The Game of Kings (43 page)

“No,” said Sybilla, and returned the compliment. “And what’s happened to you? You look as if you’d been boiled in a pot with a Pasque flower.”

Sir Wat’s beard lurched sideways, a sure sign of embarrassment, and he crowed again. A glimmer of amusement shone in the Dowager’s wan face. “Come on, Wat. Something to do with my family?”

Guilt and a sort of nervous self-satisfaction struggled on Buccleuch’s face. “You’ll want to kick my bottom through my merrythought,” he warned. “And Dod, I’m telling you: you’ll have an a priori case for it.”

“What have you done?”

“I’ve had that lunatic Culter stotted into a punishment cell under close arrest!”

“What!”

“It’s a fact,” said Buccleuch with undisguised pleasure. “You’ve no idea, Sybilla! He’s been flouting orders right and left—he shouldn’t have left the Queen to go to Crumhaugh in the first place; and since he came in today—”

“He kept the Queen waiting: I know.”

“Dod, yes: pages running about on their shinbones and he ups and flits; but that was the least of it. When he did come in he began by snapping the faces off the lot of us, and then stalked through and told her Majesty that he wasn’t just ready to do what she wanted.”

“Which was?”

“Oh, to ride through to Edinburgh and help the Governor who’s in a stoory panic because he’s expecting Lord Grey and the English to march in again on the hour like the bell for Prime. You know Arran. So does everyone else, but no one’s going to tell the Queen that he’s a jelly-footed puddock with his wits in his wame.”

“Good God!” said Sybilla. “Did Richard?”

“Not just in so many words,” allowed Sir Wat. “But he was damned rude. He couldna see the need to go; he didn’t have the time for it; he wouldna go; he wouldna say why: Peely-whatsit on Ossy-whatsit until the de Guise, who has a strippit tongue in her head herself, snapped that she supposed the affairs of his womenfolk were claiming all his attention.”

“Oh, good Lord!” said Sybilla weakly. “Did he knock her down and jump on her?”

“Well, hardly,” said Buccleuch, eying the Dowager with a touch of curiosity. “But he sucked in his cheeks, looked her up and down, and said that she could think what she pleased, but he had done his share of work for the King of France and wasn’t doing any more. And then—well, Dod,” said Sir Wat defiantly,
“someone
had to take a hand—”

“So you exercised your usual tact.”

“Well. I said that likely enough Lord Culter was anxious to lay hands on that brother of his, which would be doing a public service—”

“Quite. You’re an unprincipled ruffian, Wat,” said Sybilla. “And of course, seeing that Richard had already disobeyed her because of a private family feud—”

“She told him what she thought of him and his loyalty, and he answered back. Man, I havena heard him speak so many words at the ae time since I taught him all the verses of Sir Guy—and the upshot was, he was clappit below.”

“At Buccleuch’s suggestion.”

“I wasna exactly holding them off,” admitted Sir Wat. “Are ye mad at me?”

Sybilla looked at him a little sadly. “On the contrary,” she said. “I wish I had thought of it first.”

From Sir Wat, she went straight to her own room. Before nightfall, with the Queen’s permission, and Sym, borrowed from Christian, riding at her back, the Dowager had left Dumbarton and was travelling quickly south.

Deep in the rock of the castle, the room Richard now occupied was not unpleasant. It was barred, and there was not overmuch furniture; but it was possible to sit and read in relative comfort, and his jailers served him respectfully and well.

Later, they left him alone. Sounds of the world faded early outside, and the cool night air, flowing through the clenched bars, whispered peacefully.

“Slippers?” asked Kate Somerville.

“Yes.”

“Razor?”

“Yes.”

“The blue doublet?”

“I knew it!” said Kate triumphantly, and whipped open the case. Artfully concealed beneath the top layer of clothing was an antique and greasy garment which, shaken out, assumed the shape of a shambling and corpulent Gideon, unlike and yet hideously familiar. “This year,” said Kate, “the maids will have blue dusters. It’s snowing again. Don’t you wish you were staying at home?”

