The Disorderly Knights (41 page)

She knew who it was before he rode forward; before the light fell on his hated face. His skin was dark brown, she saw, so that all its lines were imprinted in white, and his eyes and teeth shone as he smiled.

Philippa’s eyes filled with angry tears. He was Francis Crawford of Lymond, the only man who could airily jest about an old woman battered to death in a ditch.

The boy started forward, blustering and explaining, but Philippa stayed where she was, her mouth shut, until suddenly he spoke to her direct. ‘Remember me? Your favourite Scotsman,’ he said. ‘And don’t pretend to be frightened. You Somervilles are as tough as old Romans.… Tell me one thing, Philippa. Did you follow Trotty here from Boghall?’

He had picked up the gist, then, of the boy’s story. It was exceedingly awkward. It was the worst kind of coincidence. It was damnable, thought Philippa, miserably daring. She replied, after a pause, ‘Yes. I’m staying with Lady Jenny. You
might have
called out to let me know who you were. I followed Trotty,’ said Philippa austerely, through chattering teeth, ‘because I was anxious to talk to her.’

She waited. Something light and warm flicked down over her shoulders—his cloak, she discovered. She had not quite the courage to throw it off. ‘Jerott here will carry you safely back to Boghall and the Mistress of France. Did you see who killed Trotty, Philippa?’

‘No.… They had gone some time before. I don’t know anything about it and I can go home by myself, thank you.’

Lymond stared at her. ‘I expect you can, but Jerott’s dead scared of the dark.’ And added the question that mattered, before she was ready. ‘Why did you want to speak to her, Philippa?’

Philippa Somerville’s large brown eyes became perfectly vacant. In Philippa Somerville’s obstinate head was a message for Lymond, given her by Tom Erskine who had learned it from this busy old woman. To withold it would hardly harm Francis Crawford. It would, however, given luck, lower his conceit not a little, and she had followed Trotty Luckup with the intention of learning much more.

It was too late now for that. Philippa cut her losses, and without shifting the wide, disingenuous gaze told her lie. ‘Trotty came to give comfort to Sir Thomas Erskine, and left before she could be paid or thanked, even. You know Lady Fleming wouldn’t think of it. I had money for her, that’s all.’

She had, luckily, in her purse. Lymond did not look at it. Instead he said sharply, ‘
Comfort?
’ as she had hoped.

‘Poor Sir Thomas is at Boghall with the sweating sickness,’ said Philippa sadly, and would have earned short shrift from Kate for the shoddy ring of her tone.

She earned even shorter from Lymond. ‘Since when?’ he shot at her, and then, ‘Jerott!’

The dark, cleanshaven young man behind stooped. Against the brief crack of Lymond’s voice she felt herself swung into the stranger’s saddle, while the boy hopped behind Francis Crawford; then the two horses swung round and set off at uncomfortable speed for Boghall, leaving the rest by the road.

Looking back at a bend, Philippa saw that, dismounted, they were already lifting the bundle of rags that was Trotty Luckup out of her gutter. In Philippa’s soft heart was true compassion for Trotty and a real grief for the Master of Erskine. But when, arrived at Boghall, she found priest and cousins, tardily come, in pale conference outside the sickroom and saw Jenny Fleming, tears silvering her tinted cheeks, fling her arms round Lymond’s neck, she realized first, that Tom Erskine was dead; and second, that Trotty Luckup’s small piece of gossip was her possession alone.

Trotty had intended it to warn Jamie Fleming. Tom Erskine had seen beyond it to trouble for Lymond. Philippa, sitting on her own private powder-keg, merely hoped he was right.

*

For Jerott Blyth, who had acted throughout in a state of resentful boredom, it was no pleasure to be on the road to Midculter with Lymond again, with Boghall and its mourning mother-in-law in the darkness behind.

It was because of Gabriel that he was here. Graham Reid Malett, true to his word, had not spared himself since leaving Malta more than two months before. To virtually every Court in Europe he had presented, with force and justice, the story of Mdina, Gozo and Tripoli; blaming no one, but abundantly clearing of blame the French knights of Malta, the Chevalier de Vallier, and the French Ambassador to Turkey, M. d’Aramon.

Everywhere, except in the Vatican and the Empire, he had been given a hearing. His work and his reputation, preceding him to France, had ensured him an immediate welcome at Court, decently muted out of respect for that Turkish alliance. Henri II might not see eye to eye with the Baron d’Aramon, but he was willing to support him against the Emperor Charles any day; particularly as it was not difficult to guess, however biased Graham Malett might be, that the Grand Master was personally the scrapings of a particularly rancid barrel.

