baby to look after once, at the convent, and Maltese babies are very happy-natured, although of course they do neglect their eyes. Do you have a kind nurse for yours? Perhaps your wife’s own nurse? What is his name?’
The young, freckled face was completely solemn. With the echoes dimly in his ears of a hundred such exchanges with the old beldames of Lanarkshire, Richard Crawford said with equal gravity, ‘His name is Kevin, Mademoiselle. Kevin Crawford, Master of Culter.’
‘Your younger brother then no longer bears that title?’ de Villegagnon asked.
‘No. It is for the heir alone,’ said Richard. And after a moment he added, for Joleta’s benefit, ‘But under the circumstances, luckily for me, my brother Francis does not mind losing it. You must meet him,’ said Richard unguardedly, and then held his tongue. Francis, with his temper, his mistresses, his plunges into drunken adventuring, was alien to this kind of fun-loving innocence. For humanity’s sake, indeed, it was worth making quite an effort to keep these two apart.
*
On that midsummer voyage to Scotland with Joleta and Madame Donati, Lord Culter confirmed that Gabriel’s exquisite young sister was both quick and articulate. Every day, she and her governess ate with Richard and the captain, and then, clinging to poop and rambade, her mandarin hair flung like gauze to the wind, she would devise conundrums and riddles, puns and tales of fantasy to divert them both, which made Richard out of all character laugh aloud, while behind them, bench on bench, the rowers ravenously watched.
Evangelista Donati he also got to know. An Italian lady of unquestionable birth, Madame Donati had made her home on Malta for many years and had shared with the nuns of Joleta’s convent thetask of rearing the parentless child. Without resources of her own, she had been well paid for it, Richard assumed, by the girl’s brother.
Of Sir Graham Malett himself, Madame Donati spoke sparingly and with embarrassing reverence. Like all fighting men, Richard Crawford respected the Knights of St John, the soldiers of Christ who cared for the poor and the sick in Palestine, four hundred years before, and protected the pilgrims against the Saracen on their way to the Holy Land. To fight the Saracen and care for the sick remained the essence of the Order, even after Jerusalem fell and Acre was lost; and instead of defending the Holy Land the knights found themselves pushed into the isles of the Mediterranean, taking their hospital and their fighting men to Cyprus, then to Rhodes, and now to the island of Malta, halfway between Gibraltar and Cyprus, in the Mediterranean Sea.
Twenty-one years ago, the Order had received the gift of Malta from the Emperor Charles V, ‘in order that they might perform in peace the duties of their Religion for the benefit of the Christian community, and employ their forces and arms against the perfidious enemies of Holy Faith’. And so, men of all nations took their vows and went where in prayer and humility the Knights of the Order lived, nursed the poor and sick in their great hospital and fought to sweep the Turk out of the Mediterranean Sea and off the coast of North Africa.
From a land force, theirs became the finest sea-fighting school in the world. And from these medical knights, these pirate knights, these priestly knights with their holy vows and monastic seclusion on the sandstone rocks of Malta under the hot African sun, there came men like the Chevalier de Villegagnon, like Leone Strozzi, and like the knight Graham Malett, or Gabriel, Joleta’s brother.
Gabriel, Joleta’s brother, who after all these years was sending Joleta home to Scotland. ‘Home?’ said Madame Donati sardonically. ‘The child’s home is in Malta, in the sun. But he fears for her. There are always rumours, that this time the Turks will attack Malta, and that their fleet is so large, their Janissaries so ruthless, Dragut so invincible.…’
‘Dragut is only a
The young, freckled face was completely solemn. With the echoes dimly in his ears of a hundred such exchanges with the old beldames of Lanarkshire, Richard Crawford said with equal gravity, ‘His name is Kevin, Mademoiselle. Kevin Crawford, Master of Culter.’
‘Your younger brother then no longer bears that title?’ de Villegagnon asked.
‘No. It is for the heir alone,’ said Richard. And after a moment he added, for Joleta’s benefit, ‘But under the circumstances, luckily for me, my brother Francis does not mind losing it. You must meet him,’ said Richard unguardedly, and then held his tongue. Francis, with his temper, his mistresses, his plunges into drunken adventuring, was alien to this kind of fun-loving innocence. For humanity’s sake, indeed, it was worth making quite an effort to keep these two apart.
*
On that midsummer voyage to Scotland with Joleta and Madame Donati, Lord Culter confirmed that Gabriel’s exquisite young sister was both quick and articulate. Every day, she and her governess ate with Richard and the captain, and then, clinging to poop and rambade, her mandarin hair flung like gauze to the wind, she would devise conundrums and riddles, puns and tales of fantasy to divert them both, which made Richard out of all character laugh aloud, while behind them, bench on bench, the rowers ravenously watched.
Evangelista Donati he also got to know. An Italian lady of unquestionable birth, Madame Donati had made her home on Malta for many years and had shared with the nuns of Joleta’s convent thetask of rearing the parentless child. Without resources of her own, she had been well paid for it, Richard assumed, by the girl’s brother.
Of Sir Graham Malett himself, Madame Donati spoke sparingly and with embarrassing reverence. Like all fighting men, Richard Crawford respected the Knights of St John, the soldiers of Christ who cared for the poor and the sick in Palestine, four hundred years before, and protected the pilgrims against the Saracen on their way to the Holy Land. To fight the Saracen and care for the sick remained the essence of the Order, even after Jerusalem fell and Acre was lost; and instead of defending the Holy Land the knights found themselves pushed into the isles of the Mediterranean, taking their hospital and their fighting men to Cyprus, then to Rhodes, and now to the island of Malta, halfway between Gibraltar and Cyprus, in the Mediterranean Sea.
Twenty-one years ago, the Order had received the gift of Malta from the Emperor Charles V, ‘in order that they might perform in peace the duties of their Religion for the benefit of the Christian community, and employ their forces and arms against the perfidious enemies of Holy Faith’. And so, men of all nations took their vows and went where in prayer and humility the Knights of the Order lived, nursed the poor and sick in their great hospital and fought to sweep the Turk out of the Mediterranean Sea and off the coast of North Africa.
From a land force, theirs became the finest sea-fighting school in the world. And from these medical knights, these pirate knights, these priestly knights with their holy vows and monastic seclusion on the sandstone rocks of Malta under the hot African sun, there came men like the Chevalier de Villegagnon, like Leone Strozzi, and like the knight Graham Malett, or Gabriel, Joleta’s brother.
Gabriel, Joleta’s brother, who after all these years was sending Joleta home to Scotland. ‘Home?’ said Madame Donati sardonically. ‘The child’s home is in Malta, in the sun. But he fears for her. There are always rumours, that this time the Turks will attack Malta, and that their fleet is so large, their Janissaries so ruthless, Dragut so invincible.…’
‘Dragut is only a
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