She had heard of him, obviously, from Galatian, for she looked at him attentively from really extraordinary green-grey eyes, in that striking pale-skinned face, and said, ‘The Lord guard us. Gabriel, who steered the Prophet’s camel out of—’
‘—Out of Mecca, in fact,’ he caught her up gently. ‘I have a feeling you were about to say Malta.’ He paused. ‘We’ve made a sorry mess there, haven’t we? Did they curse us on Gozo?’
‘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 as anywhere.’
‘Lymond won’t leave you.’ Rising, Graham Malett’s face was filled with compassion.
‘Ah, you are clever, are you not?’ she said slowly, and the mermaid’s eyes searched his. ‘You’d make a monk of him? You’ll never do that.’
‘No. I only wish to see him live to choose,’ said Gabriel quietly. His eyes, steady on hers, held for a long moment; then after hesitating, he raised both hands and rested them lightly on her two thin shoulders. ‘Sin must be paid for, and better in this world than the next. Do you wish to save him?’
For a moment, a bleak smile crossed the pale face. ‘I have no fear that he will suffer in any way except in his conscience, but it would offend me to be a burden on that,’ she said. ‘Is it a seraglio you will arrange for me? I doubt he will feel called upon to release me from that as well.’
‘Have you no fear of the Turk?’ he asked, and she smiled again at the searching blue eyes. ‘I fear very little,’ she said; and it rang true.
‘I shall do all I can for you,’ said Sir Graham. ‘As for Lymond … He may reach you here, but I shall see he does not rescue you. And afterwards.…’
‘Yes?’ she said. Behind her Galatian, whom he had come to see, was stirring. She felt very tired, as if she had travelled far, and calm, as if the worst of her burdens were being supported for her.
Graham Malett’s arms dropped. Gently he took both her hands in his and held them for an instant as in prayer, his clear eyes searching her face.
‘If I tell him you are dead, he will believe me,’ he said. ‘But only if you give me leave.’
Her eyes did not leave his. ‘I am dead,’ she said. ‘Mary Mother, I have been dead these long months.’
VII
But Allâh Disposes
(Tripoli, August 1551)
TO the people of Tripoli, the coming of d’Aramon’s ships was a promise of rescue. Far over the bay, they saw the skiff row ashore and return. They saw the French Ambassador and his train leave their brigantine for the vital meeting with Sinan Pasha.
They did not return. Nor did the Turkish sappers and cannoneers working among the rocks in the lee of the castle slacken their labours. The hulks were heaved into position above the seashore; trenches were opened and cannon mounted in a triple battery of twelve pieces each, pointing straight at the castle walls. Out at sea, a heavily armed Ottoman boat could be seen visiting each of the French boats in turn; immediately afterwards, the standing rigging of each of the three slithered down.
Just before that, Jerott Blyth, clinging with aching arms to the underside of a Turkish galleass, observed the release of the pirate Thompson. He did not help.
Jerott Blyth had done his duty before in uncongenial company and as a Knight of the Order he realized that the corsair had done the Order a great service and was suffering for it. But by now he knew that he not only disliked Lymond, he was afraid of him: afraid of what his loose tongue might do to the Order and, more important he sometimes thought even than that, might do to Gabriel. So he allowed Francis Crawford to board this Turkish galleass on his own.
Granted that, together, Lymond and Thompson knew the workings of a Mediterranean cruising ship inside out, it was still quite a feat to release a man chained by the ankle with fifty others in the hold of a strange ship at night. The knifing of the right man for his clothes, the axe for the shackles, the small, whistled signals that located Thompson: that was Lymond’s share. But how, at the right time, was Thompson inspired
to go berserk, biting and kicking fellow-captives and guards, shouting and profaning in hideous Arabic until removed kicking under special guard to a prison-storeroom on his own?
There, soon, he had Lymond’s knife, slid through a grating, and his next visitor was his last. His fetters split, his clothes covered by the guard’s turban and robe, he joined Lymond in the dark passageways and together, unseen, they slipped silently into the dark water where Jerott waited.
Topped by a streaming bundle of white, Thompson’s bearded face surfaced beside him, split by a glittering smile, halved by the weapon held in his teeth. He bade the knight a polite good evening in Arabic, Spanish and French, and then swam off without pausing for answer to where Lymond had already struck out for the nearest spit of land: the tongue where the fort called the Châtelet was so unaccountably silent. After a moment, with more effort than he would have liked to admit, Jerott caught them up.
