The Disorderly Knights

  Lymond sat up, disregarding equally Madame Donati threatening at his side and Richard, his head flung back in anger, with Sybilla’s hand on his arm. ‘Come back! Oh, come back!’ said Francis Crawford, and got up, one hand cradling his jaw. ‘I am penitent. Only, if you indulge in numbers, how are we to get rid of the bastards?’

  Joleta stopped.

  ‘Get rid of!’ said Sybilla.

  Lymond turned to her, his blue eyes wide. ‘Unless she wants to be a little mother to them? A little unmarried mother?’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Madame Donati, in the ensuing silence, ‘that you do not insult the child, at least, with an offer of marriage.’

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ said Lymond comfortably, sitting down again. ‘Do sit down, Joleta, sit down and take the weight off.… Heavens, girl, don’t cry again. But, marriage to the right godly fresh flower of womanhood here would make me Gabriel’s good-brother, wouldn’t it? And I don’t think Gabriel could stomach that. Joleta! We are planning!’

  ‘Get out,’ said Richard curtly. He had, incredibly, unsheathed his sword.

  ‘No,’ said Sybilla. ‘No. He has come here to say something and you must listen, for Joleta’s sake. Whatever you wish to do afterwards, I shall not stop you. Lymond: what are Sir Graham Malett’s wishes in this matter?’

  It was, Richard guessed, the first time in his life that Francis Crawford had been so addressed by his mother. It removed, for the fraction of a second, the smile from his face. Then it was back, with more malice than before. ‘He doesn’t know,’ he said. ‘What’s the punishment for seduction? Pinned to a fiery wheel in the skies. But Gabriel is a kind monk. Jeune, galant, frisque, dehait, bien adèxtre, hardi adventureux, delibéré, hault, maigre, bien fendu de gueule, bien advantagé en nez. Et cetera. He will ask only that I praise the Lord and marry Joleta.’

  Joleta turned round. In the delicate face, her grey-blue eyes were liquid with unshed tears, her small sparkling teeth were sunk in her whitened lip. ‘I would marry you,’ she said. ‘If you asked me.’

  Lymond’s reflective gaze stayed on her. ‘Où est la très sage Helloïs,’ he said. ‘Pour qui chastré fut, et puis moyne? I have no intention of asking you,’ he went on. ‘I say it in the presence of the Fool Plough and the Bessy there. I don’t take soiled goods into my bed, except to pass an hour slumming.’

  Fortunately, perhaps, it was too much for Madame Donati’s uncertain English. But as she stared, suspicious but uncomprehending, Richard Crawford looked from Lymond’s mocking face to Joleta’s white one and said, ‘Soiled goods! What filth is this now?’

  ‘My dear man,’ said Lymond coolly. ‘Oüez, oüez, oüez. Et vous taisez si vous pouvez. Joleta Reid Malett is a promiscuous little lady with a foul temper, who is carrying a child whose father she probably doesn’t know, even herself. It certainly isn’t mine. That baby is due to be born a good deal sooner than three months from now. Let me assure you that, far from being deflowered at Dumbarton, Joleta Malett wasn’t even a virgin. She was already carrying a child.’ And as the girl, her face wild, suddenly flung out her hands to still the unborn, flagrant in its virginal voile, Lymond added, his voice metallic, ‘And I wonder how Sir Graham Malett, Grand Cross of Grace of the Order, will enjoy being told that.’

  Joleta’s cry, ‘He won’t believe it!’ coincided with Sybilla’s quieter voice. The Dowager said, slowly, ‘There is only your word for that, against Joleta’s. Why, since you hate him so, have you not given yourself the pleasure of telling Sir Graham before now?’

  ‘Because it is a lie!’ said Madame Donati’s shocked and furious voice.

  ‘Because he wants it—don’t you, Francis?—as a final, annihilating blow to strike Gabriel off from your heels. What did the Queen Dowager say to you, Francis?’ said Richard harshly. ‘We heard she had summoned you. Has she decided, too, that St Mary’s under a man of no discipline and no principles is too dangerous to exist?’

  ‘But Graham doesn’t want St Mary’s! He only wants … wants the best for you, because he admires you so.’ Joleta, her tears dried, was staring wide-eyed at Lymond. ‘You wouldn’t give him such pain?’

  ‘He’s going to be a little pained, isn’t he, whatever we do?’ said Lymond reasonably. ‘At least, this way he can retain his much-publicized respect for me while he proves that he doesn’t want St Mary’s.’

