Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [124]
He paused. Below him, jarred perhaps by the brutal movement, Lymond moved a little, his head back, pressing moisture on the small stones. In the east, the sky was paling. ‘These things are bitter to the tongue,’ said Dragut peaceably, ‘where sweetness is pleasing. Have him washed and most carefully bound, while we inquire into this thing further. When the sun is high, it is most seemly that soul and body together should taste the reprimand of Dragut—ah, the dog wakens! Take him, then, inside.’
Lymond opened his eyes on Dragut. Then, confusedly, his gaze swept the murmuring circle above him, pausing nowhere, and returned to Dragut Rais again. Two soldiers moved forward.
Before they could touch him, d’Aramon said sharply, ‘Wait!’ And as Dragut turned he said, ‘What injury are you planning? I warn you, this man is attached to the Order.’
‘I understand it.’ Dragut’s tone was mild. ‘And for instigating an act of war during the truce between the Order and ourselves, he would therefore forfeit his life. That, I believe, is just in all countries? And as I have said,’ his beard twitched, ‘his death will be sweet.’
‘How?’ d’Aramon demanded.
It was Gabriel’s voice which replied. ‘It’s the old custom, Ambassador. The criminal is soaked in wild honey and buried waist deep in the desert, to die from the sun and the flies.’
In the ensuing uncomfortable silence Nicolas de Nicolay’s carping voice shrilly spoke. ‘But that is barbaric!’
Dragut turned. ‘But you and I, Hakím, are barbarians. Or why else are we here?’
Nothing ever shook de Nicolay from a point. ‘And the woman? Is she to suffer this too?’
‘Ah, the woman!’ Now, suddenly, Lymond’s eyes were fully open, and Gabriel, watching without cease, saw his gaze and the corsair’s slowly lock. Dragut smiled.
‘The woman, I fear, suffered something less sweet, as her immodesty deserved. The woman is dealt with. When my men found her, she was sunk entangled in the brigantine rope, and already dead.’
There was a short silence. Under concentrated inspection, not a muscle in Lymond’s bruised body moved. His face became not unpleasingly blank, his eyes open to their fullest extent, a beautiful and unusual blue. And then, lightly, he spoke. ‘Dear me. And who is going to tell the Governor of Gozo?’ he said.
‘Oh, my son,’ said Graham Malett quietly, and turned away suddenly, into the dark. The others watched while Dragut’s two henchmen got Lymond on to his feet, and propelled him off to the tents. He walked too, stubbornly, until he got halfway there, and M. l’Ambassadeur du Roi d’Aramon had never been so thankful to see anyone drop to the ground.
*
When Lymond came to himself, he was alone in the stifling tent with Dragut.
Francis Crawford sat up, taking his time. He felt exceedingly sick. The sun was high. He was not bound. He had been washed, patched and dressed in thin garments, possibly of d’Aramon’s. There was a guard outside the tent, but not within earshot. Oonagh was dead.
‘Allâh be praised, Emír Giaúr,’ said Dragut equably. ‘We feared thou hadst withdrawn thy soul from this unequal world.’
‘Not so,’ said Lymond, gently surprised, his hands idle in his lap. ‘Many doors open on God. To save a woman from shame can be in no way displeasing.’
‘It may displease the woman,’ said the old corsair blandly. ‘But I speak of thy ill-advised cleverness by the shore. Much ordnance was consumed.’
‘But none hurt,’ said Lymond in the same tone; nor would anyone but Dragut have known that he could not possibly be sure of that.
‘Thou art wise, indeed, in dangerous skills,’ said Dragut Rais, and allowed the conversation unexpectedly to drop, sitting cross-legged in comfortable thought. The silence had assumed incredible proportions when Dragut at last smiled, and stirring, performed the grave salute he had omitted up till now. ‘Thou hast great patience, as I remember,’ he said. ‘May thy woman find peace. In thine own land, thou wilt find fairer.’
Unsmiling, the other man performed the courtesy in return. ‘I did not doubt you,’ he said. ‘Although