‘They lost them because His Eminence the Grand Master is a two-faced bastard,’ said Lymond. ‘And having spent all the Order’s money on himself and his nephews, he can’t afford to fortify the Order’s possessions as he should.’
‘Depose him,’ said Will Scott, astonished.
‘The Grand Master’s holy office terminates with his life.’
‘And can nobody think of an answer to that?’ said Will Scott.
‘Riots, dry cuffs and straiks among God’s priestly servitors, and when the dust settles, the French are in charge?’ said Lymond. ‘Charles would attack them, the Pope would spurn them, and four hundred years of chivalry would go for a groat. And don’t tell me either there are murderers and murderers. If Juan de Homedès gets so much as a stuffed nose, heads will roll for it just now.’
Sybilla thought, And so you leave Malta at the mercy of this greedy old man and his retinue. That isn’t like you, my boy. Presumably Francis, like Gabriel, knew too much about what had happened at Tripoli to be allowed to stay profitably on Malta. She wondered what part Francis had played in Gabriel’s saintly retreat. Gabriel, they said, was a spell-binder … although it sounded, from Joleta’s remarks, as if her son had proved more spell-resistant than Graham Malett had expected … which was a pity. She had no yearning to see Francis a monk—an involuntary smile crossed her face at the thought—but she believed him altogether too resistant to altogether too much.
Will Scott, dear, single-minded Will, said bluntly, ‘Then what’s Graham Malett going to do? What are you going to do, Francis?’
‘Sir Graham, I understand, is coming back merely to see his sister and rest. I,’ said Lymond, closing the lid of the spinet and sitting down again suddenly, ‘am going to settle down at St Mary’s and raise a little army.’
‘A little army of what?’ said Richard ironically, but his eyes were very wary indeed.
‘Of masters in the art of war,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘Of trained engineers and pioneers and masters of ordnance. Sappers, billmen, pikemen, arquebusiers, strategists with horse and with foot. A virtuous little warband, highly trained and highly mobile, and nine-tenths of it officers.’
Once Lymond, with Will Scott at his side, had led a roving company in southern Scotland. Then there had been sixty of them, broken men and outlawed for the most part, because Lymond himself was outside the law. A camp such as Lymond now contemplated, on the other hand, could turn itself in two weeks of easy recruiting into an international force.
There was a respectful silence, broken by Lord Culter’s agreeable voice. ‘How exciting,’ he said. ‘And are we witnessing the foundation of the Order of St Francis, or is the Queen Dowager getting her standing army at last?’
‘Not at all. You are witnessing the younger branch of the family being severely practical,’ said Lymond, his blue eyes guileless in his tanned face. ‘Brute force is the most saleable commodity in Europe today. In six months mine shall be in the market, washed, sorted and trimmed, and priced accordingly.’
‘Strictly mercenary?’ said Will Scott thoughtfully. ‘My God, you’ll be playing with fire.’
‘No principles and no philosophy. For financial gain only,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘This year, I am travelling light.’ And removing his gaze from his mother’s frankly owlish regard, ‘Now, dear Antony of Padua inform me, why should Mariotta be lugging about the Martinmas hog?’
For the door had opened on his sister-in-law, her black hair pulled curling out of its caul round her radiant face, and in her arms an animated bolster in a white, cock-eyed cap whose fat hand was wound throttlingly into its mother’s agates and pearls. Its face was a pneumatic version of Mariotta’s, but bountifully male.
Lymond, still talking, rose and went over. ‘Don’t tell me: the Master of Culter?’ And he took the baby from her as he might have lifted a piglet, securely and casually, leaving her empty-handed, her gaze on Sybilla. The baby laughed and drooled, two milk-teeth shining in the wet. Lymond examined it, and it chuckled again. ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘Born into this rout of robbers and hurly-burly of Lanarkshire vagabonds, you’d damned well better learn to spit or to giggle, or both.’
Until this child was born, the Master of Culter had been his own title. Mariotta did not forget: in four years she had matured. ‘Thank you, M. le Comte,’ she said gravely; and smiling, he threw the child in the air and returned it, fizzing with aerated mirth. Its eyes, coins of dark-blue iris, rolled round to follow him and Sybilla, felled by an unlooked-for discovery about this, her intellectual son, sat grinning back at a view of the door which was uncommonly blurred.
