Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [140]
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Through the door, Lymond’s voice was perfectly clear and composed. “Who is it?”
“Will Scott.” He stopped banging. “I want to come in!”
“Well, you can’t come in,” said the voice pleasantly. “The door’s locked.”
“I know that.” Scott, already irritated, began to get angry. “Let me in!”
There was a silence. “Why?” said the Master.
“I want to speak to you.”
“You are speaking to me.”
“I want to go to bed.”
“Go to bed downstairs.”
“I want to go to bed in my own—” Scott, finding the ring of this a little undignified, revised it. “Open the door. Or”—with a rush of spirits to the head—“or I’ll open it for you with a hatchet.”
This worked. There were no footsteps, but the key suddenly turned and the door opened on a drawn sword. Lymond, slender and gently dishevelled, regarded his lieutenant with a reflective blue stare.
Scott was suddenly very prudent indeed. Lymond sober was someone distinctly to be reckoned with: Lymond sodden was a child of danger. “I wanted to speak to you,” said the boy. “But not over a sword.”
“Through it, then.” The silk shirt was crumpled and sweat-stained, the hair tawdry, but the point of the sword was unwavering.
More than a little hampered by his public downstairs, Scott prevaricated. “I came to suggest that you had some food. There’s a lot to plan for. Your brother might already have traced the Countess … and there’s Lady Culter to be looked after when she comes.”
The sword gave a small, evil flash. “Don’t fuss, my sackless father-lasher: everything is being taken care of. I don’t want a meal. I prefer you to sleep below tonight. I don’t wish to continue this conversation. Good night.”
Unfortunately, a Buccleuch was incapable of leaving well alone. Scott said truculently, “You can drink yourself into a jelly any other time. This is an emergency.”
Above the blade were merciless eyes. “Emergency? But what emergency could be outwith your ineffable talents? Or Matthew’s?”
This exposed the root of the trouble. Scott said sharply, “You know they’ll obey no one but you when there are women about. You can’t mean to expose Lady Culter to that rabble downstairs!”
“Why not?” asked the obliging, slurred voice. “I’ve every confidence in the rabble downstairs. None of them, for example, has so far tried to teach me my job.”
Restraint was impossible. “It might be a good thing if they had,” said Scott, and flung himself to one side as the steel drove at his throat. He hit the doorpost, ducked, and with a speed and accuracy that Lymond himself had taught him, pulled the Master’s doublet from a doorside chair and with muffled hand snatched and twisted the attacking blade.
The sword fell instantly to the floor. Scott slammed the door and picked it up, but slowly; for it came to him that the Master was a good deal less drunk and a good deal more dangerous than he had thought. Lymond, watching him, said, “Look after it. If you let me touch it a second time, I shall kill.… You’re admirably pretty emerging from your pupa robe a chevalier des dames; but I’ve a dislike of interference amounting to morbidity.… And I fight only with women.”
Scott, with his next remark cut from under his feet, floundered. Then he said baldly, “What are you going to do with your sister-in-law?”
“Sit on my sacrum and sneer at her,” said Lymond. He walked to the window and turned, supporting himself on the sill. “All right. Strangle your inchoate chivalry and take yourself off. I’m being indecently reasonable, but my control doesn’t last long in this state.”
It was too much.
Already weakened, the seel over Scott’s eyes jerked and broke through, and he stared at the other man with the eyes of an enemy. The blue eyes narrowed in response: Lymond was no fool. “Well?” he said, and this time his voice had no slur.
For answer, Will Scott raised one arm and sent the Master’s sword spinning from him across the floor. “Take it,” he said. “And befuddle yourself under the table if you want to. It’s no affair of mine.”
“Ah,” said Lymond. “You’re going downstairs to assume command?