The Ringed Castle (76 page)

‘Damn!’ said Henry Sidney, dissatisfied. ‘I beg your pardon, Aunt Jane. Now where did it roll to?’

They played with it until they were called in to dinner, by which time the shadow of Richard Chancellor had temporarily vanished, even though Nicholas took his place at the board and was kept talking, briskly, by Philippa, while Lady Dormer steered Jenkinson and d’Harcourt to share their reminiscences of Malta.’ Henry Sidney leaned back while his wine was being poured and said to Lymond, ‘I met a friend of yours in Ireland, a man called Phelim O’LiamRoe. You won’t remember me in France, during the Northampton embassy. It was six years ago. You were rather occupied, I gather, in chastising Lennoxes.’

‘You know the story, then,’ Lymond said.

‘I know why the Lennox family dislike you quite so much, yes. I am glad you came back from Russia,’ said Henry Sidney. ‘Whatever befalls, I am sure you will handle it capably. But I was afraid for Mistress Philippa.’ He paused. ‘I have often wondered if Diccon Chancellor told you of the threat to his own life.’

‘The heresy charge?’ Lymond said. ‘No. Or not until we were already on the way home. He warned me of my own danger if I stayed on in Russia. In fact, if we must speak of it, he saved me from one attempt on my life. But you know him better than I do.’

It was difficult to continue against a resistance so adamant. Henry Sidney said, ‘The sledge race: I know. I have had it all at second hand from Rob Best. Did you ever discover who paid your captain to kill you? It is a matter which troubles me. The English colony over there is very small. A man who would murder a fellow countryman for money is a danger to the whole Muscovy Company.’

‘And you wish him disvisored. Yes, I know who it was,’ Lymond said. ‘And I promise you justice, once I have proof of it.’

Henry Sidney could read nothing in his profile; nothing in the hands dealing with his knife and his food. Sidney said, ‘Will you not tell me of your suspicions? Or at least Best and Jenkinson and Buckland, before you arrive back in Russia? It is Jenkinson and Best and Killingworth who will have to act for the Company, and bring the assassin to justice. Unless …’ He ceased speaking, his lips pursed.

‘Unless either Best or Killingworth is the culprit. Or Richard Grey, your other agent, who was with us at Lampozhnya.’ Lymond’s voice was perfectly calm. ‘If I told you, could you speak of him to your fellow members without betraying yourself? Perhaps you could. But I prefer to be certain. If it reassures you, I believe that he is quite harmless to all except me.’

‘Then you will be careful,’ Sidney said. ‘From what Will Petre tells me, the Tsar cannot afford to lose you. Perhaps you have heard that they have refused my whole order of gunpowder?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Lymond, ‘you don’t know the right people.’

‘Or read the right books,’ Sidney said. He turned and, stretching out his arm, lifted something from a table against the window behind him, and laid it beside Lymond’s plate. ‘I bought it back for you.’

It was the Cicero. For a moment, Lymond sat without touching it, then he lifted his eyes, for the first time, directly to Sidney’s. He said, ‘But I did not find him.’

‘Open it,’ Sidney said.

Inside the front cover, two lines of quotation had been added, below Lymond’s own name and the name of Pierre Gilles, the first owner. They had nothing to do with the Cicero. One was from Robert Thorne’s letter to King Henry VIII:
There is no land uninhabitable or sea unnavigable
. And the other was merely a phrase:
They made the whole world to hang in the air
.

‘But you tried,’ Sidney said. ‘I now wish to speak about owls, and this excellent theory of John Dee’s, that a mirror propelled into space at a speed greater than light should be able to reveal all history to us by reflection. M. d’Harcourt, do you favour the prospect of all your lightest actions being subjected to the scrutiny of your grandchildren? I have begun to shed all my vices already. Philippa, when he returns from Spain, you will have to watch your conduct with Don Alfonso.’

‘I have to watch it already,’ said Philippa gloomily. ‘Don Alfonso is the first thing any mirror would pick out; like a cake with periwinkles on it. Have you noticed my hat?’

‘I have noticed,’ said Henry kindly, ‘that you are wearing a sock with a tassel in scarlet. I thought it better not to refer to it. Spanish?’

‘Spanish,’ said Philippa.

‘The Count of Feria,’ said Lady Dormer, ‘has given my dear Jane a diamond.’

The company murmured its approbation. ‘And there you have it,’ said Philippa, turning her brown eyes owl-like to Lymond. ‘Jane Dormer gets diamonds and I receive socks.’

He turned and looked at her, his face perfectly blank. Then he said, ‘Where are you wearing the other one?’

