Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [280]
Then Lymond arrived incredibly, by some blind obstinacy, at the foot of the same steps, looked up and called, on a long, painfully-gathered breath. ‘Joleta! Come here!’ And as she stopped, hesitating, Francis Crawford said reasonably, ‘You must not put upon Sir Graham the sin of harming you. Come here. Jerott … take Sir Graham to his room.’
It was an order. And cold, wet and tired as they were, no one demurred. Few people, thought Adam Blacklock, his throat tight, could have looked less a leader than the man holding himself upright with such an effort at the foot of his own steps—a man they had just manhandled and flogged. Why then did no one laugh at the command? Because, whatever else might be proved against him, he had not wilfully despoiled the innocence of Gabriel’s child-sister? Or because, as he had, they had seen Gabriel’s face when, whip in hand, he stood back and looked at Lymond prone on the ground?
Jerott had seen that look too. He moved slowly forward, but before he reached the foot of the steps, Gabriel turned round. God-like in his despair and his agony, he looked at no one but Lymond. ‘It is great sport, in Francis Crawford’s yoke,’ he said, his deep voice blank of expression. ‘Is it? Francis Crawford, having found what she was, would make no effort to redeem her, would he? He would confide her to no one that might repair her, body or soul; he would, so tender is he of my peace, give me no chance of saving my own flesh and blood. He took the gifts so marvellously offered … he took a lust-crazed woman and.…’ His voice thinned and choked.
‘Send her down,’ said Lymond.
‘If you will come up,’ said Sir Graham Reid Malett huskily.
What happened then, none of them ever forgot. As Lymond hesitated, his eyes on Joleta, motionless on the top landing, her back pressed into the railed outer corner between landing and descent, Jerott moved swiftly forward. ‘I’ll take her down.’
‘You fool. He’ll kill her first,’ said Lymond, and took the stairs at a limping run, Jerott behind him.
Gabriel laughed. It was a mirthless, heartbreaking laugh that stopped Jerott dead in his tracks, and Blacklock and de Nicolay and the rest just behind him. He was bargaining only with Lymond, they all saw, for Joleta’s life. And only the initiated knew why Lymond was risking his own life to save her. For if Joleta lived and confessed, Gabriel was defeated.
But Francis Crawford, this time, made two frightening mistakes. He overestimated the strength he could summon. And he underestimated by far Gabriel’s inspired opportunism in the face of attack. His face mask-like with the drive of his will, Lymond got up the stairs somehow, and kept ahead somehow of Jerott until he was within Gabriel’s reach.
And against all expectations, Gabriel did not try there and then to seize him, to strike him, to vindicate on his flesh all the passion stark in his face. Instead, Gabriel’s famous arm, bearing his naked sword, swept round and hurled the persistent, unsteady young man at his heels, with the flat of his blade, up the remaining steps and back into Joleta’s arms. She cried out as Lymond crashed into her, his own breath coming in great sobs from the blow on his pulped back; then she gripped him, an opportune shield, her back pressed into the angle of iron which railed the high platform overhanging the crowded courtyard below, as Gabriel, flinging after them, smiling, presented his sword a yard, no more, from Lymond’s bared breast.
To Blacklock and de Nicolay, watching, his intention was never in doubt. To kill Francis Crawford, licensed by these appalling discoveries, while Lymond protected Joleta. Or to force Francis Crawford to play craven now, in full view of the crowd, and by saving himself, expose Joleta to that murderous blade. For Graham Malett would want rid of Joleta, who might yet betray him and confess. And Lymond’s only