morning that only seven men had entered Mdina. If Lymond had not stopped him, at the risk of his life, Gabriel would have scaled the wall of Mdina next day to warn Dragut that the message about reinforcements would be false. And in Tripoli, you will remember, Graham Malett was most carefully outside the citadel, and not within it—in other words, in the encampment of the Turks, where he and no other must have warned Sinan Pasha about the weak bastion. You thought, you in the citadel, did you not, that an escaping renegade had betrayed it? But that renegade was killed before he could speak.

‘For Gabriel wished the downfall of the Grand Master,’ said Nicolas agreeably. ‘While giving him such magnanimous support, he was gently, gently undermining the foundations. The Calabrians who objected so unhappily to leaving Birgu—he could do nothing to soothe them, this golden-tongued priest. He left them in worse case than before, and stressed merely the Grand Master’s cruelty by insisting that Tripoli was defenceless. But it was carefully done. Sir Graham had no wish to lead, you see, if the Order was heading for defeat and disaster. On the contrary, he wished the credit for appearing to hold it together.’

They had reached the hills above Yarrow, and the long cleft of the Craig Hill where on a misty October day, four years before, twenty men and a flock of sheep dressed in helmets had put Lord Grey and his English to flight. Now the river, brown and merry, wound through the meadows still green in the autumn sunlight, and Nicolas de Nicolay, with an exclamation of pleasure at the sight, put his arms on the rough wood of a sheep-stank and stood, Jerott at his side, gazing while he talked.

‘But he did not forget, Sir Graham, that the services of Lymond might prove more valuable still. He took steps to remove his competition: all that might hold the other man, or interfere with his plans. He has told me about, and you may remember, a note from Mistress O’Dwyer, carefully delivered, which Gabriel had so innocently opened. You yourself were instrumental, I believe, in preventing him, at Gabriel’s request, from crossing to Gozo where he might either have lost his life to the Turks or rescued the woman and become saddled with her forthwith. It was through Gabriel, it
offends me to think, and not myself solely, that Mr Crawford was brought safely from the hospital in Birgu where the Grand Master had hidden him, I am sure with the worst possible designs. Mr Crawford was not to be a victim of Juan de Homedès. He was to be a bright little tool in the brazen fingers of Gabriel.’

‘So Oonagh appeared to die,’ said Jerott. Throughout, his face pale, he had offered neither question nor comment on de Nicolay’s crisp and kindly discourse.

‘So she was persuaded that in the interests of Lymond himself, she must appear to die; or having conveniently disappeared, she must continue to let him think her dead. You and I both know how Lymond rescued her at Tripoli. They nearly lost them both. He swims marvellously well, and they had not expected it. But who could possibly have known of that attempt at escape? Only two people: Gabriel and the pirate Thompson. But Thompson was not likely to be the traitor. His life was in Lymond’s hands; he owed his own escape from the Turk’s galleys solely to Lymond. Therefore it was Gabriel who decided that Lymond was to return to Scotland alone, was to prepare this great army for him, and having trained it, to become either Graham Malett’s disciple, or his victim. You know the rest.’

For a long time, Jerott Blyth did not speak. Then at length, his voice husky, he said, ‘You say Lymond watched him.… How could he? How could he guess, more than any of us could, what Gabriel was?’

Compassionately, the little man watched him. ‘It is hard, that? He has no fervour, no intuition, and yet he smells something wrong, something too perfect, something that makes one ask, “If this man is all he seems, why have all the prizes of the world not fallen at his feet? Why is he not the lodestar of all the Order, Spanish or none? Why is Juan de Homedès not abased, ashamed, before him?” ’ The little man’s sparkling eyes searched out Jerott’s face, and his dark, printed brows danced. ‘Is it because there is something a fraction inhuman about these perfectly controlled responses, this unearthly radiance?

‘Shall I tell you,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay, flinging out his elderly arms, ‘why Lymond first began to hate—to
hate
, mark you—your monastic friend? He has told me. It was when, whatever haven he offered them overnight, Graham Malett allowed to return all the women and children of Gozo.’