  ‘That,’ said Lord Culter softly, ‘is blackmail.’

  Lymond said agreeably, ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? The weasel and the basilisk. It’s a little troublesome, you see. The dice is loaded against me. Nil est tam populare, as you might say, quam bonitas.’

  But Joleta, moving closer, her rosy hair falling disordered over her clear brow and cheek, said with a sudden, hurried intensity, ‘You want Graham to go away? If Graham went away, right away—if Graham promised never to come back … would you marry me?’

  And Lymond’s bright, sardonic face, looking into hers, lost all its amusement; all its icy amiability; all its social charm. ‘My dear sister in Christ, and mother in expectation, I may be what Buccleuch has called me: a harlot. But a discriminating harlot, my dear.’ And, flashing out an arm, he snatched, lightly from below her labouring grasp, a fine glass vase of Sybilla’s at her side. ‘You don’t sign your work twice,’ he said softly. ‘It’s unlucky.’ And watched as, dizzily, the child stumbled into Donna Donati’s sheltering arms.

  Holding her, the duenna stared above the silken head at Francis Crawford, her yellow, high-bred face hollow with rage and contempt.

  ‘Your life, it is worth nothing,’ she said. ‘From now, every good-living man, as well as the blessed angels in heaven, will be cursing each breath you draw. We shall tell her brother. That good and holy man, in his suffering, may forgive what you did. His brethren will not. Whatever becomes of the little one and her baby, she will be avenged.’

  The Venetian woman glanced at him once, with a kind of tired scorn in her cold eyes; and then shepherding the girl’s swollen body gently before her, closed the door on them both.

  No one said anything. Sybilla, the silvery nape of her neck bowed, sat staring unseeing at the polished floor, her thin fingers pressed to her mouth. Richard’s square, quiet person, resting against the wall at her back, the thick brown hair fallen as it always did, straight across his ridged brow, was completely silent. And Lymond, his fair head flung back against his high chair, his eyes resting on the closed door, had not moved.

  The door opened, on the lightest of scratches, and Salablanca the Moor came in, shutting it at his back. ‘Señora … Señores … Están en el cuarto,’ he said.

  Lymond answered in Spanish. ‘Good. You may stand outside. Richard?’

  Lord Culter said nothing. Lymond turned his head, and in a single, unexpected movement was on his feet, facing his brother. ‘My God, don’t you think I feel ill, too?’ he said. And indeed, Richard, surveying him at last, saw with numb curiosity the reflection of his own sick anger in Lymond’s white face. Then Lymond, looking from his mother to Richard and back again, said, ‘I hope never to have to do that to you again. I hope one day you will forgive me. Try to remember, just at this moment, that my trade calls for acting. Try to remember, Richard, as I have told you, that because of your own honesty I can’t confide in you.… Sybilla, all I must do depends on one thing. That in spite of what you have heard just now, you trust me for half a day more.’

  Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, did not look up. Instead, opening and shutting her thin, shapely hands, one on the other, she said, ‘Trust you to do what?’

  Lymond said, his voice now quite emotionless and clear, ‘I want to leave now, and go to Boghall. Margaret Erskine will be there tomorrow, and Janet Beaton, and some others you know. At midday tomorrow, I want you and Richard to leave here without servants, casually, and ride to Boghall to join me, mentioning to no one that I shall be there. If anyone asks, you think I have gone back to St Mary’s. At some point, also, Joleta will send word of her troubles to her brother. Let her messenger go.’
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  ‘She won’t beg Graham Malett to leave you now,’ Richard said with sudden contempt. ‘She’ll let you ruin her publicly and be damned to you, rather than bolster your precious command. Trust you? I don’t care what crawling plot you’re involved with this time. We are free of you, and we’re going to stay free. Go where you please. Graham Malett’s friends will see Joleta amply avenged.’

  Sybilla lifted her head. She was very pale, nearly as white as her china-fair hair, and there were rings round her blue eyes. ‘There is something I should like to ask you,’ she said. ‘You claimed among other things, that you did not father Joleta’s baby. Was that true?’

  Lymond’s answer was curt. ‘Yes. She was already pregnant in May.’

  ‘You called her promiscuous. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am not a child or a cleric, Francis,’ said Sybilla sharply. ‘I wish to test what you say against some facts of my own. You called her promiscuous. Why?’

