Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
‘The look-out, unfortunately, is not,’ said Lymond agreeably. ‘I have been here for half an hour. I passed you on the way. I thought I would allow Sir Graham rather than myself the pleasure of upbraiding the fallen under the circumstances.… It is not a question, Joleta, of squabbling over your honour. There are verifiable facts about that of which even Sir Graham is unaware. He won’t be much happier for knowing them, but then this public exposé isn’t my choice. He and I no doubt later will make our peace.…’
‘Make our peace!’ Graham Malett’s easy voice was stripped to its warp. He did not move, his face turned, stiffly blank, on his chosen novice. He said slowly, using the words of King Clodoreus to his son, ‘Thou cursed harlot! If this is true, then nothing else in this world is of moment. And other courtesy than death you will not have.’
The sword in Jerott’s hands flashed as he caressed it. ‘It is true, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Thompson’s women were a little coarse in the grain. You preferred to teach a fifteen-year-old to serve you, and carelessly got her with child. Would we ever have known, if I hadn’t called at Midculter today, and your precious mother and brother hadn’t been out? What were they planning to do with it when it was born? Drown it? Threaten Joleta to keep quiet?’
‘My dear Jerott,’ said Lymond. ‘Lemand lamp of lechery I may be, but neither I nor my family are naïve. To get Joleta with child meant the end of my career at St Mary’s. Even if my family weren’t the solid pillars of virtue they unfortunately are, no one could possibly conceal the birth of the child, whatever fantasy you are proposing. My God, half the Lowlands of Scotland is alive with rumour already. Use your head, Jerott. Surely, if the child had been mine, I would have married her?’
For a second, Jerott’s black brows drew together. Then he laughed, his teeth flashing in his white face. ‘Married her? You heard her. She wants you dead.’
‘Don’t shout. Naturally,’ said Lymond. ‘Because I won’t marry her. Could we all sit down?’
The point of Jerott’s sword, swung smoothly round, sparkled before Lymond’s soft, exposed throat. ‘Not yet,’ said Jerott tersely. ‘Do we understand that Joleta ever dreamed of marrying you?’
‘Ask her,’ said Lymond. ‘Ask my mother and brother. Ask Madame Donati. Ask yourself if she cried out for help when you found us at Boghall, or at Dumbarton. She had only to scream at Dumbarton and you would have caught us hand-havand, as Fergie Hoddim would say. And as he would also say, under these circumstances we have a clear ruling in law. Volenti non fit injuria, Jerott. No injury may be reckoned done to a consenting party.’
‘Ah, would you hear him,’ said a mellow Irish voice from the background. Across the strewn table on the dais, Cormac O’Connor leaned forward, his hirsute hands clasped, his brown, fleshy face eager. ‘Give him the great occasion, and he will put a thread of Latin round it. Was it a case of volenti non fit injuria, would you say, when he wiled away me wife Oonagh O’Dwyer?’
Lymond’s head slowly lifted, until his gaze met and crossed the big Irishman’s. ‘You have no wife, O’Connor.’
‘You have the right of it. Not since you killed her,’ said O’Connor agreeably. ‘Left her to sink in the waters of Tripoli Bay, while you saved yourself in a Turkish boat. Full of kindness and sympathy the Turks, I’m told, and saw that none laid an uncivil finger on ye. But then, that great old fellow Dragut and yourself were slaves together, they tell me. The King of France paid a smart sum, they tell me too, for the likes of you to warn the Knights of St John that the Turk was coming. And in spite of all a noble prince like yourself could do, Gozo was slaughtered and Tripoli fell … the great warrior that you were!’
‘A traitor … a traitor in the convent. Is that why you tried to stop me climbing the wall at Mdina? Is that why you tried to join the Turks at Gozo? Is that why you gave all your time to the Calabrians at Tripoli—pretended to save the fort to safeguard your name, knowing all the time it would fall?’ Lifting