Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [118]
The Marshal, learning on the steps of his church that his soldiers refused to fight and mobbed by shouting mutineers, had fought his way to a hasty council of war where, once again, French and Spanish interests split the Order from end to end. In vain de Poissieu, spokesman for the French, maintained that the St Brabe breach could yet be guarded by good entrenchments, provided the soldiers did their duty. He was shouted down with all the old arguments, by de Herrera and the rest. It would suit France to prolong a hopeless fight. ‘Under your protection, M. l’Ambassadeur, what can they lose?’ said Fuster bitterly to d’Aramon now. ‘Whereas we, the Emperor’s subjects, can expect no quarter, as you see.’
In his wisdom, d’Aramon met this with silence; and, because above all things, the two delegates needed to talk, the tale was resumed. It had been decided to risk a daylight inspection of the breach provided the rebels returned to their posts. But even the promise of double pay, in the end, could not weigh against de Herrera’s repeated insistence that they were being duped: that the Governor had no intention of surrendering, and would rather be killed in the breach.
At length, while the rebels huddled together, sheltering from the unceasing guns, Guenara himself had gone to the breach, since no French knight would be trusted.
‘And?’ said d’Aramon without expression, reflecting nothing of the Spaniard’s low-spoken violence.
‘It was without prospects,’ said Guenara shortly. ‘All that is left of the wall on that side would have been down before night. If we had tried to make de Poissieu’s brilliant entrenchments we should have simply thrown away lives. The rebels understood that.’
‘They forced you to surrender?’ The irony in de Seurre’s voice was barely concealed.
Fuster’s, in turn, showed his resentment. ‘They demanded that the white flag be shown instantly. Or they would let the infidels inside themselves.’
‘So falls the Order in North Africa,’ said the French Ambassador; and this time, the distaste showed.
A little after that, the deputies were sent for again by a thoughtful Sinan Pasha, Dragut at his side. The treaty as suggested by the Marshal de Vallier would after all stand, and Sinan Pasha himself was ready to swear by the Grand Seigneur’s head to observe it.
On the Turkish side, he had only one condition to make. The General wished the Marshal de Vallier to come in person, to discuss the sea transport required for the great evacuation. An officer must be sent as hostage for the Turkish ships’ safe return. At the same time Sinan Pasha would send a Turkish officer as hostage to Tripoli in the deputies’ care.
The change of heart was too sudden, the terms too suave. Yet, what could they do? Bolstered only with pride, Fuster and Guenara at length left, with the so-called prisoner whose presence meant nothing in the Oriental philosophy of expendable life. ‘You fools!’ said the Chevalier de Seurre to the air as he looked after them. ‘If you bring de Vallier here, you are digging his grave.’
So much only Gabriel had waited to hear. Returning to his tent he walked like a blind man, ignoring Lymond, deftly busy within, and dropped on his knees before the cheap, wrought altar, his head bent.
The other man also, it seemed, had heard the news. He finished the neat package of clothing he was making, and was proceeding with meticulous care to sharpen two most handsome Turkish daggers before he broke the silence, still without looking up. ‘And is this the soldier rebuking the monk or the monk rebuking the soldier?’ he said.
But, saint