Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [316]
‘No,’ said Lymond at length; and his voice, though thick, was painstakingly distinct. ‘No … and again No. This time you have guessed wrongly. I am ready to give anything … even what is not mine to give … to see you dead. I think Oonagh O’Dwyer would have the courage to agree. For the child.… If there is a child.… If it is mine.… I must answer elsewhere.’
And a child’s voice, echoing his in turn, said, ‘No!’
Adam Blacklock, catching in vain at Philippa’s cloak as she wrested herself from his arms, saw Lymond’s face tighten, though he did not look round as the child ran forward, her strong voice calling, her brown twisted hair slapping her face.
‘No, Mr Crawford!’ cried Philippa forbiddingly, and ducking under the snatching arms that tried to prevent her, she ran forward. ‘No! What harm can Sir Graham do now? What might the little boy become?’ And sinking on her knees, she shook, in her vehemence, Lymond’s bloodstained arm.
‘You castigate the Kerrs and the Scotts and the others, but what is this but useless vengeance? He can do us no harm; he can do Scotland no harm; he can do Malta no harm. There is a baby!’ said Philippa, very loudly and insistently and desperately, as if Lymond could not hear her, or were too tired or too simple to understand. ‘There is a baby. You can’t abandon your son!’
It was Gabriel who answered, his light blue eyes smiling at Lymond, although it was to Philippa he spoke. ‘He won’t abandon him,’ he said. ‘He will go with him. Don’t you see? He will kill me, and then turn the knife on himself. Otherwise it would be a little too much like sacrificing Joleta, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it, my treasure?’
‘What in God’s name …?’ said Jerott under his breath. It sounded as if Gabriel wanted to be killed, this mocking monotony of insistence.
Beside him, the Sieur d’Oisel spoke. ‘None of this is in God’s name,’ he said. ‘He is working on M. Crawford’s friends in the hope that they will persuade him to save the woman and child, and let Sir Graham go free.’
‘Stop it, then,’ said Jerott in a low voice. ‘Take Malett to the Tolbooth. Surely he can be made to say where the child is.’
D’Oisel turned. ‘Do you think so?’ he said. ‘I do not. If Malett comes with me to the Tolbooth, he must know that knight or not, he will hang. He bargains here for his life. Whether he tells the truth now or not, while Gabriel lives, there is hope of finding the infant.… If M. le Comte spares his life, Malett has at least some chance of escaping the Church. The Crown recognizes as much, and the Crown leaves the decision to M. Crawford. He has earned the right, God knows, to make it.’
Moving forward quietly to Jerott’s side, Adam Blacklock had heard. ‘Don’t you understand? The authorities are afraid of them both,’ he said gently. ‘Why do you supose this cordon is here, which only an unarmed girl was allowed to pass through? Lymond, loyal to Scotland, might be a threat to French power greater than even Gabriel, one of these days—Philippa!’
And a wordless shout, like a cry at a cockfight, rose among the stone pillars and sank muffled into the old, dusty banners above the choir roof. For Philippa Somerville, who believed in action when words were not enough, had leaned over and snatched the knife from Lymond’s left hand.
It was all that Gabriel had been waiting for. Rolling sideways he sprang to his feet and hurled himself up the steps to the altar rail and over it to the sacred table beyond. On his face, triumphant, intent, there was no awareness of the bond between that high crucifix and the cross on his breast; of the years spent masquerading in prayer, of the great offices so humbly, so mockingly performed; the great names so familiarly mouthed. The massive monstrance with its golden bells, encrusted with pearls, stood firm at his hand. Bracing his great shoulders Graham Malett lifted it, and raising it high above his head, sent it crashing over the rails to where Lymond raced at his heels, the recovered dirk in his hand.
The heavy box caught him on the shoulder.