  ‘Because of her practices. She is experienced,’ said Lymond shortly. ‘She appears to have a close relationship with her grooms. You could discover more, no doubt, if you care for the method. She marks her bed-fellows like a bloody bookmark: with a cross.’

  ‘With a piece of glass?’ said Sybilla, and for the first time, Lymond’s voice took a little colour. ‘Or a knife. She’s a knack with weapons,’ he continued evenly. ‘And she has a temper. One of my men, Cuddie Hob, laughed at her once. She shot his horse.’

  ‘She killed my cat,’ said Sybilla dreamily. ‘I didn’t tell you, Richard. And until Margaret Erskine stopped it, she was never left alone with Kevin. A streak of natural cruelty. Her upbringing, I suppose. And always the example of the heavenly Gabriel. Anyone of her nature would rebel against that.…’

  ‘Killed your cat!’ said Richard incredulously, and Lymond said wearily, ‘It’s unbelievable, I know. It’s a crime against all the marvellous things of the universe. You will never see anyone as beautiful again. She’s sweet, and young, and lovely, and morally quite defective. Ask Mother. She was sitting there counselling marriage for the good of the family, and wondering all the while if she was going to have to spend all her life training her daughter-in-law not to kill cats.… I need you tomorrow, Richard, if you can bring yourself to come.’

  ‘To plot with you against Gabriel?’ said Richard. ‘You can do that without me.’

  But Sybilla had risen, and although still very pale, had crossed to where Lymond stood. ‘We reserve judgement,’ she said. ‘But the facts about Joleta are a little in your favour; and we know your trouble about Richard’s honest face. On the other hand, I am a great dissembler. You couldn’t have a little conference with me?’ And as Lymond shook his head, she sighed. ‘In that case, I shall wait until tomorrow. I shall come to Boghall, Francis; and Richard will ride with me, if necessary roped by the heels.’

  He was fleetingly amused, but left at once, after the briefest of leave-taking. It was then that Sybilla began to shake, and Richard, cursing with extraordinary vigour, lifted her gently from her chair and holding her tightly, took her to her room.

  *

  The next day, drawn by heaven knew what premonition, Gabriel returned from Falkland to St Mary’s. The warmth of his welcome, as ever, brought light to his face and, his hand on Jerott’s shoulder, he heard in silence the full story of Thompson’s illicit voyage and the hounding of the Magdalena by the pirate Logan. His dark face blazing at the recollection, Jerott said, ‘Thompson was magnificent. If the Irish boats hadn’t encircled us, to finish with, we would have got free without fighting at all. As it was we did escape in the end, although he lost his guns. We may not have had much of a voyage, but by God, it gave them all a taste of the sea. They want to go back. Randy Bell says he’s going to become the first medical corsair.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Gabriel. His smile, as clear as always, had still something a little tired and a little anxious in it; and Jerott was reminded that of course, from authority’s point of view, the incident had been damaging to St Mary’s. His thoughts must have been transparent, for Gabriel said, ‘The Queen Dowager is concerned about how we behave. She will learn, if we are careful, that we are to be trusted.… Where are the others who were with you? Where is Francis?’

  Jerott grinned. ‘We thought a little judicious dispersal might be a good thing, in case we were visited with any official complaints. As the respectable member of the sea-going party, I stay to rattle my rosary in their faces. Lymond.…’ He paused. ‘He should be here tonight. He sent word that he meant to call at Midculter on the way.’

  ‘To see Joleta?’ Graham Malett’s face, suddenly, was cloudless. ‘Then he is safe. The child will help him. He would let me do nothing at Falkland.’

  ‘Was it unpleasant?’

  ‘We have been given an ultimatum. No more slackness, no indiscipline, no brawling for a month, and Francis will have the opportunity of his life: to lead St Mary’s in a great expeditionary force to France.’ He was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘It was unpleasant, for he is not humble, and he would admit to nothing; and the Irishman Cormac O’Connor, whom the Queen Dowager respects, quarrelled with him in public.… That must be resolved. In the meantime.…’ He broke off. ‘He did go to Midculter?’

  Jerott was not, by then, the only one within earshot. There was a shadow of uneasiness, no more, in the big room. They were all aware of the rumour that Lymond was not permitted in his own home any more. Jerott said, after a pause, ‘Possibly to see his mother. He may not spend much time with Joleta.’

  ‘But he will hear news of her,’ said Gabriel. ‘If I’d known.… It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What?’ said Jerott quietly.