Her eyes, staring at his, were equally expressionless. ‘I keep my dowry in it,’ she said.

He studied the smart little cap below which, for once, she had allowed her brown hair to hang loose. ‘Forgive my scepticism,’ he said, ‘but is it big enough?’

‘My head,’ said Philippa, ‘does not require a large hat. And a Somerville cranium brings its own dowry. Moscow does not have a monopoly of females with compounding assets.’

‘No. The world is full of them,’ Lymond said. ‘But not usually borne in the head. Robert Best is as good as a play, isn’t he? What else has he told you?’

‘Why?’ said Philippa. ‘Shall I be shocked?’ She reflected. ‘
Could I
be shocked?’

‘After Suleiman’s harem? I should think it unlikely,’ Lymond said. ‘I was simply afraid you would explain it all too clearly to poor Robert Best. Your wedding night, sweet Philippa, is going to be a revelation to someone.’

‘When I wriggle up from the bottom of the bed? Do they do that in——’

‘Lady Dormer,’ said Lymond, ‘is listening to you.’

‘She is watching me. She is listening to M. d’Harcourt. Why do you call him M. d’Harcourt? You called Jerott Jerott.’

‘I called Jerott a great deal worse than that. His name is Ludovic. You will like him. He doesn’t like eagles.’

‘Slata Baba? Did you call her Slata or Baba?’ Philippa said. ‘Or was she exempt, since she couldn’t presume on acquaintance?’

Francis Crawford turned to her and laid down his knife. ‘Philippa Somerville,’ he said. ‘Will you kindly take a new sight for your cannon? You see me beaten quite flat to the groundsilling. Try Mr Jenkinson. He may understand Persian love-poetry.’

‘With internal rhymes?’ Philippa said. ‘What about the most copious and elegant language in the world, the Sclavonian tongue? Or is Baida the only man to have ballads sung for him? No odes to the Voevoda Bolshoia?’

‘Incantations,’ Lymond said. ‘Wisdom in the form of counterfeit pearls of dried fish eyes, to accompany the votive offerings.’

‘Travelling about in a wheeled cult-vehicle known as St Mary’s, to the sound of imprecations.… Do I frighten you?’ said Philippa.

‘Yes,’ Lymond said.

‘That’s odd. I don’t frighten Austin Grey. The Lion in Affrik and the Bear in Sarmatia are fierce, but——’

‘… but Translated into a Contrary Heaven, are of less strength and courage. It is not necessary, Mistress Somerville, for the heaven to be quite so contrary. Are you looking forward to Greenwich?’

‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘The Queen has a cold. She isn’t appearing in public.’

‘And King Philip is arranging to go hunting with the Duchesses of Lorraine and Parma?’ Lymond said. ‘How is Cardinal Pole treating the delicate problem of King Philip’s threats to His Holiness?’

Philippa glanced at Lady Dormer and smiled, while diplomatically lowering her voice. ‘As Papal Legate, he publicly failed to give King Philip the formal welcome which was his due. In private, he called on him later to apologize.’

‘And the Queen?’ Lymond said.

For a moment, Philippa was silent. Then she said, ‘The Queen has written to Rome, expressing great regret at the rupture between His Holiness and the King her consort, especially as she had done so much to return England to its devotion to the Church. And she excused herself for giving King Philip her help, as she couldn’t do otherwise.’

Lymond said, ‘They talk of war when the harvest is in.’

The chatter all round the tabled covered their words. Lady Dormer, assuming them launched on a battle of words, had not attempted to separate them. Philippa said, ‘Sooner than that.’

Lymond gave his attention to the meal. ‘Can you tell me?’

She said, ‘There is a plot afoot, among the English rebels in France. The English Council know all the circumstances. If … the threatened event occurs, the blame will fall on France, whether the King was truly implicated or not. And if that happens, it may move English popular feeling at last towards war.’

‘Against the Pope?’ Lymond said.

‘Against the French. It is the same thing,’ said Philippa. ‘I am not looking forward to Greenwich. And my advice to anyone with a shipload of munitions would be to sail. To sail quickly, before you are stopped.’

‘I shall be gone in three weeks,’ Lymond said.

‘And I before that,’ said Henry Sidney, catching it. ‘Aunt Jane, I have an errand. May I steal some of your guests to befriend me?’

His journey was only to Blackfriars, a few minutes down-river from Lady Dormer’s. His errand was merely to talk to a man about hangings. And because the place of his appointment was the Office of the Revels and Masques, Mistress Philippa begged to go with him, on a matter, he understood, to do with feathers.

