Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
Behind the Assyrian beard and half-shut eyes, Matthew was grinning. “Well, well. And fu’ as a puggie …” He got up quickly and followed as Crawford of Lymond, pushing himself at last from the doorway, propelled his way from wall to wall and out of the door.
Mat reached the Master as he was taking his head out of the water barrel, his hair dark and streaming and his skin involuntarily trembling in the sharp air. Lymond expressed no surprise, but buried his head in the towel Mat held out, saying after a moment in a voice still stifled by the cloth, “The message from Lennox. Has it come back yet?”
“Half an hour ago,” said Mat, and met the other man’s eyes emerging from the towel. “They agree to exchange the Countess of Lennox for Lady Culter and have appointed a time and a place for tomorrow. And a safe-conduct.”
“Good.” Lymond dropped the towel, supporting himself on the edge of the water butt. “You know what to do.”
Although he had not thought it necessary to tell Scott, Matthew had received the fullest instructions about Mariotta. So, though his eyes on the Master were thoughtful, he simply said, “Yes, I know,” and picking up the cloth, waited patiently.
Lymond moved to the staircase and dropping on the bottom step, head in hands, said nothing for a while. Presently, he looked up. “I’m going away. I don’t want to disturb the others. Get my horse, Mat, will you? And my bow and a blanket and some clothes.”
It didn’t take long. Once in the saddle, Lymond looked rather better. “There’s some food in the bag,” said Turkey aggressively. “And a cloak.”
“Thanks … I don’t expect to be off long.”
“And—” Mat was not prone to ask questions, but the event was too much for him. “And young Will?”
“Upstairs. A jewel in its setting,” said the blurred voice, with a trace of its normal caustic assurance. Then Lymond turned the horse out of the yard and a moment later put it to the trot down the hill.
Matthew went in. No one had moved, although as the light grew, strange and welcome noises could be heard in the kitchens. Turning into the narrow staircase he walked up to the first floor and opened the door of Lymond’s room.
One solitary candle was burning still. The room reeked of tallow and spilled drink, and last night’s fire was a mess of charred wood and ash in the grate. Across the hearth, his head in the cold rubbish and his hand still clutching a pewter tankard which had emptied itself about him as he fell, lay Will Scott, snoring ferociously in an alcoholic stupor. Someone had loosened his clothing at the neck, put a cushion under his head, and laid a towel and a basin neatly and squarely on his stomach.
Matthew absorbed the spectacle; grinned; and still grinning, walked to the door and shut it gently behind him.
* * *
From Crawfordmuir, the Master made his way slowly across country to Corstorphine.
It took five days to arrange a rendezvous with Sir George Douglas, for Lord Grey, learning wisdom at last, was keeping Sir George fast by the shirt-tails at Berwick while awaiting the arrival of Douglas’s elder son, the expected pledge of the Douglas good will. But by the beginning of March, Sir George was back at Dalkeith and free to arrange with Mr. Crawford of Lymond the more precise details of the exchange of Samuel Harvey for the life and person of Will Scott.
It was shortly after this that one of the Queen’s surgeons arrived late at the baby’s bedside at Dumbarton. He had more than elixirs to offer; he had astonishing news: of a tale of blindfold seduction. Of how he had been forced to care for a young woman in premature childbirth, in a tower solely frequented by men. Of how the child was stillborn, and he had stayed, perforce, a day or two after, until a woman arrived to relieve him of his task. Released, he