Gabriel had insisted on performing this pilgrimage alone. Banished from the Grand Cross’s side, Jerott heard the sounds of his devoted success from his mother’s home at Nantes and, in the end, could not forego a single heart-warming reunion with Sir Graham at Paris.

Thinner, his hair grown longer, his face tired, Gabriel had not otherwise changed. The sweet-tempered, steadfast crusader of Malta was still in him, smiling at Jerott’s importunities, and saying at length, ‘What next? How may any of us know what comes next? I shall go to London next month, and then to Scotland. I must see Joleta; and I think I must rest. My doctor seems to think it wiser, at
least.’ And brushing aside Jerott’s concern, he had said, ‘Why not join me there? Why not go first and wait for me? You have still relatives there. You can meet Joleta and tell me if she and Lymond are friends.’

The horror in Jerott’s expressive face had made him laugh again. ‘That dismays you? I can think of nothing to please me better. Where I have failed, perhaps Joleta can win. Perhaps you too can help to persuade that young man that gifts like these are not be be wasted. Bury your distrust of him, Jerott. He will do honour to the Religion yet. The finest service you could render your Order would be to join him and befriend him now.’

‘
What Order?
’ had said Jerott Blyth bitterly; and Gabriel had smiled. ‘Don’t pretend that four hundred years of chivalry have ended with one misguided old man. You have been paid a compliment: Juan de Homedès does not like you. Let us show him how his work for Christ should be done.’

It was a winning thought, reflected Jerott morosely as he cantered through the cool Scottish night to Midculter. But it did not console him for the quality of Francis Crawford’s smile when he had attached himself to his train on embarking for Scotland, or for the arguments they had subsequently had over Lymond’s immediate plans. Lymond was on his way home to St Mary’s, his property near the loch of that name. There he proposed to train men, as the Order trained, in the sweet arts of war; and Jerott had agreed to assist.

Whether this accorded with Gabriel’s hopes of him he had no idea, but if he were to stay with Lymond he could do nothing else. He was out for a quick conversion, was Jerott; for the alternative—proselytizing by Gabriel’s innocent sister Joleta—was unthinkable. Hence his distaste for the present journey to the Crawford castle at Midculter. They had been in Scotland for less than a day and in his view should make straight for St Mary’s, where all Lymond’s chosen men were assembling.

Instead, they were to call at Midculter, and he would be forced, in Lymond’s presence, to meet for the first time Gabriel’s sister, Joleta. And worse, to see Joleta exercise for the first time her tender sanction to win Francis Crawford to her beliefs.

Since leaving Boghall Lymond had not spoken. The death of Erskine was a pity, Jerott supposed. The Queen had lost a loyal supporter. Jerott said, ‘The Somerville youngster has a stout heart for her size.’ Even at the end, Philippa had not given way; and it must have been no joke, finding herself alone at night with a dead woman and a band of armed soldiers. She knew Lymond, it seemed. Why then, for God’s sake, thought Jerott to himself with renewed irritation, hadn’t the man shown some warmth or some decent concern for the girl? He added to his previous remark. ‘But she’s no beauty.’

At his side the dimly seen face did not alter. At length, ‘God, I suppose, sends a shrewd cow a short horn,’ said Lymond, and put his horse into a canter.

They were nearly at Midculter, although the rising ground hid the castle from view and only the sprinkle of cottage lights through the thinning October leaves told where the village lay. Archie Abernethy and the rest of Lymond’s men would be there by now, having left Trotty Luckup, as Lymond had commanded, in the care of the Crawfords’ own priest. Jerott became occupied with his own thoughts and jumped when out of the darkness Lymond’s hand, strong and hard, fastened on his. A moment later he was on his feet beside the other man on the road, the two horses hitched to the bushes behind them, and was walking silently towards the trampling and shouting now clearly audible from round the next bend, above which the voice of Lymond’s sergeant, Archie Abernethy, could be heard raised loud in complaint. There was a burst of laughter; and a moment later, Lymond and Jerott Blyth had caught up with their errant light horse.

It was a remarkable sight. They had mostly dismounted. The road, shiftily lit by the smoky cressets, was crammed with helmeted heads, all loud in debate but none advancing to the tree-enclosed causeway ahead, where the abused body of Trotty Luckup lay, a young man bent at her side.

