Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [138]
She knew who it was before he rode forward; before the light fell on his hated face. His skin was dark brown, she saw, so that all its lines were imprinted in white, and his eyes and teeth shone as he smiled.
Philippa’s eyes filled with angry tears. He was Francis Crawford of Lymond, the only man who could airily jest about an old woman battered to death in a ditch.
The boy started forward, blustering and explaining, but Philippa stayed where she was, her mouth shut, until suddenly he spoke to her direct. ‘Remember me? Your favourite Scotsman,’ he said. ‘And don’t pretend to be frightened. You Somervilles are as tough as old Romans.… Tell me one thing, Philippa. Did you follow Trotty here from Boghall?’
He had picked up the gist, then, of the boy’s story. It was exceedingly awkward. It was the worst kind of coincidence. It was damnable, thought Philippa, miserably daring. She replied, after a pause, ‘Yes. I’m staying with Lady Jenny. You might have called out to let me know who you were. I followed Trotty,’ said Philippa austerely, through chattering teeth, ‘because I was anxious to talk to her.’
She waited. Something light and warm flicked down over her shoulders—his cloak, she discovered. She had not quite the courage to throw it off. ‘Jerott here will carry you safely back to Boghall and the Mistress of France. Did you see who killed Trotty, Philippa?’
‘No.… They had gone some time before. I don’t know anything about it and I can go home by myself, thank you.’
Lymond stared at her. ‘I expect you can, but Jerott’s dead scared of the dark.’ And added the question that mattered, before she was ready. ‘Why did you want to speak to her, Philippa?’
Philippa Somerville’s large brown eyes became perfectly vacant. In Philippa Somerville’s obstinate head was a message for Lymond, given her by Tom Erskine who had learned it from this busy old woman. To withold it would hardly harm Francis Crawford. It would, however, given luck, lower his conceit not a little, and she had followed Trotty Luckup with the intention of learning much more.
It was too late now for that. Philippa cut her losses, and without shifting the wide, disingenuous gaze told her lie. ‘Trotty came to give comfort to Sir Thomas Erskine, and left before she could be paid or thanked, even. You know Lady Fleming wouldn’t think of it. I had money for her, that’s all.’
She had, luckily, in her purse. Lymond did not look at it. Instead he said sharply, ‘Comfort?’ as she had hoped.
‘Poor Sir Thomas is at Boghall with the sweating sickness,’ said Philippa sadly, and would have earned short shrift from Kate for the shoddy ring of her tone.
She earned even shorter from Lymond. ‘Since when?’ he shot at her, and then, ‘Jerott!’
The dark, cleanshaven young man behind stooped. Against the brief crack of Lymond’s voice she felt herself swung into the stranger’s saddle, while the boy hopped behind Francis Crawford; then the two horses swung round and set off at uncomfortable speed for Boghall, leaving the rest by the road.
Looking back at a bend, Philippa saw that, dismounted, they were already lifting the bundle of rags that was Trotty Luckup out of her gutter. In Philippa’s soft heart was true compassion for Trotty and a real grief for the Master of Erskine. But when, arrived at Boghall, she found priest and cousins, tardily come, in pale conference outside the sickroom and saw Jenny Fleming, tears silvering her tinted cheeks, fling her arms round Lymond’s neck, she realized first, that Tom Erskine was dead; and second, that Trotty Luckup’s small piece of gossip was her possession alone.
Trotty had intended it to warn Jamie Fleming. Tom Erskine had seen beyond it to trouble for Lymond. Philippa, sitting on her own private powder-keg, merely hoped he