‘And how,’ he inquired sarcastically, ‘were you proposing to break into a fortress of the Knights of St John without being shot?’
‘Christ, you’ve a tongue in your heid,’ said the man Thompson in equally muted register round the blade of his knife. ‘And what’ve you come for? Tae hud wir jeckets, maybe?’
‘You are addressing,’ said Lymond, ‘a Knight of the Order who is about to arrange dry board and bed for you. Be quiet. He’s only here out of pique as it is.’
‘I thought it wasna for my bonny blue een,’ said the pirate philosophically. ‘Damn me if I do any more dirty jobs for that lot. Ye get nae thanks for it in this world, and I’ll be surprised if they havena blackened my character in the next. There’s a brigantine out there with a queer look tae it?’
Jerott saw Lymond’s head turn, and raised his own head a fraction to look. It was very dark in the bay, away from the rocking lanterns of Sinan’s fleet. Against the black water between the swimmers and the dim walls of Tripoli only patches of deeper black showed where, here and there, the empty ships of the Tripolitanians lay at anchor where neither the owners dared venture to claim them, nor the Turks to sail them off under the long, wide-angled guns of the castle. Dimly, as his eyes got used to the dark, Jerott saw that one of them was indeed a brigantine and that, impossibly, there was a movement of some kind on the seaward board of the ship. Presently it ceased, and from its flanks a smaller shape slipped away.
‘A skiff,’ said Lymond, ‘Making for the Châtelet, and high in the water. They’ve been loading, not unloading.’
‘Could they fire from her on the shore guns?’ Instinct and training had instantly driven all but this problem from Jerott’s mind.
‘They’d be blown out of the water before they’d done enough damage to matter.’
‘Well,’ said Thompson easily. ‘If they’re planning to up sail and escape through the whole Turkish fleet, they’re mad.’
‘Or men who know nothing of war and are frantic with fear,’ said Lymond. ‘Look at the Châtelet. No one is covering their return. Whatever they are doing, it must be without the Governor’s sanction. Is there a Seagate on this side?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerott. They had been in the water a long time. With all the warmth of summer in it, he was not cold, but he felt the strength seeping from his muscles in the cunning way of the sea. He said, ‘There’s a military serving brother called des Roches in charge. I know him. We’ll have to hope the guard holds his hand until I get close enough to explain.’
‘You will,’ said Lymond comfortably. ‘They’ve got the gate open, awaiting the skiff. I think you’ll find both the guard and M. des Roches are quite safely missing as well. All we have to do is walk in.’
And so it turned out. After a momentary confusion at the gate, where they entered unchallenged and then created hysteria by inquiring politely in Jerott’s impeccable Spanish for the Commander, des Roches hurried to them with a genuine welcome and bore them to his rooms for towels, clothing and food. When their story was told, Jerott asked about his garrison.
‘I have none,’ said des Roches. As a serving brother, a man with no claims to nobility, attached to the Order with no other profession than war, he was straightforward to deal with: a tough, well-trained Frenchman with high colour and a frizzled chestnut beard. ‘I have a litter of shepherds sent over from Malta by the Order, none of whom has ever seen an arquebus before, let alone a cannon.’
‘The Calabrians,’ said Jerott, and Thompson and Lymond, he saw with irritation, exchanged solemn nods.
‘The Calabrians. The captain does his best, but we’ve wasted most of our shot and I’ve stopped the firing. The damage is done. We can’t reach the emplacements over there with the size of guns we have now; and if we attract one shot in return, the whole garrison will drop dead from fright. I’ve already lost some who escaped back into Tripoli; they’ve put them on some simple guard duty at the castle. It’s exposed here, you understand, under the guns of these ships.’
‘And the brigantine?’
Des Roches, looking inquiry, was not aware of a brigantine. Jerott explained what they had seen. Halfway through, the Commander turned abruptly and began marching up and down the small room, his hands tight clasped behind his back, listening until Jerott had finished. Then he spoke standing foursquare, his arms still tightly held. ‘I knew nothing of this. But you are right, I am sure. They prepare a way of escape. There is, as you know, no chance of sailing to freedom with the fleet waiting outside. It is suicide. But I cannot remove that hope. For if I do, I swear to you, these boys will surrender.’
