It was then that Jerott realized that he, and Graham Malett a few yards behind him, were being carried past both Stinkand Raw, church and Tolbooth, and that the crowd, swirling round the west corner of the tall prison, had debouched along the graveyard path beyond, spilling among the grey tombstones, flickering in the manifold lantern-beams and stumbling among the grey buttresses of the side and back of St Giles. It remained, and was thickest, before the wide steps leading up to the south porch of the church. Pushing and thrusting, Jerott Blyth reached those steps. D’Oisel stood at the top, his lieutenant beside him, and an officer of the city guard, his face red with worry. Crichton, the Provost of St Giles, was not there, but you could see two or three frieze cassocks, and the cloth of gold and blue velvet of the Deacon, clearly quick to assume office. With a little help from the French men-at-arms and the city officers, the crowd stayed, swaying and jostling, at the foot of the steps.
Then behind him, clear among a thousand others, Jerott felt the presence he was waiting for. Patient, undisturbed, a little amused, Graham Malett moved to his side, and laid his fine hand on Jerott’s shoulder. ‘Sanctuary,’ he observed amiably in his rich voice. ‘The foolish young man has sought sanctuary. The church will shelter him, of course, for as long as he cares to remain. But unless he means to die there, he must know that one day he will emerge, and the shackles will close.… Poor, foolhardy creature. Shall we go in, you and I,’ said Gabriel, the pressure of his hand increased suddenly on the fine tendons of Jerott’s strong neck. ‘Shall we go in and guide his soul to take the true, the selfless course?’
His hand dropped. And side by side, their robes airy behind them, the two Knights of St John of Jerusalem climbed the wide steps, between the clustering lamps, and entered the great church of St Giles.
*
From more than forty altars the long, white tapers pricked to life with their small flame the dim treasures of jewels and paintings, of silver-gilt and delicate, hand-sewn fabric and queer, painted faces that graced the aisles and chapels of the long two hundred foot nave, and lent their bouquet of light and incense to the rows of thick stone pillars that upheld the groined stone arches, far above.
Entering the murmuring silence of the church; leaving behind, thinly removed, the raucous excitement of the crowd; dismissing from his mind that circle of craning, avid faces at the south porch, Jerott Blyth walked with the man he once worshipped, past the carved font where he himself had been christened, and turning his back on the seven chapels of the west corner and their scattered, kneeling supplicants, he paced with Gabriel up the stone floor of the nave, past the Norman door, past the chapel where hung the Blue Blanket under which the citizens fought for their city, past the great stone pillars with their coats of arms and their altars, past the aisles and the altars of St Duthac and St Mungo, St Christopher and St Peter, St Columba and St Sebastian—the altars maintained by the skinners, the surgeons, the masons, the wrights, the shearers, the bonnet-makers and all the great of the past with a great achievement to be thankful for, or a great sin for which to atone.
They passed the organ, and the fine carved stalls for the prebendaries in the choir, where the officers of the church, the chaplains in their robes and the men and women who had come solely to pray and were caught up in the night’s strange events stood aside, in ones and twos, whispering. Then Jerott could see the steps to the high altar, its chandeliers blazing with light; its vestments of black and red velvet and of cloth of gold; its pall of red satin hangings blatant in heraldic pattern behind.
On the steps of the altar, above the shifting heads of the half-dozen soldiers d’Oisel had allowed in, Lymond was standing. He had seen them, and across all the intervening space let fly a gleam of deprecating mockery in Jerott’s direction.
‘I am here,’ said Lymond amiably. ‘A refugee from pollarchy. Come and let us inspire that great Greek saint Giles to cast the demons out from us all.’
For a moment Jerott in turn looked up at the painted face of the tall statue, vested in cloth of gold and red velvet pendicle, placed above the jewelled casket bearing his relic: a hand and armbone, drily anonymous, with a diamond ring rattling loose on its finger. Beside him, Gabriel crossed himself, and Jerott did the same, aware that people were moving in softly behind them, filling the aisles and the stalls.
