Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [116]
Her entry into the solar at Warkworth was consciously magnificent. Gideon, effacing himself, studied her. Her hair was a dark, lichen-blond and the features strongly marked in a pale skin, the mouth warm and decided, the chin cleft, the eyes observant. His impression was one of natural graces overlaid by years of merciless experience.
She was speaking with perfect composure. “I’m afraid my family have been troubling you greatly. It’s never easy for an Englishman to understand all the pressures Scots are subject to.”
No one had any illusions that this was a social call. Lord Wharton was blunt. “Saving your presence, Lady Lennox, I have made no secret of my views about the Douglases. I know the difficulties they are under. But until they show themselves friends, we must treat them as enemies. I have raided Angus’s land and Drumlanrig’s land on instructions from the Lord Protector, and I regret if Lord Grey feels that his friendship with Sir George and his private promises of immunity are endangered, but further than that I cannot go.”
The Lord Lieutenant was taut with temper and the need to preserve the social decencies. “I dislike, as any gentleman would, the appearance of breaking my pledged word,” he said. “The damage done, however, I agree that the Douglases have taken unwarrantable revenge and, as you know perfectly, I have pledged my word to punish them.”
“We’ll be lucky if we get the chance,” said Wharton bluntly. “But in case we do, I’ve asked everyone who is able, to report to me for service as soon as they can. If you will carry out your second raid on Buccleuch, Lord Lieutenant, I shall put all the force I can to shake the Douglases out of their bushes.”
“Wait a moment.” Lady Lennox spoke, and both Grey and Wharton, intent as circling dogs in their antagonism, showed their surprise. “The Protector told me his intention was that you should enter Scotland again, Lord Grey, and form a new centre of operations at Haddington, just south of Edinburgh. Is that right?”
“The Protector wanted all three armies to invade at once, but that is impossible because of the weather and the ground, Lady Lennox. Quite impossible. In a month’s time, I might be in a position to march to Haddington. In the meantime, we are to attack Buccleuch.”
“I understand.” She looked at her wine. “In that case, it seems a pity for Lord Wharton to draw on himself the undivided attention of the west. Would it not be better to wait a week or two for better weather, and then to synchronize your raids?”
Bowes ventured. “But time is against us, Lady Lennox. The French—”
“The same wind blows in the Channel as on the Solway,” she said. “No fleet will put out in this weather.”
Gideon interposed briefly. “The Protector is asking for action quickly against the Douglases, Lady Lennox.”
“And that he shall have,” said the woman serenely. “If you will allow me to make a suggestion.” She looked up at four, noncommittal faces and smiled. “There was a time when I was a Douglas, and then I became more Tudor than Douglas. Now I am more Stewart than either. Listen.”
And she outlined a plan which was bold, practical and, unintentionally, quite formidable in its ultimate effect. In which she showed herself to be, after all, more Tudor and Douglas than Stewart.
* * *
With Will Scott at his side, Lymond met John Maxwell briefly by appointment in a bothy of mud and thatch in the hills near Thornhill.
Sitting watching by the bright, whining fire, Scott saw that Maxwell was now handling the other man carefully. He made one flattering reference