Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [140]
Never till now had he fully realized how widely Francis Crawford and he were now separated; how much damage Lymond had himself wilfully caused, in the last weeks, to the relationship existing between them. On board the fishing-vessel, waiting to be slipped ashore with Archie just outside Zuara, Lymond had seemed to him as hard and self-contained as the culverin on the rambade, uttering no words that were not orders; his intelligence shut against all life and all humanity that did not concern his one purpose.
Once before, Jerott had seen him like that, in Algiers. He had seen him as he was now, with every skill of mind and body tuned to the ultimate pitch in pursuit of one object. Francis Crawford like that was uncontrollable and very close to invincible. But not invincible. And not impervious to the reckoning afterwards.
Walking to the side of the Catarinetta, Jerott thought of many things. Of the nuns at Baden; of Shakib and the others who died in Algiers. Of Ali-Rashid the camel-trader, and the branded infant at Bône. Of Kedi the nurse, and the Syrian silk-merchant, and himself close to death at Mehedia. Of a child’s arm round his neck, and a child’s kiss in the hollow of his shirt. Of the Spaniards who died at Gabès, of Philippa’s danger; of this, the betrayal of a whole Order of Knighthood.
He heard his own voice saying, She is more than dead, Francis. If I thought you would do it, I would beg you to go without seeing her. And Lymond’s own voice, long ago in Scotland, before the child Philippa snatched the knife from his hand and allowed Gabriel to make the escape which had led to all this; Lymond’s own voice in the Cathedral in Edinburgh, saying, For Will Scott, for Wat Scott his father … for the pain you occasioned the Somervilles and the corruption and death of your sister, for what, above all, you hoped to do to this realm of Scotland, I call your life forfeit.
Jerott Blyth set his lips tight; checked the sword and the dagger Archie Abernethy had given him, and the brigantine jacket he had begged from St Sulpice; and letting himself down into the shallop, with St Sulpice, the Serving Brothers and all the men he thought could be spared, had himself rowed to Zuara at speed.
The gates of Zuara had been open, with no guards on duty. Strung-up after that nervous, twelve-mile march with his troops, Leone Strozzi found that puzzling. And yet there was no reason to be over-wary. They had walked through twelve miles of palm groves and beach; past walled gardens and mud houses and high banks of Indian fig; along sandy tracks between patches of melon and peppers and apricot and orange and pomegranate trees, without meeting so much as a dog.
If anything was strange, that was strange. But then, God’s will was in the work to their hand. God’s will ordained that instead of scrambling through a ditch at the back, they should walk through the city gates in the front. He made certain dispositions, and laid down certain rules: each company had its work to do. They were to meet in the central square without scattering or plundering until all posts of danger had been seized. And to secure their exit, he left several companies guarding the gateway outside. Then they marched in.
The key positions were not hard to occupy, because there were hardly any men to be found in the city, which was a pity, as he had offered two crowns for every Moor’s head brought to him afterwards. And resistance, once they had occupied them and roused the citizenry to their predicament with drums and trumpets in the main square, turned out to be of a token kind only, for the city was filled largely with old men, women and children.
It was when they discovered this that the army of Malta, regrettably, ran amok. It was not, of course, the fault of the Magistral Knights and the Knights of Grace, the Chaplains of Obedience, the Serving Brothers, the Piliers, the Priors, the Bailiffs or the Knights Grand Cross of the Order. But officered by the Knights were nine hundred soldiers of mixed nationality and a uniform appetite for money and women.