The Disorderly Knights (34 page)

In this strange world she was not foolish enough to expect security. But in Malett she had come to recognize wisdom, of the detached kind that pleased her best. He had, she discovered, a humbly used skill in social salvage which he used with delicacy. In the short periods he spent with her, his lack of sentiment, the absence of prying, moral or otherwise, his complete disinterestedness, were dearly appreciated opiates for her pride. Like all of d’Aramon’s delegation, he came and went now at will. Sinan and Dragut gave them all at least a limited trust. On the surface they were treated as guests, although in fact nothing could have penetrated the guard surrounding the Turkish encampment, either from within or without. So, when the knight lowered his head and came in, Oonagh, who slept as she walked, in the clothes she had worn at the surrender of Gozo, rose and went to him. ‘There is news?’

Cool-skinned, even in the milk-warm airlessness of after-night, he bent from his splended height as he sometimes did and kissed her brow, before settling her gently on the cushions again. Then he knelt, the white cross glimmering on his thin dark jerkin, and said, ‘The news is bad. The Turkish battery is in full use again. Instead of taking
advantage of the lull, as we had hoped, the Order has had to face a revolt inside the castle. It is over, but it may recur.’

‘How do they know? Another spy from Tripoli? I hope he survived.’ The last renegade to reach them had been clumsy. The Turkish outposts seeing him running from the city had shot him before he could speak. She remembered that he had once been a knight, like Graham Malett, and regretted her words when she saw his face tighten a little under its deep tan. But he only said, ‘Some … legitimate refugees have escaped this time—Muslim slaves from the dungeons of Tripoli, led by a Spanish Moor from Algiers. They stole robes and turbans from the town to hide their branding and shaven heads, and slipped over the walls during the excitement. My child.…’

She had been thinking, but at the change of tone she looked up, the long, heavy hair fallen back from her fine bones. Always kind, he took her two thin boy’s hands in his. ‘My child, they have brought your friend with them.’

There was a long silence. Then, ‘M. le Comte de Sevigny?’ the woman said, ironically; and Graham Malett smiled suddenly at the show of pride. ‘Francis Crawford, yes,’ he said.

‘Come, dear soul, to rescue the maiden from the dragon,’ said Oonagh. ‘He has been told, as we planned it, that the maiden is dead?’

‘He had already found out that you were not, before I knew he was in the camp,’ said Gabriel. ‘Nicolay and I saw him with the others being taken into one of the big pavilions to rest after the interrogation. They are all spent and some of them are ill; there has been whipping at the castle. The Moor is apparently his friend.’

‘Then what does your wisdom suggest now?’ asked Oonagh. ‘That I die forthwith?’

In the strengthening light, Gabriel’s blue gaze was extraordinarily clear. Still holding her two hands he said quietly, ‘He is here. The worst of the risks are over. He may even contrive to free you after all. There is apparently a brigantine waiting in the bay where you could be hidden until the outcome of the siege is known.’

‘You have
spoken
to him?’

‘He is in my tent. Nicolas and the Moor distracted the sentry and we got him away from the others in the dark.… My child, we talked of the risk to this man; we talked of his future. Now that he is here, how do you weigh these against a chance of freedom?’

Slowly, Oonagh O’Dwyer drew her hands from his; slowly she rose and walked to the far side of the tent. Behind the curtain, Galatian in the inner room slept, his mouth open, in a smell of sweat and dried blood and the oil they had used on his scars. She dropped the velvet and turned. ‘You are the man of God. I cannot compete with the saints. If you want him, do as you wish,’ she said. ‘In these airs, anyone might sicken and die in a day.’

In turn Gabriel rose, his splendid presence filling the tent; the new sun spilled through the canvas on his cropped golden head. ‘You should have been a queen,’ he said. ‘You who can maintain what is right when the man in question lies less than twenty yards from your bed.… My God is not so jealous or so harsh, my child, that he requires that of you. With our help and what he had prepared for you, surely you will escape from this camp. And when you are free, remember because of the sacrifice that was not asked of you that your future is not his.’

‘I know already that it is not,’ said Oonagh. ‘But if you are caught helping us, the Turks will kill you. I cannot accept that.’

‘I do not offer it to you,’ said Gabriel gently. ‘That is
my
sacrifice. Do you wish to see him?’

