Villegagnon he said, ‘Ye’ll no credit it, but I’m proud to know ye. Hard experience was all the teacher I had, but to learn the way of the sea, there’s no school better than Malta.’
To Lymond he spoke in an undertone, the still lamps in the rigging showing briefly the thick nose and the clear, seaman’s eyes. ‘I’m no friend to Cormac, though I do business there when it suits me. Are ye for the sea-lanes yourself?’
Glimmering in the wide dark, Lymond’s head moved in negation. ‘I want to fight in Malta. I want to meet a man called Gabriel. And if I leave Malta, it’ll be to go back to my own army in Scotland.’
‘And your own ships?’ asked the pirate Thompson softly.
‘If I had a captain who would accept my command.’
There was a long silence. Then, ‘Since we were galley-slaves, no man has commanded me,’ said the man Thompson thoughtfully. ‘But that’s not to say I won’t come to it yet.’
Again there was a pause. Then in the darkness Lymond suddenly smiled, and clasping the older man briefly on the shoulder, stood aside to let him swing over the rail. For a moment longer, on both sides, voices were raised in farewell; then the night echoed to the pipe of the whistle, the repeating of orders, the creak of timber and the rhythmic swish as the oars took their swing; and the Sainte-Merveille and the pirate ship, drawing apart, slid phosphorescent into the night on their different tasks. And by the time the new day’s sun hung low and red in their faces, the Chevalier’s ship was well on the way to Sicily.
Nothing more stopped them. De Villegagnon, with grave concerns of his own, found his paid companion sober, self-contained and less than talkative, and was reassured. They reached Messina at the end of their voyage after sundown, pushed at last by a faint following wind which took them through the darkly fretted Tyrrhenian Sea, the white feather of Stromboli hanging in the blue sky to port. Then, rounding the point, they hit the stream in the Straits an hour after low tide, and cutting through the patched and eddying water off the Porto di Messina, entered the green elbow of the harbour itself.
Inside, rocking cheek to cheek with their yellow lanterns, their serried windows and gunports, lay merchant ships, ferries on the Calabrian run, the armed Imperial boats which Prince Doria had left there and, as d’Aramon had said, the Great Carrack of Rhodes and nearly all the small fleet of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, stirring like a poppy-field on the black water, the scarlet silk of their banners blooming lamplit like coals in the dark.
Earlier that day, when the first watch-tower had located them, and the small, fast boats from Messina had skimmed alongside to hail and identify, de Villegagnon had broken out on the Sainte-Merveille his blue personal standard with the three golden chevrons; and almost before the buffered sides of the galley touched the quay, a courier from the Emperor’s representative in Sicily, his escort and lamp-bearers beside him, was waiting to come aboard. Late as it was, his Excellency the Viceroy of Sicily desired M. de Villegagnon to call.
Lymond, it appeared, knew Messina well enough to find his own entertainment for the evening. Clothed in light braided silk, bought in France, he set off unescorted into the dark while the Chevalier de Villegagnon, dressed at last in his black robe with the Eight-Pointed Cross on his breast, walked ashore with his entourage and was led to the Viceregal house.
When confined to a seaport town awaiting action, there are relatively few resources open to an Order which may not gamble, may not indulge in excessive liquor and may not exorcise its impatience in the ordinary way at an écu a night, as each of the humblest of their seamen was able to do. Either staying aboard, or with friends or, if they could afford it, at an inn, the knights passed their time in prayer, in argument, in rehashing old sea fights
To Lymond he spoke in an undertone, the still lamps in the rigging showing briefly the thick nose and the clear, seaman’s eyes. ‘I’m no friend to Cormac, though I do business there when it suits me. Are ye for the sea-lanes yourself?’
Glimmering in the wide dark, Lymond’s head moved in negation. ‘I want to fight in Malta. I want to meet a man called Gabriel. And if I leave Malta, it’ll be to go back to my own army in Scotland.’
‘And your own ships?’ asked the pirate Thompson softly.
‘If I had a captain who would accept my command.’
There was a long silence. Then, ‘Since we were galley-slaves, no man has commanded me,’ said the man Thompson thoughtfully. ‘But that’s not to say I won’t come to it yet.’
Again there was a pause. Then in the darkness Lymond suddenly smiled, and clasping the older man briefly on the shoulder, stood aside to let him swing over the rail. For a moment longer, on both sides, voices were raised in farewell; then the night echoed to the pipe of the whistle, the repeating of orders, the creak of timber and the rhythmic swish as the oars took their swing; and the Sainte-Merveille and the pirate ship, drawing apart, slid phosphorescent into the night on their different tasks. And by the time the new day’s sun hung low and red in their faces, the Chevalier’s ship was well on the way to Sicily.
Nothing more stopped them. De Villegagnon, with grave concerns of his own, found his paid companion sober, self-contained and less than talkative, and was reassured. They reached Messina at the end of their voyage after sundown, pushed at last by a faint following wind which took them through the darkly fretted Tyrrhenian Sea, the white feather of Stromboli hanging in the blue sky to port. Then, rounding the point, they hit the stream in the Straits an hour after low tide, and cutting through the patched and eddying water off the Porto di Messina, entered the green elbow of the harbour itself.
Inside, rocking cheek to cheek with their yellow lanterns, their serried windows and gunports, lay merchant ships, ferries on the Calabrian run, the armed Imperial boats which Prince Doria had left there and, as d’Aramon had said, the Great Carrack of Rhodes and nearly all the small fleet of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, stirring like a poppy-field on the black water, the scarlet silk of their banners blooming lamplit like coals in the dark.
Earlier that day, when the first watch-tower had located them, and the small, fast boats from Messina had skimmed alongside to hail and identify, de Villegagnon had broken out on the Sainte-Merveille his blue personal standard with the three golden chevrons; and almost before the buffered sides of the galley touched the quay, a courier from the Emperor’s representative in Sicily, his escort and lamp-bearers beside him, was waiting to come aboard. Late as it was, his Excellency the Viceroy of Sicily desired M. de Villegagnon to call.
Lymond, it appeared, knew Messina well enough to find his own entertainment for the evening. Clothed in light braided silk, bought in France, he set off unescorted into the dark while the Chevalier de Villegagnon, dressed at last in his black robe with the Eight-Pointed Cross on his breast, walked ashore with his entourage and was led to the Viceregal house.
When confined to a seaport town awaiting action, there are relatively few resources open to an Order which may not gamble, may not indulge in excessive liquor and may not exorcise its impatience in the ordinary way at an écu a night, as each of the humblest of their seamen was able to do. Either staying aboard, or with friends or, if they could afford it, at an inn, the knights passed their time in prayer, in argument, in rehashing old sea fights
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