He turned round. The Sieur d’Oisel had come forward, and the chief magistrates with him, among them the Lord Provost himself. There were faces he did not know: French faces, and Scots faces; and then suddenly one very familiar indeed: Adam Blacklock, with a hooded girl on his arm. Philippa. Then Henri Cleutin, Seigneur d’Oisel, moving down to the altar rail, said crisply, ‘This nonsense will cease. Mr Crawford, I am required by her grace the Queen Mother to remove you to the safety of the Tolbooth until your status and your loyalty have been examined. You need fear no injustice. In defence of your own innocence, I suggest you place yourself in my charge forthwith.’
‘Truly,’ said Lymond, his voice still mocking over the strain, ‘I would rather live maligned than die justified. Vive la bagatelle. I am here, my lord Ambassador, for the blessing of the cultivation of peace, union and brotherly affection among honest men and fellow-Brethren. Will the Lord of Torphichen permit me to speak?’
Beside Jerott, Sir Graham Malett became very still. ‘Aye,’ a thick voice said, a little harshly. ‘Sandilands is leal to his word, and a chiel namely for justice. Ye have the Order’s permission to cry out.’
Sir James Sandilands of Calder, Grand Prior in Scotland of the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, flung his black robe around him and sat down. ‘I have heard an indictment,’ he said, glaring at d’Oisel and nowhere near Graham Malett. ‘Whether Mr Crawford can substantiate it or not, I canna say. But I propose he speak out.’
‘An indictment?’ The French King’s general in Scotland was totally at sea. ‘Against whom?’
‘Against Sir Graham Reid Malett,’ said Lymond gently, and placed both hands on the bright brass rail at his back. ‘Look around you, Sir Graham. There are all your accusers.’
And there, Jerott saw, one by one, their friends were filtering in, dusty from hard riding, come by prearranged plan to the one place where they would be safe. Fergie Hoddim of the Laigh slipped in, waved, and sat down. Beside him was the broad person of Guthrie and beyond them, Nicolas de Nicolay, the French cosmographer. He saw Archie, and the black face of Salablanca, and Cuddie Hob’s knotted grin, and wondered by what bribery or trick they had induced the watch to let them all in.
Beside him, Gabriel said, ‘Indictment!’ in bewildered distress, and flinging into a stall the plumed helmet he had carried from the church door, he walked forward, the altar candies molten gold on his hair. He looked up into Francis Crawford’s face and said, ‘I beg you. Innocent people have suffered enough. Drag no more names in the mud to rescue your own. Let us go in peace; and take your courage instead, and seek your own salvation like a man.’
‘It is beyond the testimony of angels,’ quoted Lymond, gazing into Gabriel’s shining, troubled blue eyes. ‘It is beyond the word of recording saints. It is a matter, if I have not already made it clear, of hard proof. You are, sir, a traitor, a murderer and a foresworn monk of your Order; and there is nothing I should like better, at this moment, than to hear you try to deny it.’
For a long moment, Sir Graham Malett sustained that direct gaze. Then he turned away, and finding d’Oisel near him, addressed him quietly. ‘The young man is losing his mind. I have known it for some time. I have spoken to the Queen Dowager about this tragic contingency; and she has been kind enough to trust my discretion. Allow me to carry him with me now. I myself will stand surety for his behaviour, and with Holy Church’s help, will give him the nursing he needs.’
‘M. d’Oisel.…’ Jerott Blyth, his hand on his sword, moved forward into his self-appointed place again, at Gabriel’s side. ‘Witnesses present just now can substantiate all Mr Crawford has to say, and will swear also as to his sanit
y. In fairness, Sir Graham should allow him to speak.’
‘I am only concerned,’ said Malett wearily, ‘with sparing the emotions of all those whom our friend has so peremptorily involved. Of course I have no objection. I should like, however, to show just how much weight you may place on this accusation by stating my own discoveries about Mr Crawford.’
‘Sisters, I knew him far away by the redness of his heart under his silver skin. State your discoveries,’ said Lymond. ‘And like a crone on a creepie-stool, I shall sit here and marvel.’ And dropping lightly to the steps he waited, hugging his knees.
Perhaps because of Jerott Blyth, Gabriel began his indictment, in a rich, deep voice that carried to every corner of the great church, with Lymond’s actions in Malta. With a detachment shaken only now and then, when his hands clenched and the white cross on his breast rose and fell with his breathing, Graham Malett told again the story of the Turkish attack, only picking out the constant of Lymond’s treachery.
