Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [139]
“For our next meeting I must put my own phrases to fatten,” said Lymond. “In the meantime—good night.”
There was a flame in the black eyes. “That hurt, did it? Is it possible? Krishna among the milkmaids gored by a cow?”
He warned, impassively. “Make an end, Margaret. My patience can outlast your dignity.”
The reminder brought her to herself. The wildness faded from her eyes; the full lips twisted in a grimacing smile. “By all means, let us remember our manners. It would be rude not to take leave of our audience as well.”
The smile broadened, and before Lymond could move, she turned on her heel and crossed the room. Scott, caught half rising from the floor, blinked in the rush of light as the intervening door was flung open and the Countess of Lennox confronted him, bright contempt on her face.
“What! Only one!” she said. “How rash of you, Francis!” And, to the boy: “I hope your cramps won’t trouble you. Your master is too verbose.”
Wretchedly angry and embarrassed, Scott could find nothing to say, and saw that she knew it and was laughing at him. She held out the cloak on her arm—“The stairs are so draughty”—and waited while he clumsily put it around her. Then without thanking him she turned and swept back to the staircase where impassively Lymond waited. He, too, let her pass; and spoke when she was already on the steps. “Go up and lock her in.”
Scott carried out the order soberly and quickly. He would not have crossed the Master then for all the breeding gold in the nurseries of these dark hills.
* * *
Later, it was different. Later, his sensibilities muffled with beer, Will Scott wandered upstairs and tried to get into his room. The outer door to Lymond’s through which he had to pass was locked. He tried the handle twice before he realized this; and ran downstairs. Matthew grinned when he saw him, and hiccoughed lightly. “No entry?”
Scott shook his head. “God: he’s been in there for hours.… He hasn’t come down?”
“Always excepting he’s raxed himself scaling the window, no.”
“Well, I’m damned if I’m going to sleep on the floor because his lordship has gone to bed with the door locked. I’m going up to wake him.”
Matthew continued placidly to hammer nails into his boots, a process that seemed to disturb his neighbours’ sleep not at all.
“I shouldna bother, if I were you. You can have my bed down here.”
Scott stared. “Dammit, why should I take your bed? I’ve got one of my own. What’s up with him now?”
Bang. Mat took another nail from his strong teeth and set it in the big sole. “Nothing that three days of concentration won’t cure. He likely couldna come down if he wanted to.”
Scott, leaning over, whipped the remaining nails from between the broken teeth. “Why can’t he come down?”
A hairy elbow was wagged.
“For three days?”
“It’s the usual.”
“And what,” said Scott, outraged, “if the Queen’s troops come looking for the Countess of Lennox? Good God, we’re sitting on explosive, and he knows it better than anyone. Doesn’t anyone stop him when this happens?”
“There’s no right reason,” said Turkey, investing in another crop of nails, “why no one should. We just prefer not to, that’s all. There’s nothing to stop you, if you’re keen.”
“I’m not keen. But I don’t see why he should be allowed to drown his inadequacies at the cost of our safety. Why,” said Scott, who had drunk quite a bit himself, “are you scared to go up?”
Matthew looked at him indulgently. “Scared? Not the least bit of it. We just like to give a man leave to enjoy himself … God: are ye going?” For Scott had risen and was making for the stair.
Matthew’s beard split and all the nails fell out of his mouth.
“Jesus, you’re the brave fellow,