Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [197]
Of course, in this, their first minor action, the new company had disastrously failed. The robbers they were paid to deliver to justice had been found and killed first by the robbed. The two families they were dedicated to keeping apart had fought each other with a fruitless loss on both sides. And Will Scott, only grown heir to all the lands of Buccleuch, was dying.
But for Graham Malett, every Scott in Liddesdale Tower would have been dead. Far from helping, Lymond’s belated orders for the Scotts to stand siege had nearly sent them as a clan to their death. Better far to have let them meet the Kerrs in the open, man to man. Evenly matched, they might well have suffered less in the end.
So every man there would be thinking. Nor would these restive attentions erase what they had heard and had seen.… So Jerott Blyth thought until the dawn birdsong began, and with the first light he saw Lymond’s face.
Lymond was very well aware of the situation, but he was not trying to handle it. He was merely fidgeting, Jerott saw without sympathy, because he was tired.
Much later, they rode into the orderly courtyard at St Mary’s with the new, well-mannered buildings above them, flushed with spring sun; and Jerott checked, as he had noted Lymond checking again and again through the night, that Will Scott was unconscious but living, and that Gabriel was comfortable still.
Gabriel was not only rested, but awake, and a good deal recovered. As they slid from their horses he got himself out of his litter and, without help, walked stiffly to where Lymond sat, mounted still. Graham Malett laid a hand on his knee.
‘Francis. Before we disperse; before we give our attention to other things; before our recollection is blunted, might we discuss what went wrong last night?’ And as Lymond stared at him without speaking, Sir Graham added gently, ‘It wasn’t a notable success you know, in spite of all your fine work through the winter. We ought to know why. We are all tired. I know you are, too. But the future of the force may depend on it.’
‘You are possibly right,’ Lymond said. His voice was completely without timbre and his face, blank as a soapstone mask, was turned to the courtyard, where Salablanca should be.
Archie Abernethy came instead and said, ‘Scott’s alive yet, sir, although I’ve no great hopes,’ and in the bygoing, offered his shoulder. Gabriel said, ‘Francis?’ and Lymond turned his head. ‘Yes, I heard you,’ he said. ‘I agree. I have only to dismount, and be sick, and then I am, as ever, your man.’
A minute later and he had descended, one hand gripping Archie’s shoulder, and crossing the courtyard was at once sick, his hands against the high, handsome wall. For a moment he rested there, without turning, and Gabriel, his wounded arm stuffed awkwardly into his doublet, began to drag himself after until Abernethy charitably barred the way. ‘It’ll just be something he ate.’
‘Or drank,’ said Jerott Blyth.
‘Or the fact,’ said Adam Blacklock tartly, ‘that he has ridden three hundred miles and fought an action without any sleep?’
Gabriel said sharply, ‘What?’ And then, ‘Why was I not told of this? He must rest, of course, and at once. I shall take the meeting, if he will permit me.’
‘I’ll live to take it,’ said Lymond quietly. He had returned as coolly as he had gone, scandalizing Lancelot Plummer, whom he caught out with a turn of the head. ‘A thick skin, and a certain misplaced sang-froid,’ he added helpfully, turning Plummer’s face scarlet. ‘My sang at the moment is quite marvellously froid. Come along, gentlemen.’ He smiled at them, with a shade of the old irony, and led the way in.
The analysis of their late action, or inaction as Gabriel ruefully put it, probably lasted less than an hour. During it, every aspect of their failure was thrashed out except one: the absence of leadership. Instead, Graham Malett took on himself all the blame for the central breakdown in the action: the decision to allow the Kerrs to search the neighbourhood of the Turnbull land for their