Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [49]
‘You say?’ said Lymond. ‘But these men know what they ask of you. To kill a royal commissioner, and not only at night. In broad daylight, where you may be recognized and caught, as I have caught you. For the risks you run, the reward must be riches undreamed of. What is it worth, to go through life footless? What do they pay you?’
There was a short silence. Then, ‘My name is Paul. They pay me three écus,’ said the boy thinly.
‘I see,’ said Lymond. ‘And what would you do, if you were paid with such an object as this lady’s girdle?’
Tears, stinging Philippa’s eyes, obscured her sight as she scrabbled to unhook her girdle. She held it out by the light of the archway, so that the skeined pearls all dimly glimmered, and the bullion tassel swung like a pendulum. Lymond said, ‘What are their names?’
The boy Paul said, ‘They would kill me.’ His eyes, shifting back and forth, followed the swing of the bullion.
‘I shall kill you,’ said Lymond, very softly.
There was a silence. Then the boy turned his head and spat. ‘I will tell you.’
The names were those of merchants, three in number. From Lymond’s face, Philippa could not tell if the answer surprised him. He listened, thoughtfully, and when the boy had finished he neither removed the sword nor asked Philippa to hand over the girdle. Instead he said, ‘What you say may be true. Now I require proof of it.’
The boy Paul started up, and then shrank back under the cut of the sword. He cried, ‘You said——’
‘I made a bargain,’ said Lymond coolly. ‘It remains to be seen whether you have kept your share of it. You will come back now to the Hôtel de Gouvernement, and you will remain there until my men have taken these merchants and searched them. So soon as your story is proved, you will be set free, along with the girdle. Until then, you are my prisoner … footless or dead, as you will.’
It was common sense: the simplest of precautions. Philippa, slowly reclasping her girdle, made no comment as Lymond withdrew the sword; as the boy crying and protesting was dragged to his feet and then, propelled in front, was made to stumble before them, along the rue Mercière towards the bridgehead. Only she said, gripping his cloak as they set off, ‘Who freed the boy? If the kitchen was locked, then who freed him? Jerott was sleeping.’
‘Marthe, of course,’ Lymond said. ‘The servants’ door is thick, but they would make quite a noise with their banging. By then, it was too late for the boy to find and warn his friends that we weren’t with our escort. He was bound to try and follow us, and probably try to kill us himself, if he could. After all, he had three écus to gain by it.’ He shook the boy. ‘Was that so?’
The boy Paul agreed. He had become very much quieter. Hazily, Philippa wondered, again, why Lymond had not admitted Marthe to his confidence. Why risk death for them both, when surely all he had to do was interview the boy there, in the kitchen? Unless, of course, he didn’t wish to embroil Marthe or Jerott. Or unless he didn’t trust them, which she didn’t want to believe. Or unless …
She had only got so far when Lymond’s cloak, with a tearing wrench, was ripped from her hand. The boy, she saw, had flung himself on the ground, breaking the grip on his collar. Then he sprang to his feet and set off, panting, into the darkness.
It was a slim hope, with Francis Crawford behind him. Lymond did not use his sword. But he used, without hesitation, all the other skills which permit an armed man to bring down an unarmed boy, flying; and then having knocked him to the ground, stood over and partly on him, another precaution undoubtedly wise. Philippa said, ‘He was lying?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Lymond. ‘I think he just doesn’t want to cross the bridge with us.’
There was a small silence. The boy Paul breathed heavily, exposing gapped teeth. His nose was running. Lymond said, ‘You were not the only paid assassin in the Hôtel Gaultier?’
They stared at one another. Then Paul shook his head.
‘There