‘The Order should vanish from the face of the earth.… Do you remember saying that?’ asked Gabriel of Lymond where he sat, his hands lightly clasped at his knees. ‘You came to Malta straight from the French King, with orders to that effect. From the start, the Turks were your allies.… Do you recall, Jerott, his attempt to join the Turkish attack at Gozo? Who do you suppose arranged the seduction of that foolish man de Césel, Gozo’s Governor, by Francis’s own former mistress? Who did his best, at Mdina, to escape over the wall to the Turks to warn them to ignore the false message coming from Sicily … and would have done so, too, had I not been privileged to stop him. How did Nicholas Upton die? How was Francis on such close and friendly terms with a well-known pirate?
‘At Birgu he would have liked to have overloaded us with useless mouths; on the eve of the sailing for Tripoli he hid in the hospital rather than leave. And once in Tripoli, don’t you remember how he bribed the Calabrian soldiers to let him out of imprisonment—the Calabrians, with whom he was so friendly, and who finally tried to blow up the castle and desert the Order by sea? Don’t you remember the mysterious spy who informed the Turks to fire on the St Brabe bulwark, not the St James? … Who paid him, do you suppose? Who, do you remember, tried to get the French knights in the garrison again and again to rise against the Marshal and the Spanish knights and to hold Tripoli by themselves alone? How long, do you suppose, would they have troubled to hold out? Who found it so simple, when he wished, to escape the city with his band of freed slaves and reach the Turkish camp unharmed? Who escaped to the Turks again, leaving his mistress to drown?
‘I wanted no sovereignty!’ cried Gabriel, his deep voice rising in his distress. ‘Before the battle on Malta, as anyone will tell you, I was asked to lead, and I refused. I took my oath to obey only one master on earth, and to that I hold. But this … this animal in spangles, this bright, malicious harlot … this furious and fatuous young man, would take a great Order, and now attempts to take a great nation and with his puny, ill-informed fingers, crumble it into rubble on which he may strut.…’ He raised his voice against a sudden uproar that floated in through the open, packed doors and merged, muttering, with the congregation already within. ‘Shall I go on? Need I go on?’
‘Please do,’ said Lymond politely, his eyes suddenly bright. ‘And forgive the clamour outside. Half the French troops, it appears, have gone off hunting Kerrs and we have been joined by a large part of our friends from St Mary’s. Also by my family from Midculter. And also by Madame Donati.’
‘Evangelista?’ said Malett slowly. ‘Crazed by the death of my sister? What kind of witnesses are these? In any case, we have no need of them. We all know how Will Scott came to die. And now his father, killed because he knew too much. What was in George Paris’s papers, I wonder? Evidence that as a friend of Thompson you were also a traitor with Paris, so that at Falkland you even told Cormac O’Connor that the Queen Dowager was aware of Paris’s misdemeanours, to prevent him telling her the truth? The sapphire you have been wearing—strangely missing today—was given you by Thompson—why? A hard-headed corsair gives nothing for nothing.’
Before Lymond could speak Jerott, ill-advisedly, had answered that one. ‘He bought a woman from him. I was there.’
Malett looked round, disgust on his face. ‘For a jewel of that price! And why, then, is it hidden today?’
‘It isna hidden.’ Plain, uncompromising, it was the voice of Janet Beaton, her strong-boned face queer and puffy with weeping but her step firm and her chin high as she came down the nave, her sister hesitant behind. At Gabriel’s side she halted, and looking up to the altar steps she said in a changed voice, ‘I hae come from my slaughtered husband, Francis Crawford, with something to give you. This I took from his hand: it was his son’s ring and I mean you to have it. This’—and in the steady glow of the candles she held up a sapphire, the fire in it burning through and through—‘this was not on his fist when he left Branxholm. Is it yours?’
‘Yes,’ said Lymond; and nothing more. But Jerott, with sudden illumination, remembered stumbling over that silent, kneeling figure in the Luckenbooths, and seeing Lymond, rising, replace Buccleuch’s thick, blood-streaked hand at his side with long, gentle fingers that hid what they had done.
