Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [247]
The door opened, on the lightest of scratches, and Salablanca the Moor came in, shutting it at his back. ‘Señora … Señores … Están en el cuarto,’ he said.
Lymond answered in Spanish. ‘Good. You may stand outside. Richard?’
Lord Culter said nothing. Lymond turned his head, and in a single, unexpected movement was on his feet, facing his brother. ‘My God, don’t you think I feel ill, too?’ he said. And indeed, Richard, surveying him at last, saw with numb curiosity the reflection of his own sick anger in Lymond’s white face. Then Lymond, looking from his mother to Richard and back again, said, ‘I hope never to have to do that to you again. I hope one day you will forgive me. Try to remember, just at this moment, that my trade calls for acting. Try to remember, Richard, as I have told you, that because of your own honesty I can’t confide in you.… Sybilla, all I must do depends on one thing. That in spite of what you have heard just now, you trust me for half a day more.’
Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, did not look up. Instead, opening and shutting her thin, shapely hands, one on the other, she said, ‘Trust you to do what?’
Lymond said, his voice now quite emotionless and clear, ‘I want to leave now, and go to Boghall. Margaret Erskine will be there tomorrow, and Janet Beaton, and some others you know. At midday tomorrow, I want you and Richard to leave here without servants, casually, and ride to Boghall to join me, mentioning to no one that I shall be there. If anyone asks, you think I have gone back to St Mary’s. At some point, also, Joleta will send word of her troubles to her brother. Let her messenger go.’
‘She won’t beg Graham Malett to leave you now,’ Richard said with sudden contempt. ‘She’ll let you ruin her publicly and be damned to you, rather than bolster your precious command. Trust you? I don’t care what crawling plot you’re involved with this time. We are free of you, and we’re going to stay free. Go where you please. Graham Malett’s friends will see Joleta amply avenged.’
Sybilla lifted her head. She was very pale, nearly as white as her china-fair hair, and there were rings round her blue eyes. ‘There is something I should like to ask you,’ she said. ‘You claimed among other things, that you did not father Joleta’s baby. Was that true?’
Lymond’s answer was curt. ‘Yes. She was already pregnant in May.’
‘You called her promiscuous. Is that true?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am not a child or a cleric, Francis,’ said Sybilla sharply. ‘I wish to test what you say against some facts of my own. You called her promiscuous. Why?’
‘Because of her practices. She is experienced,’ said Lymond shortly. ‘She appears to have a close relationship with her grooms. You could discover more, no doubt, if you care for the method. She marks her bed-fellows like a bloody bookmark: with a cross.’
‘With a piece of glass?’ said Sybilla, and for the first time, Lymond’s voice took a little colour. ‘Or a knife. She’s a knack with weapons,’ he continued evenly. ‘And she has a temper. One of my men, Cuddie Hob, laughed at her once. She shot his horse.’
‘She killed my cat,’ said Sybilla dreamily. ‘I didn’t tell you, Richard. And until Margaret Erskine stopped it, she was never left alone with Kevin. A streak of natural cruelty. Her upbringing, I suppose. And always the example of the heavenly Gabriel. Anyone of her nature would rebel against that.…’
‘Killed your cat!’ said Richard incredulously, and Lymond said wearily, ‘It’s unbelievable, I know. It’s a crime against all the marvellous things of the universe. You will never see anyone as beautiful again. She’s sweet, and young, and lovely, and morally quite defective. Ask Mother. She was sitting