Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [163]
‘The men, you appreciate, will want their indulgences too,’ said the humanist drily.
‘Why?’ said Jerott. ‘They’re soldiers, not animals.’
‘They can have them, when the time comes,’ Lymond said. The backs of his hands were ripped with Joleta’s fingernails, and the thin weal at his cheekbone was emitting a little blood. Brushing it with his folded handkerchief, ‘Being men, and not monks,’ he added, to Jerott.
‘A holy weapon,’ thought Jerott with contempt, and remembered all of a sudden why he had gone to Boghall at all. ‘And will Tommy Wishart get special concessions?’ he inquired. ‘For services rendered?’
Lymond put away his handkerchief and changed his grip on the reins. ‘You recognized him.’
‘Yes. Did you have someone following de Seurre and des Roches as well?’ said Jerott sarcastically. ‘What happened if one of us promised to join you and didn’t come? Did he get his throat slit? Or was he to be persuaded by the charms of Tosh’s discourse?’
‘My dear man,’ said Lymond, ‘he was keeping the numbers down. If we hadn’t taken precautions the whole of the noble Order of St John would be disporting itself at St Mary’s under the delusion that it was earning merit by converting us to the Cross. As it is, another half dozen are due any day. Alec, now you’ve kept us right, I’d be grateful if you would see if the head of the column knows what the hell it’s doing without you. Jerott, it won’t help us in an ambush if the rearguard is agonizing silently over Joleta’s jeopardized soul. Forget the brat. Remember, we’re common, coarse fighting-men, not a heavenly host in our shifts.’
The careless words set Jerott’s teeth on edge at the time: they rankled still as he rode at Lymond’s back into the courtyard of St Mary’s, alive as a meat-market with the disorder of a big and vigorous camp.
On the wide steps a man awaited them diffidently, tall, quiet and badly dressed, but with authority in his stillness alone. As they got closer he began to move down the stairs and they saw clearly the clear-skinned, big-featured face, the good hands, the bare golden head. His eyes, lit with pleasure, rested on Francis Crawford alone. It was Sir Graham Reid Malett.
Overcome, Randy Bell vomited.
‘Oh God, quite,’ said Lymond. ‘Christendom has caught up with us. My mistake. We are a heavenly host in our shifts.’ And he rode forward without haste and dismounted, Joleta’s fingermarks plain on his skin.
V
The Hand of Gabriel
(St Mary’s and Djerba, 1551/2)
THE pressure of Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder that first evening at St Mary’s while Sir Graham introduced his small personal staff and humbly sought a night’s rest on his way north to Joleta merely aggravated Jerott Blyth’s uneasy conscience. But Francis Crawford’s greeting, he noticed, was amicable in its astringent fashion; though Lymond listened without comment to Gabriel’s generous praise of St Mary’s and, next day, to his wholehearted amazement as he walked through the encampment and yards.
They all knew—but from a dogged obstinacy, a superstition even, would not admit it—that in a few weeks they had reached a standard that promised something exceptional. To hear it said, now, by an acknowledged master like Gabriel, was wine in the desert. Days and nights of unpleasantly hard work lay behind them with so far no break, and it was wonderfully good to relax that day in civilized company: to work for once in short spells in the neighbourhood and come back for meals; to see Blacklock, a board in one grimy hand, sketching the visitor as they both talked; to watch Tait, silent normally about his vast knowledge of Europe, exchanging stories about eating-shops in Algiers; to hear Gabriel greet Fergie Hoddim of the Laigh and laugh with him over lawyer’s gossip.
Later, Lancelot Plummer the architect, precise, fastidious, sarcastic and the best engineer in Europe, was the man who helped Gabriel lovingly erect his portable altar, with Lymond’s less than rhapsodical sanction, and was the first to kneel there. Alec