The Disorderly Knights

by Dorothy Dunnett Book 3 in the The Lymond Chronicles series.

First published 1966

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In 1551, Lymond travels to Malta as the Knights Hospitaller face an Ottoman attack and internal failures of command. He meets the celebrated Scottish knight Graham Reid Malett, whose reputation for holiness conceals an ambition as formidable as Lymond’s own. Their rivalry continues in Scotland, where Malett’s influence over Lymond’s followers and family turns a military alliance into a personal war.

Malett is dangerous because his apparent virtue attracts the very loyalty Lymond normally commands. Malta and Scotland provide different arenas for the same contest over belief, charisma and power. Lymond must decide how to oppose a man whose public reputation makes accusation look like jealousy, while his followers confront the possibility that judgement can be corrupted by admiration as easily as by fear.