Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [180]
But Cormac O’Connor, that big wily brute, was also Thompson’s own partner in a neat little swindle whereby merchants insured ships and cargo they knew very well to be about to be robbed by Thompson and his friends, and afterwards got the insurance money and at least part of the cargo.
‘So you told me,’ had said Lymond pleasantly. ‘You didn’t tell me, however, that the Kerrs were clients of yours.’
He was a smart fellow, was that Crawford. ‘They werena,’ Thompson replied. ‘Not then. They are now. But if they’re boasting about it, I’ll cut their gizzards.’
‘They are, but I’ve warned them that you would do exactly that. You also said that George Paris acted as your joint agent.’
‘Aye.’ It was about George Paris, the well-known secret agent used so freely in the plots between Ireland and France to oust the English from Dublin, that he had to tell. ‘There’s a queer rumour come from the Irish exiles in London that’s just come to the ears of Desmond. I was there when he told O’Connor. The story goes that George Paris is a double agent.’
‘Oh?’ Lymond did not seem specially impressed. Thompson repeated gravely, ‘A double agent. Working for the English as well. Taking money from the Privy Council. Giving away, maybe, all the plans to throw the English out.’
‘Well, who’s worried?’ said Lymond. ‘France is trying to make friends with England; she won’t try anything silly now, whatever friend Cormac is hoping. The only Irish conspirators George Paris could denounce are rebels already, and the Scottish Government, while offering their wholehearted moral support, has done nothing very active to promote the said throwing-out. But if you’re anxious, why doesn’t Cormac tell his friend the Scottish Queen Mother, and she can have Paris imprisoned on some trumped-up charge?’
‘He’s in France,’ said Thompson, avoiding his eye.
‘He is now. But he was in London at the beginning of the year, handing over gifts from the French to the English King.… Jockie, my gentle écumeur de mer, that of course would be when the Privy Council agreed to employ him. Then he came up here and conspired with the Queen Mother. I was told he even sent rings and messages and secret expressions of profoundest goodwill to Cormac’s father in jail—the appalling deceiver,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘Why wasn’t the Queen Dowager told then? Oh Jockie, Cormac wants the money from the insurance parties, and can’t bear to lose Paris’s help? Ireland, Ireland! Where are your true sons now?’
Thompson was not, for the moment, amused. ‘I told him anyway that the woman O’Dwyer was deid,’ he said carelessly. ‘He didna ken she was taken to Tripoli, and he didna fancy the way he thinks you got rid of the lass in the end. I told him it wasna deliberate, but I doubt he’s no friend of yours.’
‘He never was,’ said Lymond. It was then, Thompson remembered, that he got up suddenly and pouring out a whole beakerful of aquavitæ, opened the pirate’s whiskered mouth with an iron forefinger and thumb, and emptied it in.
With the elegance of long practice, Thompson’s epiglottis went into action and the spirit flowed placidly down. At the end, ‘Ye didna need tae do that!’ said Jockie Thompson indignantly. ‘I can open ma mou’ without being helped to it.’
His hand falling, Lymond looked down and against his will, it seemed, laughed. ‘I suppose you can,’ he said, and tossing the cup away, walked to the window.
He walked, perhaps a little carefully, and his eyes were a little too bright; but the corsair’s gaze followed him, frankly admiring. What the embargo had been, who could tell? But there was no doubt about this. Francis Crawford could drink.
Then Lymond opened the window, and a man watched below.
*
If he had been watching still five minutes later, which he was not, he would have seen the candles snuff out as Thompson, fully clothed, rolled happily into bed; and just before that, the progress of a single taper from window to window as Lymond moved down the long gallery to his room.
From the shadows behind