Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [300]
‘Yes. You see,’ said Lymond, and bending, he heaved his light saddle on the wide sill and began, with quick fingers, to buckle and fill the bags that strapped to each side, ‘George Paris is in Edinburgh, in some lodging, and Cormac O’Connor is in Falkland with the Queen Mother, beguiling her with the news, at Gabriel’s request, that George Paris is not the faithful go-between she has always found him, but is really a double agent working also for England.
‘And since George Paris almost certainly has in his lodging a large number of documents incriminating not only himself but the Queen Dowager and the Irish lords in their conspiracy to kick out the English, she will be very anxious indeed to make sure these papers don’t get in English Government hands. So she will probably send to Edinburgh at the first opportunity to have Paris arrested and the papers seized, probably by a civic authority, by her Ambassador from France, or even, if O’Connor suggested it, by some loyal and independent nobleman she could trust to bear her own part in the affair. And for the sake of secrecy he might be told, for example, to take no servants.…’
‘Buccleuch,’ said Janet. She blew her nose. ‘I sent some of the men after him. If they traced him as far as Edinburgh, they’ll go to the town house.’
‘He’ll be at Paris’s lodging,’ said Lymond. ‘Discovering Paris’s papers. And have you forgotten what else is in Paris’s papers? International treachery, for a part. For the rest, the documents, very likely, about Thompson’s great sea-insurance scheme, and the names of his fellow-tricksters, among whom are the Kerrs.’
*
After that there were orders, a great many orders, with the Midculter man and two of Janet’s big Scotts brought in as messengers; and in the middle, Abernethy and Salablanca appeared and were told what to do.
Then, moments later, it seemed, they burst apart on their various errands like a firlot of lentils, and Blyth and Lymond, with the two men behind them, were riding without respite or concealment straight into the net.
XVII
Gabriel’s Trump
(Edinburgh, October 4th, 1552)
THE Kerrs, left hands longingly fondling their swords, were very angry. Rankling in their minds, never forgotten, were all the old murders and recent insults: the rout at Ettrick, the killing of Nell of Cessford, the slaughter at Liddesdale, the farce of the children at Hadden Stank. And today, it seemed, the old thief Buccleuch would surpass himself. He had gone to Edinburgh, so rumour said, expressly to expose to official gaze the Kerrs’ unsavoury share in the scheme run by Jock Thompson, Cormac O’Connor and George Paris, whereby through insuring your cargoes and allowing the pirate to steal them, you got your insurance money and maybe even some of your cargo back for good measure.
So the Kerrs were on their way, this fourth day of October, with their friends and allies for company, through the gentle country that lay between Cessford and Edinburgh, with the full harvest gilding the fields under the pink sky of sunset and the cottar smoke filling the hollows and misting the trees by the wayside, so that the silver-blue harness of winter seemed to lie on their breasts.
When they reached Edinburgh, it was dark. Sir John Kerr of Ferniehurst and his brother Walter of Cessford were shrewd. A grim company, fully armed and in Kerr colours, would be stopped at the Bow. So they filtered through slowly, in couples, and the first to go through were those detailed to find out George Paris and kill him, and destroy all the papers they might find.
So, through the West Bow and up the steep wynd to the Lawn-market, there walked eleven Kerrs, among them Cessford and his son Andrew; Ferniehurst and his brother and good-brother; and Dandy Kerr of the Hirsell, now owner of Littledean, and his son. There were some servants, a number of men related by marriage, Sir Peter Cranston and three members of the family Hume, also great on the Borders, which had no desire to fall out with