Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [169]
‘Not in winter. Not in Scotland. Whereas you know about both; which is why you are not going. Has Sir Graham complained?’
‘No.’ Lymond, bright-edged at the top of his training, would be unaffected, thought Blacklock, if a new Ice Age arrived. He went on, his long, spaniel’s face expressionless, ‘He won’t refuse, until he comes down with pleurisy. And if he does, you’ll lose the goodwill of half of your men.’
‘So I might,’ said Lymond, taking thought. ‘But I understood his portable altar had the matter in hand.’
The artist said nothing. Lymond, who was in his own room dressing to go out himself, paused, still holding the sword-belt Salablanca had handed him, and enveloped Adam Blacklock in an exceedingly shrewd blue gaze. ‘But you don’t think it a good idea,’ he added.
‘On several counts.… No,’ said Blacklock.
‘Well, thank God it was you,’ said Lymond. ‘If Jerott Blyth had brought me the self-same appeal I should have been strongly tempted to kick him out by the window. As it is, you may tell Sir Graham, Jerott, the other officers and as many of the camp as may care to take notice, that we les executeurs de la justice de Dieu hereby exempt the Chevalier from night exercises from now onwards, and from all other protracted training in the field. Plummer will lead tonight.’
‘He won’t like that,’ said Adam drily. ‘Lancelot likes his comforts.’
‘Then he will require to place the blame, won’t he,’ said Lymond encouragingly, ‘where the blame is due?’
The changed conditions, though a matter of bitter self-recriminations by Graham Malett himself, led to an instant improvement in his well-being, and the hard training did the rest to restore the tone he had lost since leaving Malta. With the challenge to his endurance withdrawn he also felt able, for the first time, to leave St Mary’s as he had expected to do from time to time, to visit Joleta and Torphichen and establish some sort of centre at his chambers in Edinburgh.
Sometimes his absences were protracted as the weather grew worse, for by Christmas the snows had come, unusually heavy, and lay for nearly a month, renewing the white and grey landscape by foggy blizzards over the hills. Then sharp winds came and scooped the snow to its brown bracken bed, piling the rest in crusty drifts over cottage and tree. The training at St Mary’s became practical exercises in rescue work, and the army made friends it was to keep through the summer. In January, in a snatch of open weather, Joleta came, defiant with her olive branch, followed by Madame Donati and a strong force from Midculter, where she was staying once more; to be spurned, as she was later to record.
It was one of the few occasions when Jerott Blyth fell out openly with his leader. Jerott had spent an upsetting winter. As a professional, he could not deceive himself or anyone else about the quality of Lymond’s work. Nor could he deny that in his personal dislike of the man, he had let Gabriel down. Gabriel had sent him ahead to be his missionary, and had come to find the territory in command of the heathen, and all the spadework waiting for himself. It drove Jerott frantic to see Gabriel place himself under another man’s direction, and to suffer so mildly what seemed to Jerott a crude and deliberate victimization as well.
It was Gabriel who pointed out that only the hardest of training would bring him back to the point where he could hope to carry weight in such an army; and as his prodigious talents proclaimed themselves, it was obvious that not even