Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [163]
“Prisoner?” said Mariotta. “What prisoner?”
The wide, cornflower eyes were brilliant. “Oh, Lymond; Lymond!” said Sybilla. “Who else? What else? He’s driven that ridiculous boy half out of his mind, and this is the result.”
Mariotta’s face, too, was white. “They have him?”
“Tomorrow,” said Sybilla. “Lymond goes to England tomorrow, alone, Dandy says. They know where; they know how—the Scott boy has told them. Before Lymond crosses the Border, Hunter will have him.”
Janet spoke uneasily. “They want Buccleuch’s help?”
“They wanted Richard,” said the Dowager with a great weariness. “But failing him, Buccleuch, to take over Lymond from Sir Andrew and bring him north. But Richard’s away, thank God. Thank God,” she repeated, her voice brittle. “Because the young fool plans to trap Lymond at the convent. The ruined convent where five years ago his sister was killed.”
They did not see Johnnie Bullo slip out. To do him justice, he set out south at full gallop.
It was not his fault that he was too late.
Part Four
THE END GAME
CHAPTER I: Twice-Taken
II: The Ultimate Check
III: Knight Adversary
IV: Baring
I
Twice-Taken
And what is a Knyght worth, wyth oute
horse and armes?
Certaynly nothynge more than on
of the peple,
Or lasse, pāventure.
1. Forced Play Against Time
SINCE its untimely dissolution, the convent at Lymond had invented new graces. Its tongueless bell slept unharried among the cuckoo flowers and behind painted robe and beaded halo its broken beams, leafed like an artichoke, fed a thousand mouths. Of human life there was none nearer than the adjacent hilltops, where armed men waited and watched.
Lymond, with Scott and Turkey Mat, left Crawfordmuir before dawn, in a mild, vaporous rain that soaked them all. Scott rode mute, his breath unsteady in his lungs.
It was Oyster Charlie who had first hinted that the band was to be broken up. Will had howled at the idea. “The Master abdicate? Not while he can act like Cyrus King of the World and be paid for it.”
But the rumour got stronger. He had tackled Turkey Mat and Turkey had pulled a yellow face, his hand on his stomach. “It’s maybe likely. He’s off to England soon to meet this fellow Harvey and be made a lord, like enough. There’s no cause to keep the force on.”
Why had he imagined the company to be perpetual? It had been created at Lymond’s whim, and was being disbanded by the same lordly hand.… Scott took to watching for the return of the weekly messenger to the Ostrich, and he knew before anyone when the word finally came summoning Lymond to the Castle of Wark on the second of June for his portentous meeting with Samuel Harvey.
The Master announced the disbandment the same day in the hall, over the uproar of sixty furious employees. The Long Cleg had the loudest voice. “We dinna want to go. There’s no need. We’re doing fine. We want to go on.”
“By all means. But without me.”
“No! You’re to stay!”
“And who will make me?”
The thunder increased. “We’re sixty to one!” And Turkey had turned from his comfortable seat in the front. “Two, man: two. And I’m the only other one that kens where your pay is.”
Lymond snatched the ensuing decrescendo in which to be heard. “If you want to be paid, I’m afraid you must accept it. And even if you don’t, you really can’t make me stay, can you?”
And, of course, they couldn’t. Sardonic to the last, he had surveyed them. “All right. Get out. Think for yourselves for a change. You’ve been pedlars: go and be merchants. You’ve been mercenaries: go and find something of your own to defend. You’ve finished teething and there’s the world: crack it open if you can. It’s a damned sight pricklier than I am. In any case, whatever you do, keep well clear of me.…”
They were paid, and took their leave, clattering out in twos and threes: Oyster Charlie, the Long Cleg, Dandy-puff, Jess’s Joe. Turkey and he were last, as Scott knew they would be, because they had special claims. The money for them was in French gold and was in Scott’s own custody. But not in the tower.
Dreading a homily,