Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [143]
He had asked who brought her there, and she replied, her husband’s brother, Crawford of Lymond. He said, very conscious of the sensation he was causing, that the girl would recover.
III
Mate for the Master
A Quheyne movand scho shuld kepe colour aye,
In hir first moving may scho diverse waye,
First to ye poynt befor ye mediciner,
Syne to two poynts verraye anguler,
To ye poynt void befor ye notair.
1. A Bereft Knight Is Checked by His Own Side
AFTER seventeen days in the field, Richard rode back to Midculter, intending to apologize to his wife. She was not there. She had left some time ago, with a small escort, and it was assumed that she had joined Sybilla at Dumbarton. So he turned his weary horse and rode there too.
They came to the small Queen’s bedroom to tell Sybilla he had arrived. She glanced up, seeing the change in her own heart reflected in Christian’s blind face; then looked down and tucked the two flaying hands under the sheets for a second time. “Tomorrow,” she said. The Queen made a hideous face. “Now.”
“Tomorrow you shall get up,” said the Dowager firmly. “And put on the yellow dress. And go and see Sym’s cuddies in a jug. If you are a reasonable child today.”
Melting eye and embouchure veered from Sybilla to Lady Fleming, just beyond. “When I am ill you must do as I want.”
The Dowager saw the trap before Aunt Jenny did. Aunt Jenny, despite a dig in the arm, said brightly, “But you’re not ill any longer,” and Mary pounced. “Then in that case—”
“You’re convalescent,” finished Sybilla swiftly.
“What’s—”
“It means going to be well provided you do what you’re told.” A thwarted silence. “Then I had rather,” said the Queen sulkily, “be ill.”
“In many ways, things were easier,” agreed Sybilla. She bent over the little girl, curled tight as a leaf bud in the bedclothes, kissed her and handed over her vigil thankfully to Jenny Fleming.
Outside, she took Christian by the arm. “Richard has come—you heard. Will you go with me to see him?”
The blind girl hesitated, but only for a moment. If Sybilla was willing to sacrifice Richard’s pride, it was for a very good reason. And in the coming encounter she had a queer feeling that the Dowager would be more vulnerable than her son.
In Sybilla’s parlour, Richard began as they came in, with no preamble at all. “They tell me Mariotta isn’t here. She isn’t at Midculter either. Where has she gone?” And—“Is she dead?” added Richard, in the same incisive voice, looking straight at his mother.
Sybilla sat down suddenly. Hearing the little scrape of the chair, Christian found one for herself and dropped quietly into it. Then the Dowager said, “No, she isn’t dead. I know where she is. But I wish to say something to you first. If you’re alarmed, it’s because you deserve to be, you know.”
He walked impatiently to the fireplace and back to the window. “She has been comparing my romantic attentions unfavourably with—with others?” He shied at the name only at the last moment.
“With Lymond,” said Sybilla composedly. “No. She might have done, but I haven’t heard her. It was about Lymond that I wanted to talk.” Her eyes, blue and compassionate, achieved a critical stare. “You’ve had a free hand so far, Richard. We haven’t discussed the raid on the castle, or the attack at Stirling, or the presents Mariotta has been receiving—oh, yes!” as he made a startled movement. “In some things I’m less blind than you are.”
Richard said nothing; after a moment the Dowager continued quietly. “But we are going to discuss them now. For I think you have come to the point where you must choose. Which do you want most, Richard—Mariotta or Lymond?”
He stared back at her. “You can hardly expect me to answer that kind of question. Or to chatter about my wife’s … affairs. There has been a misunderstanding. It can be repaired easily when I meet her. It will vanish altogether when my brother comes to heel.”
“What I am telling you,” said Sybilla evenly, “is