Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [102]
“I hope,” said Gideon shortly, “by that definition never to experience an eventful one. May we hope to be rid of you now?”
“Probably.” The roving gaze fell on Philippa’s white face: her brown eyes fixed on his looked out of bruised circles, as if the orbits had been minutely pummelled.
Lymond dropped to one knee. With the musician’s hands he transferred from his doublet to her night robe a pin with, in its centre, a spreading, flowerlike sapphire the colour of his eyes. The girl shuddered as he touched her, but bore it passively: when he drew away she looked down and touched the brooch, fumbling with the unfamiliar catch. Then, before anyone could stop her, the brooch was out, and on the floor, and being smashed, and smashed again by Philippa’s stout wooden heel. Then she ran.
Holding the child sobbing in her arms, Kate looked at Lymond with calm eyes. “And that,” she said, “settles, I think, any matter of insult by apology.”
For a moment he stood, the fair face quite still; then he walked softly to the door and opened it. “If it seems any recompense, your animals have performed in the night a feat of multiplication which I believe, genetically speaking, to be quite fabulous,” said Lymond. Good night.” And the door closed.
* * *
Collecting his men unmolested, the Master left Flaw Valleys, picked up Scott and the rest of his force and camped at daybreak in a sheltered and uninhabited valley where fires would be unnoticed, and where a stunted belt of firs gave dry fuel and protection.
During the ride there, Lymond made no secret of his mood. His eyes were savage and his voice, freezingly hostile, rang out again and again as the men riding silently with him came under the lash. The Lang Creg had suffered a passing fancy to go into the cattle business for himself. Pitilessly exposed, the whole tale was soon complete, and Lymond did what he rarely troubled to do: personally flayed the man, tied wrist and ankle to a tree, with his great riding whip.
Scott watched until the Cleg slumped bloody from his ropes, and turned away sick.
Then it was over, and they lay close-wrapped about the big open fires as a frosty dawn bleached the hilltops and the watch, turn and turn about, paced on the heights.
And now, when the longed-for sleep was on him, Scott could not rest. In a dark corner of the trees, remote from interfering light he lay and listened to the incessant whisper of Lymond’s footsteps. Then the familiar voice, directly above him, said, “Sit up. I want to speak to you.”
His face in shadow, Lymond leaned against the next tree and looked down on him. “You had a long talk with Johnnie Bullo today, didn’t you?” he said. “You adhere for three months, and now we are sundered. We are no longer articulated. We are no longer articulate. What did Bullo tell you?”
Scott had seen a man flogged that night, but he was in no mood for finesse. He said uncompromisingly, “We were discussing your aberration after your visit to Annan in August.”
“I see. And Johnnie told you—”
“How you arranged for a blind girl to save your life without giving away to her who you are. How you induced her to spy for you. How you arranged to meet her, secretly, after you shot your brother in Stirling.”
There was a pregnant pause. “I thought it was that,” observed the Master. “You object, do you?”
But Will was no longer an easy subject: a reflection of Lymond’s own irony gleamed in his eyes. “Why should I? You’ve made no secret of your habits.”
“And those very habits are feeding and clothing you, so why indeed?” The Master dropped neatly to the ground, and resting his back against the tree, looked up into the dark branches. “And yet you do object, my sullen one. In that fine, unreasoning, Pharos-like brain which works so hard at reflecting other people’s emotions, some minor luminary is sitting intoning disticha: it’s damned unchivalrous to employ women agents; and infamous to employ them without their knowledge; and indecent to employ them when they are