Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [157]
The fashioning of a great corps had begun.
*
From the beginning it was clear to Jerott that Lymond could never have achieved what he did that evening with tyros. It was because these men, whatever their profession—philosopher, architect, lawyer, painter, doctor, artist and priest—were by force of the times they lived in soldiers also, and understood that speed and skill and toughness and above all self-confidence came from being pushed again and again and again past the edge of endurance until that limit became as elastic as an extra muscle, held in reserve. That crucial night they had their first taste of each other’s quality and of Lymond’s, and they found they could laugh.
They laughed a lot, breathlessly, that winter; but in between it was work: the hardest work Jerott had ever known in his life since the days of his caravans; more punishing by far than his novitiate, with the pious exercises, the swordplay and the shooting in ordered successions.
At St Mary’s, perfection in every known branch of warfare was their professed object. Taught by queer initiates who sprang up out of the ground and then vanished, their exercise done; or by sharing their own considerable expertise, they shot and wrestled and ran and jumped; fought each other on foot and on horseback with every conceivable weapon; learned the use and practice and assembly and repair and transport of firearms from pistols to basilisks; absorbed strategy and field work and camp organization, large-scale feeding and medication, siege maintaining and breaking; pioneering and mining and mechanical means of assault.
They discussed armour and its uses and horses and their maintenance and listened to and shared a surprising amount of knowledge about other races and their methods of fighting. Salablanca continued to convey his master’s orders in Spanish, and any other foreigner Lymond imported also spoke, without translation, his own tongue. There was to begin with a nervy scramble among themselves to find an interpreter. They usually did, and after a month or two were able thankfully to dispense with him: Lymond made no concessions on the grounds of language. If they fought abroad they would be expected as a matter of course to speak as their allies did. If they did not already know several European languages, then they must learn.
He would not, to begin with, let them ride their own hobby horses at all. If Randy Bell twitted him on the absence of feminine company, if Plummer bewailed his days filled with brawny antics and Fergie Hoddim tried to start an argument about their constitutional position or lack of it; if Tait struck up a travellers’ private club with Archie Abernethy and Alec Guthrie tried to argue with Jerott about his soul and Adam Blacklock began to talk about Midculter, Lymond simply set them an exercise that lasted three days and unravelled their sinews like crochet work. When they came back they hadn’t the strength even to curse him for it.
By then they were all caught up with it. When Lord Culter came once to visit them, bringing with him Will Scott and his father Buccleuch, Lymond stopped active senior work instantly, and instead had them all idly watching fifty mercenaries, for the tenth time that week, put up a complete camp, kitchens and pavilions and all, in two hours flat. Because none of them could keep away from it for very long, someone was arguing very soon about hackbuts with old Buccleuch, and the next thing anyone knew, targets had been set up and a lot of vigorous, loud-mouthed matches were going on.
Richard Crawford himself took part briefly in the archery and then retired, rather silent, to watch the doctor and Adam Blacklock shoot it out. Only Jerott, perched on a piece of fencing behind, heard him stroll up to his brother and say, abruptly, ‘Not for the first time, you frighten me silly.’
Lymond, who had been watching the mercenaries and not the shooting, turned quickly. ‘Why? You still shoot a good deal better than that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Richard drily. ‘I hear you sent the