The Disorderly Knights (36 page)

She never knew how long a swim that was, for she had one task: to make his work possible. Her body limp, her limbs brushing the surface of the sea, she took air at the top of his thrust; learned after the first gagging mistake to close every channel to the sudden dip, the molesting wave that slapped suddenly over her cheek. The hard grip under her armpits never altered, nor did Lymond’s own breathing for a long time vary at all.

Above the little plash and hiss of their moving, there was a deepening silence as the bustle of the shore fell away. The guns were silent yet. Above them, lit by a single, anxious lamp, the white speck of surrender hung from the castle battlements. Lymond lifted his head, supporting her, to judge his distance as he had done from time to time, and it was only when he spoke that she realized with a shock how much sheer will-power that level, timeless porterage had cost. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said; and sliding round supported her so that she too, upright, could see the high sides of the brigantine blocking out the dark sky at their back. As they watched, a pinpoint of light
winked on and off again and he laughed, without any breath to do it with, and said, ‘Thompson. If he tries to buy you … refer him to me!’

And in that second a skiff, its lamps blazing, shot out from behind the brigantine and, oars flashing, bore straight down on them.

Lymond said one word, ‘
Breathe!
’ before the waters closed over her head. She had seen the robed, shouting Janissary in the prow of the boat, the glint of darts and scimitar and, between the rowers, the bound figure of a man in hose and shirt, his mouth sealed by a cloth. It was Thompson the corsair.

She went under on a strained gulp of air, thinking the brigantine was no use to them now. Exhausted and weaponless out at sea, they faced a boatload of armed men.… Then, her black hair fronding about her, she had no thoughts as her brain darkened without air. Suddenly, the cruel grip that had carried her down thrust her upwards again, and the collar of the sea found and broke against her head. Wildly filling her lungs she found that above them now was the brigantine, and that Lymond had taken them into its lee. Her hand, guided by his, touched cold wood, slimy with weed, and then something else, fat and slippery, that pricked in her palm. A rope.

In her ear, his voice was no more than a breath. ‘Hold on as long as you can. I shall be back.’ Then he was gone.

The boat was circling. Masked as yet by the hulk above her, Oonagh saw the tilting lamplight move sweeping round and retrace its path. The Janissaries had lost them, she realized, for the moment, and were searching again for the two heads, black in the shimmering path of their light. Then she heard a shout and, her heart shaking her numb, exhausted body, saw that the oars had accelerated, were moving swiftly and purposefully towards a sudden brush in the water: a revolving darkness which resolved itself into the head and shoulders of a swimmer brought at last to the surface for air, before sliding below the dark waters again. Above the speeding boat, a fan of silver particles rose, arched and fell, and kneeling men shouted against one another and pointed. Darts. And there, lancing the night like a silver needle, the shaft of a spear.

These were fishermen. And this living man in the water, their fish.

Living still; for casting suddenly at loss, the boat turned, a glinting fishbone of oars, and turned again before darting suddenly, propelled by triumph, at a tangent once more. The shouting, clear across the water, reached a climax and cut off again. The swimmer had surfaced and submerged once more.

It happened again, and then again; always in an unexpected direction, and always with a coiling speed that took him down before the missiles struck. And always, too, farther and farther away from the brigantine where the woman was hiding.

Later, she realized that he was waiting for something else too. But now, a paralysed debtor, she watched the game being played out. She could do nothing. Of what use to shout? It wouldn’t save him; and he would sooner end, she guessed, in the sea. Now, drive himself as he would, his dives were briefer and less and less swift, so that he surfaced always within range, in that network of barbs. She heard the commanding officer laugh then and give an order, and a man holding a small bow of the Turkish kind came and stood in the bows.

There was something odd about the arrow. Then she saw the thin, tough cord at its base, and found that it was not an arrow, but a harpoon.

‘
Stay down
’ Surely, from her Celtic breeding, she could transmit to him this silent anguish? ‘
Stay down. And I shall let go this little cord, and share your rest in the sea
.’

She saw him rise then close to the boat, all his skill worn out at last, his head flung back. Saw the archer take aim. Then saw the black sky, dressed at its foot with the sprinkled lights of besieged Tripoli crack across and across with red flame; flame which brightened and grew and took to itself other crackling small fires, all woven about the shore where the Turkish guns rested; where Lymond had spent the long, profitable afternoon.