‘But if they desert you.…’ began Jerott.
‘They pay the price of death at the Turk’s hands. And the fort is still intact, to be manned by better men.… War is a hard game,’ said des Roches abruptly. ‘Were I to beg them not to sail for their own sakes, they would not believe me. Seeming ignorance is better. Come, let us sleep while we may.’
Then he stopped, the breath pinched in his throat. Yellow, orange, flame in the black night, came the blaze of the first cannonade, followed by the ear-deadening shock of sound. Pushing through a wayward fabric of running, gesticulating men, des Roches and his three visitors reached the roof of the fort and looked towards Tripoli.
Jarred with light, the white walls, the flat roofs, the spire and minaret, the castle and arch flickered in gunfire which lit all the translucent water of the bay and defined the scattered, vacant vessels black and stark against the blaze of the batteries. From the castle, pathetically, came a crackle of arquebus fire and, caught in the light, the frail sparkle of arrows, falling harmlessly on the hulks that formed a bulwark for the entrenched Turkish cannoneers.
The shore batteries had begun and for two days and nights were barely to stop.
In the demoniac light, Lymond’s face was lividly blithe. ‘Well,’ he said, and looked with raised eyebrows from one man to the other. ‘Déjà la nuit en son pare amasse un grand troupeau d’étoiles vagabondes. Du Bellay, by courtesy of Sinan Pasha. Shall we go?’
‘No,’ said Jerott Blyth.
‘Eh.…’ said Thompson; and Lymond stopped. ‘Yes?’
‘Yon’s a nice little brigantine,’ said Thompson. ‘They poor Italian laddies couldna take a boat out to her now, in all this light, and they’ll no can swim. It’d be a pity to waste her.’
‘My dear seawater pickpocket,’ said Lymond patiently. ‘Even you couldn’t sail that brigantine single-handed through a hundred and thirty enemy vessels without causing a little outburst of petulance at least.’
Beatific in the hiccoughing light, the pirate’s brosy, black-bearded face split in a grin. ‘Will ye wager?’ he said. ‘There’s no telling at sea. This isna my fight, Francis Crawford. My trade is the sea, and I’ve lost one boat already through this poor, peely-wally Order. I’m making sure of my own while there’s time. Forbye.…’
‘Forbye,’ he repeated, looking Jerott Blyth up and down carefully and returning his bold gaze to Lymond, ‘some of youse might be glad of a wee boat before you’re all done.’
F
ive minutes later he had gone—where, no one could say; and the dark knight was left with Lymond alone.
‘All right,’ Lymond observed. ‘Go to hell your own way. Blyth, your Archangel Gabriel won’t hurt for five minutes. Either he’s dead along with d’Aramon and the rest, or Sinan’s waiting to see what the bombardment will do. With or without me, you can’t stop those guns, and it’s far too late to do any good here. They’re going to need a garrison of experienced men later on, not one man now. All that being so, is there any religious objection to entering Tripoli that I haven’t thought of?’
A moment’s real reflection had told Jerott already how it would look if, instead of reporting to de Vallier in the besieged town, he joined the French knights in the Turkish camp. It made capitulation no easier. He said sarcastically, ‘And what of the Irishwoman? She can wait five minutes, maybe, but will the Turks?’
‘I haven’t, naturally, given the matter a thought,’ Lymond said; and with very good reason, Jerott did not say any more. When, presently, with one of des Roches’s men as sponsor and guide, they made their way safely into Tripoli under the shattering roar of the guns, and from there to the castle down stolid, uneven, thread-like alleys between the sealed houses, Jerott knew that professionally Lymond was an impeccable ally; and that there was nothing else about him that he cared for at all.
*
By the time the morning heat was rising white off the desert, they were embroiled in the back-breaking work which was to occupy them for two days. Within the castle of Tripoli were the permanent garrison of twenty-five elderly Knights of the Order and a hundred Moors, Mohammedans but no friends of the Turk, who served the Order as soldiers. To these and their slaves had been added the twenty-five young rebel knights released from the prisons of St Angelo, and those Calabrians who had fled from the Châtelet and who now, exposed to gunfire much worse, were too scared even to go back.