Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
‘You have all the weapons,’ Sybilla said. Her voice, even yet, was quite steady. But then, she had been prepared for this also.
‘You don’t know what weapons I have,’ he said teasingly. ‘What other news is there, that might give you a moment’s amusement? Renée Jourda is dead; killed, I fear, because I went to see her. Philippa has paid a call at la Guiche and found it profitable, although she is not as practised as I am in guesswork. Turning to Isabelle Roset——’
He was interrupted by Richard, not by Sybilla. ‘You’ve kept Philippa here! She wrote Kate that she was leaving. What in hell are you doing? You’ve held that child for four years to this marriage!’
‘Then congratulate me,’ Lymond said. ‘I haven’t consummated it yet, but now d’Enghien’s dead I may be driven to it. Meydyns’ maryage wolde he spyll And take wyffus ageyn hor wyll. How about that, my own brother, my own bright light, thou Igor?’
‘And that is bombast,’ said Sybilla sharply. ‘Richard, pay no attention. She will be free after April. Then she can marry young Austin Grey.’
‘Do you think,’ said Lymond, ‘the youthful Mr Grey can consummate it? Or will her new passion for me perhaps flummox him? How nice to be married with … how many children, Richard? You don’t have quite this problem. You don’t have any problems really, do you, sitting there in your lordship pontificating? It seems to be beyond you even to get yourself decently drowned. What did it cost to get Alec Ross to indicate your demise? Or no: that was Sybilla’s doing.’
‘Her new passion!’ Sybilla said with great suddenness. ‘Be quiet and tell me. Has Philippa become in some way attached to you?’
He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Naturally, I am doing my best to discourage her.’ He had not meant to go so far. Kate, as well as Sybilla, would carry the scar of this news. He held her eyes and said clearly, ‘You have a great deal to be responsible for.’
‘She gave you birth,’ Richard said. ‘That was her first mistake. The next was to spoil you. So that everything you want, you must have immediately.’
‘I’m glad you noticed that,’ Lymond said. Tears, unexpectedly, sprang to Sybilla’s eyes but that, he thought, was shock. She had never ceased to command with her attitude.
She said sharply, ‘You are grown men, and have commanded men. Childish rivalry does you no credit. Francis is resentful because I chose a painful method of discovering his intentions. I wished to know them for his own good. If he found this intolerable, I can only apologize.’
It sounded well. It sounded rational, even, if you were not Francis Crawford. Put him, blindfold, in a closed room anywhere in the world …
Lymond said, ‘And that is your only excuse?’
And Sybilla met his gaze with eyes as uncompromising as his own. ‘I thought I was the excuse for your whole way of life?’ she said calmly.
And nothing had prepared him for that.
After a space he said, ‘And who do you blame for your mistakes? Isabelle’s master?’
‘That’s enough,’ Richard said. You could tell from his face that the allusion defeated him. His touchstone was the colour of Sybilla’s face.
Sybilla said, ‘I told you that you had all the weapons. Were we two other people, you would proceed to use them, and I should restrain and placate you in every way possible.’
‘… But we are two other people,’ Lymond said. ‘Aren’t we?’
There was a little pause. Then Sybilla said, ‘What you are, I am waiting for you to show me.’
Richard’s angry grey eyes … honest grey eyes … were looking at him. Sybilla was not watching. He supposed she knew that however near he might tread to the crevasse, he did not mean to fall in, and drag Richard with him. Instinct had been right, when last year he had fled such a confrontation. As no living soul could hurt him, Sybilla could.
‘What I am?’ he said. He laughed. ‘Don’t wait. Ask anyone in London, or Malta, or Russia.’ He made his way to the casement and flung it open. The rumour of a crowd, muffled hitherto by the windowpanes, burst fresh upon them.