Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [228]
At the end of the first day he went to bed as usual, but without his drugs, and woke shouting, his face like a child’s. Bell got to him quickly, holding him down, but Jerott went straight for Lymond.
There was no need to wake him. Lymond was still up, fully dressed, and Archie Abernethy with him. As Jerott began to speak, he heard Abernethy slip out, and in a moment he returned. Salablanca was behind him, with Blacklock in his arms. Then Jerott was sent away.
What happened in Lymond’s room Jerott never knew; but next day the artist was back among them, paper-white but reasonably steady, and daily he improved. Taking him to sea was less, Jerott guessed, a staple in his training than a realistic acceptance of the fact that he never let Lymond, if he could help it, out of his sight. According to Randy Bell, grinning, it was because Lymond and Archie Abernethy between them were doubling his supply of drugs. In Jerott’s own mind, it was another step in Lymond’s battle to eclipse Gabriel. And since the machine was more and more engaging his interest, he opened the subject on the way to the west coast. ‘Satisfy my curiosity. If you dislike him so, why did you bring Graham Malett from Malta? And if you are intent on outstripping him, why make no effort to supplant him in Malta? Until the last weeks, he tried to protect the Grand Master. You could have led a pretty revolt, had you wished.’
Lymond turned a solemn blue eye in his direction. Filing through the low hill passes north and west, the company was well strung out, with their scouts on all sides as a matter of course; and Alec Guthrie had been given the lead, freeing Lymond to move as he wished. Riding, at present, a little to one side of his men at arms and out of earshot, Lymond had a perfect opportunity to explain, if he cared.
And apparently he did, for after a moment he said, the laughter plain now in his voice, ‘It’s a tempting piece of analysis, Jerott. If I were as bloody jealous of our friend Gabriel in Malta as I appear to be here, what should I have done to supplant him …? All right. What? Not oppose the Grand Master, for one thing. But the opposite. Infiltrate at the top, my dear. I should have made the Grand Master my indispensable friend.’
‘You couldn’t,’ said Jerott bluntly. ‘Juan de Homedès has truck with Spanish knights only.’
‘Then,’ said Lymond cheerfully, ‘I should have treated him to my well-known imitation of a Spanish knight and, having gained his confidence, I should begin to throw doubts on both the sanctity of friend Gabriel’s aims, and the quality of his leadership. And since no breath of criticism, of course, has ever touched him in either respect, evidence would have to be manufactured.’
‘How?’ said Jerott.
Lymond glanced at him. ‘It isn’t difficult to make someone look incompetent,’ he said. ‘If you really try. Recall how Sir Graham looked at Christmas, for example, when he ran us out of fuel supplies.’ ‘But—’ Jerott began.
‘That wasn’t his fault, you were about to say. Exactly,’ said Lymond, amused. ‘Further, his friends must be suborned. Yourself, for example. If you had a weakness, which God knows you have not, I should pander to it, until you relied on me and no one but me.’
‘Like Adam Blacklock?’ said Jerott.
‘Maybe,’ said Lymond; but not quite so readily this time, Jerott happily noted, and the sidelong glance was pretty sharp. But he resumed, none the less. ‘All right. I have undermined the confidence of his chief, his professional reputation, the regard of his friends. I take two other steps. I cast doubt on the purity of his morals, and I engage him and his friends in some activity detrimental to the Master’s welfare.’
‘But—’
‘But his morals are impeccable, so we have to slip a nun into his bed and get him, perhaps, to do something faintly reprehensible to help a friend.’
‘Like helping to police a parcel of English whores?’ said Jerott.
‘Perhaps. And finally,’ said Lymond, with care, ‘I should have consolidated my position as the Grand Master’s right-hand man by getting