Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [73]
And seized, like a fool, with the uncontrollable impulse to laugh, she leaned her brow for one indulgent second against the cold wall and sealed her mouth with the hard fingers of both hands, not to disgrace herself.
The answer which the priest, returning, gave Galatian stirred even that helpless monk with its disdain. Far from agreeing to preserve the Governor’s liberty and gear and the property of the Gozitans, Sinan Pasha replied that unless the Hakim Governor gave himself up instantly, he would be hanged at the gate.
Hastily, the priest was returned to Suleiman’s general. Would Sinan Pasha, commander of Suleiman, Lord of Lords, permit the Governor his liberty at least, and promise the freeing of two hundred of the island’s greatest men?
Dragut’s hand, not Sinan Pasha’s, lay on the returning, curt answer. Provided there was instant surrender, forty of the greatest men of Gozo might go free. And, added the message repressively, if the negotiator returned, he would hang.
Then Galatian de Césel issued his only direct order: that the gates be opened to the Turks.
Senselessly, Oonagh O’Dwyer had run to her room as Moslem dress, light silks flying, appeared suddenly under her window, and the distant faces became characterful and distinct. She could see the heavy, oiled black moustaches, the trailing scarves, the jewelled daggers, the axe shining in the belt, the cocked tail of the turban over its kavúk, the high boots, thick with dust, into which the wide trousers were tucked. A man in a knee-length embroidered coat over chain mail paused on the steps by the house, wicker shield lowered while he studied it, and she backed from the window and ran.
Upstairs, Maria’s sister found her, for, since the boats, the Hakim’s pregnant woman was no longer given the Hakim’s blame. So Maria’s sister offered the Irishwoman a share in her most precious possession: a single, frail hope of escape.
Outside the citadel there was a hiding place: a tunnel leading underground to the abrupt, semi-conical height of il-Harrax Hill, where no one could find them. But first one must escape from the fortress on its steepest side, the side which would now, if the Fates were kind, be unguarded by Turks. And that meant crossing the whole of the citadel from south-east to north-west.
Galatian’s whereabouts at that time were unknown. It is not on record that his mistress even hesitated. Oonagh, struck with the nausea of reaction; with the final stark impact of Galatian’s cowardice, stumbled from the side door of the house with her rescuer; she who had been the swiftest rider in Ireland, the quickest wit, the most icy in vengeance, and ran from door to door, from lane to lane, from hide to hide until, with the screaming thick in her cars, she came to the well, the archway, the quick turn which led to the steep narrow steps to the battlements.
Here was a huddle of buildings, a wall, some steps, a gun-platform. And here, looking straight to il-Harrax, was a long, shuttered building whose door opened briefly to admit them. It was crowded with people: silent, white-faced people awaiting their turn to run across that sunlit platform outside, to seize the invisible rope, and to drop out of sight down the rock face. ‘They are plundering now,’ said her friend in her ear. ‘They’ll be too busy to watch.’
Her