Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [298]
‘Shall I tell you,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay, flinging out his elderly arms, ‘why Lymond first began to hate—to hate, mark you—your monastic friend? He has told me. It was when, whatever haven he offered them overnight, Graham Malett allowed to return all the women and children of Gozo.’
‘He couldn’t have prevented it,’ said Jerott blindly. ‘The Grand Master was in charge. The Spanish knights alone more than outnumbered us.’
‘Mr Crawford does not dispute it,’ said de Nicolay gently. ‘He says, merely, that if Gabriel were all he appeared to be, he should have died on the landing-stage.’
There was another long silence. And then Jerott asked his third and last question. ‘His son. Oonagh’s son,’ he said. ‘Who has the baby?’
Nicolas de Nicolay, geographer, explorer, recorder of men’s monuments in sand and marble through inhabited Europe, turned again to his post; to the wind and the sunlit vale of Yarrow.
‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘I can discover no one who knows. Lymond has not been told of its existence, and, I trust, will never hear. I should advise you to pray, if you have faith still in prayer, and if you know who might heed you, that the baby is dead.’
*
After that, they took their time in returning to St Mary’s; and got in, at midday, to find the place in a turmoil. There was reason to believe, said Graham Malett curtly, his face disturbed, that Francis Crawford had been seen in Edinburgh, with his disaffected friends. In any case, M. d’Oisel had deployed his French troops in the district long enough. The immediate search for Lymond was to halt, and the whole company of St Mary’s, with the French force riding with them to guard against incidents, was to repair to Edinburgh.
‘Where is merriest cheer, pleasance, disport and play,’ said Lymond, when told some three hours later by Jerott’s servant in the crumbling tower he had adopted as home for two days. ‘But I am not in Edinburgh, and I have not been in Edinburgh; so why should Gabriel want d’Oisel there? What does Mr Blyth think?’
‘Mr Blyth thinks that it is a trick,’ said Jerott. A final constraint had made him send his man in, instead of himself. But Lymond was alone, and quite recovered. At Jerott’s appearance, armed, in the castle doorway Francis Crawford rose from the window embrasure where he had been talking, and walked slowly forward. ‘Ah. A conversion,’ he said flatly. ‘De Nicolay, I presume.’
‘Yes … I am taking steps to renounce my knighthood in the Order,’ said Jerott with equal lack of expression. ‘I have not approached Sir Graham about this or any other matter concerning his conduct. I shall leave at once for France.’
Lymond turned, and roving abstractedly across the straw-scattered floor, resumed his seat in the glassless window. ‘You won’t get there by any orthodox means,’ he said. ‘You were on the Magdalena, remember? No one is going to let you out of the country until the English commission has reported. Luckily, Thompson got here just about the same time that the English complaint reached Falkland. Logan was paid to interfere.…’
‘So your case is complete,’ said Jerott. ‘And the dogs have been called off, so you are free to travel to Falkland to present it.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Lymond. ‘Perhaps. In any case, Thompson will be sailing in two days. Horning notwithstanding, I am sure he can convey you to France, if suitably paid.’ He paused. ‘I’m exceedingly glad to know about the evacuation of St Mary’s. About your intention to leave the Order I have, and should have, nothing to say. One of the things Gabriel and I seem to have in common, as you once remarked, is the fact that between us we have stripped you of your religion.’
‘No. Neither of you could do that,’ said Jerott, his dark-drawn gaze suddenly steady. ‘But you have shown me, between you, that I have no claim to be more than a limping novice on that journey. The