Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [292]
‘No. The thicket of thorns,’ said Lymond, with the flatness of utter fatigue. ‘Some day, I must take my own prolific advice and contrive to drop dead.’
Then Guthrie’s eyes met those of Archie Abernethy, moving forward with a cup in his hand. And very soon after that, doctored by something more drastic than Archie had ever had occasion to administer to him before, Francis Crawford was profoundly asleep.
*
Then the net drawing Gabriel and Lymond together began at last to close tight.
For two weeks, with men and mastiffs, the law officers of Scotland, aided by the Seigneur d’Oisel and his Frenchmen, hunted Francis Crawford and his friends among the small hills, green and soft with deep mists, long-shadowed with apricot sunshine, where the corn crowded fat in the sheaf, as it had not stood for nine warring years, and two since. It was a strange, plodding game, in which French curses and Scots rose intermingled to the mild skies, and only the chief actors were dumb.
For Lymond, it was a time to recover, despite the almost daily moves expediency demanded. And evidence continued to come in. Adam Blacklock, back triumphant from Liddesdale, brought with him an insalubrious Turnbull who could identify a steward of Gabriel’s as having paid them to kill the Kerr cattle. And, stuttering, Adam produced something else: the sworn statement of the big tinker who had attacked Cheese-wame Henderson, and whom he had found, logically enough, lying sick in one of the Turnbulls’ appalling mud cabins.
It was Fergie Hoddim on duty that day. When Blacklock had finished his recital, Fergie took him up sharply, ‘As to evidence, now. Unless ye brought the said steward to Liddesdale to be identified, how could yon auld thief tell it was him? Did ye pay him siller to swear it?’
For answer Adam slipped from under his arm and laid on the floor the leather case he was holding. From it, he drew several sheets of thick paper, each bearing, delicately done in red chalk, the drawing of a man’s face. That on the first was, recognizably, the steward they were discussing. ‘It comes in useful … sometimes,’ he said, and met Lymond’s eyes, smiling.
Fergie’s face also had cleared. ‘Aye. That’s better. It’s a clear case o’ deadly enmity and feud. A clear case. So we need all the independent proof we can gather—evidence without fear or favour, if ye take me.’ He gazed thoughtfully at Francis Crawford’s unimpressed face. ‘Ye could even get bloodwite off him for yon beating. Nae mair nor fifty pounds, of course; but it’s not to be sneezed at. Aye. I’d advise on bloodwite; you’d be perfectly safe there.’
There was a moment’s pause and then Lymond, to Adam’s relief, began quite genuinely to laugh. ‘Well done, Fergie,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course. Whatever happens, ad lucrandum vel perdendum, let’s make sure of our bloodwite. It’ll do to buy a bloody memorial with.’
For no one was the waiting easy. Philippa, resolutely ensconced at Midculter despite Sybilla’s gentle pressure to return home, busied herself silently with helping Mariotta and the baby and merely appeared, a grim and bony changeling, when Adam Blacklock came, as he often did, with a fragment of news from his leader.
Kate had been told, as soon as Lady Culter could send off a horseman, of her daughter’s safety and of all that had happened; and being Kate, she had stayed, gnawing her nails, where she was, and had left Philippa to do her growing-up without interference.
Sybilla lost her nerve only once, as Adam was leaving one day.
She began mildly enough. ‘It hasn’t occurred to Francis, I take it, that there is nothing now to prevent him from awaiting the full indictment against Graham Malett from the relative comfort of prison?’
Adam Blacklock glanced at Philippa and away again. ‘He wants Gabriel arrested first,’ he said. ‘And he won’t allow that until the evidence is complete. He’s an extremely clever man, Graham Malett. Mr C-Crawford won’t