Lymond, whom had she been born ten years later might have been her first and only love; whom Gabriel with the rest assumed had taken her as a political pawn among the careless ranks of his mistresses, his loose-living libertine peers. And it was not so. For all their short knowledge of each other, they had been enemies, and had respected each other as enemies. Until at last for her own reasons and Ireland’s, she had set out one night to seduce him, and he had forestalled her, and taken her soul.

One night. And they had never since met until now when, freshened as best she could in the meagre water allowed her, the glossy hair burdened in veiling, her soiled robes replaced by a snow-white burnous by Gabriel, whose guards smiled at him, and whose movements to and from her tent were not questioned—until, walking steadily at the tall knight’s shoulder, she crossed the sandy gravel from her tent to his, and stepped with him into the masked light within.

It seemed at first empty of life: a travelling tent hastily furnished with rugs, cushions, a low table, Gabriel’s few necessary possessions, and his shabby altar, a trace of incense lingering still. Then she followed his gaze.

At her feet lay Francis Crawford, lost for once to the world in a heavy, unnatural slumber, his oiled skin hardly hidden by a loosely-flung cloak. The limber body she remembered, muscled like a cat’s, was griddled with burns; and there were fresh marks on the side of his face below the impeccable fair hair, barely ruffled. He must have lain unmoving where he dropped. ‘Don’t waken him,’ said Oonagh, her voice harsh.

‘I must,’ said Gabriel. ‘They will visit the tents soon.’

‘What will you do?’

Graham Malett smiled. ‘Being what I am, I am allowed my small altar in the most private part of the tent. Behind its draperies, there is room for more than one sinner.… He is wakening. The burns you
see are superficial; they have all worked without sleep for some nights.… Francis? I have brought someone to see you. I shall be just outside the tent if you want me.’

Silently he left. Oonagh did not hear him. She saw Lymond stir; halt a second, eyes closed, as his brain assessed the situation, and then continue the movement until her shadow fell full across his face and his hand lay lax close to his dagger. She said, ‘There are none left to fear me in this world now, and yourself least of all. I hear Scotland is well lost for Paradise.’

Of a denser blue, his eyes did not cleanse with their candour, like Gabriel’s. Instead there was the shock of his laughter: mocking, tantalizing, real. His face came to life with it, regardless of the stiffened skin and the exhaustion he had not shaken off. In three movements he was standing, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, smiling at her as if they were playing against each other once more, duelling at her aunt’s house at Neuvy. ‘I hope to have both,’ he said. ‘Although in Ireland I have found Paradise already.… Does Gabriel offer you a chaste kiss on the brow?’

‘Barely that,’ said Oonagh. The desert, the hot breath of the seraglio, the gunfire, had all gone. ‘But they tell me you’re practising for the vows yourself. It seems a desperate waste of natural talent.’

‘Then I’d better study the entire subject again,’ he said, considering. It was a strange way to ask and be granted permission, but as he took her in his arms she had time to remember that he knew perfectly about her livid relationship with Galatian, and that in his immoral way he had a delicacy at least matching Gabriel’s. Then he kissed her fully on her cold mouth, and the blood ran through her fine skin in pain and thankfulness; and she wept with her black hair fallen on his shoulder and arm, while the pulse of his heart beat quietly against her cheek.

And because of that thing, she found the firmness to draw off, her tears stopped, and say with something very nearly the same as her old brusqueness, ‘
Ah Mhuire
 … nostalgia, the curse of the Irish. Were you in the way of addressing me on some subject, or are we both to crawl under the altar cloth when Sinan Pasha comes?’

He let her go, his eyes lit with delight, and said, ‘It struck me it would be a stale, dull journey home without a lady, and a fine brigantine waiting out there with the biggest rascal unhung in charge. Would you come, at the cost of a risk or two, or are you perhaps more attached than I should guess to … the Turk?’

He did not mean the Turk, and she would not allow the euphemism. ‘Galatian is safe. He will be ransomed eventually,’ she said. And after a moment, as he still waited, she added, ‘I have filled my debt there.’

‘You would come? It would be a little troublesome.’ He smiled.

‘How?’

‘The Moor with his party are to be sent to the shore batteries tomorrow. There they are within range of the castle fire and must fight or die. So Sinan plans to take no risks with their loyalty. You and I will be there, dressed as the other slaves.’

‘Clothes?’

