Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [283]
Except one. ‘How conventional, Jerott!’ Lymond had said, his eyes hilarious, as Jerott had made that pompous speech from the dais. Lymond had passed himself and Joleta on the way. He knew, very likely, what might happen. And he had amused himself, during that half-hour’s wait, while Gabriel, playing disciplinarian for him, had scolded his men, in half-unshackling the chains.
Which meant that, had he wished, he could have escaped the flogging, at will.
But no. Surrounded, he could hardly have fled. But this time it was different. It must have been an odd feeling for Lymond, thought Jerott, to find himself on awakening in the one place from which he knew he could vanish. Or perhaps it was no coincidence at all. There had been some familiar faces, he realized, in that unruly herd.
So Lymond had taken his chance. Wherever he was, whatever he might be doing, Francis Crawford was no longer at St Mary’s.
That was all that Jerott cared about and more, too, than he thought was anyone’s business to know. Abandoning the empty whippingpost, its ingenious chains dangling, to the night air and the stars, Jerott Blyth walked across the bare stones to St Mary’s, and climbed the dark stairs.
XVI
Jerott Chooses His Cross
(The Scottish Lowlands, September/October 1552)
NEXT day, in the bright russet sunshine of late morning, Philippa Somerville rode to the haven of Midculter, her nose thick with recent weeping, her eyes red with tears and fatigue. With her went Jerott Blyth and Nicolas de Nicolay, accompanied by no more than their personal staffs.
Behind them they left a chastened St Mary’s. Graham Malett, found that morning collapsed before his worn altar, had been forced to lie open-eyed and silent in bed, and had made no comment when Jerott had explained their purpose in going. He had said nothing about Trotty Luckup. Adam Blacklock had left early that morning on unexplained business and Archie Abernethy and Salablanca had both discreetly vanished when Lymond did.
Visiting Gabriel hesitantly in his room that morning, to broach the subject of Joleta’s burial and the report that must be made of her death, Jerott found that word had already reached him of Francis Crawford’s escape. To what authority might say of Joleta’s death Sir Graham seemed totally indifferent, sunk in a lethargy where no emotions still lived. And it was true, even had it been no accident, he had small need to fear. Whatever their sin, Knights of the Order were judged first by Malta, and not by the common law of their land.
Jerott, rising silently to leave, decided privately to seek Lady Culter’s wise help. For there was no aid for him here; only the acrid smell of distrust and disaffection. Drunk; loose-living; incompetent—Lymond had received a damning indictment, and his ultimate act of self-interest, the preserving of his own precious life at the cost of Joleta’s, had made even the least squeamish draw back.
But, on the other hand, some of Joleta’s tarnish had stuck to her brother. There were some who said that no man of God should have used such unbridled violence first on Francis Crawford and then on the girl; that he had had no right to force on Lymond such a choice. The company was divided, no longer brutally single-minded as it had been before Philippa arrived … as he, in his heart of hearts, was beginning to be divided.
For that reason, perhaps, the silence in which he rode to Midculter was weightier than it need have been, so that his two companions several times exchanged glances; and then Philippa, the little geographer’s gaze encouraging her, said disarmingly, ‘Sir Graham is a very wicked man, isn’t he, to try to put a sword through someone unarmed like that, without even a trial?’
‘Like what? Like Lymond?’ said Jerott irritably, brought back from his own worries. ‘You know what he did to Joleta.’
‘Of course. But we know now he wasn’t the only one, though she made out he was. It was Joleta who deserved to be thrashed. And a good deal earlier,’ said