Gideon, introduced to fresh misery, groaned. He glanced at the shopping list his wife had tossed to him, and groaned again. “Why you should believe that the shops in London will be any better than the shops in Newcastle …”

“I don’t suppose they are,” said Kate frankly. “But if I go to Newcastle I pay for it; whereas if you buy it in London, you do.…”

Gideon Somerville had no desire to go to London with Lord Grey. Since the curious December episode of the cattle raid, the winter at Flaw Valleys had passed in snow and relative peace. He set out now
because he would not ignore a summons from the Lord Lieutenant, who was uneasy about his command, and who would not rest until he had laid his troubles before the Protector himself.

While he and Lord Grey were on their way south, the Protector issued a proclamation in the boy King’s name to the gentlemen in his main recruiting shires.

The Protector also sent for the Earl and Countess of Lennox.

*  *  *

As all Scotland now knew, Mariotta was brought to Lymond’s headquarters, and laid in the Tower. The surgeon came; her son was lost; the surgeon left. Alone of all the people involved, Lymond himself knew nothing of these things. A week before Richard’s arrival at Dumbarton, Lymond left Dalkeith at last and rode through the snowy goldfields to the Tower.

He heard the news from Turkey, almost in silence; then climbed the stairs slowly to his room.

Sitting before the fire, a sweet and ample vision of pink and gold, was Molly. Divorced from the glittering background of the Ostrich, the shining hair and limpid eyes were emblems of innocence: she looked as if she had been attending decumbitures all her life.

As Lymond came in she pulled herself out of her chair and, holding him in her warm embrace, kissed him lightly and drew him to the fire. Then, signing for silence, she moved quietly to the intervening door into Will’s room, and shut it. “The girl is in there,” she said, and came back and seated herself beside him.

“How is she?”

“Fair enough. You heard we got a doctor?”

“So I heard.”

“Yes. Well, it was that boy of yours, Scott, who insisted. Incidentally—”

“Yes?”

She hesitated. “It was the same boy who came to fetch me from the Ostrich. Did you know he also had business with Dandy Hunter?”

The preoccupied blue eyes came up, fast. “Tell me.”

Molly shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. Hunter spent nearly a week with us, for no very good reason, and seemed to have a lot of questions to ask on some curious subjects. Joan saw Scott speaking to him the night he came for me.”

“Did she hear?”

Molly smiled. The Ostrich’s entrails were drumskins and sounding boards, as they both knew. She gave him a verbatim account of the talk between Scott and Hunter, and he listened without comment. At the end she said, “Take care. Hunter is a lot wiser than the child. It could mean trouble.”

The fair face did not change. “It means trouble, of course: what else? Without trouble, how could we live? There the thorne is thikkest to buylden and brede.”

“Yes; well … Watch that the thorns don’t get too thick.… This is damned awkward for you, isn’t it?” she asked, suddenly. “The brat’s dead, and there’s an inheritance in the wind, and the girl talks of nothing but Crawford of Lymond.”

There was a brief silence, then he said, “Does she? I hope you preserved the myth: I shall enjoy being worshipped. In any case, it was good of you to come, my orchard of jewels. Can you stay for a little yet?”

“For you, I will,” said Molly comfortably. “I never bring you trouble, do I?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No. And by God, I think you’re the only living person who doesn’t. Come along, my hinny, and I’ll take you below to a worthy supper.”

He held open the door and Molly, her eyes as bright as her diamonds, sailed downstairs like a whole cloudy sunset stooping to the sea.

*  *  *

Mariotta had heard his voice. But it was nearly a week before, sitting wrapped in a chair by the window, she heard his footsteps cross the inner room and knew that at last he was coming to seek her.

For some days now, the pain had gone; and the feverish dreams.
Coming out of the racking darkness she had no idea at first where she was; then the fat, soft-voiced woman with the jewels had told her, and her empty body and numbed mind became inhabited with only one idea: to bathe her hurt pride and rejected love in the warm tides of Lymond’s admiration.

The child was dead. It had never been anything to her but the final proof of Richard’s marital philosophy, and she found a bitter pleasure in thinking that in this, at least, she had thwarted him. When she needed help, it was Lymond who had come, and not Richard. Lymond …

And on the thought, he knocked, and opened her door. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.

He was meticulously dressed: not at all as she had first seen him; his hair crisp and neat, his linen immaculate. But the half-hidden eyes and flying mouth were the same.

