Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [9]
In the last few months, Richard Crawford of Culter had become very used to such questions. For sheer decency’s sake, he seldom answered them. He rarely felt qualified to answer them, anyway. But here, from one of the great soldiers of Europe, was an inquiry without inquisitive intent.
He said carefully, ‘Francis has led a company of his own, you may know, in this country and abroad. But as to the future … I have no idea of his plans, or his ambitions. He may have none. He has no ties here that I know of, other than what you might expect. As for religion.…’ Lord Culter strove for tact. ‘In Scotland, perhaps, we tend to extremes. There is a devotee of the Old Religion among us—you may have met him. Peter Cranston is his name—’
‘—Who is so fanatically religious that he makes all men atheists. I have met him. I have met some of your Lutherans too, mostly in prison. But it seems to me that your Government tolerates both, except where the Reformers threaten alliance with England. And your brother, after all, risked a good deal recently to keep your Queen out of English hands. I should judge him to be perhaps a man of humanist principles …?’
He was offering more leeway than Richard, on his brother’s behalf, was prepared to accept. The Order of St John, which had crept so obliquely into the conversation, was the supreme fighting arm in the known world of the Holy Catholic Religion. ‘I should hesitate to attribute anything to him at the moment, even principles,’ said Lord Culter, smiling. ‘But you are free to try.’
Marshal Strozzi studied his well-groomed hands. ‘There are three men I should like your brother to meet. One is my brother Leone, now in charge of the Mediterranean fleet in action against the Turks. One is the Chevalier de Villegagnon, a soldier and sea captain to equal any in the Order of St John. And the last is also in the Order: a Grand Cross of Grace named Sir Graham Reid Malett, known to a great many people as Gabriel.’
As he spoke the last name he looked up, in time for nothing but Lord Culter’s habitually unexcited grey gaze. ‘I’ve heard the Prior here talk about Gabriel,’ said Richard serenely. ‘He seemed at times to be confusing him with the Pope.’
‘When you meet him, you will realize why,’ said the Marshal simply. ‘He is one of the Order’s great names. You should be proud of him. His forebears were from Scotland, although he has no family now save a sister, a child of thirteen called Joleta, who lives in a convent on Malta. And in her also you would find something rare.’
A swift vision of his brother Francis posing as a man of humanist principles crossed Richard’s mind. His voice wary, ‘A beauty?’ he asked.
The Marshal looked at him. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘You are applying mundane standards,’ he said. ‘You cannot do that either to Graham Malett or his sister. Your brother will understand when he meets them.’
Richard was silent. He doubted it. If Joleta Reid Malett was as plain and as pure as she sounded, she was out of Brother Francis’s territory, thank God. For Brother Francis’s standards were mundane, all right. And high.
*
Not long after that, Sir William Scott took his bride by the hands, and drawing her from the throng said, ‘Well, as you see, I came back. Were ye worried?’
‘Worried? What about?’ said Grizel, and as his mouth opened, added prosaically, ‘Janet said that as a widow woman with no protector, I’d need to wed an Englishman or a Kerr.’
Her husband’s features resumed command of themselves. ‘And which would you