Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [91]
‘Why didn’t you send help?’ said the woman. She had not troubled to rise, nor had she asked him to sit. He looked down at her from his splendid height, hesitated, and then kneeling abruptly, drew off his fine cloak and laid it before her. Beneath, he wore a plain thin doublet and hose, open a little at the neck for coolness. His rough-cropped hair, unregarded, emphasized the good structure beneath. He said, ‘You must hate my cloth. Let us speak as man to woman. How badly hurt is Galatian? Do you know that in Malta he is being talked of as dead?’
He made no excuses nor did he exculpate himself from the Order’s blame. Oonagh said, ‘I do not hate it, nimble angel. I find it beneath even shame. Is the story spread that the Governor of Gozo died at his post?’
Gabriel nodded, kneeling still. ‘The Turks tell a different tale,’ he said.
‘That tale is true,’ said Oonagh indifferently.
‘But he was hurt?’
‘He was untouched on Gozo,’ said Oonagh. ‘He did their bidding quick as a girl; and when they got him at sea … they made him one.’
He did not flinch. On his face could be read what, clearly, was his thought: admiration for her mettle. He said, ‘He will be ransomed, and you with him. There is nothing to fear.’
‘Even though he is supposed to have died on the ramparts?’ she said, her green eyes mocking. ‘He will not be ransomed this year, or maybe the next, nimble angel. And meanwhile—’
He saw in her eyes what she was about to say, and saved her, his own face wiped free of shadow as she brought the matter, however contemptuously, before him. ‘—Meanwhile the child you carry will be born. Is it Galatian’s?’
His deep voice, free of pity, struck at last the chord he sought. With something of an old elegance and an old mystery, she widened her cool eyes. ‘Are you of the opinion I have a lover for each month of the year? Until this year, I was no man’s but an O’Connor’s. Cormac O’Connor and I were going to conquer Ireland and remake the earth.’
‘What happened?’
‘Ireland belongs to the King of England,’ said Oonagh. ‘’Twas Cormac who had the great idea that the King of France would pay a lot of money to place a puppet Irishman on the Irish throne; and after the great rebellion was over on French money, do you see, the puppet Irishman might have kicked the French out as well … King Cormac, we should have had.’
‘And Queen Oonagh,’ said Gabriel softly. She laughed.
‘You think so?’ And her long fingers traced, line by line, the inviolable seams of age on her face. ‘I think not. He forced his bastard upon me, not his crown. Nor was it free Ireland that he wanted, in the end, but Ireland bowing to Cormac O’Connor. He and his father, young, were royal men,’ said Oonagh O’Dwyer, her eyes far away. ‘But soon wasted.’
‘What stopped him?’
‘A man called Francis Crawford of Lymond,’ said the woman; and the last piece fell into place.
‘I see,’ said Gabriel slowly. ‘A man of destiny who, God willing, will not be wasted.’
There was a long silence; but in the end, she couldn’t resist it. ‘He is in Malta, they say,’ she said.
‘He is here,’ said Gabriel gently, and saw her crimson from breast to brow. ‘He has risked his life twice to save you.’ He waited, and then said into the helpless silence, ‘The child is not Galatian’s. Are you sure it is Cormac O’Connor’s?’
Spreading black in her eyes was a memory she had driven out: a poignancy that held hope and horror and apprehension all in her speaking face. At long last, ‘Mother of God, I pray that it is,’ she said, and her voice was harsh.
His own was tender as the great surgeon is tender. ‘Crawford knows you are with child?’
‘No. No!’ On her feet suddenly, breathless, she stared at his bowed golden head. ‘Ah, Mhuire; and if you tell him, angel or none, here is my curse on you,’ she said. ‘I want no rescue; you know that. Even if that poor ruin’—and she jerked her head to where de Césel lay sleeping—‘is let back, ’twill be the woman who takes the blame, who else? Leave me be … Leave me. I shall do as well here