Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [231]
‘Then I hope to God he’s discreet,’ said Lymond, staring. Thompson, stepping forward, flung open the door.
‘I am a Frenchman, so therefore by nature discreet. Particularly,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay, Geographer to His Most Christian Majesty of France, stepping through the doorway, his brown, inquisitive face alight, ‘when agitating the feet. How are you, mon brave?’ And jumping forward on his spry velvet toes, he embraced first Lymond and then Jerott on both cheeks.
But it was not to be a lingering reunion. One had time to remember the hospital at Birgu, from which de Nicolay had extracted Lymond from the mortuary; the Turkish camp at Tripoli; the fated homeward journey back to Malta. Jerott, catching the little man’s bright eyes on him more than once, curious under the runic crest of grey hair, wondered if to an onlooker it was strange, and even despicable, this abrupt departure from Malta of a knight dedicated as he had been.
But his principles had not altered. Malta had receded, because it was no longer the centre of his religion. It was no longer worthy of his allegiance: that was to an ideal, to his Faith, as represented by Gabriel here.
For the rest, his life was St Mary’s. He found it satisfying; more than absorbing. He was proud of the company and of his share in it. He looked forward to what it could do. But it was purely secular in its objects, and in a way, as Lymond had shrewdly guessed, he dreaded this free brotherhood being forced into the mould of the Religion. And to restore Malta, he was beginning to see, as Lymond saw, you needed true faith—faith to soften the facts, as well as the risks. If you saw too clearly.… What was he thinking? He must bring his mind back to the Magdalena, and Thompson, agitating to be off.… But what he had been about to conclude was, surely, more important still. If you saw too clearly, you might not wish to restore Malta at all.
It was then that Fergie Hoddim, projecting his courtroom voice from a dinghy far below in the smooth waters of the Kyle, brought first Thompson, and then his guests out on deck. After an interval of shouting, a ladder was thrown down to him and he came up, with all the speed of a man trained at St Mary’s. At the top, he stepped down on the deck, dug into his jerkin, and produced a folded packet for Lymond.
It was a message from the Queen Dowager of Scotland, written at Falkland, sent on to St Mary’s and thence carried to Greenock where the bearer, Ross Herald, looking green in the pitching dinghy, had been thankful to find one of Lymond’s own men about to return.
In it was a peremptory command to Francis Crawford of Lymond, Comte de Sevigny, to present himself at once, on pain of horning, at the Palace of Falkland, to answer to Her Grace for certain activities for which he had been recently responsible.
Tossing it to Jerott to read, Lymond turned to the Magdalena’s captain. ‘Have a good trip,’ he said. ‘You go alone. Jerott will tell you why. Adam, you will go ashore with me now, along with Salablanca, and ride with me to Falkland. Jerott, you have control, under Thompson, of the St Mary’s men, and will act as the captain’s officer between him and them. I shall meet the Magdalena when you come back, or send Adam if I can’t. Jockie, I have some private advice for you, which you don’t deserve.…’
To the men on the crowded decks, watching, the exchange between Thompson and Lymond appeared to take a long time and to be remarkably mirthless in character. By the time Lymond swung himself down the ladder, waving briefly to the rest at the rails, Adam Blacklock was already in the boat with his possessions, and Salablanca lending a hand with the dinghy’s small sail, while Robbie Forman, Ross Herald, sat rigid beneath. Then, in a moment, it seemed, the boom swung over, the sheet tightened, and the little boat veered off and vanished behind the green trees of Bute.
*
Because of the herald, Adam Blacklock