Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
Sir Wat slowly went red in the face. A raffish smile struggled up from the depths of his beard and he covered it with one hand, but the eyes bent on his wife were as soft as a spaniel’s.
“Oh, well enough,” he said. “Well enough. We’ll say no more. It’s over and done with. But—ye needna expect to put me off this way every time, woman!”
“Och, Dod! Don’t worry!” said Janet, from the muddy embrace. “I’d sooner the scolding!”
* * *
In such a way ended Sunday, the fifth of February.
Shortly afterward, Sir George Douglas wrote Lord Grey that he hoped before long to appear before the Lord Protector in London, the accredited Ambassador of Her Majesty of Scotland, to arrange the royal marriage.
The Lord Protector wrote to Grey. “You have spent,” he pointed out, “sixteen thousand pounds in nine months, and have only the Buccleuch raid to show for it.…”
Lord Grey sent a laconic message to Lord Wharton. “I set out on Monday week to invade Scotland almost to Edinburgh’s gates. I expect you and the Earl of Lennox to time your entry with mine.”
And then, above the complicated board, freezing the pieces in their busy tracks, hovered a speculative finger which no one could outplay.
The child Queen Mary, the very knot and core of all their plans, fell mortally ill.
II
The Queen’s Progress Becomes Critical
The pawön that is sette tofore the quene signefyeth the phisicyen, spicer and Apotyquaire … The cyrurgyens ought also to be debonayr, amyable and to have pytye of their pacyents.
1. A New Pawn Is Taken
THEY feared the English more than her disease. The sick baby Queen was taken to Dumbarton, rocky fortress on the Clyde, and Lady Culter and Christian Stewart were among those summoned to care for her.
The message was brought to Boghall by Tom Erskine. He found the girl standing at the window of Jamie’s empty room, her hands laid loosely on the sill. Simon announced her visitor, allowed Erskine in, and banged the door as adequate comment as she turned.
Left alone with his destiny, Tom Erskine embarked headlong on his message: he had come to take her as far as Midculter before going off himself to the fighting. The conclusion of the gabble may have sounded more petulant than heroic, but Christian didn’t notice. She said sharply, “What fighting?”
“There’s another armed push on the way. From Berwick on the east and Carlisle on the west. The Carlisle inroad is my affair.”
“Who else is going? Lord Culter? John Maxwell?”
“Culter’s going, yes. What Maxwell will do is anybody’s guess.”
It was their chief anxiety. Rowelled by French heels, Governor Arran had at last been brought to an ultimatum. Agnes Herries was destined for his son. But the Master of Maxwell had made it delicately clear that the Herries bride and the Herries estates were the price of his continuing interest in things Scottish; and Maxwell’s interest in the coming invasion was likely to be vital. So with affronted howls on one side from Lord John, and mute reproof from his treasury on the other, Arran let it be known at Threave that appropriate help would receive appropriate reward, and hardly knew what to wish as a result.
Christian was not impressed by these half measures. “Good God: Maxwell either for us or against us will be the turning point of the whole thing. Fortunately she likes him, poor lassie; but whether she did or not I should take her to Threave by the scruff of her neck and beg John Maxwell on my knees, if I were Arran, to come to our side.”
Tom said philosophically, “Well, if you don’t know what he’ll do, then neither does Wharton.…” Memory of his real errand had come to him. He coughed disastrously.
“Christian, listen. We’ve seen a lot of each other in the last six months …”
His voice died away, but Christian’s face betrayed only sympathetic amusement. “Dear Tom, there isn’t a verb in the dictionary that wouldn’t float like a benison on your innocent breath; but I’ve a devil of a lot to pack. If you’re intent on launching a review of your winter relationships