Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [81]
‘But no,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay, giving up. ‘But even better. It was made by your pilot Alec Lindsé for the voyage of your dead King James V, and fell into the hands of Lord Dudley, Admiral of England. The Admiral,’ said Nicolas modestly, ‘gifted this so fine chart to me five years ago. Later, when it was a case of tricking the English to get your little Queen away … I sent it to my King for M. de Villegagnon.’
‘And so the Earl of Warwick,’ said Lymond, beginning to laugh, ‘was really responsible for Queen Mary’s escape.’
‘Yes. It is very funny, but I am cold. If we disturb our toes,’ said the geographer, ‘the bells will agitate—I shall unchoke them thus—and we shall be discovered, to great alarm. We shall be most hurt and most reproving, but what can they do to us but free us, as if all were in error? They cannot harm Nicolas de Nicolay,’ said that gentleman with the utmost cheerfulness. ‘Nor, now that you have told me all, are you in danger in my company. Come! Agitate the toes!’
They agitated their toes until the door opened and the aghast and ashen countenance of the mortician appeared.
The two white-robed figures on the pale slabs did not interrupt their conversation. ‘I’m glad, in a way,’ Lymond said. ‘I couldn’t quite bring myself to attack them, lunatics that they are.’
‘You are sentimental,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay complacently. ‘But the tender stomach does not attack the pure—no—not even the pure in stupidity.’
*
Presently, when incoherent explanation and apology had been brushed aside and the Hospitallers, to their own relief, found themselves, if heavily mocked, at least unmolested by their victim and his rescuer, Lymond took leave of the geographer and, dressed once more in his own clothes, made straight for Gabriel’s house.
Graham Malett, motionless before the shabby altar, did not hear him enter, or stand waiting by the door. At length he rose and genuflected, and turning, the cross half-gestured on his breast, saw Francis Crawford.
All movement stopped. His face, already serene from prayer, gathered light, and so transparent a joy that Jerott Blyth, striding after the half-glimpsed newcomer, stopped at the door. ‘Thank God,’ said Gabriel, and switched his tone, instantly, to an ironic apology. ‘I suppose our mistakes are now proclaimed to the world?’
‘Of course,’ said Lymond. ‘But why else did you make sure that M. d’Aramon found out where I was?’
‘You learned that, did you?’ The open face for a moment showed its fatigue. ‘Jerott … come in. He is back, as bloody-minded as ever, I suspect. I desire,’ he said abruptly to Lymond, ‘to call you Francis. Is that permitted? It is out of affection and a … purely spiritual love.’
At the unexpected half-tone of mischief, even Lymond’s blue stare relaxed. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Then you forgive me what I have done on behalf of the Order?’ said Graham Malett quickly. ‘I could not let you go to Gozo.’
‘It makes no difference,’ said Lymond, after a moment. Then with an apparent effort he added, ‘I am going to Tripoli.’
‘What?’ said Jerott Blyth sharply, and took a step into the room. The older man by the altar did not stir. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘To rescue the woman?’
‘To save what I may,’ said Lymond. ‘Including a rascally hero called Thompson. Even, perhaps, to fight for Tripoli too.’
The silence this time stretched on and on. A burst of soft Arabic sounded in the street outside; a dog barked; voices, somewhere in the house, spoke in Italian above the chinking of pots. ‘Then I go with you,’ said Gabriel at last.
Jerott thought, It is the death-knell of the Order; a gesture of self-destruction worse than Mdina. And fell into a surge of renewed hatred for Lymond, who had robbed their greatest hope so lightly of peace. He opened his mouth, but Gabriel was before him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Acquit me this time of easy heroics. The Grand Master has begged an emissary of France, no friend of his, to plead for the Turk’s clemency for the Order, since the Order cannot fulfil its duty to defend itself. If he succeeds, he will need the Religion’s help to negotiate.