“I am generally tidy when sober,” he said, answering her eyes instead of her voice. He walked over and leaned on the wall beside her. “I’m not a very good doctor, I’m afraid. I’m sorry about the child. But I hear you are better.”

She was perplexed, then her brow cleared. “But didn’t you know I had left Richard?”

For an instant his surprise showed.
“Left
Richard? Why?”

“We quarrelled,” she said. “He’s obsessed with the idea of hunting … of … “Her fumbling fingers touched the brooch of her night robe, and she ended incoherently. “And I told him about the jewels. They took them at Annan. I’m sorry. This is all I have left.”

Lymond’s eyes were on the diamonds. He said slowly, “I see. When you were captured, were you trying to find me?”

“Not quite—but—but I thought Dandy Hunter might look after me until you—if you found out where I was, or sent me any more—” She stopped, exhausted by the difficulty of gracefully shaping a surprisingly awkward situation. Then she added more firmly, “I don’t at all want any more jewels. You must understand that. I would have made you take them all back in any case. But I thought—” Again she stopped.

“What did you think?”

“That you are so much cleverer than Richard, and I could talk to you. I used to talk to Dandy,” she went on, her eyes overbright, “but he wasn’t at Ballaggan, and I was wondering what to do when the English came, and then your men came for me, and the pain
came on—I’m sorry,” said Mariotta painfully, bright colour in either cheek. “Perhaps you didn’t know about the baby.”

The younger Crawford turned his head away. Without answering, he walked to the mantelpiece, planted his elbows on it and sealed his eyes slantwise with his hands. Then he said, “Let’s clear away the ground rubble first. What exactly did you and Richard quarrel about?”

Her face drooped. “It’s too complicated,” she said peevishly.

“Never mind. Tell me exactly what it was.” He released his hands and, turning, sat down not far from her chair. “Now. You said you wanted to talk.”

So she told him. As she related the desertions and the disappointments, the disagreements and the follies which had stripped her of contentment and driven her to revolt, Lymond studied the floor. She told of her first emotions about his presents; of her decision not to tell about them; of the ultimate quarrel where Richard had instantly believed the worst of her. She ended with the same superb naïveté. “So you see, I could hardly stay, after that.”

He was on his feet, in a silent, characteristic movement, pacing to the other end of the room and back; looking down on her black hair and upraised lashes. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Don’t you think,” said Lymond, “that I seem to be the disruptive serpent of the Ophites and not Richard? The exciting prospect of punishing me seems to have been the mainspring of all the poor man’s peccadilloes.”

The violet eyes were solemn. “He’d give you no chance,” said Mariotta. “He hates you because you’re different.… That’s unjust; and I despise him for that the worst of all.”

The blue eyes, supremely adult, were seraphic. “What, for lack of family feeling? If you’ll forgive my reminding you, the boy is only a beginner.”

It was true: she had forgotten the burning of Midculter. But she retorted, “You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“All I ask in this world,” said Lymond a shade grimly, “is half an hour when I don’t know what I’m doing; but no one has granted me the privilege yet.”

“I could help you.” She leaned over suddenly and caught one of his hands; he surrendered it with perfect indifference, saying, “You have an entrancing and hagioscopic view of my character that is entirely your own. Do I understand that you are proposing to join
the Portugese Men of War? Because if so, I shall have to tell Molly.”

“Molly?”

“The woman who is looking after you. She keeps a bawdyhouse in England, and while I’m extremely flattered, I can’t have my dearest friendships upset just to irk Richard.”

She smiled shakily. “You’re trying to frighten me for my own good.”

Lymond spoke happily. “On the contrary. It’s most important that you should stay here until you’re quite well. After all, I’ve gone to a good deal of trouble to get you—unlike Richard, I hold my women in fondest esteem.”

He withdrew the hand she was holding and stretched it thoughtfully before him, its beauty of shape, the long fingers and fine bones totally cancelled by the weals on the palm. “It’s a pity, isn’t it? I was a galley-slave for two years after they found out about Solway Moss, and we had two very calm summers. I used to think a good deal then about our modest yeoman enjoying his lordship at Midculter.”