Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [227]
The Queen Dowager of Scotland, no fool, had looked up from the pages, neatly covered with sums representing all the Knights Hospitallers’ considerable income in Scotland, and had said, ‘And the required tithe, you are saying, should go to Malta in the usual way? But how can this be done, when the English Priory at Clerkenwell is dissolved?’
‘It cannot be done,’ had said Gabriel, his clear gaze, smiling a little, on hers. ‘Except by one of us taking it. A risky journey, and a destination no less … hazardous.’
Mary of Guise had heard all the reports of the Grand Master. She said, in a voice as calm as his own. ‘Too hazardous, I should say. And meanwhile, the receipts pile up?’
Gabriel bowed. ‘They are a constant anxiety to the Commandery. It seems to Sir James.…’ He hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘That since these are destined to uphold Mother Church, they should be placed in hands best qualified to do so. And forgive me, but in Scotland you have an outpost of the Religion besieged as virulently as Malta. For Holy Church, and His Most Christian Majesty who sustains her, the Priory of Torphichen would be content to make over all its tithe to Your Grace.’
‘Instead of to His Eminence the Grand Master? You realize, Sir Graham,’ said the Queen Mother, who liked to be sure of her income, ‘that the Order may make serious protest, and even supersede yourself and Sir James?’
Gabriel’s well-cut mouth tightened, and then relaxed again in a half-rueful smile. ‘The day that the Order is strong enough to make a protest, and honest enough to carry it, I shall go back to Malta,’ he said.
Mary of Guise, taller than most women, stood, and looked up at him as he rose. ‘Good,’ she said drily. ‘Excellent. Then we shall have you with us, it seems, for some considerable time.’
*
Gabriel was still absent at Falkland when, following a string of small and estimable engagements, Lymond set out for the west, a full quarter of his company behind him, to join the pirate Thompson at last. With him he took the Moor Salablanca, Jerott, Alec Guthrie, Adam Blacklock, Fergie Hoddim and Abernethy. De Seurre and des Roches, practised seamen, were left at St Mary’s, as also were Bell the doctor, Plummer and Tait.
Jerott, pointing out without modesty his own expertise, was told briefly that he was there as a tutor. Bell, who turned up unexpectedly at Greenock, was nearly sent back, but after explaining, red-faced, that there was a woman in Ireland he had in mind to visit, he was allowed to go, and Fergie Hoddim sent back in his place. Then they took a boat north-west, out of the mouth of the Clyde, and into the appointed place in the loch-ridden estuary, off the north end of the island of Bute, where Tamsín’s roomy big merchantman, the Magdalena, was waiting.
The weather was good and Jerott, who had enjoyed the last few weeks, was grimly cheerful. As always, Gabriel’s wise presence, his piety and gentle humour, and his infallible instincts in the field had been missed every day. The sharper discipline, the glittering tempo, of Lymond’s handling was however a challenge that he liked, although on some the confident, cutting intelligence grated. Lymond made no concessions, to Tait, to Hoddim, to Plummer. At St Mary’s he treated them as adults, and equal. In the field he demanded unquestioning obedience and got it, now, even from Alec Guthrie, with no arguments until later. Only the artist Blacklock, quietly mutinous, had begun to drink, and went on with it, in muddled defiance, in spite of warnings. When he began, obviously, to add to this some sort of drug, Lymond turned him out.
He didn’t go. In silence, grim with embarrassment, the other officers of St Mary’s went about their business aware of Adam Black-lock, his shaking hands locked together, sitting before the empty grate, alone with nothing to do; wandering through the stables, touching the horses, or standing,