Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [232]
Night overtook them at Stirling; and to save the protesting bones of Ross Herald who had, after all, just ridden across half the Lowlands to fetch them, Lymond allowed a few hours’ rest in a tavern bed. Then, with fresh horses, they set out again.
Just before they did so, waiting with Salablanca for Robbie Forman to come into the yard, Adam seized the moment to ask one at least of his questions. ‘Why the hurry? Normal travelling speed, surely, is all the Queen Dowager would expect?’
‘There is someone ahead of us,’ said Lymond.
‘You want to c-catch him?’
‘I want to get to Falkland before him. Here is Forman,’ was all Lymond said.
Two hours later, Ross Herald, grey with fatigue and the horrors of the Clyde estuary, fell by the wayside; and watching Lymond’s expression as he took leave of him, tucked up moaning in a friend’s bed at Kinross, Adam appreciated suddenly one at least of his reasons for speed. Patience being one of the prime requisites of the artist, he waited, riding in silence, until Lymond said briefly, ‘You don’t have to be so damned tactful. You haven’t had a drink for four days. Have you?’
‘No.’
‘And Bell’s little remedies are finished with. So you may consider yourself trustworthy. Ever heard of George Paris?’
Anyone who had been in France knew that. ‘He was an agent,’ said Blacklock, wasting no more time than Lymond did. ‘For those Irish lords wishing F-French or Scottish help to throw off the English overlordship in Ireland. I don’t know what he does now.’
‘He’s a double agent,’ said Lymond. ‘Now that French interest is falling off he’s trying England for his pension. Thompson got wind of it through some old Irish cronies of his who heard from some exiled friends in London. Unhappily, Thompson’s hands are tied because he’s mixed up in some illegal trading with Paris and one of Paris’s Irish rebel friends, Cormac O’Connor.…’ He glanced round.
‘Oh,’ said Adam Blacklock, just too late.
‘I had forgotten,’ said Francis Crawford with precision, ‘what bloody gossip-mongering old women soldiers were. I take it the whole company knows about Oonagh O’Dwyer?’
There was a second’s pause. ‘I know that she was Cormac O’Connor’s mistress,’ said Adam.
‘I’m damned sure you do, and enough to write a book about, besides. You realize then that Cormac O’Connor is no blood-brother of mine, since I helped her to get away from him. When that attempt to set himself up as the saviour of Ireland failed, he resorted to petty intrigue and some quick ways of raising money, such as Thompson’s insurance scheme. Because he’s implicated in this, his friends in Ireland won’t betray Paris, and neither will he, unless he’s pushed to it. Paris has too much evidence against him in his insurance swindle. On the other hand, if Paris was going to be exposed anyway, O’Connor might get his oar in first, on the premise that no one will look too closely at a small swindle if he hands them a double agent on a plate.’
‘And is Paris likely to be exposed?’ asked Adam.
‘It’s not … unlikely,’ said Lymond, pausing for the first time. ‘I’ve told Thompson to sever his connexion with the pair of them and with all his other clients right away. Not that that’s a great deal of good. Paris must have enough evidence against Thompson alone to send him to the Tolbooth for life.’
‘And Paris lives in Ireland? Why doesn’t Thompson or someone visit him and force him, if necessary, to hand over all the incriminating papers?’ said Blacklock; and meeting Lymond’s sardonic blue gaze, realized he had been naïve.
‘Why the hell do you think I’ve been breaking my neck to get the Magdalena to sea with the lot of you this