Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [203]
‘I see her duenna is here, anyway,’ said Margaret quickly. Sybilla in trouble was something she hated to see.
‘Well, it’s a funeral, of course,’ said the Dowager Lady Culter, looking across the hazy candlelit interior of Biggar’s new Collegiate Church to where Evangelista Donati, smooth black head bent and sallow face hidden, knelt at the side of an eager, small man in over-trimmed clothes. ‘And Peter Cranston is here. The combination of religious misery and Peter Cranston would be quite irresistible. Anyway, Graham Malett wanted to talk to his sister alone, so she won’t be missed. It’s rather sad, in a way,’ said Sybilla reflectively. ‘I shouldn’t miss her though. I don’t suppose anyone would, in fact, except Peter Cranston, and he can always fill in by counting his beads or his money, or both. I must be kinder to her. I shouldn’t like to be a person no one missed.’
Which, thought Margaret Erskine, was the height of charity, considering the lady and her charge had both been domiciled almost without a break at Midculter for something like nine months, and during that time Madame Donati’s only contribution had been to make a disparaging, not to say suggestive remark in Italian about Sybilla’s two sons.
*
In the middle of June, Gabriel left to represent Jimmy Sandilands at a meeting with the Queen Mother at Falkland, and since there was for once no immediate task in hand and some sign, by then, that his deliberate reign of terror was nearer provoking rebellion than the angry vigour he wished, Lymond allowed some of his staff to go on furlough, the knights, Bell and Fergie Hoddim among them, and supplied a modicum of work for the rest.
Then, with the Moor, Abernethy and a few men-at-arms, Lymond left for Flaw Valleys on a hot summer day that recalled the blue shores of Birgu, less than twelve months before.
On his way, he made a number of calls on all the big lairds of the Border and one woman: Janet Beaton, Lady of Buccleuch. It was not for the first time. Since Will’s death, Lymond had never entered Branxholm when Will’s father was there, although he had visited Kincurd at once, and face to face with Grizel Beaton, Janet’s sister and Will’s widow, had given her an objective and accurate account of how her husband had died. She had thanked him with her usual reserve, her eyes wet, and had added, ‘I understand. It was bound to come. You have nothing to accuse yourself of.’ It was a phrase with which he was not unfamiliar.
Soon after that, making sure the old man was away, Lymond had sent Tosh to Buccleuch’s wife Janet at Branxholm to ask if she would see him. She did, and after castigating her husband and Lymond both for an acid five minutes, agreed at once to what Lymond proposed. When he left, Thomas Wishart stayed behind, ostensibly as a new body-servant. In fact he was there for one purpose only: to guard Buccleuch’s life with his own.
That was four weeks ago. Today Lymond had called on Lady Buccleuch partly to reassure her, and partly to find out whether the old man, as Warden of the Middle Marches, was going to the Day of March in July. Touchy, well-fed, well-mounted and ripe with fine grievances, the denizens of the Borders flocked to these periodic summer meetings of Wardens to watch international justice being done; and if there were no quarrels to pick between the two nations, there were plenty to settle themselves. Swords and knives were allowed at March meetings: they were enough for murder, if not quite for war.
Policing the Hadden Stank meeting of Wardens was likely to be St Mary’s next major task. Among others, Lord Wharton would be there. So would the Kerrs. So, undoubtedly, would the Scotts. It remained to be seen whether old Wat would be one of them.
‘He will,’ said Janet bitterly. ‘I’ll warrant he will. Sticking out his elbows and getting Kerrs to fall over his big toe and call him a bastard again, which considering his mother was a Kerr and his first wife was Ferniehurst’s sister makes