Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [1]
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Author’s Note
Leading Characters
Map
Part One
THE SALTIRE AND SUPPORTERS
I: Mother’s Baking (Catslack, October 1548)
II: Hough Isa (Crailing, May 1549)
III: Joleta (Flaw Valleys, May 1551)
Part Two
THE EIGHT-POINTED CROSS
I: Sailing Orders (Mediterranean, June/July 1551)
II: The Tongue of Gabriel (Maltese Archipelago, July 1551)
III: The Voice of the Prophet (Maltese Archipelago, July 1551)
IV: The Rape of Galatian (Mdina and Gozo, July 1551)
V: Hospitallers (Birgu, August 1551)
VI: God Proposes (Tripoli, August 1551)
VII: But Allâh Disposes (Tripoli, August 1551)
VIII: Fried Chicken (The Yoke of the Lord) (Tripoli, August 1551)
IX: The Invalid Cross (Tripoli, August 1551)
X: Hospitality (Malta, August 1551)
Part Three
THE DOUBLE CROSS
I: Nettles in Winter (Boghall Castle, October 1551)
II: The Widdershins Wooing (Midculter Castle, the Same Day)
III: The Conscience of Philippa (London, October/November 1551)
IV: The Axe Is Fashioned (St Mary’s, Autumn 1551)
V: The Hand of Gabriel (St Mary’s and Djerba, 1551/2)
VI: The Hand on the Axe (St Mary’s, 1551/2)
VII: The Lusty May (Dumbarton, April/May 1552)
VIII: The Hot Trodd (The Scottish Border, May 1552)
IX: Terzetto, Played Without Rests (Flaw Valleys, June 1552)
X: The Hadden Stank (March Meeting, June/July 1552: Algiers, August 1552)
XI: The Crown and the Anchor (Falkland Palace and the Kyles of Bute, August 1552)
XII: The Crown and the Anchorite (Falkland Palace, August 1552)
XIII: The Axe Is Turned on Itself (Midculter, Flaw Valleys, Boghall, September 1552)
XIV: The Axe Falls (St Mary’s, September 1552)
XV: Death of an Illuision (St Mary’s, September 1552)
XVI: Jerott Chooses His Cross (The Scottish Lowlands, September/October 1552)
XVII: Gabriel’s Trump (Edinburgh, October 4th, 1552)
THE LYMOND CHRONICLES
FOREWORD BY Dorothy Dunnett
When, a generation ago, I sat down before an old Olivetti typewriter, ran through a sheet of paper, and typed a title, The Game of Kings, I had no notion of changing the course of my life. I wished to explore, within several books, the nature and experiences of a classical hero: a gifted leader whose star-crossed career, disturbing, hilarious, dangerous, I could follow in finest detail for ten years. And I wished to set him in the age of the Renaissance.
Francis Crawford of Lymond in reality did not exist, and his family, his enemies and his lovers are merely fictitious. The countries in which he practices his arts, and for whom he fights, are, however, real enough. In pursuit of a personal quest, he finds his way—or is driven—across the known world, from the palaces of the Tudor kings and queens of England to the brilliant court of Henry II and Catherine de Medici in France.
His home, however, is Scotland, where Mary Queen of Scots is a vulnerable child in a country ruled by her mother. It becomes apparent in the course of the story that Lymond, the most articulate and charismatic of men, is vulnerable too, not least because of his feeling for Scotland, and for his estranged family.
The Game of Kings was my first novel. As Lymond developed in wisdom, so did I. We introduced one another to the world of sixteenth-century Europe, and while he cannot change history, the wars and events which embroil him are real. After the last book of the six had been published, it was hard to accept that nothing more about Francis Crawford could be written, without disturbing the shape and theme of his story. But there was, as it happened, something that could be done: a little manicuring to repair the defects of the original edition as it was rushed out on both sides of the Atlantic. And so here is Lymond returned, in a freshened text which presents him as I first envisaged him, to a different world.
Author’s Note
As with the two previous books in this series, The Disorderly Knights is based on fact. The attacks on Malta, Gozo and Tripoli took place in 1551 broadly as related, including