Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [179]
‘… And,’ the old corsair was adding, pulling a face, ‘you’ll not be one nowadays for the lassies. Devil a rape; barely a wee lonesome damn. Jesus, it’s a wonder ye’ll sit with an auld hoor like myself.’
‘I’ll sit with you as long as I can stand you, but I’m damned if I’m going to bore myself to death launching imitation orgies to satisfy your sense of power,’ said Lymond without visible emotion. ‘If you’ve finished your unsavoury meal, then sit back and drink yourself into a coma while I attempt to dispose of our business.’
It was the signal for Culter to leave and he began to do so, with amusement, promising himself to find out later from Francis what had happened. Thompson’s voice, raised unexpectedly, halted him. ‘Aye. But I only do business with men.’
‘Obviously. With drunk men,’ said Lymond patiently. ‘I suppose you know if you take any more yourself you’ll be as full as a sow?’
‘I can hold it,’ said Thompson coldly, uplifting and emptying his cup in instant response. ‘It’s a right shame you’re feart. Ye’ll never know now, will ye, what the news is about Cormac O’Connor?’
Lymond’s eyes met his brother’s and Lord Culter, a little more sober than a moment before, achieved his withdrawal. Blacklock, who had not moved, said quietly, ‘Would you like us to leave?’ But before Lymond could answer, Thompson said jovially, ‘Leave? What for should ye leave? We’ve only St Mary’s business to discuss, if we even do that. I keep my gossip for a man who has a man’s way with liquor.’
In the ensuing brief silence, Jerott saw that Adam Blacklock’s attention was fixed on Francis Crawford, and that Lymond’s blue eyes were blazing with irritation and anger. Lymond said, his voice soft, ‘You’ve been too long at sea, butty. You need a lesson in shore drinking and shore manners both.’
And when Blacklock, his face anxious, made a sudden move to demur, Lymond turned on him, then rising, flung open the door. ‘… But let’s clear out the ranks of the sanctified first, before we exercise our inordinate appetites against the Lord God Almighty.’
And in silence, Jerott Blyth and Blacklock both left.
Long after midnight, a man waiting patiently in the dark courtyard of the inn saw the lit casement window of the pirate Thompson’s room swing slowly open, and Lymond stood silently there, his hand on the latch, the half-spent candles rimming his crisp hair with silver. The good smell of horses and leather, the stink of the midden, the night breathings of spring blossom and trees reached him out of the darkness.
Behind him, singing softly to himself, the pirate Thompson sat a little sunk in his chair, wet beard lost in wet beaver. He was not noticeably drunker than he had been over his supper: just a little hazy of smile and over friendly of manner. He had, in a sense, won. He had made Lymond drink with him, glass for glass, since the other three men had gone. Made him, in the sense that there was information which Francis Crawford badly wanted, and which Thompson’s own good sense of preservation had already warned him it was dangerous to give.
Once before, at Dumbarton, when for the price of a sapphire, he had purchased the woman Hough Isa, he had eluded Lymond’s questions on this preposterous ground. On the other hand, he liked the man. Lymond had done him good service at Tripoli, and he owed him an act of friendship. So, with his own brand of logic, Thompson had done the thing in his own way. If Lymond would let dignity go hang and crack a bottle—several bottles—with his old gossip, ending in whatever state of high foolishness he feared, Jockie Thompson would impart his tidings from Ireland.
And that was what he, Jockie Thompson, had done. He had started talking, in fact, a little earlier than he had meant, because they were drinking so blithely together, and his stories had gone over uncommonly well. So Lymond knew that he, Thompson, had been running arms and English harp groats into Ireland, and in the Earl of Desmond’s dank castle had made rendezvous with Cormac O’Connor, that well-known rebel whose father was in an English prison