Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [102]
But the Marshal only gazed at him with his eyes filmed with recent sleep and said wearily, ‘He is under lock and key. I do not know whether this man is a traitor or not, but he is an individualist, and in war the two are the same.’ He paused, and added, ‘He countermanded the orders to bastinado the Moor, and when de Herrera interfered, he held him at sword point until the man was released.’
Jerott knew the Moorish prisoner he meant—a powerfully made man, second-generation exile from Spain who had fought for Turkey in North Africa until his capture by the knights. Since chivalry had obviously nothing to do with Lymond’s action, Jerott said only, ‘Why?’
The Marshal shrugged. ‘We are all under stress. But we cannot have authority undermined at the moment when we are enforcing it. The Moor took his brother’s place under the whip: it is not unknown. The Scottish gentleman thought it a needless waste of manpower. In any case, the Moor and his brother have escaped, and are probably hiding in the town, where they will almost certainly be killed by the cannon fire; so your friend has deprived us at one stroke of the services of two slaves and himself.’
In any man but Lymond, you would define that as crass incompetence allied to sentiment. Jerott said, ‘I suppose I relish the gentleman no more than you do. But I can’t see him unfaithful to the people who are paying him. And we can’t afford to be without him, sir.’
‘If I release him, the Spanish knights will kill him; or at the very least I shall have a revolt on my hands. He used rough measures. In public,’ said de Vallier, and dropped the pen he was agitating as the big door crashed open. ‘Dispense Vd.… Forgive me, sir,’ said his Acting Treasurer, his dark face drawn with sleeplessness and anger as the thick, hot air of the passage came with him into the lamplit room. ‘If you speak of Señor da Laimondo, there is no need to release. He has escaped. Also, the arsenal has been broken into, and the guard slaughtered.’
Nothing about that made sense. As Jerott stared, the Marshal said, ‘Search for him. What ordnance has been taken?’
‘We do not yet know. The outer door is open, but the iron grille has been relocked and the key is missing.’ There were men behind him in the passage; comrades, Jerott guessed, of the dead man. Whatever his reasons this time, Lymond’s chances of survival were frail. The Marshal was enjoining silence and care, to avoid panic. True, the news that an unknown quantity of arms and ammunition was missing would hardly brace the garrison’s confidence. A good deal more coldly than before, de Vallier was addressing him. Brother Jerott must now admit that his compatriot at the very least was a Turkish agent or sympathizer, intending either to lead a revolt or coerce them into surrender?
Brother Jerott thought of de Herrera, who was moving out, talking urgently, his hand on his sword. But he could swear there was genuine rage in his face. Besides, it was a Spaniard who had been killed. He visualized the team he had just seen, the murder party, splitting up and silently searching the castle through the hot night, the torch flares moving from rampart to rampart, the discreet questions which would elicit—which were bound to elicit—the direction of any small unexplained bustle, any unaccountable throb of running footsteps in the uncanny, exhausted silence.
Aloud, he said, ‘I don’t know. It seems unlikely. He is nothing if not professional. May I have leave to hunt also, sir?