Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [266]
The Chevalier de Seurre, working with him, looked up from the sacks. ‘I’ll give you one very good reason,’ he said. ‘Because Graham Malett asks it.’
Cormac O’Connor, spectating, found much entertainment in the sight. He had come, with great reluctance, to visit St Mary’s. Francis Crawford made his hackles rise; and he was afraid, moreover, for his position vis-à-vis Thompson the pirate. But, as with them all, Gabriel had somehow reassured and soothed him, and under that benign presence he was willing to wait, he did not know quite why, until tomorrow and even suffer Crawford’s presence, if he came. When, their work exhausted at last, the company foregathered out of the starlit September night and, summoned to the castle itself, found waiting for them by Gabriel’s orders a vast supper set out in the great hall, its savoury steams rising to the fine timbered roof with the heat from the great blazing fire, Cormac, his heavy face bland, took his place among them at the long officers’ board at the top. Gabriel, from his place beside Lymond’s empty chair, stood waiting to welcome them and then as, by his command, they seized their meat, he thanked them in his magnificent voice for what they had just done. Everything that should be said was expressly said, with no word of blame for their leader’s lapses, and unstinted praise for themselves. Then, having eaten sparingly, he retired, leaving them to unrestricted enjoyment.
‘That’s a gentleman,’ said Cuddie Hob approvingly.
‘That’s a saint,’ said someone else, examining his callouses. ‘But all the same, when I get to Heaven, I don’t want to be in his bloody work-party.’
Then Cormac O’Connor unloaded his gifted contraband, which consisted of twenty puncheons of raw sherry-sack.
*
Ninety minutes later, with the noise ringing over the dark hills from Ettrick to Yarrow, Graham Malett rolled from his narrow bed, and tying his doublet quickly over his creased shirt and hose, went next door where the officers slept. In the first room, de Seurre’s bed was occupied; the knight, his head buried in a huddle of blankets, had not wakened. In the next he found three others, two of them from the Order. There was no sign of the rest. He ran then, light-footed for all his height, down the stairs which led to the Hall.
The big room, finely tapestried and until now used on the rarest occasions by St Mary’s mercenaries and men-at-arms as well as themselves, was so bright, after the cool dark of the dormitories, that the eye ached. With the light came the impact of noise. Between three hundred and four hundred men were talking, shouting, singing, stamping, and arguing noisily in groups. On one of the tables, his boots lobbing cups like quail into the air, someone was dancing a vigorous jig. In a corner, in very slow motion, two archers were fighting in a solemn and concentrated way; and, not unfortunately in a corner, someone else was being sick. Here and there, on or under the benches, the weak-headed had already succumbed on limp heaps. Everyone was very happy.
Unnoticed, Graham Malett stood in the doorway and looked. Then swiftly moving to the top table, the Knight Grand Cross found and laid a hand on Randy Bell’s broad muscled shoulder. The doctor was singing. He looked round, still intoning, and for a moment, meeting Gabriel’s clear eyes, his voice faltered. Then, a look of uncertain nonchalance struggling across his blunt features, he leaned back, carolling again. He was very drunk.
So was Lancelot Plummer. Mingling with the broad golden streams of sack coursing down the fine broadcloth, his tears dropped unregarded on to his hands, turning and turning the empty goblet before him. ‘No one,’ he was saying heavily, ‘can call himshelf man and not mushroom, and fail to cherish the Artsh. Arts. And lousy beggary hangs upon us!’ he cried, enunciating fiercely at his neighbour with sudden passion.
Hercules Tait looked up from his arms. ‘We are lousy beggary,’ he said