Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [158]
‘Where did you hear that? It doesn’t matter. I merely thought it might be inconvenient to have to pay for them some day,’ said Lymond. ‘So what frightens you?’ And there was, Jerott noted, the slightest possible stress on the word ‘you’.
His elder brother, grey eyes level, held his gaze. ‘Perfection frightens me,’ he said. ‘They’re too good, Francis. What do you want this axe-edge for?’
‘To cut with,’ said Lymond, his voice mild. For a moment longer they considered one another without speaking, then, abandoning the contest, Richard began to talk of other things.
Later, Will Scott joined them with something like envy in his eyes, and Lymond led him to speak of Grizel and the children, and from there to the unrest on the Borders. However much the three Border Wardens of Scotland and their counterparts of England met and wrangled and meted out justice, the trouble went on. Lymond said, ‘If I were Warden, I’m damned if I wouldn’t pair you off. For every Kerr head cut off, a bone-headed Scott gets the chop. That would either stop you or obliterate you, in time.’
‘Well, well. Francis Crawford, in honest leather for once.’ It was Wat Scott of Buccleuch, Will’s father, scenting blood from afar. Bear shoulders braced and grizzled beard cocked, he straddled the wet russet grass. ‘And with Tom Erskine gone and the Scotts gone and the Crawfords hell-bent on stooters, where d’ye suppose the Queen Dowager will get all her help from? France! And let me tell you I’ve been yapped at by enough musk-stinkit Frenchmen in the last three-four years tae gar me boke at the name.’
‘Then for God’s sake stop killing Kerrs,’ said Lymond tartly. ‘It’s a signal for every other laird with inelastic opinions to treat a difference as a personal affront. A great and glorious nation of vindicated corpses: that’s us.’
‘That’s what Janet says,’ said Buccleuch gloomily. His energetic fourth wife (and son’s good-sister) was a cross he bore in cheerful despair. ‘Only in wee words.’ His expression brightened. ‘Have ye heard about Sybilla and the Italian woman?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Richard, visibly, was also cheered by a recollection. ‘Remember Madame Donati, Francis? Joleta’s duenna?’
‘La plus gaie demoiselle qui soit d’ici en Italie. If you insist, I do,’ said Lymond. ‘What of her?’
Under Richard Crawford’s benign eye, Buccleugh went purple, faded to scarlet, and when under normal aegis again said, ‘Well, she spoke in Italian to Joleta one day, the cheeky besom, while your mother was in the room, and not knowing that Sybilla’s fine little head is filled with useless information, she didna watch her tongue. So.…’
‘So the last thing my mother would do is betray that she understood Italian,’ said Lymond, amused. ‘What anyway was the insult, Wat, that could make a Buccleuch blush?’
Richard, serene as ever, came to Wat’s rescue. ‘Spare him, my dear. It was the old story. She thought you and I were remarkably unlike.’
‘And more, I would guess,’ said Lymond, unmoved. ‘So Sybilla found gentle revenge. How?’
‘By telling the Signora that Peter Cranston had a fortune,’ said Will Scott, and broke into howls of uninhibited laughter.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Lymond, his calm broken.
‘Aye. She’s after him like a deer at the rut,’ said Buccleuch, satisfied. ‘Takes a glass of wine at Cranston when riding near with dear Joleta, and lights enough candles on her hocks tae warm the cockles of his bead-clicking heart. He’s daft. She’s dafter. And isna Sybilla a wee love o’ a bitch?’
‘You say the nicest things about my mother,’ said Lymond. ‘Come in and have some wine, for God’s sake, and tell us who in your opinion is sleeping with whom, and what capital you’re going to make of it.’ And they went in, Jerott following with Will Scott and moreover listening to him.
*
Lymond left St Mary’s only once in those early weeks, to ride to Boghall Castle just after Margaret Erskine came home. The ostensible reason was to convoy a load of arms and saltpetre on its way inland from Leith, and Jerott went with him. By now it was clear that Gabriel, as usual, had