Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [348]
The casement slammed on the wood, breaking the glass. And Philippa, her hands rammed over her ears, fled gasping from the window and crouched, her sobs rising in pitch against the bed while Kate, her breath stopped, dragged the hangings over the window and finding the bed knelt and hugged her, suppressing the noise with her closeness.
They were like that when Adam, running, found them and left, without words, to stride downstairs and tell the players, surprised and more than a little displeased, to remove themselves. He gave them all the money he had, and excuses. Then, slowly, he went back into the house and stayed in his room until all was quiet.
Much later Kate, looking very tired, scratched at his door. ‘She’s sleeping,’ she said.
He looked at her over the candlelight, and the flame stood in both pairs of eyes. ‘It can’t go on. Poor Austin,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Thank you, Adam, for what you did.’
He bowed his head a little. She gave him a small smile and then moved slowly out of his sight, with the light of the candles.
*
Upon them, in the first week of October came Sybilla, with Jerott and Archie, on her way home at last to Midculter.
They were within sight of the tall rose-red chimneys of Flaw Valleys, the short cavalcade bobbing behind them of servants and laden baggage mules in the familiar housings and liveries of azure and silver, when Sybilla put her hand on Jerott’s arm and said, ‘Help me down. I think she is coming.’
So she was standing, with Jerott beside her on the dusty slope of the hill, when the long-haired girl flying towards them came nearer, and slowing, walked until she was close enough for the travellers to see that this was indeed Philippa. Then Sybilla spread her hands and called, her clear voice spanning the distance between them, ‘He is safe.… He is safe.’ And the next moment, Philippa was there, and she was holding her.
*
One phrase upon which, as it turned out, the welcome of three wayfarers could be fuelled until at length, restored and refreshed, Sybilla could sit in Kate’s parlour and looking at the sober faces about her say, ‘You have been forbearing enough. Ask your questions. Jerott will have told you that Mr Guthrie and Mr Hoddim have gone to the keep at St Mary’s. Master Hislop is to sail later. My two sons are also in France.’
‘Together?’ said Adam.
‘Together,’ said Sybilla. She turned her wise eyes. ‘Philippa. You gave your husband a brevet to absent himself from his responsibilities. I have cancelled it.’
Adam looked at Jerott and then at Archie but neither, it seemed, was willing to meet his eyes. Philippa said, ‘He was ill.’
‘He was dying,’ said Jerott Blyth, his hollow eyes still on his hands. ‘Lady Culter persuaded him not to give up.’
‘In September?’ said Philippa. ‘On a Monday? On a Monday in September?’
Archie was looking at her. ‘Yes,’ said Sybilla. ‘It reached you, then. And you think me wrong, perhaps, as Jerott does. But it seemed to me that he has work to do which was not finished yet. Once, he made me a promise to do anything, to the end of his life, that I asked him. I held him to it.’
‘And?’ said Adam. Philippa was staring, her pupils enormous, at Lady Culter.
‘I made him promise to live,’ Sybilla said. ‘And to come back to Scotland.’
‘I think,’ said Philippa, ‘you have made it very hard for him.’
Kate said, ‘Philippa, you have been waiting for four weeks with your heart in your eyes, to hear whether he is alive.’
‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘Do you think I want this for myself?’
‘He is one of many good men,’ Sybilla said. ‘Would you put him first? Or if he has work to do, should he not do it? He is not blind: they say because of a blow on the head. But I think that, for some reason, he no longer needs his headaches.’
‘Or doesn’t care enough,’ Philippa said, without timbre. ‘Lady Culter, why can’t he stay in France?’
Jerott said, ‘The de Guises can’t afford to keep him in France. He went out of his way to become a popular idol. You saw him.’
‘He had, I think, a reason,’ Sybilla said. ‘And then when the reason no longer