Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [30]
‘And once you have been decimated by Dragut, there’ll be none of you at all. Why not let Tripoli go?’ said Lymond.
‘Because the Order holds Malta by virtue of her readiness to defend Tripoli,’ said the Baron d’Aramon. ‘To give up Tripoli would displease the Emperor indeed. Do I gather,’ he said, studying Francis Crawford, ‘that the Constable of France has promised you a sum of money in exchange for your services in this war?’
‘He has promised me a sum of money, clearly illusory, for my services, it seems, against the Grand Master,’ said Lymond equably. ‘He is also hoping, unofficially no doubt, to convey to your Excellency that any gifts of gold about to be dispatched from the King of France to Turkey would be better delayed.’
Over the pale brown, fatless skin of the Ambassador a tired smile appeared. ‘Gentlemen, I am already late in embarking,’ he said. ‘And I may not even reach Turkey before the sailing season ends. But I know Dragut well. If what you fear comes to pass … and if I am in the vicinity, you can count on my help, at least to parley.’
‘Should anyone, of course, pause to parley,’ Francis Crawford pointed out.
*
Over the windless, hyacinthine sea, the galley Sainte-Merveille carried Lymond and de Villegagnon to Messina, the buzz and hiss of sheared foam on her beams. From the baked, frenetic shipyards of France, the white harbours of Ibiza and Minorca, the tawny shores of the African states, no corsair prince stirred from his palace; no lurking brigand hovered, hull down for a spice ship; no royal or imperial sea fortress set out to frighten the unwanted from the main shipping lane of the world. When the sea-wolves of Islâm were hunting, the small boats stayed on the beach.
Except one which nothing, not even Dragut, could deter; and assuredly not de Villegagnon’s modest galley, leaving Marseilles on a breathless day under oar, on roughly the publicized date when the Baron d’Aramon, French Ambassador to Turkey, was due to embark with his four, six, eight or ten muleloads of gold.
The Sainte-Merveille met her fate long after the French coast had sunk in the milky haze of midsummer heat, far to port. It looked peaceful enough: a fishing boat lying ahead, tilting on the greasy slopes of the swell, the bright caps of the fisherfolk swinging, doubled, in the sea and the vaporous air; their voices, deadened with space, rehearsing a chant.
Lymond, who on leaving Marseilles had found a solitary spot of shade on the rambade and was occupying it, his eyes shut in thought, opened them suddenly and rose. The fishing boat, rowed in a desultory way, was making slowly towards them. Then, under his eyes, the bright, capped heads slid in unison as the rowers produced a sudden strong stroke, then another. Oars flashing, the tub shot forward into the bigger ship’s path. At the same moment, incredibly, from her broad painted sides there slid the long black muzzles of cannon, and a voice from her poop shouted, ‘Stop!’
The command, in French, was heard by everyone on the Sainte-Merveille, including de Villegagnon who, running down the rambade, flung himself, an arquebus weighting each hand, on the deck where Lymond still stood.
From the rogue ship the command was repeated. ‘Stop! Or we fire!’
The Sainte-Merveille had neither cannon nor soldiers. The Sainte-Merveille had over two hundred chained slaves, a handful of nervous seamen, a number of conciliatory officers, including the Master, and M. de Villegagnon’s party of six, including Lymond. There was also an assortment of bows, crossbows and arquebuses, which every ship in these waters carried, and which de Villegagnon’s men were hurling on deck as fast as they could.
‘We are within their range already,’ said the Chevalier, peering lengthwise through the iron pins of the prow rail. ‘If we veer or pass we shall simply make an even better target for those guns. I have issued orders that we run her down. If they let off their guns at close quarters, they’ll suffer almost as much as we