Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [214]
Jerott, obeying orders, had begun circling the field slowly on horseback as soon as proceedings began, checking his men detailed discreetly on every part of the circumference, along with Ogle’s hundred, thinly spread. Gabriel was doing the same.
So far, there had been no trouble. Lancelot Plummer, mounted with a strong detachment immediately behind the Kerrs, signalled nothing to report, but seemed uncommonly flushed about the cheekbones. Jerott hesitated, but rode on. Chester Herald (‘Call me Billy’) had elected to tour at his side, and he didn’t care to expose something personal to the little Yorkshireman’s shrewd gaze.
Fergie Hoddim, next on guard, was arguing law with someone dressed in black, and with only half an eye, Jerott saw, for his work. Latin flew like dubs from a puddle: ‘continuatur ex partium consensu’, Fergie was saying heatedly, and ‘essoin de malo lecti’; and then began to press home a brilliant argument, no doubt, about litiscontestation and lawburrows. His tongue licked lawburrows into shape like a bearcub.
‘Fergie!’ said Jerott.
‘And God give you the quartain!’ said Fergie Hoddim precisely, turning his long, black-jawed face on the knight. ‘My lord count of Sevigny has been visiting us on that tack already,’ and in a surprisingly good imitation of Lymond at his most irritating: ‘You can’t swing a sword in a writers’ booth, Fergie. Either the one or the other, Solomon; divide as you please.’
‘He’s a tongue, Mr Crawford has, hasn’t he?’ said Chester Herald in a pleased voice. ‘We found that out in France. A proper lad. And what he got up to!’
‘You should see what he gets up to here,’ said Jerott, bored. ‘Fergie … our gallant commander, it must be admitted, is right. Pay attention, man. You can loose your lawburrows on Gabriel afterwards if you want a thorough-going debate.…’
Hercules Tait was off duty, nominally to eat but actually buying something a little secretively from a packman’s roll. Jerott couldn’t see what it was. Alec Guthrie was grimly in position; and the biggest concentration of all, de Seurre, des Roches and Adam Blacklock, all in the vicinity of Buccleuch. ‘… Fought a boar single-handed,’ Billy Flower, Chester Herald, was saying. ‘At Angers. Single-handed.’
‘You were there?’ said Jerott. It was something to say. He had noticed Gabriel, off duty beside Buccleuch, sitting on the dry grass chatting to the old man as they both ate. Under the noonday sun his head was gold as a newly-coined noble and his engraved armour, his one magnificent possession, was still on but untied. He waved.
‘That I was. And had the privilege of hearing the gentleman exercise his other talents as well, before their Majesties, you understand. Such an art; such an ear! I studied the lute myself once; in my youth, that was,’ said Chester Herald, swept away by his memories. ‘But it sounded different. Yes, I must confess, it was in a different class from that.’
Jerott, dismounting, said without listening, ‘So there were two bores? Chester—Billy,’ said Jerott with distaste. ‘Come and meet Sir Graham Malett and the Laird of Buccleuch. Proper lads both.’
And, cheerfully unnoticing, a smile on his rosy face, Chester Herald got down, just as Graham Malett, saying, ‘Have you eaten, Jerott? No? I’m just going back on duty then. Wait and you shall eat here,’ dispatched a man running for food. He brought back enough for Flower and Jerott both, and some wine as well, and Gabriel lingered a moment, talking to the herald, his shadow short and massive on the flattened grass as he refastened his straps. Buccleuch, struck by a thought, cut without ceremony through the chat. ‘Is yon an Italian suit?’
‘My armour?’ Gabriel looked up. ‘German, sir.’
‘It’s a grand fit round the houghs,’ Sir Wat gave his opinion. ‘Ye’ll be having a set made for that sister of yours?’
‘Joleta?’ Sir Graham smiled, but his fair face held a look