Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [58]
Jerott Blyth, asleep dirty-handed where he had thrown himself in Gabriel’s fine guest-chamber, looked across to where Lymond slept, worn as they all were with heavy, self-disciplined labour, his bleached head still on the pillow.
Then he realized that Lymond, too, was awake, and tensed. As he watched, the other man rolled to his feet and made for the door, snatching a cloak, for decency’s sake, as he went. Jerott followed; and saw.
The bells were not for Mass. They were for the bright armada of Suleiman, sail on silken sail, moving past the mouth of Grand Harbour to anchor in Marsamuscetto Bay.
*
Before Lymond left with the others, Gabriel stopped him, a hand laid for a second on his shoulder.
Against the desires of the Grand Master, who wished the Order secure in the fastnesses of St Angelo and Mdina, presenting a barren country and a blank wall to the invader, Gabriel, de Villegagnon and la Valette in Grand Council had won their way. One swift and violent blow was to be struck at Dragut’s hordes as they landed: one sally to let the Sultan feel the knights’ steadfastness and anger.
It would only by a miracle cause Sinan Pasha and Dragut to draw off. But it would perhaps remind them that this would be no easy siege, and that two months only of fine weather remained in which to win the island and sail home in safety to Constantinople. One blow; and then, retiring to Birgu and its fortress, the knights would await what God ordained for them.
And the sally was to be a double one. Under the Commander de Gimeran of Spain, three hundred arquebusiers and a hundred knights on foot were to take skiff from Birgu across the Grand Harbour to Mount Sciberras, the rocky tongue separating the long water inlet of the Order from the Bay of Marsamuscetto, where the Ottoman fleet lay at anchor, to reconnoitre and do such damage from land as they could.
The other party, of thirty knights and four hundred Maltese on horseback, under Turcopilier Nicholas Upton, with Lymond at his side, were to ride round Galley Creek and crossing the neck of the Mount Sciberras peninsula, circumvent the end of Grand Harbour to reach Marsamuscetto Bay by land, to harry the Turkish landing parties as they arrived.
In the roaring chaos of the town square where the refugees, goats, hens, children, bundles of food and jars of water squeezed against the blazing stone of the houses to make room for the gathering knights, Gabriel moved his gaze from the dancing, sun-hazed droves of thick-bodied horses, the dazzle of plate-armour and helmets swinging with plumes, the shifting bright disks of shields of Auberge and Order, and the jerking pennants, congested with quarterings. ‘Since you wear no armour and subscribe to no symbol of faith, would a soldier’s advice offend you?’ said Gabriel to Francis Crawford. ‘You have not, I think, fought the Turk before.’
Always, though taller than most, Graham Malett gave away the advantage of height. Now, holding his linked hands, he presented Lymond with a lift into the saddle and also a space in which to frame his reply. And Lymond, who had no need of either, found, thoughtfully, the courtesy to use both and said at length, looking down, ‘On the contrary. My experience has been in fighting with them. A kind of bourgeosie de robe.’
‘Of course,’ said Gabriel. ‘I should have realized. With Turkish prisoners freed from Spanish ships. I wished to warn you about the scimitar cut, and also that your men may find it disconcerting when the Janissaries scream.’
No more than amused at the tact, ‘I scream too,’ said Lymond gravely. ‘And louder. But it is kind of you to advise.’
Graham Malett said suddenly, ‘Let me find you a breastplate at least, man. Their arrows.…’
‘My dear Sir Graham.’ said Lymond ‘I shall be behind a bulwark of three thousand