The Disorderly Knights (10 page)

It was a nasty hit which, being Lymond, he did not particularly regret, even though he was fairly sure that the unworldly Francis of Lorraine would soon be sadder, wiser and several thicknesses of skin poorer under the lashing tongues of his brothers and sisters de Guise.

*

At Marseilles, imperial blue upon blue under cobalt blue skies, the Mediterranean lay fresco-still. The docks steamed with the smells and brown flesh of seamen and slaves; the rigging of brigantines, galley and galleass meshed the merciless sun. A galley had been found, with convict rowers and free sailors, little better; its master bought for the double voyage to Sicily, where de Villegagnon meant to take his first warning to the Sicilian Viceroy, Charles V’s representative nearest Malta, sworn to help the Order in time of need. The knights might not go so far as to help the enemies of France, but it seemed that they were quite ready to call on France’s adversaries to help them.

Before leaving, there was one visit to pay. De Villegagnon, with Lymond beside him, waited among the stream of traders, bankers and businessmen calling to see M. de Luetz, Baron d’Aramon, his Grace the King of France’s Ambassador to Turkey, about to return to his post at Constantinople bearing, it was rumoured, four, six, eight, ten muleloads of gold to present to the Most Christian King’s ally, Sultan Suleiman.

Rising to greet the monolithic bulk of the Chevalier, d’Aramon smiled his automatic, worn smile. Faded by the Levantine sun, he had watched his fresh young tenets, his forceful loyalties, his vigorous faith, bleach and shrivel with heat and distance until his homeland France seemed to him simple, noisy, bright as a toy. Despite the Court intrigue which lost him his lands to the King’s mistress Diane, the Baron d’Aramon strove to do his best for France; but it was not the France of the missal and the anointed Christian King. It was merely an ambitious, quarrelsome country whose needs, unless tempered, could bring misery to herself and to others. In all the world, after all, there were only four nations who mattered: France, with Scotland dragged at her heels; Charles V, head of the Holy Roman Empire, with Spain, Flanders, parts of Italy and Germany; and the Pope in his pocket; England with Ireland under her thumb; and the Sultan, who possessed Turkey, Hungary, Egypt already, and who wished to conquer the world.

There were times when M. d’Aramon believed that life would be easier if he did, since he had verified what no man in France would dare to confirm: that the Sultan of the Ottomans was a good deal more humane than any Christian prince he had discovered.

Therefore M. d’Aramon, French Ambassador to Turkey, was apprehensive when one of the foremost French knights of the Order called on him, and fatalistic when de Villegagnon told him of the expected attack. But all he said was, ‘Is Malta prepared?’

To which the Chevalier de Villegagnon replied with an explicit and no doubt sacred oath. ‘With the Spanish Grand Master we have? De Homedès has done nothing. In fifteen years, Malta and Gozo and
Tripoli are as poorly fortified as when the knights first received them. Any fool,’ said de Villegagnon bitterly, ‘could see danger was coming. Didn’t the Order help the Emperor last year every time Charles asked politely for the Order’s galleys? The Emperor’s Admiral cleared the Moors from half the African coast with the Order’s help and chased Dragut temporarily off the seas; and it wasn’t because Charles was over-concerned about the free spread of the One True Faith either. It was because Dragut was becoming a little too busy attacking Spanish-owned Sicily and Calabria, and he wanted to teach him a lesson. And now the Order will suffer.’

‘And where is Spain’s High Admiral?’ asked Lymond. ‘Still at sea?’

Brought down from his high dudgeon the big man hesitated, and then grudgingly smiled. ‘Aye. After Dragut made a fool of him at sea in the spring, the Prince Doria found himself too desperately busy ferrying relatives of the Emperor back and forth to Spain to be able to fight.’ The smile went. ‘And so, since Sicily was unprotected, Charles got the Grand Master to send the Order’s galleys under Pied-de-Fer to Messina to stand by. They’re there yet.’

‘To return, of course, if Malta is attacked … backwards, if necessary,’ said Lymond. ‘Your one-eyed Grand Master must be a man of some character if he has your colleagues’ support for all this?’

‘He has a circle of Spanish knights like himself, more Imperialist than the Emperor,’ said de Villegagnon curtly. ‘With them, he can persuade the Supreme Council to vote as he wants. And he wants to obey the Pope and the Emperor and, if possible, to avoid accounting for any money he has spent in the last fifteen years. The real reason why he won’t fortify and won’t call in his knights is that the Treasury is empty. The Order has no money to keep it alive.’

