Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [262]
They had a long way to go. For September, it was a mild night, and the reeking warmth of her horse and the steady trot pioneered by Cheese-wame, who had no desire to be caught by his fellow-servants before the lass had got whatever it was she wanted, kept Philippa warm. Riding beside the waters of the North Tyne, the fallen leaves sodden below her mare’s busy hooves and Henderson’s comforting bulk beside her, and his big hand ready to steady hers on the reins, Philippa felt her stomach turn, again, at what she had decided to do.
After mature reflection; on information received; from the wisdom of her encroaching years, she had reached the conclusion that she had made a false judgement.
Once, long ago, Francis Crawford had reduced her to terror and, the episode over, she had suffered to find that for Kate, apparently, no reason suggested itself against making that same Francis Crawford her friend.
He was not Philippa’s friend. She had made that clear, and, to be fair, he had respected it. He had even, when you thought of it, curtailed his visits to Kate, although Kate’s studied lack of comment on this served only to make Philippa angrier.
He had been nasty at Boghall. He had hit her at Liddel Keep. He had stopped her going anywhere for weeks.
He had saved her life.
That was indisputable.
He had been effective over poor Trotty Luckup, while she had been pretty rude, and he hadn’t forced himself on her; and he had made her warm with his cloak.
He had gone to Liddel Keep expressly to warn her, and when she had been pig-headed about leaving (Kate was right) he had done the only thing possible to make her.
And then he had come to Flaw Valleys for nothing but to make sure of her safety, and he had been so tired that Kate had cried after he had gone. And then it had suddenly struck her, firmly and deeply in her shamefully flat chest, so that her heart thumped and her eyes filled with tears, that maybe she was wrong. Put together everything you knew of Francis Crawford. Put together what you had heard at Boghall and at Midculter, what you had seen at Flaw Valleys, and it all added up to one enormous, soul-crushing entity.
She had been wrong. She did not understand him; she had never met anyone like him; she was only beginning to glimpse what Kate, poor maligned Kate, must have seen all these years under the talk. But the fact remained that he had gone out of his way to protect her, and she had put his life in jeopardy in return.
A year ago this month, on his deathbed, Sir Thomas Erskine had given her a message for Lymond. It was his right to have it. And whatever his anger at the delay, whatever danger they faced on the journey, she was firmly resolved to deliver it. Lion-hearted; her tremors braced with virtue, Philippa trotted on.
At Tarset they stopped for some bread and cheese that Henderson had prudently packed in his saddlebag, and drank burn water although Cheese-wame had, she noticed, been providential in this respect also and provided himself with a serviceable corked bladder from which he drank by the little flickering fire he had made, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. But for the gentle sound of beasts cropping in the commonlands they had passed, it was totally quiet, now their ears were free of the noisy river, bubbling and shearing high in its banks. Picking their way back to it after their rest, Cheese-wame halted once, his hand on her arm, and they both listened, but the sound, whatever it was, had stopped, and soon they remounted and went on their way.
They were to ride all night, Cheese-wame said; and by dawn they might be past the Cheviot Hills and into Scotland itself, where they could look for a small inn in Liddesdale to rest. If Mistress Somerville sent after them, she would never think of looking so far. Then tomorrow afternoon, not to tire the little mistress, they would ride to Hawick and stop at Buccleuch’s