The noise came largely from Archie Abernethy, veteran warrior and once chief Mahout to the King of France’s elephants, who stood alone in the centre of the road facing his men and arguing plaintively with an Italian pistol two feet long which was pointed unwaveringly at his stomach. The holder of the pistol was a girl no more than sixteen years old. The torchlight fell on rose-gilt hair falling sheer from her intent golden brow to the dropped velvet hood of her cloak, and her face, in its jewel-like purity, shocked the senses like music with cymbals. She looked furious.

The likeness, even from the hedges where Lymond and Jerott Blyth, unseen, stood, could not be missed. It was—it must be—Gabriel’s sister, Joleta.

A small, choked sound came unawares from Jerott Blyth’s throat. Lymond’s arm brought him up short. ‘Control yourself, Brother. A peach, I agree, but a dangerous peach. Let me deal with it first.’ And removing his hand, he melted into the night. Jerott took a step forward, and then a step backwards; and then stayed where he was, a handful of thorn in one fist. He was shaking a little, as one did when the cathedral doors opened and kneeling, one felt the bearers brush by in incense, and saw the still, loving smile of the saint.

His eyes were wet. And, God in heaven, his right hand was covered in blood. Pulling himself together, Jerott Blyth released the thornbush,
jerked down his leather jacket, drew his sword, and took a professional step forward again.

The noise by this time was prodigious. As he listened to the ribaldry, Jerott soon understood. Riding from Midculter with her grooms, Gabriel’s amazing sister had found Trotty Luckup’s corpse in the hands of a group of armed strangers. That Joleta should blame them for Trotty’s murder was no doubt natural enough. While one servant rode back for help, she had neatly isolated poor Archie and the next moment had hauled a pistol out of her saddlebag.

Any one of the twenty men present could have overpowered her. Archie himself, come to that, could use one of a dozen old tricks. But added to the minuscule risk (the girl, after all, might shoot the thing) there was a reluctance to end some good sport.

Their fun was not wholly unkind. Their trembling appeals for compassion, their good advice to Archie, hotly explaining, were all merely compensation for the facts that she was ravishing, well-born, and not for them. Further, that in their leader’s most opportune absence, this was the nearest they might ever hope to approach.

Cuddie Hob was shrieking, ‘He’s an auld man! He’s an auld man! He’s got a weak hert and six mitherless bairns! Hae mercy, mistress!’ and Archie Abernethy, bald head glinting in the flares, was saying angrily, ‘We found the old woman; we didna kill her; we’re on our way to Midculter now. For God’s sake stop this nonsense. I beg your ladyship’s pardon; that thing might go off. We’re young Crawford’s men, my lady:
Crawford of Lymond
—will you bloody bastards shut your mouths?’

Then Jerott took his one step and halted, for Crawford of Lymond had moved into the road twenty paces behind the girl’s back.

They did not all at first see him, so the shouting died naturally. Only Archie and the girl at whose pistol-end he stood noticed nothing. Within the silken flame of her hair, Joleta’s milk-white face was rosy with anger, her eyes brightly thicketed with shadow. ‘So you say,’ she retorted. ‘Then why isn’t he here? Or doesn’t he care if his uncouth and uncontrolled following batter an old woman to death?’

‘It’s a lie. They’ve never battered an old woman to death in their lives,’ said Lymond’s cold, plaintive voice. During his long walk up the road to Joleta’s back, not a pebble had shifted. He had taken no visible precautions; hands tucked into his sword belt, he had given the appearance merely of strolling into the scene, and his horsemen, after a sporadic attack of bemused silence, had shouted dutifully on, though in a noticeably innocuous vein, until he halted at last, a dozen steps from the girl.

‘Young ones, now: that’s different.’

It was a ruse so old that it was almost an insult. Archie Abernethy, by then aware of Lymond, should have been ready at the first sound
of his voice to snatch Joleta’s pistol as the girl started round. It didn’t work because as Lymond moved into place, an eager torch-bearer closed up behind him to give him more light. Before he opened his mouth, Lymond’s shadow slid on before him, grey and revealing, up to Joleta and past her, and as he began to speak, Joleta whirled round and fired.

A scream, inhuman in its pain, tore across the ungentlemanly little theatre and died sobbing in a shuddering void, while a curtain of smoke spread silver before every motionless man.