‘Dear me,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘I am being taken to an unfortified island, where half the defenders and most of the defence fleet are missing, to lay down my life in defence of an Order incompetently if not culpably led, wholly divided among itself, given over to fighting for secular princes and entirely denuded of money with which to pay me for my services. Where are Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and Justice? Where are the Eight Beatitudes of that proud White Cross? Where are the Crusaders of yesteryear, chaste and highborn, dying in virginal joy for their vows? They sound,’ said Francis Crawford abstractedly, ‘just like the Kerrs.’

‘You are forgetting Gabriel,’ said the Chevalier de Villegagnon, and with a quick smile acknowledged that this was d’Aramon’s own given name. ‘Reid Malett—de la Valette—Romegas—the skeleton of the Order as it should be is in Malta still. Only there are not enough of us—yet.’

‘And once you have been decimated by Dragut, there’ll be none of you at all. Why not let Tripoli go?’ said Lymond.

‘Because the Order holds Malta by virtue of her readiness to defend Tripoli,’ said the Baron d’Aramon. ‘To give up Tripoli would displease the Emperor indeed. Do I gather,’ he said, studying Francis Crawford, ‘that the Constable of France has promised you a sum of money in exchange for your services in this war?’

‘He has promised me a sum of money, clearly illusory, for my services, it seems, against the Grand Master,’ said Lymond equably. ‘He is also hoping, unofficially no doubt, to convey to your Excellency that any gifts of gold about to be dispatched from the King of France to Turkey would be better delayed.’

Over the pale brown, fatless skin of the Ambassador a tired smile appeared. ‘Gentlemen, I am already late in embarking,’ he said. ‘And I may not even reach Turkey before the sailing season ends. But I know Dragut well. If what you fear comes to pass … and if I am in the vicinity, you can count on my help, at least to parley.’

‘Should anyone, of course, pause to parley,’ Francis Crawford pointed out.

*

Over the windless, hyacinthine sea, the galley
Sainte-Merveille
carried Lymond and de Villegagnon to Messina, the buzz and hiss of sheared foam on her beams. From the baked, frenetic shipyards of France, the white harbours of Ibiza and Minorca, the tawny shores of the African states, no corsair prince stirred from his palace; no lurking brigand hovered, hull down for a spice ship; no royal or imperial sea fortress set out to frighten the unwanted from the main shipping lane of the world. When the sea-wolves of Islâm were hunting, the small boats stayed on the beach.

Except one which nothing, not even Dragut, could deter; and assuredly not de Villegagnon’s modest galley, leaving Marseilles on a breathless day under oar, on roughly the publicized date when the Baron d’Aramon, French Ambassador to Turkey, was due to embark with his four, six, eight or ten muleloads of gold.

The
Sainte-Merveille
met her fate long after the French coast had sunk in the milky haze of midsummer heat, far to port. It looked peaceful enough: a fishing boat lying ahead, tilting on the greasy slopes of the swell, the bright caps of the fisherfolk swinging, doubled, in the sea and the vaporous air; their voices, deadened with space, rehearsing a chant.

Lymond, who on leaving Marseilles had found a solitary spot of shade on the rambade and was occupying it, his eyes shut in thought, opened them suddenly and rose. The fishing boat, rowed in a desultory way, was making slowly towards them. Then, under his eyes, the bright, capped heads slid in unison as the rowers produced a
sudden strong stroke, then another. Oars flashing, the tub shot forward into the bigger ship’s path. At the same moment, incredibly, from her broad painted sides there slid the long black muzzles of cannon, and a voice from her poop shouted, ‘
Stop!
’

The command, in French, was heard by everyone on the
Sainte-Merveille
, including de Villegagnon who, running down the rambade, flung himself, an arquebus weighting each hand, on the deck where Lymond still stood.

From the rogue ship the command was repeated. ‘
Stop! Or we fire!
’

The
Sainte-Merveille
had neither cannon nor soldiers. The
Sainte-Merveille
had over two hundred chained slaves, a handful of nervous seamen, a number of conciliatory officers, including the Master, and M. de Villegagnon’s party of six, including Lymond. There was also an assortment of bows, crossbows and arquebuses, which every ship in these waters carried, and which de Villegagnon’s men were hurling on deck as fast as they could.

‘We are within their range already,’ said the Chevalier, peering lengthwise through the iron pins of the prow rail. ‘If we veer or pass we shall simply make an even better target for those guns. I have issued orders that we run her down. If they let off their guns at close quarters, they’ll suffer almost as much as we shall.’

