Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [220]
From across the flattened turf, Jerott saw Lymond’s head move, affirming, but could not hear what he said.
‘Well?’ said Lord Wharton of the Kerrs.
Sir Walter Kerr of Cessford turned back from where he had been conferring in low tones with Sir John Kerr of Ferniehurst. Stiffly and without glancing at any person save his lordship on the dais, Cessford said, ‘We have decided, my lord. We shall be responsible for the maintenance and upbringing of all these children. But we do not intend that they shall be known by the name of Kerr.’
Barely had he spoken when from the Scott side of the dais a cheer rose that sent the sentries at Wark castle to their arms. As the cheer broke down into resounding laughter and set off, down the field, a concatenation of comment and shouts, ‘I think your conclusion is quite praiseworthy, under the circumstances,’ said Lord Wharton, glaring around. ‘The only proviso, to my mind, is that the mothers themselves must agree. The children are not to be named Kerr.’
The mothers, with difficulty hiding a certain jubilation, agreed. Before the approving face of Buccleuch, with his wife Janet hanging speechless on his arm, fourteen under-nourished, ill-avised children wavered, or were carried, from the litigants’ smeared benches to the orderly ranks of the Kerrs, which opened yawningly to receive them, and then shut like a trap.
Weeping with laughter on Jerott’s shoulder, Fergie Hoddim won through to speech at last. ‘Suborning witnesses! Tracing cary-handit weans! Wat Scott of Buccleuch must have spent a fortune … a fortune, man, to do it, but was it worth it! Nae provocation offered. All a matter of good honest law, with Buccleuch’s name nowhere mentioned, and the Kerrs helpless … helpless! And the cream o’ the joke.…’ Fergie, to whom love-days were serious business, saw the funny side of this. ‘The cream of the matter—Lymond, who fairly maddened Sir Wat by appointing himself Buccleuch’s watchdog, has got the job of keeping the peace between the Kerrs and all the women Buccleuch bribed … including Sue Bligh of Bamburgh!’
The meeting was beginning to disperse. The Kerrs, encircled by a solid wall of St Mary’s men, were moving one way, the Scotts another. ‘It was Buccleuch’s day, all right,’ said Jerott. ‘While we all stood around in fancy armour like fools, waiting for mayhem, Sir Wat was baiting the Kerrs with impunity, and forcing St Mary’s to protect him for it. I’d have given a good deal to have seen our efficient commander’s face when the truth dawned.’
‘Lymond? I saw it,’ said Fergie. ‘He had Gabriel on the one side of him and me on the other the whole time.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Jerott.
‘Curled up on the neck of his horse and laughed himself silly,’ said Fergie. ‘Yon’s no way to go on.’
‘On the other hand,’ said Jerott Blyth, ‘rather shrewdly endearing, don’t you think?’
*
It had in fact been an unfortunate luxury, that fit of irresistible laughter, and its after-effects were appalling. Sitting up, howling faintly still at Buccleuch’s exquisite effrontery, Francis Crawford found that Gabriel had gone from his side.
Save for one quick half-circuit of the field in the opposite direction, Lymond had kept Sir Graham Malett beside him most of the day. He had noted, without comment, the distant interlude between Scott of Buccleuch and Graham Malett, and had perhaps read something of warning in Adam Blacklock’s passing stare. In any case, missing him now, he looked for Graham Malett in one place only and found him instantly, on foot, his armour glittering, his helmet off, disclosing the splendidly-set head to the sun.
As the crowds waned chattering about them and the company