‘He couldn’t have prevented it,’ said Jerott blindly. ‘The Grand Master was in charge. The Spanish knights alone more than outnumbered us.’

‘Mr Crawford does not dispute it,’ said de Nicolay gently. ‘He says, merely, that if Gabriel were all he appeared to be,
he should have died on the landing-stage
.’

There was another long silence. And then Jerott asked his third and last question. ‘His son. Oonagh’s son,’ he said. ‘Who has the baby?’

Nicolas de Nicolay, geographer, explorer, recorder of men’s monuments in sand and marble through inhabited Europe, turned again to his post; to the wind and the sunlit vale of Yarrow.

‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘I can discover no one who knows. Lymond has not been told of its existence, and, I trust, will never hear. I should advise you to pray, if you have faith still in prayer, and if you know who might heed you, that the baby is dead.’

*

After that, they took their time in returning to St Mary’s; and got in, at midday, to find the place in a turmoil. There was reason to believe, said Graham Malett curtly, his face disturbed, that Francis Crawford had been seen in Edinburgh, with his disaffected friends. In any case, M. d’Oisel had deployed his French troops in the district long enough. The immediate search for Lymond was to halt, and the whole company of St Mary’s, with the French force riding with them to guard against incidents, was to repair to Edinburgh.

‘Where is merriest cheer, pleasance, disport and play,’ said Lymond, when told some three hours later by Jerott’s servant in the crumbling tower he had adopted as home for two days. ‘But I am not in Edinburgh, and I have not been in Edinburgh; so why should Gabriel want d’Oisel there? What does Mr Blyth think?’

‘Mr Blyth thinks that it is a trick,’ said Jerott. A final constraint had made him send his man in, instead of himself. But Lymond was alone, and quite recovered. At Jerott’s appearance, armed, in the castle doorway Francis Crawford rose from the window embrasure where he had been talking, and walked slowly forward. ‘Ah. A conversion,’ he said flatly. ‘De Nicolay, I presume.’

‘Yes … I am taking steps to renounce my knighthood in the Order,’ said Jerott with equal lack of expression. ‘I have not approached Sir Graham about this or any other matter concerning his conduct. I shall leave at once for France.’

Lymond turned, and roving abstractedly across the straw-scattered floor, resumed his seat in the glassless window. ‘You won’t get there by any orthodox means,’ he said. ‘You were on the
Magdalena
, remember? No one is going to let you out of the country until the English commission has reported. Luckily, Thompson got here just about the same time that the English complaint reached Falkland. Logan was paid to interfere.…’

‘So your case is complete,’ said Jerott. ‘And the dogs have been called off, so you are free to travel to Falkland to present it.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Lymond. ‘Perhaps. In any case, Thompson will be sailing in two days. Horning notwithstanding, I am sure he can convey you to France, if suitably paid.’ He paused. ‘I’m exceedingly glad to know about the evacuation of St Mary’s. About your intention to leave the Order I have, and should have, nothing to say. One of the things Gabriel and I seem to have in common, as you once remarked, is the fact that between us we have stripped you of your religion.’

‘No. Neither of you could do that,’ said Jerott, his dark-drawn gaze suddenly steady. ‘But you have shown me, between you, that I have no claim to be more than a limping novice on that journey. The Order requires more than I have to give.’

‘They ask more than anyone can give,’ said Lymond, his manner suddenly altered, and got up. ‘Is this true? You see beyond Gabriel’s shadow to the ideal of the Order? And beyond mine to … what I mean to do, rather than what I do?’ He smiled, though not with his eyes, and coming forward, stood with Jerott in the doorway. ‘You will find your place, Jerott. Good luck. And God speed you to France.’

He did not touch the departing man, nor did his eyes have in them any of Gabriel’s lucent candour; but Lymond’s voice was as Jerott had rarely heard it, pared of all mockery, and a little of the warmth he was suppressing, despite his effort, showed through.

And for some reason, this brought Jerott’s whole mechanism for speech, emotion and deed to a shuddering halt. He stood, his stomach turning within him, and heard Lymond add, his voice cool once more, ‘How unimpeachably shifty it sounds. What a fate for the tongues of the world, that after Gabriel all that is true and simple and scrupulous should sound like primaeval ooze.’

