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By Root 2403 0

have had the stomach for it. Lymond clearly had no qualms. He said with gentle cheerfulness, ‘We shall see. Giulio here says his friends will already be aboard the brigantine, ready to sail. I’m sure he’s right, except that they’ll find there’s nothing to set sail with. As you would know too, if you’d been watching, the sails, oars, cables and everything else that make a ship move have been dismantled from the brigantine in the last two days. And from every smaller boat in the harbour. She’s an empty shell, my friend. Your lads might as well take their guns to a floating tomb. Not,’ said Lymond peaceably, ‘that they’re going to have the chance of taking the guns anywhere, for you and I in just a moment are going to blow them up.’

Jerott wished he had killed that damned Moor. He pulled himself together and said sarcastically, ‘Of course, if you want to cut your own throat. You know these fellows killed a man to open the magazine and get you out of your cell. And you’re being blamed for it. Surely the first thing to do is to report this, have the ordnance taken back to the castle, and have a strong party waiting for the Calabrians when they come back for the guns as they’re bound to do, whether they get out to the brigantine or not. In their own eyes they’re dead men unless they fight back. They don’t know de Herrera has picked on you.’

‘It’s my French accent,’ said Lymond idly. He was listening, Jerott realized, for any sound outside the hut. The Moor had slipped off again, no doubt to resume watch. Then, bringing his attention back suddenly, ‘Look,’ said Lymond. ‘Nine times out of ten you may be right in extremity to make a public example by frying someone’s liver in front of the vulgar—I won’t argue. But here leniency is the only answer. You are threatened physically in that there is a breach in St Brabe whose extent no one yet knows; and unless the defences behind are properly manned there may be a break-through. You are threatened politically by the Spanish knights’ fear of Turkish vengeance and the fact that, if they can find any easy way out, the blame has a good chance of being pinned on the French. Add to that mess two hundred peasant boys to be guarded day and night because they renegued and having absolutely nothing to lose by murdering the entire garrison and you get not only disaster, but a silly disaster.’

‘What, then?’ said Jerott. Lymond was speaking Italian, of a rough and ready kind but plainly, and probably understandable enough to the boy on the floor.

‘So the Spanish knights are never allowed to discover what has happened. We return to the castle with our friend here, leaving a lit fuse to take care of the powder: poor little fried chickens, my dear. The Calabrians between here and the Châtelet, in the Châtelet or at sea can’t help but see it, whatever they imagine caused it. No ship; no weapons. They’ll have to come back, if only to find out what has happened. And if they find no one suspects them, what can they do but return docilely to their posts and hope to God no one notices their feet are wet?’

Switching suddenly to English, he added something to that fast summing-up. ‘De Vallier and des Roches must be told, of course. And trouble may well boil up among the men themselves once the firing restarts. But at least if the Spanish don’t know, we’ll avoid open insurrection and mayhem at this exact juncture, and have a chance of keeping them on our side.’

‘And who,’ said Jerott, ‘is supposed to have knifed the sentry and taken the powder?’

‘Salablanca,’ said Lymond calmly. ‘Our big friend outside. That was very nicely fought, by the way. He is no novice in any sense of the word at in-fighting.’

‘I’m flattered,’ said Jerott sarcastically. ‘And a big, strong man, too. He carried all this alone?’

‘No. His brother and a handful of slaves helped him. They’ll be assumed, I hope, to have died in the fire.… In fact, they’ll make for the Turkish camp.’

‘So you have been unlocking a few more fetters,’ said Jerott blankly. He had his sword again, he remembered, and his dagger. The Calabrian would help him.