  ‘Oh, I might have asked him to bring her back. There is so much to do … and we must have no trouble. I have to stay. What I am trying to say, so incoherently,’ said Gabriel, smiling, ‘is only that I haven’t seen Joleta for a month. I miss her.’

  ‘But that’s simple,’ said Jerott. ‘I’ll fetch her for you. Now.’ And disregarding loftily all Graham Malett’s protestations, he got up, there and then, and went out. In ten minutes his horse was waiting and he was ready. As he mounted, Cuddie Hob and his groom behind him, Gabriel walked up to his side and laid a hand on his knee. ‘God go with you,’ he said. ‘And forgive me, I could have stopped you … I should have spared you the trouble. But she is my only haven on earth.’

  He lifted his hand and stepped back: a big man, beautifully made, with the autumn sun copper-gold on his hair. ‘But don’t tell her that, will you?’ he said, smiling. ‘I don’t want to be teased all the rest of my life.’

  *

  Long before Jerott Blyth reached Midculter castle on that bright-bronzed September day, Lymond’s midday assignation at Boghall was over, and Francis Crawford had made the first moves towards turning the sharpened axe which he himself had fashioned of St Mary’s inwards upon itself.

  Sybilla was there, as he had known she would be, riding the familiar three miles from Midculter to Lady Jenny Fleming’s big castle in its marsh, her son Richard silent at her side. Five years ago, in the great hall at Boghall with its tall windows, Lady Jenny’s husband had held his last meeting before going to die fighting the English at Pinkie. From its roof, Richard had seen the smoke rise over the rolling bog when Lymond, with fire and sword, had made his first return to his mother’s home.

  Now, Lady Jenny, excited and a trifle apprehensive, ushering Sybilla up the wide stone stairs, was a widow, and the mother of the French King’s son. Now her daughter Margaret, widowed first at Pinkie, had lost her second and dearest husband with the death nine months before of Tom Erskine, here in her mother’s home. And in the great room upstairs, its strewn floor roused to sweetness by the booted feet of Lymond’s guests, the coloured light fell on faces strange to these douce walls. Thompson was there, sea-robber, trader, navigator; sought by every harbour in the Irish Sea and the Baltic, and up and down the Middle Seas to boot; his black-bearded chin
in the air, his arms folded across his salt-crusted chest. At his side, in a crackling haze of legal inquiry, sat Fergie Hoddim of the Laigh, who had not been on the ill-fated training voyage of the Magdalena, but clearly wished he had been.

  Beyond, listening with gnome-like ardour to Janet Beaton, Lady of Buccleuch, was Nicolas de Nicolay, Sieur d’Arfeville et de Bel Air, cosmographer to the King of France; and next to him Alec Guthrie, humanist and philosopher, speaking to nobody; his big-featured fleshy face with the prematurely grey hair sunk on his chest, his thumbs in his belt. Margaret Erskine had already made her quiet way to his side, and sat down. Sybilla, after a moment’s hesitation, took the vacant seat to the left of the chair and next to the lounging bulk of the corsair, who sat up with a half-salute and grinned as she settled her small, trim person at his side. Richard, she noticed, had found a place at the foot of the table, between de Nicolay and Fergie Hoddim; and Lady Jenny, her introductions made with the help of a tall, thin young man with a faint limp, described to her as Adam Blacklock, sat herself beside Richard Crawford at the far end. The vacant seat, to the right of the chair, was taken, with a little hesitation, by the man Blacklock as the door opened and quickly and quietly Lymond came in and paused. At his back, Archie Abernethy and the Moor Salablanca, closed and stood by the door.

  Lymond’s face told them nothing, nor did his voice when he spoke; although he had, to more than one experienced eye, the look of a man who has ridden far and fast. ‘You are all here. I’m glad,’ he said. ‘Lady Jenny, this is your home. The place at the head of the table is yours, if you wish it.’ He waited just as long as courtesy required for her flattered refusal, and then took his place, his feet hardly stirring the rushes, in the black carved chair Lord Malcolm had used.

  In absolute silence, he laid his hands on the table and for the first time looked down the long vista of polished oak. Ten faces: ten expressions, varying through concern, suspicion, fear, anxiety and a controlled blankness which revealed nothing at all, returned the impersonal blue gaze. When, at length, he drew breath to speak, Sybilla was reminded irresistibly of the Collegiate Church at Biggar, and the priest leaning over the lectern, dropsical with earnest admonitions. ‘We are gathered here, dearest children in Christ, for the purpose of praising the Lord.’