Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [119]
There, in Lymond’s new winter quarters, Scott passed the night and next morning, pleased at the prospect of a little autonomy, left for the Peel Tower. A little later the Master also rode out and, turning sharp east, began the journey to Tantallon Castle.
* * *
“It grieves me deeply to break up your manège,” said Sir George, “but I can’t accept the alternative. If you want me to trace Harvey for you, you must sell me Will Scott.”
Lymond spoke idly. “It sounds as if you have been endearing yourself to the opposition. Can’t you repair your relations in some other way? I have several keen bargains in political information: or is Grey no longer interested in our life, our lust, our Governor, our Queen?” His face expressed only mild inquiry.
Both men were in a stoutly furnished room in the East Tower of Tantallon. Beyond the window the North Sea crawled and roared at the bottom of hundred-foot cliffs; far out, the Bass Rock stood in a nest of white floss, with gannets plummetting like so many celestial lead lines into the jumping sea. Douglas turned impatiently from the sight.
“If I could conduct this transaction simply by buying information from you, I would. As it is, I am ready to take on my own account anything you may have to sell. For that reason, as you probably noticed, I avoided addressing my letter to you by name. Nor have I given your name to Lord Grey although—let us be as open as we can, Mr. Crawford—I had very little trouble guessing your identity.… I hope you were less severe on Mr. Somerville than you were with Sir Andrew.” He paused. “You’re swimming in very deep waters, aren’t you, Crawford?”
“But life in an aquatic kettle can be quite entertaining,” suggested Lymond. “And what keeps out water will also keep out steel between the shoulder blades. Gideon Somerville, if you are interested, is in pristine health, and Jonathan Crouch is at home. That leaves Samuel Harvey and his purchase.”
Sir George was broadly reasonable. “Why hesitate? Get yourself another disciple, man, and be done with it.” Sir George badly needed Scott to bolster his tattered prestige with Lord Grey.
“But Scott is extremely useful to me,” said Lymond. “Besides, he gives me excellent cover from Buccleuch.”
“Once we have him, Buccleuch won’t trouble anyone any more.”
“He won’t trouble you: he’ll use up all his surplus energy looking for me. And another thing. If I gave you Scott I should want absolute possession of the man Harvey. Would Grey agree to that? I imagine Harvey, for one thing, would object quite violently.”
“There’s no reason why Harvey should know,” said Douglas after a moment’s quick thought. “I tell you, Grey wants Scott badly enough for anything. If this unfortunate man is your price, I think I can promise he will pay it.”
“In the siècles de foi you would be irresistible,” said Lymond generously. “But I have arrived in the age of reason. You’ll need to provide some pretty imaginative security before I believe that.”
“And if I do so?”
Lymond smiled again, and Douglas’s hands, in spite of himself, opened and closed. “If you do so,” said the Master, “of course I shall give you the person of Will Scott.”
Before Lymond left, Sir George repeated his own private bid for his services. It met with bland refusal. “My offer was to exchange information for Harvey; not to plunge into general commerce.”
“If you can afford to say that, you’re a fortunate man. I wish I knew your source of revenue. I notice incidentally,” said Sir George, understandably irritated, “that in your somewhat frenzied quest for Mr. Harvey your other project has fallen from sight.”
“Everyone credits me with projects. I sometimes feel like a latter-day Hercules. Which one?”
“The one concerned with preserving your brother from the ills of old age. I imagine Lady Culter’s pregnancy has complicated your problem?”
It was news to Lymond. The fractional pause told Sir George that, and he was irritably thankful, in passing, that he could still read a man to some degree at