Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [230]
But Lymond, whatever his motives, had by now had more than enough. Touching his spurs to the big horse, he shot ahead without answering, and Blyth and Blacklock were left in silence, riding behind.
*
Thompson, it was at once obvious, was doing well. The Magdalena, floating under bare poles in a leafy anchorage in the Kyles of Bute, was a large and roomy merchantman with holds for salt and pitch and potash and wool and hides and malmsey and salt fish, and a good false bottom for contraband. Jerott, looking her over as he awaited his turn up the ladder, thought that she might have quite a comfortable turn of speed to her, as well as God knew what hidden arms. From where he stood a brass falcon, not even covered, flashed in the sun.
Downstairs in Thompson’s cabin, beside the one he and Lymond would share, Jerott sat next to the pirate’s horny grey parrot, his feet on an Indian prayer rug and a chipped earthenware beaker of wine in his hands, and toasted the forthcoming voyage. Thompson, whose own cup was solid chased silver devoted to the nude female form, drained it and looked pointedly at the full mug idling in Lymond’s hands.
‘Oh, no,’ said Lymond, putting it down. ‘I’m not going through all that again. Jockie, I have one condition to make. I want these men to become good fighting seamen. I don’t want them in Waterford jail.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said the captain of the Magdalena equably. Solid, changeless, brown as a pippin above the black, salt-blasted beard, he pinned Lymond with the shrewdest black eyes in the Irish Sea, and slapped his cup down.
‘No. You damned near run it, you liar,’ said Lymond. ‘What cargo have you got?’
‘None. We’re on our way to Lambay to load. Linen yarn and some wool, for Antwerp.’
‘I thought the Head of Howth was Logan’s bailiwick,’ said Lymond. ‘And how in God’s name do you expect to get into and out of Antwerp unhung? Every customar in the Baltic is ready to eat you out of a poke.’
‘The Magdalena,’ said the pirate Thompson, opening his black eyes wide, ‘is no yin o’ Logan’s auld buckets to stop weans with and steal their sweeties. The Magdalena is a clean ship, that pays her charges and dips her bit flag when she should; and Stephenson there is her captain. In port, ye understand.… I was in Antwerp the other week.’
‘And that’s a bloody lie,’ said Lymond.
‘And shipped a cargo of gunpowder and fifty barrels of sulphur,’ said Thompson.
‘From Antwerp?’ said Jerott, avoiding Lymond’s eye. ‘But that’s impossible. The Emperor’s desperate for munitions for all his own commitments. He stopped all exports of powder from the Low Countries months ago. Where in God’s name were you taking it to? England?’
‘No,’ said Thompson, gratified. He sniffed, and lifting the flagon, slopped the beautiful wine into Jerott’s cup and his own. ‘Mind, ye’d get a fair price, for they’re desperate too, but they ken baith me and Stephenson, ye’ll understand. No. I took it to—’ He stopped. ‘Aye, aye. I forgot it was Francis Crawford. It was a rare bit o’ dialogue, and ye fair had me going, at that. Mind your ain God-damned business. Yon Hough Isa was a rare cook!’
Lymond, unperturbed, raised his hand with the sapphire. ‘You don’t want it back?’
‘No, no. It was a fair bargain. I’d gie ye another for the lassie ye had that other night, though.’
‘Not before the children,’ said Lymond, ‘you damned inquisitive old rake. And you were in Djerba. The place stinks of carob seeds, and I know the man that put the dimples in the ladies’ bottoms on that cup.… It is not considered ethical to supply arms to the infidel. Jerott will tell you. But I’ll wager anything you like they paid you in French money.’
There was a hoarse sound, which Jerott recognized after a moment as laughter, and then the pirate heaved himself up. ‘Sharp as rat’s teeth, aren’t ye? We’ll have a grand passage. I’ll guarantee nobody’ll jail Thompson this trip, but