The Disorderly Knights (71 page)

‘The first thing Gabriel would do is visit her,’ Lymond said. From defiant jubilation he had become quiet. ‘It’s odd to think that in four weeks, five at the most, it will all be over. St Mary’s won’t exist. Or it will continue under my command, without Gabriel. Or under Gabriel, without me. How would you enjoy fighting under Graham Malett, Adam?’

Adam Blacklock looked as levelly as he knew how into Lymond’s bright blue eyes. ‘So it’s come, has it?’ he said slowly. ‘This is what you have been afraid of, all along? It has to be one or other of you; it can’t be both. Graham Malett never will have you at his side.’

‘Yes, it has come,’ said Lymond. He had moved away again, without attending to Blacklock, and his voice was curt. ‘The Queen Dowager has successfully brought it to a head, but the final choice won’t be hers. It will lie with St Mary’s, and the excellence or otherwise of our work there. If I have made men, they will act like men.’

‘You may be a man, and fear God still,’ said Adam steadily.

Lymond’s face, too, was wholly sober as he looked away, over the low hills of Fife. ‘I know But I, too, learned a lesson in Malta.
Never mind their eyes
.…
Watch their hands!
Adam, I have to go to Midculter to see Joleta. Then I am moving across to Boghall, where Margaret Erskine should be joining her mother shortly to wait for me. I have asked a number of other people to meet me there too. If you want to come with them, I should … welcome you. If you prefer to go straight to St Mary’s, I shall understand. All I ask is that you say nothing of the gathering at Boghall. In any case, our ways part now. I am going home alone.’

Adam Blacklock looked down at his hands. ‘Small, subversive gatherings in corners? Not St Mary’s as we knew it.’

Lymond’s answering gaze was disconcertingly sharp. ‘But St Mary’s never was an army,’ he said. ‘Only a battlefield. You must have realized that?’

XIII
T
he
A
xe
I
s
T
urned on
I
tself

(
Midculter, Flaw Volleys, Boghall, September 1552
)

I
N
the meantime, the unease which had settled on St Mary’s, Falkland and several points on the Irish seaboard had assumed, at Midculter, the proportions of plague. Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, was not above spitting at her unfortunate son when he chose to sit down in his own great hall to take his boots off.

‘If Madge Mumblecrust comes down those stairs
once again
for a morsel of fowl’s liver with ginger, or pressed meats with almond-milk, I shall retire to a little wicker house in the forest and cast spells which will sink Venice into the sea for ever, and Madame Donati with it. The Church,’ said Sybilla definitely, ‘should excommunicate girls who do not replace lids on sticky jars and wash their hair every day with the best towels.’

‘She’s getting on your nerves,’ said Richard perceptively. ‘Why doesn’t she come down and go out? It’s a month since she immured herself up there. She’ll make herself ill.’

Sybilla sat down. If her laughter was a shade hysterical, at least it was laughter. When she had recovered, she said, ‘Yes. Well. She doesn’t want to be seen, my dear.’

‘Why not?’ said Richard. He thought of Joleta as he had last seen her a month ago, when the child had first become noticeable, and Sybilla, grimly, had broken the news to him. Robed in white, her shining hair tumbling over her arms, by some magic the girl had kept intact that untouched, miraculous grace. In all those weeks she had said nothing that was not gentle about his brother Francis. And when Sybilla had questioned her, her own face stiff and pale, Joleta had answered simply, without recriminations. Only, when Lady Culter’s anger for a moment showed through, the girl’s eyes had filled with tears.

Then she had made them all promise to say nothing to Graham Malett until Francis had been told. But then Francis had been told, and had done nothing about it. So, ‘Why doesn’t she want to be
seen?’ said Richard irritably. ‘In three months, everyone will know anyway.’ Then, at the expression on his mother’s face, he put down abruptly the boot he had just hauled off, and crossing the polished floor to her softly, knelt at her feet. ‘Look … It
is
just possible to understand it, even if you can’t forgive. She has a beauty that—that—Any man would want to do just what he did. The difference is that, being Francis and owning no rule and no master, he did it. And because she loves him, she gave him the chance.’

‘Owning no master. That’s the trouble, isn’t it?’ said Sybilla suddenly. In her lap, her hands, so like her younger son’s, were pressed together, white and hard. ‘He looked for one, I would guess, in Malta.’

‘He found one,’ said Richard quietly. ‘But he cannot acknowledge it.’ He smiled at her, and rising to his feet, put out his hands and drew her to hers. ‘If he walked in just now and asked Joleta to marry him, what would you do?’

‘Faint,’ said Sybilla succinctly.

*

Later, in the balm of the open air, Richard was watching his ploughing, the oxen straining in the broad fields under the clouds of seagulls, the glistening, fresh brown earth slow-surging from the coulter, when the low drum of hooves in the clear air told of two horsemen coming from the east. A moment later, someone in a distant field raised a shout of greeting, and he saw the felt and leather helms of his trenchers bob and turn. Someone they all knew, someone belonging to the castle.… Francis, his yellow head bare, and the big, silent Spanish Moor behind him. Lord Culter wondered, his muscles aching already in anticipation of the ordeal ahead, what gay solution Lymond would produce to this problem. Adoption … abortion … or marriage, perhaps? Waiting, hard-eyed, for him by the roadside, ‘You’re a little late?’ Richard said to his brother.

Lymond’s face, so like Sybilla’s, brightened into untrustworthy joy. ‘Glory be, she’s had a miscarriage!’ he said. At which Richard, following silently on foot up to the castle, knew that they were about to have a particularly disagreeable afternoon.

The hall, with its painted roof and elegant carvings and its sad, bovine picture of the second Lord Culter, Sybilla’s husband, was filled with sunshine when the Dowager entered at Richard’s call. Barely glancing at her younger son she merely said, ‘I think, Richard, that Joleta should be brought here before we attempt to discuss anything. Unless, Francis, you have any valid objections?’

Lymond looked astonished. ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he said. ‘Here I am, lying about being amended in corners. It is my day for being humble.’

‘It is your day, as always, for being impertinent,’ said Sybilla sharply. ‘Bring her, Richard.’

In the end Madame Donati brought the child down and, formidable in padded black, held her as she faced them all. Alone all the long day in her bedchamber, Joleta had laced white ribbons in her silk-apricot hair, and ribbons glinted in the pure voile of her dress. She was big with child. But above the turgid, womanly mound, shawled but cruelly undisguised by the white, childish dress, Joleta’s face was blinding in its happiness. Setting aside her duenna’s hands, with gentle care, she walked slowly and heavily towards Francis Crawford.

And cool, slender, expensive, that young man stared not at her but at that pathetic, white-bellied distention. ‘My God, Mother,’ he said, lively interest contending with horror in his voice. ‘There’s more than one small mistake there. She’s setting a clutch.’

For their day and age, the Crawfords were a sophisticated family. But this was a callousness unknown in their halls. Joleta gave one short cry only, and then stopped it with her hands. Sybilla gasped as if he had winded her; and Richard Crawford, turning on his brother, brought his arm up in a gesture meant to drive some manners forcibly into his head.

Lymond who, after all, had more warning than anyone, ducked expertly and ran instead, with a stinging smack, into the flat of Evangelista Donati’s hand. ‘Whoremonger!’ said Joleta’s duenna in a voice rising to a scream. ‘Anti-Christ! Wolf! Do we wish to see you? Do we wish to speak to you? Go die in a cesspool, misbegot hog!’ And as Lymond, rocked by the unexpectedness of the blow, sat down with extreme suddenness in the chair just behind him and began maddeningly to laugh, Joleta ran, draggingly, to the door.

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.