Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [208]
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jerott, his eyes elsewhere. What was the attraction here, in God’s name? Not the little woman in the stained gown, surely? Or the plain fourteen-year-old who had been so courageous the night Trotty died? He said, having located the stairs, ‘He’s up there, is he? I’m sorry, but he’s wanted elsewhere.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ said Kate at her most deceptive. By some miracle she was on the bottom step, and Charles, all six feet of him, two steps behind. ‘Under no circumstances can Mr Crawford be disturbed until morning.’
That got Jerott’s attention. ‘Why, who’s he with?’ he said, and Philippa, unseen behind, drew an enormous breath of sheer, crowing delight, and then choked on it, unuttered, in her throat. For there were tears of pure rage in her mother’s eyes, and her mother’s face, pale with controlled emotion, was turned towards herself. ‘Philippa, go to the kitchen,’ said Kate, in a voice her daughter never disobeyed. And to Jerott, ‘Mr Blyth, has it totally escaped the attention of yourself and your other vigorous, efficient and devoted companions of the Knights Hospitallers of St John that your commander is ill with fatigue?’
‘He’s sick, is he?’ said Jerott. He did not sound surprised. ‘Still, he’ll want to know, I expect. Next week’s Day of March has been put forward to tomorrow. We were warned last week, it appears, but the news didn’t reach us. Mr Crawford intended to go. But if he’s ill,’ said the dark young idiot cheerfully, ‘then no doubt he’ll send somebody else.’
‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘Tomorrow? That means leaving when?’
‘Now,’ said Jerott politely. ‘I really must ask you to wake him.’
‘And if,’ said Kate desperately, ‘Mr Crawford is too ill to delegate the command, how will his deputy be chosen?’
Jerott stared. ‘There’s only one choice, Mistress Somerville. If Mr Crawford couldn’t lead, then it would fall to Sir Graham Reid Malett.’
‘You’d better go up,’ said Kate then ungraciously. ‘He isn’t ill—yet, but he’s suffering from severe overstrain, in my view; and of course, lack of sleep.’ Her sharp brown eyes sought and searched the brown face of this beautiful young man who had been kind to Philippa during that sickening episode of the old woman in the ditch, and who spoke so carelessly of his commander. ‘You haven’t known Mr Crawford long?’ she said.
‘We were boyhood … acquaintances,’ said Jerott. ‘And met again, last year, in Malta. I didn’t intend to appear unfeeling. I have, I need hardly say, an enormous respect for Mr Crawford’s ability.’
‘But not for his character?’ said Kate. ‘Mr Blyth, you should remember one thing. A celibate island life fighting Turks is no particular guarantee of early maturity. Take a little crone-like advice, and don’t rush your judgements.’
Jerott gazed at her with his splendid, cold stare. ‘You are quite probably right. Sir Graham Malett, for instance, both admires him and holds him in deep affection.’
This Christ-like naïveté of Sir Graham’s was, clearly, a matter for pain. Immune to the sarcasm, Kate suddenly pounced on the anomaly. ‘The feeling isn’t, I gather, reciprocal … Sir Graham isn’t bent, then, on usurping the leadership?’
‘Usurping it?’ Jerott laughed. ‘Mistress Somerville, Gabriel’s one object in coming to Scotland has been to draw Lymond from his own recondite pursuits into a life worthy of himself and his gifts.’
‘And the army?’ said Kate. ‘When Francis Crawford has taken his vows, what of the army?’
From the step above, impatient, Jerott Blyth looked down on her. ‘The army is his. He would lead it, as now. But as a holy weapon. For great purposes, not for mercenary gain. To bring peace to the brotherhood of man.’ He glanced upstairs and back, ironically, to Kate. ‘He’s flogged himself dizzy in a race that doesn’t exist.’
All the same, forcing Lymond awake amused nobody; he was too exhausted for any gentle methods to work. It was a long time before he moved in his sleep, protesting at last; but soon after that