For perhaps five seconds, the gaze of every man in the boat was on that blazing, unaccountable
feu de joie
. In that small space, with the last shreds of his powers, Lymond reached the skiff on the side where Thompson, bound impotently, lay. There was only time to slash once at the pirate’s bound wrists; then Thompson himself was overboard, Lymond’s knife in his hand, and below water like an eel, there to free his ankles, tear the seal from his mouth, and obey Lymond’s hiss in their own tongue. ‘The brigantine … 
Get the woman
.’

Thompson was a practical man. No one in Turkish hands ever argued with a chance of freedom. No one, burdened with a man as spent as Lymond was, could do more than expect an early, cheap death for them both. He abandoned Lymond, since that was what Lymond wanted, and with the life-saving knife swam off in the darkness to the brigantine, where he was not pursued until far too late since Francis Crawford, from the limbo virtually of a sleepwalker, made his enforced boarding with enough spectacular venom to keep the rowers engaged for much longer than they enjoyed.

Unfortunately, when Thompson had finished sprinting about the ocean, in which he was perfectly at home, beneath or on top, he reached the brigantine to find it entirely deserted inside and out. After an interval of faithful casting about—for he remembered Lymond as a connoisseur in bedfellows—he gave up and drifted off to another boat he had fitted up in his spare time, before that little party had surprised him tonight on the brigantine. Before he went, he
noted that there was another skiff missing. Possibly the guard they had left on board after capturing him had got hold of the woman and was rowing her ashore while all the games were going on, to capture the credit. Either that, or the poor bitch had drowned.

He got on board, shook himself like a pony, and peeling off his wet clothes, sat down in a towel, cup in hand, to sip wine and watch the fireworks on shore until they went out just before dawn. Then, not cold but pleasantly tired, he went off to bed.

*

It was the last dawn any of them were to see over Tripoli. For by then Gaspard de Vallier, Governor of the city, was lying in irons aboard Sinan Pasha’s own galley after an interview in which the Turkish general, receiving the Marshal in his camp with the barest sketch of courtesy, had thrown the treaty in his face and demanded immediate payment, once more, of all the Sultan’s campaign expenses by the knights. And when de Vallier, disbelieving, had remonstrated, Sinan Pasha’s fury had burst. The Osmanli made and kept treaties with men of honour; not with dogs of Christians who owed their lives at Rhodes to the Grand Seigneur’s clemency, and that on the promise that the Order should never in future attack the Sultan’s subjects or exercise piracy on his seas, but should respect his flag in all places. ‘But,’ ended Sinan Pasha, and spat, ‘no sooner free; no sooner settled in that robbers’ nest in Malta, but the great and honourable knights returned to their old thieving trade.…’

It was not true, but the quarrel was long past dealing in truths. In vain the Marshal, gripping de Montfort’s arm, offered to send to Malta for the original Rhodes agreement to prove that no such terms had existed. In vain, flaring up too weakly and too late, he had announced that he was ready to tear up yesterday’s treaty if need be and resume fighting. Sinan Pasha’s anger and also his interest had died. At a gesture, the Marshal was dismissed, against every code of gentle practice; in two sentences his companion de Montfort was told the terms he might place before his fellow knights on his return. Either the money would be paid to the Turkish general as he asked, or the whole garrison and city would suffer for it, and soldiers and inhabitants both would be sold off as slaves.

As de Montfort, sallow and staring, left with his escort his manacled leader called to him from the ground. ‘My son … inform Commander Copier that it is my wish that he act in these straits as honour solely dictates.… And that he should regard the Governor of Tripoli as dead.’

This time, neither d’Aramon nor Graham Malett prevailed. In spite of all the Ambassador could do, de Vallier left that evening to
be put in irons like a criminal on the General’s flagship, while the knight de Montfort returned to Tripoli with the General’s ultimatum.

Through all that night few of d’Aramon’s party slept, and Graham Malett not at all. Sharing his vigil was Nicolas de Nicolay, the only Frenchman who had known of Francis Crawford’s presence in the camp, and who had stayed with Gabriel since Lymond and the woman Oonagh had left.