‘I don’t fancy,’ said Lymond, clearing his throat suddenly, ‘that they’ll fire at close quarters, or even at long range, for that matter. When they get broadside on, they’ll trust to their hackbuts.’

‘All right,’ said de Villegagnon abruptly. ‘We have the choice of flying and outstripping their aim, and shooting it out with hand weapons. I’d rather shoot.’

‘Well, they’re hoping that at least you don’t fly,’ said Lymond amiably. So far from accepting the weapon de Villegagnon had offered, he had remained standing, gazing over the rambade. Behind them, in the absence of reassurance, the rowers faltered, and abandoning the big beechwood sweeps, had broken into a cacophony of Arabic and dockyard French. The Master, taking responsibility on himself, exposed his head with sudden valour on the poop and yelled, ‘Do not shoot! We stop!’

‘Tell him,’ said Lymond mildly to the bo’s’n, above the subdued clatter of M. de Villegagnon handing out crossbows on the coursie, ‘that the Baron d’Aramon is still at Marseilles.’

Across the glassy water over which, now bright and plain, the pirate boat was approaching, the frantic information was relayed. It had a cool reception.

‘If that is so, throw your weapons in the water!’ came the fishing boat’s response.

‘Neat,’ commented Lymond, and looked down for agreement at
the railed platform where de Villegagnon now stood. But le Chevalier, at forty-one the survivor of more sea-fights than most, had already smelt the element of farce. And pinning his dignity to his instincts he rose to his full six feet four and, throwing his weapon uncharged to the deck, said, ‘I think, sir, that you know this boat?’

Without turning, Lymond grinned. ‘I know the joiner who fashioned the cannon.
Thompson!
’ He cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Holà, Tamsín! Sing the next verse in French if you dare!’

Visibly, on the approaching boat, the oars paused. Then a sharp voice, in very plain English, said, ‘Who the hell’s that?’

‘The guns—my God,’ said the Chevalier de Villegagnon suddenly. ‘The guns are painted rouleaux of wood.’

His smile deepening, Lymond hailed the pirate again. ‘Francis Crawford. Have you still got my agate seal?’

A burst of magnified laughter jolted its way across the narrowing gap. ‘I lost it at knuckle-banes in the old jail at Cork. Is yon hoited bairn’s bath-boatie yours?’ Close enough to see, the beery, black-bearded face under its cap radiated malevolent good nature over the corsair’s rail. The wood and canvas guns, a little damp at the edges, were being neatly run in.

‘It’s yourself!’ shouted the man in the cap, evidently locating Lymond at last, and downing his hailer, he placed both broad red fists with purpose on the ship’s wide deal rail. ‘Christ,’ said Lymond amused. ‘He’s going to make a most superior etching in wood.’

But Tamsín, alias Thompson, or the liveliest Scottish pirate un-hung on the roads between Argyll and Ireland, the Baltic, the Straits, or anywhere else for that matter, achieved faultlessly a leap over joppling deep-sea water that M. de Villegagnon did not care to contemplate, and landed head over heels on the
Sainte-Merveille
as his own ship, docile to anticipated order, retreated and kept her place a discreet distance off.

‘Francis Crawford!’ intoned Mr Thompson beatifically from the planks where he sat, and surging to his bare feet, wide-legged as a horse gypsy, embraced Lymond violently on either cheek. ‘Continental habits!’ shouted Mr Thompson, spitting neatly over the side, and stepping back, surveyed his friend. ‘Man, you’re a fine sicht. Hae ye a wife yet? I’ve got a lassie back there in Algiers that would dae ye a treat.’

‘How much?’ said Lymond instantly.

With an absent hand, Thompson pulled off the vile, salt-encrusted beret and scratched underneath. ‘Tell you what. Ye dinna want all they arblasters. Throw in the hackbuts and six oarsmen, my choice, and ye can have her. She’s rare at—’ said Mr Thompson, who believed in a specific bargain.

The Chevalier de Villegagnon, unstirred as a rule by frivolities,
suddenly found in himself an impulse to laugh. ‘Thompson’s oath?’ Lymond was saying, looking interested.

In a lightning movement involving his nose, his thumbs and his breast, the pirate ratified the data. ‘And other things too. It’s a bargain,’ he said.

‘Thompson, you’re a great friend,’ said Lymond soberly, and shook him by the hand. ‘It’s just that my other wives would object. Come and meet M. de Villegagnon of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, who nearly blew your cannon into sawdust a moment ago.’ And the man of commerce and the man of God, united in their devotion to chicanery at sea, clasped willing hands.