Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [158]
The rain fell. For a moment Jerott stood petrified. Then he ran for his life over the courtyard.
Francis Crawford opened his eyes. ‘It’s all right,’ he said without moving. ‘The crucifix marque-vin. I’ve been as sick as a dog. I deserve to be, don’t you think? Poor, bloody Jerott, caught between bastards.’
He gave a sudden, violent shiver and, lifting his head from the stone, pulled himself up to sit forward. His hands covered his face. He was so close that Jerott could see the vibration in him: a steady trembling, subdued as the purr of a tomcat.
The effects, unpleasant but normal enough, of anger, and cold, and intemperance. For which Francis Crawford had himself only to blame. Himself and Marthe.
The rain beat Lymond’s darkened hair into his hands and the barmi produced Russian arpeggios of emerald fire, keyed to all the irregular gusts of his breathing. Beneath his hands, his lips were parted.
Jerott’s anger vanished. He placed his palm on the other man’s shoulder. The sleeve and the flesh under it were both badly chilled. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘You can use Adam’s rooms.’ His hand, moving upwards, drew the fair, tangled hair clear of Lymond’s eyes and checked, at the shudder that ran jarring through from his fingertips.
Lymond dropped his hands. He made no protest. He did not look up. But unimpeded at last, Jerott could see the look on his face and give it, sickeningly, its correct interpretation.
‘Oh God in heaven,’ said Jerott Blyth. ‘You bloody, arrogant fool …’ He sat back suddenly. His own arm, supporting him, was unsteady. ‘Why didn’t you accept Piero’s offer?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lymond said. It was not easy to hear him.
‘You ought to know!’ said Jerott wildly. ‘You’re not a priest. You fight. You live on your nerves as we all do. Then you can’t touch a girl, in case you leave your senses and take her. Is that what happened?’
‘I suppose so,’ Lymond said. ‘It might have bound me to her for life. It was what Marthe wanted. No light fame shalt thou carry to thy father’s ghosts …’
‘What?’ said Jerott.
‘… to have fallen under the weapon of Camilla.’
He didn’t explain. His lids were fringed like a girl’s. His tapering fingers, without defences, lay within touching distance. Jerott Blyth, rising to his knees and then to his feet, said, ‘Come quickly. I can get you a woman.’
‘If you know of a woman,’ Lymond said, ‘then go to her. What I want I can find for myself. You might perhaps, when you go, send for Archie.’
‘Sir?’ said a voice, uncannily apt, in the darkness. Jerott turned.
‘My lord count? Mr Crawford? M. de Sevigny?’
‘All of these,’ said Lymond dryly. He was shivering still. But he was also trying, Jerott saw, to collect himself. Jerott Blyth hesitated. Then he offered, leaning, an arm, and Lymond took it and stood, as the moving figure neared in the darkness.
It was Archie Abernethy, cloaked and half-dressed as when he had been roused at the Hôtel St André. He said, ‘What’s amiss?’ sharply.
‘Drink,’ said Lymond impartially. ‘The cutthroat of so many men’s lives, and the robber of purses. I have been compelled to render my gorge. I have recovered. What is your difficulty?’
Archie said, ‘Is that true?’ and Jerott answered his thought.
‘Yes. Nothing else happened. How did you know we were here?’
‘Mr Blacklock. He was worried,’ said Archie uncompromisingly. And to Lymond: ‘I’ve ill news. Are ye fit for it?’
‘A death,’ said Francis Crawford. He had thrown off Jerott’s arm.
You could see, in the darkness, the pity in the little man’s eyes.
‘Aye. It’s death,’ he said.
‘Then tell me,’ said Lymond. ‘Now, and quickly.’ The trembling had wholly stopped.
The black eyes of Archie fixed themselves on him in return. ‘Your mother and brother,’ he said. ‘Their ship has foundered.’
There was a little silence, during which Lymond made no movement.