III
The Conscience of Philippa
(London, October/November 1551)
THE day after Tom Erskine’s death, Philippa Somerville finally broke down, and was given a kindly escort home to Flaw Valleys.
The occasion was the first news of Joleta’s impetuous stand against Lymond’s soldiers and the sequel, willing or not, in Lymond’s arms. On hearing of it Philippa burst into ungainly tears and announced, to any who could hear her, that if she also had had a pistol she would have taken care to shoot Francis Crawford dead.
Within two days, Flaw Valleys received her. Kate Somerville, about to leave for London on an errand of mercy of her own, took a quick look at her daughter’s angular face and decided, with a brief prayer, to set out as planned and to take Philippa with her.
London, in an armed turmoil since the Earl of Warwick had seized full power and flung the King’s uncle and Protector into the Tower, was not the obvious place, it had to be said, for a holiday. But her husband, had he lived, would have been there, out of pure concern for the safety of the boy-King he had served, and out of an exasperated loyalty to Grey of Wilton, his lordly general in the north, now sharing the Protector’s captivity.
A nondescript Northumberland widow, Kate could do nothing to help the King or the thirteenth Baron of Wilton, but it seemed to her that Lady Wilton might be glad of a friendly Somerville at hand.
So Kate stayed in London at the Somerville house, but took the first chance of sending Philippa out of the city to Gideon’s brother, an ageing courtier with a toehold in both camps. Thus, in the last days of October, Philippa Somerville found herself with her elderly nurse Nell staying upriver with her uncle at Hampton Court Palace, where he had, he said, Household business to contract. By no sixth sense was it understood by either Philippa or her mother what shattering results this family visit might have.
To begin with, it seemed to Philippa mournfully pleasant, wandering over the rain-drenched lawns and through the late Cardinal Wolsey’s big, beautiful palace, vacant but for the scattered permanent staff and the small State offices, such as her uncle’s, in sporadic use.
Uncle Somerville had little to say. He was busy, Philippa suspected with State business of his own, better transacted away from prying eyes in London. Visitors came and went in the back parlour of his house in the palace grounds, with its view of the smoothly flowing yellow Thames, while Philippa sat and read in the front.
Only once was he unexpectedly put out: when news came from the palace that the Queen Dowager of Scotland had landed on her way home from France, and was to break her journey at Hampton Court on her way to Westminster to be received by the King. Then Anthony Somerville, a high-coloured, placid man with thick, silvery hair, had asked one or two sharp questions, had appeared reasonably pleased with the answers, and had given orders for the royal boatmen, without livery, to be ready the following day to take a passenger up-river to London Port. The Queen Dowager, it appeared, was not due at the palace for four days, but Uncle Somerville was not taking any chances.
Philippa would not have been human, and certainly would not have been thirteen, if she had not taken good care next day to catch a glimpse of Uncle Somerville’s private visitor. She saw him arrive about midday, after dinner, a tall spare man with a big nose and hollow cheeks exposing the muscular promontory of mouth and chin.
She knew the
n why Uncle Somerville had no wish that the Scottish court and this gentleman should meet. This was George Paris, secret agent between Ireland and France, and negotiator for those Irish lords who, paying lip-service to England, had never lost hope of persuading the King of France to help them overthrow English rule. She had met him once on a Scottish visit to Midculter: he had come straight from the Queen Dowager, whose fondest wish was to see France reign over Ireland as well. It would interest the Queen Dowager, now, to see George Paris, with a price on his head, supposedly sought high and low by the English Government as an enemy and a spy, in safe and secret conclave with an official of the English King’s entourage. For George Paris was a double agent, it seemed.
Philippa wished, suddenly, that she had not witnessed the visit. Since the war had ended, she had given her friendships, as Kate had, on both sides of the Border without stint. She would take the problem, when she got back, to Kate.
But she had to take her own decision sooner than that. Hardly had her uncle and the man Paris launched into their business than she had a guest of her own.
