Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [125]
“Oh, I picked up a hint in one of the houses I was playing at. It made me think there might be a trap afoot.”
“So you sprang it.” The Master, rising, strolled to the door. “On the whole, this business of manumission is a little trying. I doubt if I have the nervous stamina to sustain it much longer.” Johnnie, having withstood the blue eye for as long as self-respect demanded, shrugged, rose and sauntered outside. Lymond shut the door and came back.
“Johnnie—” began Scott furiously.
“Johnnie makes mischief as cows make milk. You know that as well as I do. But at least he does it with his brain, and not his stomach, or wherever you keep your unique emotions.” He had deployed himself against the mantelpiece, tapping the stone softly with one hand, and Scott realized suddenly he had better collect his wits.
“You kept your appointment secret,” said Lymond. “Why?”
“Because it was none of your business.” Scott was still angry.
Lymond said gently, “Let us bathe in moral philosophy, as in a living river. Double-dealing is my business.”
“I know. But it isn’t mine,” said Scott rudely; and Lymond smiled. “I don’t believe you.”
There was an unsettled silence. The boy, still aggressive, broke it. “I simply wanted to talk to my father. There’s nothing to get alarmed about in that.”
“Nothing. Except that you kept it secret.”
“You don’t catechize Cuckoo-spit every time he disappears with his women!”
“Cuckoo’s women don’t have a pack of bloodhounds and two thousand men-at-arms behind them—not the most willing of them. You are the only person here who might discover he has something to gain by selling out. You are the only person who, whatever he does, is sure of a warm, moneyed niche waiting for him on the right side of the law. You are the only person with a shaky interest in ethics and the emotional stability of a quince seed in a cup of lukewarm water. Either you keep the oath you so dashingly pronounced last year, or I deal with you accordingly. I don’t propose to sit here like a pelican in her piety, wondering what you’re doing next.”
Scott, shaking with temper, replied. “Oh, I’ll tell you, if you want to know. I’ll tell you if I sneeze. I’ll tell you if I part my hair. But I still don’t see that it was any of your damned—”
“Lord Culter was there,” said Lymond softly. “Wasn’t he? And I might have relished meeting Buccleuch.”
“I daresay. But I didn’t know Culter would be there. And oath or no oath, you can hardly expect me to sell my father quite yet.”
“A nicety he hardly seems to appreciate.”
“I’ve already said I made a mistake.”
“So, obviously, have we.”
“Why? I’m here, am I not?” blared Scott. “I didn’t break my word. It was Buccleuch who—”
“After he allowed you to knock him down. I heard about it.”
“Allowed!”
“Buccleuch doesn’t think with his stomach either. Didn’t it occur to you that I could damage your precious family rather more thoroughly than Lord Grey?”
“And if you leave us, I certainly shall.”
“But—”
“So that, Marigold, if you are going to be forsworn, you must be thoroughly forsworn. You must give us all up as well. That’s what your father was counting on.”
Silence.
“Well?” asked Lymond.
“You needn’t be afraid,” said Scott frigidly. “It won’t happen again.”
The Master stared at him. “There are times when your utterances are refreshing, and times when they are flowerlike beyond belief. I am not afraid. I can tell you now that it will not happen again. I am waiting for an apology.”
Scott’s reply was inaudible, and Lymond walked straight up to the boy. His riding clothes, swiftly tended since he had come from Tantallon, were sartorial perfection, his hair shone like glass and his voice glittered to match. He was impeccably, unpleasantly sober.
“You have my warmest good wishes for any urgent need you may discover to injure me, personally. Just try it. But I will not have you endanger sixty men through maudlin sentiment and a watery schoolboy defiance. Whatever you meant to do, you drew about yourself and nearly about us a major armed ambush—whether it was