It was then that Jerott took heed at last of the knot in his belly and the ache in his throat, and announced, regardless of every plan he had made, ‘I should like to stay. May I?’

‘Oh, God, Jerott,’ said Francis Crawford, and the blood rose, revealingly, in his colourless face. ‘Yes … but … oh,
Christ
I’m glad; but if you touch my back once again you’ll have to see the whole bloody thing through yourself.’

*

He was only just in time. Half an hour later, word came from Midculter that, so said Madame Donati, the Kerrs had received some sort of summons from Graham Malett, and Peter Cranston had gone off to join them. They were Edinburgh bound.

And hard on the heels of that, pounding up to the hingeless door with a handful of broad Scotts behind her, was Janet Beaton, Dame
of Buccleuch herself, with grim news that put all the rest into place. Thomas Wishart had been killed—Tosh, whom Lymond had put into Branxholm to guard Buccleuch with his life. And Buccleuch, ignorant of the murder, casting off escorts and lacking Tosh’s persistent protection, had gone off alone.

Questioned, Janet stumped about the floor of the keep, scraping her head under the upturned brim of her hat. ‘I was over at Andro Murray’s place with Grizel, ye understand. Sybilla’s idea; and the lassie’s taken to him, thank the Lord. I heard none of this till I got back. But the bruit was that the Lord Provost had sent for him, on the Queen’s instructions from Falkland.’

‘Sent for Buccleuch to go where?’ said Lymond. ‘Falkland? Hardly. He would have taken a train. Yet he took no one.’

‘He didna take so much as a poke with a sark in it,’ affirmed Janet in her powerful voice. ‘Now that wad argue maybe a place where he had childer and linen? He’s a house in the High Street weel furnished with both.’

‘The High Street where?’ Jerott’s voice was quick with excitement.

‘Edinburgh.
Edinburgh
,’ said Lymond. ‘You have heard Gabriel’s trump. Gabriel is prophetic. D’Oisel is in Edinburgh; my own troops are in Edinburgh. And the Kerrs. And Buccleuch, poor self-willed gallant old man, unguarded and on his cantankerous own. So of course.…’

‘You’re not going,’ said Jerott quickly.

‘I want Nicolas,’ said Lymond, ignoring him. ‘And the three officers and my brother. Is the man from Midculter still outside? Archie and Salablanca will be reporting directly. Richard to bring Madame Donati and Philippa.… Is that fair? Yes, I think Philippa needs to be there. And Janet … will you come? But with only the men you have here guarding you, no more.…’

Jerott caught his arm. ‘
You are not going!
’

Under his hand, Lymond had become perfectly still. ‘What in life, do you suppose,’ said Francis Crawford precisely, ‘would sweeten the knowledge that another Scott of Buccleuch had died when I might have prevented it? Oh, Gabriel knows that the news of Tosh’s death will take me to Edinburgh after Buccleuch. But he doesn’t know that I’m bringing his death-warrant with me.’

Jerott dropped his arm as Janet’s powerfully harassed voice broke in. ‘The Kerrs are in Edinburgh, did ye say? Is this another of Gabriel’s moves?’

‘Yes. You see,’ said Lymond, and bending, he heaved his light saddle on the wide sill and began, with quick fingers, to buckle and fill the bags that strapped to each side, ‘George Paris is in Edinburgh, in some lodging, and Cormac O’Connor is in Falkland with the Queen Mother, beguiling her with the news, at Gabriel’s request,
that George Paris is not the faithful go-between she has always found him, but is really a double agent working also for England.

‘And since George Paris almost certainly has in his lodging a large number of documents incriminating not only himself but the Queen Dowager and the Irish lords in their conspiracy to kick out the English, she will be very anxious indeed to make sure these papers don’t get in English Government hands. So she will probably send to Edinburgh at the first opportunity to have Paris arrested and the papers seized, probably by a civic authority, by her Ambassador from France, or even, if O’Connor suggested it, by some loyal and independent nobleman she could trust to bear her own part in the affair. And for the sake of secrecy he might be told, for example, to take no servants.…’