For an instant, as her visitor paused on the threshold, Philippa thought it was Francis Crawford come to plague her. Then she saw that this was a bigger man, splendidly built, with hair of a brighter yellow and clothes which were simply cheap without Lymond’s expensive restraint. The face smiling at her was pink and pure-skinned, the eyes clear. Philippa, now thoroughly alarmed for a different reason, realized that confronting her was Sir Graham Reid Malett, Knight of the Order of St John, whose letters to her mother she had often read, sending his respects and his thanks for the hospitality Kate had given to his sister Joleta. And here he was, come to call on Joleta’s young friend.
He looked much older than Joleta, but the family likeness was very marked. Stammering (heavens, how Kate would laugh!) Philippa introduced Nell and apologized for her uncle’s delay. He neither blessed her nor became nauseatingly avuncular. Instead he said cheerfully, ‘That girl’s right: there’s the essence of Kate Somerville in you. You don’t deserve to be so lucky,’ and she wondered if Joleta had reported so flatteringly of her mother, or if Graham Malett knew the Border hearsay of the Somervilles. His home, after all, had not been so far away long ago. Then he went on to chat easily about his journey from France in the Queen Dowager’s ships and about his coming reunion with his sister, and she began to see how Joleta, whose quick brain held nothing sacred, could still worship him; and whence she derived some of her startling appeal.
Meanwhile, Philippa herself, making dutiful conversation, was in the grip of a notion. Cumbered with rather less than the usual count of desperate sins, she had been to confession all her life as a matter of course. Since returning from Scotland she had not visited church and Uncle Somerville, fortunately, hadn’t noticed.
The trouble was, a dying man had confided a message to her and she had not conveyed it. Nor had she any intention of doing so. Philippa looked at Gabriel’s calm face and thought that he at least, knowing what Lymond was, would absolve her from placing this weapon in Lymond’s hands.
Her uncle would be here soon: the low murmur of voices in the next room was getting louder and moving towards the door. She said quickly, ‘Are you sick of priest things, or could I ask you something do you think?’
Gabriel didn’t laugh at all; he merely looked interested and said, ‘It’s non-priest things I usually get sick of, don’t you? There’s nothing I like better than putting my wits to work with a friend. What sort of problem is it?’
‘It’s a friend’s, actually,’ said Philippa cautiously, and in words as old as the language of Eden. ‘There’s this man she doesn’t like.’
‘And someone wants her to marry him?’ said Gabriel helpfully.
Startled into horrified amusement, ‘Oh, no! No, no!’ said Philippa. ‘She just hates him. Everybody does. He questions small children and laughs about old ladies who are … who are hurt.’
‘He sounds appalling,’ Gabriel agreed. ‘Womanizes too, I expect?’
Philippa went scarlet. ‘Well … yes. So one believes. So, you see, he doesn’t deserve to be helped.’
‘Who would want to help him?’ Gabriel asked.
‘Oh, some people. There was this man who was dying,’ said Philippa rapidly. ‘And someone told him a secret which if it got known, would cause a lot of pain and misery and would do no one any good, except … except …’
‘The man your friend dislikes so much.’
‘That’s it,’ said Philippa thankfully. ‘And my friend was asked to pass on the secret and she hasn’t. She won’t go to hell, will she?’
Gabriel’s eyes, clear and steady, were fixed on hers. ‘I don’t think I’ve got a very unbiased story, have I? And I don’t want to question you any more, or obviously I’d learn more than you want to tell me. But there are two things you must ask yourself. Did the dying man who passed you the secret recognize that it might be put to some wicked use? And did he tell anyone else?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Philippa positively. ‘I’m the only one who knows. And I’m sure he’d never think of the damage it would do. He was very deceived, you know.’ She then went slowly scarlet.
‘It’s a useful convention,’ said Gabriel comfortingly. ‘But I’d rather guessed anyway. Do you know, from what you say, I don’t think you owe it to anyone particularly to make trouble now by passing on this precious secret of yours. Will the effect on your unpleasant friend be painful if he doesn’t know?’
Into Philippa’s brown eyes came a speculative glint which Kate would have seen with misgiving. ‘It might make him feel rather silly,’ she said.
‘Is that all?’
‘It wouldn’t kill him,’ said Philippa. ‘It wouldn’t even hurt him, except in his conceit. It was only that a promise to a dying man.…’
‘But the dying man, you say, didn’t know all the facts. And if the truth would really cause such an upheaval, there is really no virtue in telling it. There are truths and truths,’ said Gabriel solemnly. He smiled. ‘You’ve been really upset about this, haven’t you? No confession for weeks?’