But whatever Lymond’s reason had been, he had no intention, clearly, of giving it; and no need. Janet’s gesture, fresh from her husband’s bier, was enough. And when she turned from Lymond’s still face to the fair, concerned features of Gabriel, her whole manner commanded, although her eyes were wet and her nose swollen and red. ‘I heard from Robert,’ said Janet Beaton contemptuously, ‘how you filled the Dowager’s ears with bonny tales of Lymond’s deficiencies, for all ye defended him so nobly in public. No doubt ye did the same at St Mary’s. No doubt they’ve all heard how Will Scott died because Francis Crawford was whoring at Dumbarton and drunk at Liddesdale and for all their work, they had to go into action ill-managed, ill-trained and ill-led.’
She spun round, her voice hoarse, and addressed not only Graham Malett but the rapt faces in the recesses of the wide church behind her. ‘Shall I tell you,’ she said, ‘how and why Will Scott died? And shall I tell you how and why Buccleuch died like a dog in the gutter today?’
And so the story of the Hot Trodd was told, and was supported, voice to voice, where they sat, by those who had evidence of its truth. And after that, Janet turned to Lymond and, cool-voiced, he described the events of that day and how, deliberately, the Kerrs had been sent to murder Buccleuch. Wat Scott knew nothing—and Lord Provost Hamilton, rising stiffly, confirmed it—of any crime committed by Kerrs which would be revealed by Paris’s papers. The Kerrs had been dispatched into Edinburgh in the hope that they would do murder; and on their exit, word had been sent to d’Oisel that Buccleuch was dead, though in fact he was not dead, and no one except the Kerrs actually involved knew he was stabbed.
‘You knew George Paris was a double agent,’ said Lymond, his calmly modulated voice breaking in again. ‘You contrived in London to obtain his money and papers—Mistress Somerville can testify to that. And, staying with Ormond, you found it easy to approach Cormac O’Connor and sound him out about the betrayal of Paris. Because of course you knew who Paris was—you had seen him in France at least once, although he did not know you. Thomas Wishart knew that. His task, from the moment you left Malta, was never to let you out of his sight. Jerott thought he was following him, but that was not so. We wished to know, Sir Graham, exactly what you did, and what you did was most interesting.
‘In any case,’ said Lymond, and unclasping his hands he rose slowly to his feet and stood, head bent, looking down at Gabriel. ‘In any case, Tosh was killed, and by your men. Trotty Luckup, too, was killed, because she knew too much about Joleta.… Madame Donati has told us all we need to know about that. And because Philippa Somerville had the same piece of information, she also was attacked and is lucky to be alive.… Of all these things we have proof.’
Gabriel stirred. ‘Must I hear this?’ he s
aid. ‘With the jewels you obviously have, with whatever wealth you have earned as your wages, you can bribe whom you like to say what you like. What you did on Malta and in Tripoli cannot be condoned. Nothing you fabricate now can obliterate it.’
‘Shall I ask Nicolas de Nicolay to speak?’ said Lymond softly. ‘Or would you care to see this, that I took from your clothing the day that you, not I, tried to escape to the Turkish camp at Mdina? A piece of white paper, Sir Graham. A dirty, bloodstained piece of white paper with a message in English of the most loyal intent on one side. And on the other, a note in your own handwritten Arabic, giving them all the information they needed about the Receiver’s false message from Sicily.’
It was defeat. His eyes wet for the annihilation of what had never truly existed, Jerott Blyth saw Gabriel draw himself up, as he seldom did, to his full magnificent height, the golden head high; all his thoughts, all his attention on the younger man standing still above him on the carpeted steps.
‘Dear me,’ said Gabriel mildly, the great voice pitched for Francis Crawford alone. ‘What an importunate young man you are. You have just cost me, I believe, a quite excessive amount of my time. I shall be interested to pursue the matter with you, on some other occasion. At the moment … de Seurre!’
Then Jerott realized that he was going to appeal to St Mary’s. The great company whose allegiance he had so confidently set out to command was here, deployed round St Giles, brought there at the first opportunity by its officers after d’Oisel’s full escorting corps had been removed. One would trust de Seurre and des Roches and the rest to have done that without bloodshed. Their aim was not to escape but to see justice done, to be present at what touched them so vitally: the Vehmgerichte of their two leaders.