Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [270]
‘Nor I,’ said Tait, and the growl was taken up and echoed along the strewn tables, where in knots and groups the men of St Mary’s had begun to move forward.
Gabriel lifted his head. ‘Wait.…’ he said, but there was no conviction now in his voice, and urgency and new force in Jerott’s as he said, ‘Wait? What for? Who will follow Francis Crawford after this? What fool would trust him?’
And Randy Bell, standing grimly beside him, said, ‘You didn’t hear Sir Graham address us just now on the dangers of loose living and lax discipline in a fighting group. He didn’t talk about the times our gallant leader has failed us already. He hated Sir Graham all right. Mistress Joleta is right. Think of the winter campaigns Sir Graham was forced to take part in and suffer; think of the night he came back from his work of mercy with the fuel. Think of the Hot Trodd when Crawford left him to do all the work and face all the danger—do you know why? Do you know that was the night, the night before Will Scott died, that Lymond was forcing Gabriel’s sister in an inn in Dumbarton?’
For a moment he paused; for a moment in that ugly drunken assembly there was silence. Then as pandemonium belaboured the air, Randy raised his voice to a bellow. ‘Think of that, and think how again and again, Sir Graham has saved Lymond and protected him. But for Gabriel, would Effie Harperfield and her children have escaped yon day the siege-engine ran off? Would we have succeeded even so far as we did at the Hot Trodd; would we be blessed by the Church and have the regard of M. d’Oisel and the Queen Dowager? I tell you, if Gabriel hadn’t spoken out at Falkland the other day there would be no St Mary’s now, and no future for any of us.’
Inflamed with drink and an overmastering rage, Randy Bell glared at the roaring concourse around him. ‘How much of all the great work we’ve heard of has been Graham Malett’s doing, not Lymond’s? Graham Malett’s, aided by God?’
‘God knows,’ said a lazy voice, cool and familiar, from behind. ‘But looking round the policies I can tell that either Gabriel or the Saint-Esprit is a past master at housework.… Good evening,’ said Lymond politely to all the hostile faces as they turned. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to stab me in the front, rather than the back? I am here, like the Blessed Gerard himself, ready to fall like a fruit, ripe for eternity.’
In the second’s flinching silence, it was the girl who spoke first. Pushing herself off Jerott’s shoulder, Joleta turned, and with her eyes fixed on the speaker, moved to her brother’s side and clasped both frail hands, hard, on his arm. ‘It’s Francis Crawford,’ she said, her young voice harsh. ‘Kill him for me?’ And as, around them, the sluggish noise climbed of men nursing their anger through drink and oratory and resented fatigue, Jerott Blyth bent his head, and drawing his sword smoothly from its long, leather scabbard, turned, last of them all.
Profoundly unexcited, Francis Crawford stood framed in his own carved doorway and gazed, in polite inquiry, at the receding rows of dishevelled tables crowded with hostile, sullen faces; the long raised table at the far end where Plummer stood watching, with Tait and Bell at his side; and Cormac O’Connor sprawled at ease, a tight-lipped smile on his fleshy, unshaven face; and lastly at the small knot of people standing alone between himself and the dais: Gabriel, with his sister’s slight, swollen figure on his arm, and Jerott, his sword balanced delicately between his two palms, facing him at their side. Then, raising his hands to his short, square-collared cloak, Lymond unclipped it and threw it aside, followed, a second later, by his sword belt.
‘That’s in case anyone feels nervous,’ said Lymond. ‘I take it all of you are drunk?’ And looking round at the thronging men and the ruins of his elegant hall, his long mouth twitched. ‘Ah, yes,’ said Lymond. ‘Our dear Masters, the sick. Mr O’Connor has been too generous.’
Jerott, his purpose fractionally interrupted, said sharply, ‘How did you know that?’ And then, ‘Your cloak is