Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [112]
He rode to the fighting in no cheerful mood. “I thought,” said Richard wearily, “there was only one man playing hell with my life. But by God! Ruthven, it’s become a national pastime.”
* * *
At midday—and with still no sign of Richard—Sybilla exercised her native wit and, putting on furs and boots and refusing escort, plodded down the street to Patey Liddell’s.
“Well, now—your ladyship’s all wet—This is a pleasure, but—Come away over to the furnace—You know Lord Culter went off with the picture—That’s a comfortable chair, now: sit you down … He’s not here,” said Patey, who under the forcible blue eye seemed a little upset.
“I guessed that,” said Sybilla. “Where did he take the glove, Patey?”
The goldsmith eyed her and decided evidently that only truth would serve. “To Perth,” he said simply.
“Oh, Richard!” exclaimed Sybilla in extreme exasperation. She turned the blue eyes on Patey again. “Is that where the glove was made?”
He nodded, hesitated, then volunteered, “No one’ll lay a finger on him, your ladyship: I warrant you that. Jamie Waugh’s a terrible man, but there’s not a drop of harm in him, and he’ll treat his lordship as kind as a maid with her rich new joe.… You’ll take some spirits?” added Patey, at a speed suggesting a desire to efface his own conjecture.
“No, I must go back.” Rising, Lady Culter bent to look at a small nugget lying on the smith’s bench in a drift of sparkling dust. She lifted it to examine it more closely. “It was a pretty glove. That pale yellow gold is from Crawfordmuir, isn’t it? You use a lot of it, Patey.”
“What?” said Liddell. He grinned vaguely. “It’s a bonny wee nugget, that. Gold.”
“I wasn’t talking about the nugget,” said Sybilla, “particularly. What’s the tax on Scottish-mined gold these days, Patey? Fairly high? And isn’t it all supposed to go straight to the Mint?”
“Scottish gold?” said the smith, and shook his white head. “It’s well enough; well enough; but a wee thing soft, and there’s them that prefers a good brosy yellow to yon pale stuff. No: Whatever it is you’re wanting, you come to me and I’ll show you gold that’d make crowns for angels.”
“Well, that’d be a change,” said the Dowager sourly, “from making crowns for Patey Liddell. You’re a perverse, deaf old man, and I don’t know why I come to you.”
“Do you not?” said Patey, exerting to the full his highly selective aural powers. “Then I’ll tell you: it’s to get a good bargain; and you can be sure of this: whatever Patey Liddell’s got a hand in’ll never hurt a Crawford.”
“Then I suggest,” said Sybilla, making for the door, “you steer clear of my daughter-in-law; or something Patey Liddell had a hand in this day is going to be a sore affliction to Patey Liddell.” And she went home.
* * *
So Christmas, unappalled at Lord Culter’s absence, came cantily to Stirling.
It was a French Christmas; a debonair Christmas full of frolic and folly; a spry, Gallic unctuous Christmas. Henry of France, at last roused to boldness and the cunning exercise of spite, had sent a small fleet to Scotland, and in it money for the Queen Dowager, and French military experts for her guidance and the better security of her fortresses. The military experts, tricked out in scent and white satin, danced like well-mannered clouds and talked in the Council Chamber of chests of money and major landings of troops waiting to come with better weather. The Government blew a sigh of relief, eyed the cut of the white satin and, flinging its armour out of the window, bawled for its valet.
The Court danced. The Court played rough games and watched masques. Cardboard cumuli, joggling cautiously from ceiling to floor, emitted Spirits of Love, giggling, with siren voices half a tone sharp with nerves. Forty-two different kinds of main dishes were offered at one sitting, and even the puddings burst asunder and became sweating cherubs released from cardboard confinement and prone to emergency and fits of tears.
Sybilla, animatedly and comfortably at home, found