Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [319]
‘It may be you are right,’ Guthrie said. ‘But we also perhaps saw a little that you didn’t see. She may have thought she was guided by fate, but in the end, I think she rebelled against the decree. In which case … she is likely better dead.’
After that, the loss of vision lasted all night, and the pain and the retching. Also, although he did not lose consciousness he could hear himself speaking, or raving, or discoursing in some fashion.
He tried to stop and succeeded, in the end, in making sensible human contact with Archie, who seemed to be bending over him, which meant his sight must be coming back. He was shivering violently and wringing wet with perspiration, as was the sheet under him. He said, ‘It can’t go on like this. Archie?’
‘No,’ said Archie. ‘It can’t go on. If you’re going to survive, you’ll have to buy peace. But you know the price of that kind already.’
For a long time Lymond was silent. Then he said, ‘You advise it? Will it work?’
‘For long enough,’ Archie said. ‘For a long time, if you’re careful. If we can lift the strain, your sight should come back completely.’
‘It sounds,’ said Francis Crawford, ‘as if we have nothing to lose.’
Archie left him. Lymond sat up. The first light of dawn was tingeing the cloth over his head and in the distance a bird was singing loudly, to be joined by another. In a moment the whole tissue of dawn song enclosed him. He shivered and, lifting his arms, peeled off the wet shirt and pulled round his shoulders the towel Archie had left by his bedside.
The tent looked and smelt like a hospital. Distaste wrinkled his nose. He got up, his head swimming and walked to the table where he had left his maps, and the orders for next day already written. Archie came in.
The smell of what he carried reached Lymond from where he stood: the pungent, desirable, terrible smell of the drug that had come near to killing him at Volos: from which, with the help of Jerott and Marthe, he had barely emerged with his reason.
Jerott’s voice, low and angry from the doorway, said, ‘What are you giving him?’
Archie’s hand closed over what he carried.
Lymond said, ‘Something to make me sleep. It’s all right, Jerott. What wakened you?’
‘The sound of Archie opening the drug cabinet,’ Jerott said. ‘And I saw what he took out from it.’ To Archie he said, ‘Open your hand.’
Archie looked at Lymond. Lymond said, ‘Open it.’
The streaked saffron cake of raw opium lay on his palm; enough for sleep, and sweet dreams and tranquillity for many nights. Jerott struck it; and when it fell to the floor, ground it under his heel in the carpet. ‘You bloody fool. You bloody fool, Francis. This is what started it all: don’t you remember? Archie didn’t hear you screaming at Volos. Archie simply let you have as much as you wanted, whenever …’
‘Don’t lose your head, Jerott,’ said Lymond wearily. ‘Archie only gave me what would keep me alive till we got out. He’s doing the same now. I shall fight a better battle full of opium than I should without it, I promise you.’
Jerott said, ‘Why should you fight a battle at all? A sick commander is excused the field. Go back to Sevigny.’
Lymond looked at him and Jerott paled, and then slowly coloured. He said, ‘There must be something else.’
Lymond straightened. He rubbed the towel round his shoulders and then tossing it at a hook walked back and stood before Jerott. Redder still, Jerott held his eyes angrily. Then Lymond smiled.
‘A dejective flag of truce. There is something else,’ he said. ‘Forget the opium. I think it is time that the French were reminded of what St Mary’s used to be, and what St Mary’s still is, and what St Mary’s can do that the lanzknechts can’t. Would you forgo another night’s sleep, if I asked you to?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerott. He looked a little dazed.
‘Good,’ said Lymond. ‘Then, if you would bring Alec and Danny and Fergie to my tent at midday, we shall plan ourselves a small expedition.’
‘And Lancelot?’ said Jerott cautiously.
Lymond grinned.