Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [86]
‘And Graham Malett, Grand Cross,’ said Jerott’s voice at his shoulder. ‘What faults has the Master discovered in him?’
But Gabriel himself answered, his colour gone, leaving his face rather pale. ‘For love of me,’ he said, ‘I can ask men to do all that I wish. I could grow to love this power too much.’
‘You hear,’ said Lymond placidly, into Jerott’s icy face. ‘We all love him too much.’
For the second time, swiftly, Gabriel caught Blyth’s arm as it began to swing. Lymond did not move. ‘Be still. Are you children?’ said Gabriel, angered at last. ‘Be still: your own destiny is behind you. There is Tripoli, there on the bow.’
They turned. Ahead, a white crescent of walls and towers within the single arm of the bay, lay the castle and city of Tripoli with the white Cross of St John minute on the ramparts. And outwith the spit, rocking gently at anchor in deep water, harnessing the sea with frail canopies and gilded tassels and long, reeling banners of scarlet and gold, were the Sultan Suleiman’s ships.
‘O Lord my God,’ said Gabriel, his deep, quiet voice lingering over the waters. ‘Take us, your children, into your hands; for we are losing our way.’
Blyth, his face hard and sick, closed his eyes with one hand. Lymond, his gaze on another fort, brave under the Order’s flag, perched on the spit from the bay, merely began absently to whistle, choosing for the purpose a long, complicated and extremely bawdy song from the Scottish seaboard.
*
He repeated it at intervals as slowly, their seamen standing unarmed on deck and the lilies of France flying plain at the masthead, the two ships rowed slowly between the silent ranks of Turkish vessels to join the Ambassador’s, lying alone in the alien fleet.
D’Aramon’s standard, flying beside the French flag, showed that he was aboard. Much later, in a high, answering whistle from one of the Turkish boats, the pirate Thompson replied.
The gunfire as d’Aramon’s brigantine came in was heard by Oonagh O’Dwyer, beside her sick lover’s side in the Turkish encampment, and by the beleaguered Governor of Tripoli. To Marshal Gaspard de Vallier in his castle, it meant at first only that Sinan Pasha had opened fire, and his well-meaning staff, brash or ailing, had failed to inform him of it. Then he saw, as he hurried to the battlements, that the guns were not yet aimed at town or castle, but saluted an incoming brigantine, prominently displaying the royal colours of France. A moment later, as the brigantine gave tongue in return, he distinguished the colours of Luetz d’Aramon, familiar in the Mediterranean for six years as French Ambassador to the Grand Seigneur of Turkey.
Short of excommunication, the Frenchman could not intend to give active aid to his Turkish friends against the Knights of St John. He must be coming to intercede. When the skiffs put out and later, when the two other French ships sailed in and crept up to their leader, Marshal de Vallier felt a great weight ease from his overstrained heart. Help was near.
*
Patient, subtle, attuned by hard years of experience to the Asiatic mind, the Baron d’Aramon moved slowly. Every formality of arrival was observed. And then, before dreaming of requesting an audience, his gifts to Sinan Pasha, to Dragut and Salah Rais were dispatched. They came from the coffers he had brought to lay before the Sultan himself: a ruby and emerald brooch, a filigree purse full of gold, a belt of velvet wrought with Mexican silver and pearls, and length upon length of gold tissue and silk.
In due time, the courtesies were returned. By then the two galleys from Malta were in. Taking Michel de Seurre, Nicolas de Nicolay and Graham Malett with him, along with no more of his train than he needed to maintain his royal master’s standing, His Excellency the French Ambassador to Turkey was rowed ashore as night fell to the Osmanli camp for his audience with the Sultan’s general. As he went, the ezân rang out over the waters, proclaiming the Omnipotence and Unity of God. It rang out still as he stepped ashore among the robed and jewelled fighting arm of Isl