‘The Moor will get them. No one will notice the change in numbers. At any rate; no one would choose to go to the seat of the fighting. And at nightfall … we take to the sea. It is warmer, Oonagh, than your damned Irish breakers. And on the brigantine, Thompson will wait for you. It looks empty and dismantled; no one will think of you there. And when Tripoli falls, I shall come.’

For a second, her mind filled with questions, she missed it. Then she realized what he had implied and said soberly, ‘
When
?’

‘It can’t stand.’

‘None of us knows the Lord’s will,’ said Gabriel’s quiet voice; and the sun blazed on the deep carpet and was extinguished again as he came in. ‘Are you so sure?’

‘My God, of course it’s going to fall,’ said Lymond, exasperated. ‘Despite the knights running in and out of the chapel like hysterical mice. Sedition, suspicion and rivalry conditioned by passionate worship in church or out of it, or on a cannibal isle for that matter—they smell just the same.’

‘You are not afraid, we know, of blasphemy,’ said Gabriel wearily. ‘The blame for that is the Order’s. If Tripoli falls, it will be no more than another failure of the same kind. I am right, am I not? We have driven you from us? You mean to take the lady home, and you will not return?’

There was a pause. Watching the two men, both fair, both self-contained and prodigally gifted, Oonagh sensed that the query was more pressing than even it seemed; that more was at stake than the impugnment of what was the greatest Order of Chivalry the world had ever known.

Lymond knew it too. He said slowly, ‘The only redress at present lies with the knights. Nothing more can be done until de Homedès is dead or discredited. That is not my affair.’

‘No.… You will never return,’ said Gabriel with bitterness, and was silent.

‘I have to leave first,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘When Dragut is in Tripoli, ask me again. Oonagh.…’

‘It is time for me to go. I am in your hands. Tell me when you are ready to leave,’ she said. And after a moment, ‘’Twill be a queer thing, to fight on the same side at last.’

‘We were always on the same side, you and I,’ said Lymond. ‘Only,
mo chridh
, you did not always know it.’

*

It was not enough, to sleep in separate tents with only twenty yards between them on this, perhaps their last night on earth. For how could such a masquerade deceive the Turks? Even muffled in robes, with her black hair wound under a turban—though she might pass for a boy, would her sunburnt skin pass for theirs? She had none of their language. If they were sent to their posts early, she had the whole day to live through without detection before they could slip into the sea—she who knew nothing of cannon.

Galatian was restless, as if he knew. And when at last, in the inner room, he had dropped into uneasy sleep, Oonagh O’Dwyer lay listening to the guns and thinking of Lymond, whose future she had lightly extinguished, as Graham Malett had forecast. And out of friendship, his kiss had told her. Out of friendship only. She had said to Gabriel, against her will, ‘Shall I see him again?’ And Gabriel had said shortly, ‘He is not a child. If he wishes, he can no doubt find means of coming to you.’

But so far he had not wished, and she lay alone, under the fine lawn sheet Gabriel had got for her, her day clothes, full of grit and soaked already with sweat, discarded beyond. She could feel her body, only slightly rounded as yet, smooth under the cloth; her swathing hair was silk under her cheek. All to waste? All to waste?

When, late at night, the shadow darkened the starlight behind her silent shrouds, and the door, whispering, admitted a deeper shadow, soft-footed and deft, it found her already perfect as a flower brought to its full-breathing height. This was no frantic helpless Galatian; though speed was their master and silence, because of the sick man sleeping so near, a desperate essential. A stray beam from the closing curtain struck silver, once, from his fair head as finding her, he knelt. He said, ‘
Mo chridh
…’ once, in the same whisper she had heard already that day. Air breathed on her aching body; and then she was no longer alone.

She sobbed once, under her breath, when Galatian, half-disturbed by some sound, called her sleepily by name. She need not have feared. Nothing could have stopped the man possessing her now. With him, she came nearer, reached and passed the threshold of delights against the clamour of Galatian’s voice.

United in dazzling peace, they heard the sick man’s voice at length trail unanswered into sleep. And presently the man at her side moved, murmured some half-ironic tenderness against her lips and was gone, the air stirring freely once more on her skin. For a long time afterwards
she lay blankly content, thinking vaguely of the future, and Graham Malett’s voice, long ago, saying ‘
sacrifice
 … 
sacrifice
.…’ It sounded thin and monk-like and even pathetic to her complacent flesh, which could make an animal, if it chose, from laughter itself.