Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [170]
At an open window on the first floor of the castle stood Christian Stewart. He saw her, saw the blowing red hair and listening face and then no more, for with an uproar greater than all Threave could offer, his father and his father’s train appeared. The sharp Buccleuch eyes swept over the throng; over the grotesque, taut figure by the tower over the captain, whom he jerked to his side, and over his son’s red face.
“Chains. That’s a new idea. Thank God ye didna have them at Crumhaugh.… Are you the captain? Just so. The Master of Culter may be anathema to you, as he is to the rest of us, but that doesna alter the fact that …”
The window was empty. Christian had gone, thought Scott, mercifully missing the name. Then he saw a billow in the crowd: a red head and two stout elbows made remorseless passage and Christian Stewart, agonized and dishevelled, arrived among them like an arrow, Sym flying at her side.
“Buccleuch? They’re killing a man here. Your snivelling whelp and that ape—”
“Hey!” said the captain resentfully.
Buccleuch, with plenty on his mind, looked both annoyed and alarmed. “Are you staying here? Well away back in: Hunter’s there; I’ve seen him. Nobody’s being killed, and this is no place for lassies.” But she was off, Sym pulling her, and paid not the slightest attention.
Cleated with iron, his wrist tendons stark and his yellow head poised like a tassel, Lymond watched her like a cat, chilling even Sym’s red-faced grin into blankness. Within a yard of him, the blind girl said, “Mr. Crawford?”
The way it was said caught Scott by the throat. His father’s breath hissed through his teeth; there was a surge of intrigued whispering and Lymond turned his full regard for the first time, wide-eyed, on Scott. The boy jumped forward, and put a hand on her arm.
He raised his voice. “It’s Lymond, Culter’s young brother, they’ve got,” he said. “Let me take you indoors. Well look after him: don’t worry.”
“I know who it is, you fool: I heard your father,” said Christian. “Are those improbable, schoolboy chains still on him? Sym, take them off. Francis Crawford: you’re another fool, playing Macarius with the lockjaw. I told you sound was my stock-in-trade. I’ve known your voice since I was twelve. You intended, I suppose, to sink like a pressed duck into a vertical grave.” There were tears of fright in her eyes.
Sym’s sturdy arms raised the last garland of cable, its manifold prints embedded below in pulped cloth. Lymond, obsessed and unheeding, opened tight lips at last and hurled words at her. “There are two hundred people listening to you. Buccleuch, damn you: get her out of here.”
“I don’t care,” snapped Christian, “if there are two thousand. I’m not accustomed to denying my friends in public.”
“Lady Christian knows the prisoner?” The captain, no less than his audience, was fascinated by this glimpse of frailty in high places. Scott rushed to her aid. “The Master imposed on the lady’s kindness without telling her who he was.”
That touched off the explosion. Ignoring Buccleuch’s hand on her elbow, Christian rounded on his son. “I knew who he was. To know isn’t necessarily to inform, as with some people.”
“But he believed you didn’t know, didn’t he? Hence the pantomime.”
The captain was impressed. “Jesus, that’s crafty. He wouldna pipe up in case the lassie linked his name with his voice, and let on that the two of them …”
“I told you!” said Scott angrily. “He got her to shield him. You’ve no right to assume …” But his voice was lost in the deluge of ribald laughter and comment.
The row lessened as Buccleuch let out a roar, but it didn’t stop. He gripped Christian’s arm afresh and she shook him off. “I don’t move until he’s safely out of this yard.” Her face creamy white within the masking red