Sir Henry had hoped to have a few minutes’ quiet conversation with Mr Crawford. Mr Crawford, perhaps, had hoped the same. But in the event, five of Lady Dormer’s dinner guests took leave of her presently and embarked for Blackfriars: Sir Henry and Mr Crawford, Philippa Somerville and Ludovic d’Harcourt and the boy Nicholas Chancellor who had never, he said, been in the Storehouse of the Revels. And since it was a sunny, sparkling day and the company was both gay and congenial, Sir Henry smiled and let affairs take their course.

It was a short journey, and more fateful than any one of them knew. A journey inevitable from the day Francis Crawford was born, and set firm in his stars where already old eyes had distinguished it and younger eyes, also far-seeing, had chosen to ignore and defy it.

Of its significance he himself had no inkling when he set out, relaxed by the company a trifle more than was usually possible; his quilted
shirt sleeves white in the sun under his sleeveless green jerkin; his sunlit head sheathed in his high, elegant collar. The two barges rocked at the steps, their four oarsmen waiting, and Philippa’s maligned scarlet sock unbent and flew like an ensign in battle as she took her place under the bow hood and settled down, confidentially, beside Lymond. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’

He eyed her warily, in the way she had learned to mistrust. ‘You aren’t devoted to feathers?’

‘I can take them’ said Philippa, ‘or leave them. I wanted to speak about Lady Lennox and the Angus inheritance. Queen Mary has had a letter from the Queen Dowager of Scotland.’

‘Yes?’ Lymond said. Sir Henry had stepped into the other barge, and Nicholas had followed suit. Ludovic d’Harcourt was still to come.

‘The Scottish Queen Dowager says that she has given favourable audience to Dr Laurence Hussey, appointed by the Privy Council at our Queen Mary’s insistence to break ground for Lady Lennox’s claim to the Angus castles and property in Scotland. And that she has now opened justice to him and given express command that the Chancellery shall be patent to Lady Margaret. That means she is to be permitted a Chancery suit on the matter.’

‘I know,’ Lymond said. ‘In fact, I have, back at Fenchurch Street, a packet I received from the French Ambassador yesterday. It contains a statement sent by Lady Lennox to Scotland, clearing you of all implication in any untoward passage of information between the two countries. I assume you know of the bargain because you are in ceaseless communication with your mother?’

‘Yes,’ Philippa said; and shook the sock free of her shoulder. Kate
had told
her of that particular bargain. Kate had told her also of the letter from Lymond to Lord Culter, invoking him by his full name and addressing him nowhere as
brother
. Of what had happened at their last meeting, or at Berwick, there had been no mention either: merely the outline of Philippa’s present predicament, and the further outline of how Lord Culter, if he so pleased, could help her. And Lymond had signed, omitting pointless civilities, with his surnames.

She did not know, for Kate did not tell her, that there was no answering letter from Richard Crawford. Only the required document, forwarded by the French Ambassador the day before, and a small parcel with Culter’s seal on it. And even had she seen what the parcel contained, which was merely a trinket, a crested rose-bush with a single black rose set in silver, she would have been none the wiser.

But Lymond, who did know what it meant, raised his eyebrows at the girl and said, ‘So that at least is happily concluded. Was that all you wanted to tell me? I think d’Harcourt is about to step in.’

And Philippa said, ‘Oh. I shall tell you later. It’s about Michael Surian, the new Ambassador from Venice to England. He came to Court on the 5th … Mr d’Harcourt, Sir Henry is calling you.’

‘No, I think he’s calling you,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said. ‘He says if you’ll cross to his barge, we can take this one home down river afterwards.’ And taking Philippa’s place: ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said to Lymond.

‘About feathers,’ said Lymond, his shoulders restfully propped on the cushions. They had begun to move: the grey river wall of the Savoy Palace, green with weed, slid off behind them.

The barge was really too small for d’Harcourt. He stretched his legs, and then folded them under him; then, bumping his cap on the hood, he felt for and straightened it, smoothing the wild, tightly curled hair. He said, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me. But I heard what you and Sir Henry were discussing at table. You think you know who attacked you in Russia.’

‘Well?’ said Lymond. He looked, if anything, bored.

The fresh face beside him was grim. ‘I know you don’t trust me,’ d’Harcourt said. ‘Probably you don’t trust any of us. Since the day we joined you, you’ve kept us all at our distance, and I don’t say I blame you. You talked to Sir Henry as if your killer was bound to be one of the Muscovy Company in Russia.’