Hands clasped over his comfortable belly, the little geographer was dozing on his pallet when the explosions began. He exclaimed, and began to squirm to his feet; but Malett was before him, striding out through the tent door to stare at the red sky over the sea; buffeted by running figures as the camp, like a shrouded anthill came suddenly alive.

They were still there when Francis Crawford was heaved into the settlement and tumbled on the coarse sand beside Sinan Pasha’s pavilion, where he rolled and lay still. As the flares identified the sun-bleached, sodden head Graham Malett took a pace forward, and then stopped. It was d’Aramon, roused by the explosions and for his own sake ignorant of all that had happened, who thrust forward saying, ‘I know that man. Where did you find him?’

From the darkness beyond a jewelled
caftán
glinted and the guttural, easy voice of Dragut replied. ‘He was found by some of my men who had been attracted to the brigantine in the bay by a little unexplained activity the other night. There was a woman with him.’

‘
A woman?
’ There was no mistaking the utter bewilderment in the Ambassador’s voice and Dragut, satisfied, permitted his bearded mouth a smile of serenest contempt. ‘He was evidently trying to escape with the woman belonging to the Governor of Gozo. It seems very likely that he was responsible for the firing of the ordnance before he left. You say you know him?’

‘He came here from Malta on one of my ships,’ said d’Aramon after a pause. Whatever damage this misguided chivalry had done, it was too late to deny it. ‘He is a Scotsman, a mercenary newly come to assist the Religion. He left the ship, I was told, after it anchored in Tripoli Bay, and presumably swam ashore.’

‘Where he has remained hidden under the sea-shells ever since?’

D’Aramon shrugged. ‘He may have joined the garrison in the castle. I have not seen him since.’

The ritual crescent bright on his turban, Dragut stepped into the torchlight and bent. Lymond’s stained lids were heavily closed and his bruised and blistered skin sparkled with salt. They had had their fun with him, clearly, but no bones were broken—by order, perhaps. Below de Nicolay’s uneasy gaze, Dragut took between finger and thumb part of the dark cloth that still clung to the swimmer and
said, ‘His presence here, at any rate, is not unknown to the Knights of St John.’ And straightening, the corsair turned his jewelled slipper into the inert body and kicked, so that like a puppet it rolled spread-eagled to d’Aramon’s feet.

De Nicolay, behind, drew in his breath with a hiss and held it, as the corsair’s treacle-dark gaze fastened, first on him, then on de Seurre, d’Aramon, Gabriel … all the pale-skinned, silk-clad gentlemen standing about. ‘He is thy lover?’ he said. ‘Or the mate of another among thee?’

From the darkness, Gabriel’s deep voice spoke. ‘In the Christian world, these things are forbidden.’

‘Then who cares what becomes of him?’ said Dragut. ‘He is not a knight. If we find he is guilty of these unhappy accidents on the shore, my people will demand redress.’

He paused. Below him, jarred perhaps by the brutal movement, Lymond moved a little, his head back, pressing moisture on the small stones. In the east, the sky was paling. ‘These things are bitter to the tongue,’ said Dragut peaceably, ‘where sweetness is pleasing. Have him washed and most carefully bound, while we inquire into this thing further. When the sun is high, it is most seemly that soul and body together should taste the reprimand of Dragut—ah, the dog wakens! Take him, then, inside.’

Lymond opened his eyes on Dragut. Then, confusedly, his gaze swept the murmuring circle above him, pausing nowhere, and returned to Dragut Rais again. Two soldiers moved forward.

Before they could touch him, d’Aramon said sharply, ‘Wait!’ And as Dragut turned he said, ‘What injury are you planning? I warn you, this man is attached to the Order.’

‘I understand it.’ Dragut’s tone was mild. ‘And for instigating an act of war during the truce between the Order and ourselves, he would therefore forfeit his life. That, I believe, is just in all countries? And as I have said,’ his beard twitched, ‘his death will be sweet.’

‘How?’ d’Aramon demanded.

It was Gabriel’s voice which replied. ‘It’s the old custom, Ambassador. The criminal is soaked in wild honey and buried waist deep in the desert, to die from the sun and the flies.’

In the ensuing uncomfortable silence Nicolas de Nicolay’s carping voice shrilly spoke. ‘But that is barbaric!’