Disorderly Knights by Dunnett Dorothy

Author:Dunnett, Dorothy [Dunnett, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 1966-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

V

The Hand of Gabriel

(St Mary’s and Djerba, 1551/2)

THE pressure of Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder that first evening at St Mary’s while Sir Graham introduced his small personal staff and humbly sought a night’s rest on his way north to Joleta merely aggravated Jerott Blyth’s uneasy conscience. But Francis Crawford’s greeting, he noticed, was amicable in its astringent fashion; though Lymond listened without comment to Gabriel’s generous praise of St Mary’s and, next day, to his wholehearted amazement as he walked through the encampment and yards.

They all knew—but from a dogged obstinacy, a superstition even, would not admit it—that in a few weeks they had reached a standard that promised something exceptional. To hear it said, now, by an acknowledged master like Gabriel, was wine in the desert. Days and nights of unpleasantly hard work lay behind them with so far no break, and it was wonderfully good to relax that day in civilized company: to work for once in short spells in the neighbourhood and come back for meals; to see Blacklock, a board in one grimy hand, sketching the visitor as they both talked; to watch Tait, silent normally about his vast knowledge of Europe, exchanging stories about eating-shops in Algiers; to hear Gabriel greet Fergie Hoddim of the Laigh and laugh with him over lawyer’s gossip.

Later, Lancelot Plummer the architect, precise, fastidious, sarcastic and the best engineer in Europe, was the man who helped Gabriel lovingly erect his portable altar, with Lymond’s less than rhapsodical sanction, and was the first to kneel there. Alec Guthrie, an interested observer, raised his eyebrows above the bowed heads of the knights, of Plummer, of Randy Bell, flushed on his knees, and of Adam Blacklock, lurking hesitantly on the fringe. And even Guthrie’s sharp eyes narrowed when, forsaking Latin, Graham Malett addressed his Maker and his audience simply, in the soft Scots of his home. ‘Thou art my hope, Lord Jehovah; my confidence fra my bairnhood.… Look down on these Thy poor sinners, and grant us Thy grace.…’

Lymond also was there, watching. Jerott, lifting his head, disconcertingly found himself under that cold stare, and saw it move then to Plummer and to Randy Bell, where it rested awhile. Comparing, no doubt, his morals and his piety, thought Jerott bitterly. They would all doubtless find themselves tomorrow with the filthiest assignment in the camp.

They got it sooner than that, although not through any agency of Francis Crawford’s. Before the service was over, a runner had burst in gasping to tell Lymond that the siege engine, the loved object of Plummer’s and Bell’s afternoon work, had outmanoeuvred its blocks and run downhill into Effie Harperfield’s farm, killing a boy in the byre and marooning the widow Harperfield and four children in her own back room.

They were all on their feet in the little chapel. ‘I don’t believe it!’ said Plummer sharply. The tower and drawbridge, of heavy timber, was his personal triumph, and Jerott, who had worked with Bell on the job, knew how painstaking he had been.

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