Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [154]
Knowing of her shattering failure to persuade her father to support the English at Durisdeer, and of the curious episode which had lost them a hostage when she found herself trapped by unnamed Scottish outlaws, Gideon was surprised when she mentioned George Douglas herself.
He observed with some restraint that he and Grey were to meet Sir George when they got back north. Douglas had promised them a hostage, a boy Lord Grey had wanted for a long time. Buccleuch’s heir, in fact.
Margaret Lennox said, “My father told me that Buccleuch’s son was working with … a band of broken men on the Borders.”
“That’s right,” said Gideon. “It’s not a very savoury story. Apparently it’s his own leader who’s selling him out. Not but what, having met the gentleman, I should be surprised at his selling his mother for cat’s meat.”
She was avid for a description of the man; for more details. “And what is he selling the boy for? Money?”
There was a pause made hideous for Somerville by a sudden recollection. Tom Palmer, listening with mild interest at the lady’s other side, was a cousin of Samuel Harvey, whose life was to be exchanged for Scott’s. He cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, the thing is a little delicate at the moment. Not quite settled.”
She smiled understanding. “I suppose your Lord Grey wants the boy Scott because of what happened at Hume? I’d have thought to see him much more anxious to find the Spaniard who double-tricked him.”
“I expect he was anxious enough,” said Gideon, sorry for Grey’s sake that the story seemed to have reached the metropolis. “Only he never found out who the man was. And of course his value as a hostage wasn’t as great as Will Scott’s.”
“Fair hair,” she said aloud to herself. “And blue eyes, perhaps?”
“Who?” said Gideon. “Not the Spaniard. The man Scott eventually joined had.”
“Of course he had. I know him. Or I knew him once, in Scotland. Blond, blue-eyed, rapacious and polyglot.”
There was a startled pause. “He might speak Spanish?”
“He does speak Spanish.”
And there were always black wigs.… “That means,” said Gideon thoughtfully, “that our Spaniard and Scott’s leader may be one and the—Perhaps,” he said, “you should mention this to Lord Grey or the Protector.”
“Oh, I shall,” said Margaret Lennox. “Tonight.”
* * *
Two days later, the Protector made his mind known.
Lord Grey was to return to Scotland, and not merely to enthuse from the poop. He was to march into Scotland on the 21st of April to meet his loyal Scots at Cockburnspath, and go from there to Haddington, tidemark of his former advance. There, he was to fortify and garrison the town to make of it a fortress, a warehouse, a steppingstone and a threat to the whole of Scotland.
Gideon with him, the Lord Lieutenant left London. With him also went the memory of certain acid quips of the Protector’s, and a vindictive wrath against a glib and Spanish outlaw who was huckstering with the might of the English crown.
* * *
When the convent on the estate of Lymond was blown up by the English on information received from its former landlord, the remaining nuns found shelter in a larger nunnery near Midculter. In this convent Mariotta had now been resting in collected misery for six weeks, visited regularly by Sybilla.
The Dowager, taking Lady Buccleuch with her for the first time, was subjected to some pointed questioning en route.
“What I can’t understand,” said Janet, “is how Will suddenly discovered his finer instincts and whisked her away from friend Lymond. I thought he was dedicated with the rest to murder and nasty-minded rituals at the full moon.”
“He was sorry for himself, I think,” said Sybilla wisely. “And that breeds so much fellow feeling. Anyway, he talked with her just after Lymond had been abominable, and they wept metaphorically all down their shirts and shifts, and he promised to get