Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [212]
‘The Bishop?’ Sybilla said, with composure.
He caught it, despite his deafness and the noise in the room, and laughed. ‘The Bishop? Yes, it is not a mishap so uncommon that the Church can afford to ignore it. Our friend Beaton’s uncle had … how many? Nine children? And Bishop Hepburn had ten, all, I am assured, by different mothers. Hislop has no need to feel shame. But I came to congratulate you on the skill of our host. He has assembled here not only the full number of those Scottish students I know best, but a cousin of my dear Will Lubias, all the way from Dieppe. We have been speaking of Honey Plums, and Arbroath Oslins, and wallflowers, yellow and bloody. As I remember, you at Midculter are also conducting a romance with horticulture?’
‘We are not so prolific as you with our Bon-Chréstiens,’ Sybilla said. ‘I’m glad you think Francis efficient, but I shouldn’t read too much into it. He was also proficient with Russians in London. The conducted tours of King Arthur’s Round Table, I am told, were a sensation.’
‘He is a man of energy,’ Bishop Reid said. ‘And will use that energy, for good or ill as we know, wherever he may be. Do I please you with the moderation of my language? A gentle bedewing instead of a glutting rain?’
Many years had passed since, as President of the Court of Session, the Bishop of Orkney had arraigned her son Francis for treason, and his language then had not been moderate. He had only been pursuing his duty, and she had come to understand and to be reconciled to it, as he had come in the end to respect, she thought, the man he had tried.
Sybilla said, ‘Yes, you please me. The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment. Richard, I think you should write that down while we all understand it. Tell me, what has stopped?’
‘The music,’ said Richard Crawford. ‘There was some music in the next gallery. It seems to have halted.’
‘They’ve come to the end of the pieces they know,’ offered Danny Hislop, mystically appearing in the Bishops company again. ‘Good evening, Lady Culter. We met in Edinburgh. If you say Favouzat, cavouzat, they may start playing again.’
Beneath Danny Hislop’s sparse sandy curls operated one of the brightest brains to grace Lymond’s company; but all the same, Sybilla had not reared three children for nothing. ‘Favouzat, cavouzat,’ she repeated promptly, her blue, limpid gaze on the little man.
The door opened.
‘Hercules?’ said Danny tremulously. ‘Isosceles? The Triangle? The Angel Apostate?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Richard Crawford dryly, and dropped to one knee. The rest of the company, ceasing to talk, turned variously and then sank likewise into obeisance.
In the doorway to the next gallery stood his young brother, fair and quiet in nacré velvet, with the black sash of St Michael knotted slanting from shoulder to waist and the Little Order glinting upon it. Beyond him glimmered the arched and gemmed headgear of his house-guests: the profile of the Maréchale de St André, and the lovely, composed face of a young woman: Catherine, Richard supposed. The heiress. And a beauty.
But although she was to marry Francis Crawford, Catherine d’Albon entered behind him. For by Lymond’s side as he moved into the long, scented gallery was his monarch, the fifteen-year-old Queen of Scotland.
‘… My mother, the Dowager Lady Culter,’ Lymond said. ‘And my elder brother, the Earl. Her grace honours us for a short time only.’ Below the sash and pinned by another decoration he was wearing a small doeskin glove, its cuff covered with jewels.
‘We met my lord Culter the other day,’ the Queen said. ‘You have recovered, Lady Culter, from your mishap? Our mother writes lovingly of all your family, and we remember well your kindness in Scotland. There was a riddle