03 The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett

Author:Dorothy Dunnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Never afterwards could Jerott clearly recollect that journey home. Waiting stiffly for Lymond, in a mental turmoil, he had tried to piece it out.

There had been a bitter struggle, in which Lymond must have been the aggressor. Yet the girl had shown no fear; had made fun of her rescuer … they both had, damn them … and had ordered him away. What had happened? Had Lymond prevailed? Was she, in her innocence, out of her senses? He saw her again, lying broken at his feet, and had resolved, against all his pride, on going upstairs once more, when Lymond appeared at his side.

‘Come along. We’ve wasted enough time on that spoiled brat,’ he said. ‘Are we loaded?’

‘She was hurt. What happened?’ He had to know.

‘Scratches. The Donati woman is slapping grease on them. She was making a nuisance of herself at Midculter, and when I threatened to thrash her she went for me. Enjoyed it, too.… Gabriel may think she’s a sister-angel, Brother-in-Christ, but she isn’t. It’s worth remembering.’

‘Why? For Fridays?’ said Jerott nastily, and strode away. She had shouted at him—that delicate child, bred in the cloister. Gabriel had been wrong to trust the force of his faith. He, a man and a knight could stand up to this worldly professionalism. Joleta might not.

His irritation increased when, setting off with the toiling ox-carts for St Mary’s, he observed that the gallant surgeon had been soothing his ruffled vanity with something out of the apothecary’s bottle, and was strikingly gay. In the men’s hearing Lymond said nothing, but the look on his face promised trouble when they got in: intoxication was one of the few cardinal sins at St Mary’s and they had only had trouble once before, with Adam Blacklock when his leg was giving him pain.

Alec Guthrie, another man of moderate intake, dropped back from the head of the column to mention caustically that it had enlivened their tedious work to observe one of their leaders returning from Boghall castle drunk, and the other fresh from a fight with some woman. This was by deduction, obviously, and Joleta’s name was not mentioned, Jerott noted, feeling ill.

Anyone but Guthrie would have had his head snapped off. Lymond instead said briefly, ‘You may leave Bell to me. The other issue was unavoidable. I haven’t spent time and thought on building a reputable leadership in order to waste it at will.’

‘The men, you appreciate, will want their indulgences too,’ said the humanist drily.

‘Why?’ said Jerott. ‘They’re soldiers, not animals.’

‘They can have them, when the time comes,’ Lymond said. The backs of his hands were ripped with Joleta’s fingernails, and the thin weal at his cheekbone was emitting a little blood. Brushing it with his folded handkerchief, ‘Being men, and not monks,’ he added, to Jerott.

‘A holy weapon,’ thought Jerott with contempt, and remembered all of a sudden why he had gone to Boghall at all. ‘And will Tommy Wishart get special concessions?’ he inquired. ‘For services rendered?’

Lymond put away his handkerchief and changed his grip on the reins.

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