Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [28]
‘Your allegiance is to God. I know,’ said Lymond. ‘But God knows the Sultan is going to be a little peevish when he notices that French knights are killing his Janissaries, whether in the Order or not. If I were twenty Scotsmen you might hide your perfidious political faces behind me, but I cannot see that you may hide behind one.’
‘But you—’ began the Constable, a little tardily.
‘—are the equal of twenty. I believe it. But would your Treasurer believe it?’ said Francis Crawford amiably.
There was a crisp silence. However couched, the demand was extortionate. It was contemptible. De Villegagnon frowned; Leone Strozzi smiled; and the Constable’s face reddened with feeling even while he slowly agreed, as agree he must. Only Piero Strozzi looked thoughtfully at the speaker, knowing that Francis Crawford was wealthy enough to need no bribing, and sophisticated enough to find this kind of exercise mortally dull.
What he did not know was that the same Francis Crawford had found out only that morning that an Irishwoman called Oonagh O’Dwyer had just taken ship at Marseilles for the island of Gozo. And that if Francis Crawford reached Malta, it was because he always meant to reach Malta; not to fight, but to recruit.
In any case, it made no odds to the Order. The Order had got what it wanted; would have got what it wanted even had Lymond spurned them all and returned home to Scotland … since it was for no disingenuous reason that M. de Villegagnon, Chevalier of St John, had placed on Lord Culter’s anxious shoulders the responsibility for Gabriel’s sister of the apricot hair.
*
With de Villegagnon and his suite, Lymond left that night for Marseilles. Before he went he did some brief leave-taking: of the King, of his friends and followers at court, of the Queen Dowager and Margaret Erskine, Tom’s bride.
These last he got over quickly. Margaret, sober daughter of Jenny Fleming and herself a good friend in need, was pleased, he thought, even without understanding his motives. The Queen Dowager was angry.
‘And what do I tell my child?’ asked Mary of Guise. ‘That you are now compelled to seek excitement and fortune among her enemies?’
‘I do not expect,’ said Lymond, ‘to be fighting quite under the banner of the Emperor Charles. And if I were, I could hope surely for nothing better than to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Grand Prior of France.’
It was a nasty hit which, being Lymond, he did not particularly regret, even though he was fairly sure that the unworldly Francis of Lorraine would soon be sadder, wiser and several thicknesses of skin poorer under the lashing tongues of his brothers and sisters de Guise.
*
At Marseilles, imperial blue upon blue under cobalt blue skies, the Mediterranean lay fresco-still. The docks steamed with the smells and brown flesh of seamen and slaves; the rigging of brigantines, galley and galleass meshed the merciless sun. A galley had been found, with convict rowers and free sailors, little better; its master bought for the double voyage to Sicily, where de Villegagnon meant to take his first warning to the Sicilian Viceroy, Charles V’s representative nearest Malta, sworn to help the Order in time of need. The knights might not go so far as to help the enemies of France, but it seemed that they were quite ready to call on France’s adversaries to help them.
Before leaving, there was one visit to pay. De Villegagnon, with Lymond beside him, waited among the stream of traders, bankers and businessmen calling to see M. de Luetz, Baron d’Aramon, his Grace the King of France’s Ambassador to Turkey, about to return to his post at Constantinople bearing, it was rumoured, four, six, eight, ten muleloads of gold to present to the Most Christian King’s ally, Sultan Suleiman.
Rising to greet the monolithic bulk of the Chevalier, d’Aramon smiled his automatic, worn smile. Faded by the Levantine sun, he had watched his fresh young tenets, his forceful loyalties, his vigorous faith, bleach and shrivel with heat and distance until his homeland France seemed