‘No,’ shamefaced.
‘Well, you may begin again now,’ said Gabriel cheerfully. ‘You’ve acted only for the best, and concealment of that sort isn’t a sin, my dear child, that requires agonizing over, or even confessing. Make your reparation, if you still feel unhappy, by doing your best to swallow your dislike for this poor man, whoever he is. Keep out of his way, and try to be sorry for him. He doesn’t know he’s going to look a fool.’
Which was comforting. She was free to keep from Lymond the information Tom Erskine wanted him to have. And if Gabriel gave her his sanction without knowing the parties involved, how much more would he have done so knowing the truth?
Shortly after that, her uncle came in. No one had left the house by the dark little hall, so the inconvenient Mr Paris must have been smuggled out at the back. It had all been rather obvious, thought Philippa, and hoped that Joleta’s brother was not inclined to regard the whole Somerville family as deep in weaselly intrigue. In any case, Gabriel stayed very little longer. What time he could spare had been already spent in Philippa’s company, and he did not seem to regret it. Indeed, on hearing that Philippa and her nurse Nell were both due back in London almost immediately, he offered instantly to take them both with him in the barge waiting for him outside. Without Nell’s long face she might have gone; but it wasn’t really practicable with all the packing they had to do, and she had to let him go without her.
They met once more before Philippa went back to Flaw Valleys, when Sir Graham called at the Somerville house in London to pay his respects to Kate, and found Margaret Erskine there, off duty while the Queen Dowager rested before the royal banquet.
Margaret Erskine was on her way home after a year in France with the Scottish Queen Mother, and the costly ceremonies which were keeping Mary of Lorraine as a guest of etiquette in London were not grudged by the English Government half as much as by To
m Erskine’s wife.
That for twenty days she had been Tom Erskine’s widow was known to her mistress, to the French Ambassador in London and to very few others besides. Margaret Erskine herself was, of design, totally unaware of it, and would be, policy had decided, until she reached Scotland. The Scottish party must appear secure, sophisticated and carefree. The Dowager, in mourning white, had just lost her one living son, but her behaviour was handsomely gay. Margaret Erskine, normally a plump and prosaic young soul, was not only gay; she was sparkling with life at the prospect, at last, of rejoining her little son and her Tom.
Kate, going to her parlour door when Sir Graham Malett was announced, was frankly gloomy. To begin with, she thought it barbarous that Tom Erskine’s wife should not be told of her husband’s death, and she had said as much to the equerry who had arrived deprecatingly on her doorstep that morning from the Scottish Queen Dowager. However, she did not propose to interfere between the poor girl and her Queen, so she was forced, against her instincts, to greet Margaret when she arrived as if nothing had happened. Philippa, who showed a strong tendency to linger large-eyed in corners, was dispatched to her cittern to practise and Kate was grimly carrying out her part of the conversational bargain with no pleasure at all when the steward came to tell her she was wanted. Margaret, who had brought a chicken and was deep in detailed recipe-making, disappeared promptly and happily in the direction of the kitchens while Kate walked downstairs, meeting an inquisitive Philippa on the way.
Her visitor was, she found, that gallant crusading hero, Joleta’s brother. Taking him into the small parlour she rarely used, Kate was civil and Philippa effusive. Kate had set up, her daughter knew, a characteristic resistance against the legend of Gabriel which had stiffened more than a little since Philippa’s own glowing account, suitably edited, of the Hampton Court encounter. Sir Graham also had the misfortune to be staying with the Earl of Ormond, whom she disliked.
Kate had had much the same reaction to Joleta when the girl had arrived at Flaw Valleys in a cloudburst of reverent awe: only after she proved that Joleta was human did Kate unbend and become her usual sardonic self. Now, Philippa watching with an experienced eye saw that Sir Graham Malett was aware of this guardedness and was amused by it, even to the extent of apologizing for his noble Irish friend. Ormond, he agreed gravely over Kate’s lavish refreshments, was a sorry young pensioner of his country’s enemy, but one must be tolerant. He had to be so or hang.