Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [175]
* * *
Will Scott had been right in thinking that the Master of Maxwell would move not an inch to help a man of the notoriety of Lymond. Maxwell and his wife were at one of their lodges, hunting, when Hunter’s message arrived. Maxwell sent a congratulatory reply making Sir Andrew and Buccleuch free of his castle and its prisons until the following morning, and continued to hunt. He did, however, dispatch his wife home, as was fitting, to see that his guests, voluntary and involuntary, were comfortably housed.
At eleven o’clock that night, Agnes Herries stalked into the hall at Threave, making a dozing Buccleuch jump like a rabbit over a somnolent game of prime; and demanded to know whether he was out of his senses, locking up his son with a desperate man like the Master.
As was due to his hostess, he explained his reasons, succinctly. She questioned them. He explained, more fully. She contradicted him. At midnight Buccleuch, grousing, unbolted the trap door in the light of the torch held by Agnes Herries and called down. “Will! Are ye all right?”
“Of course!” replied his son’s voice, rudely.
“Then ye might as well come up,” said Sir Wat ungraciously, and abandoning the trap to Lady Herries, stumped off without waiting for the sight of his heir.
Will Scott crossed the cellar stiffly. Lymond’s buried head did not stir. For a moment the boy stopped, looking down at him; then he turned and ran quickly up the wooden staircase.
At the top, the trap door was held open by Agnes Herries. Beyond her, he saw that three men still stood guard in the kitchen and passage, but that the guard had changed, and none of them was a Scott. He hesitated.
“Gracious!” said Lady Herries. “After all the trouble I’ve taken to get you out, can you not walk a little quicker than that? I want to go to bed.” Her eyes under the heavy brows met his with a vigorous impatience, and as the young man set foot on the kitchen floor she dropped the trap with a thud that shook the pans on their shelves, and the bolts rattled. She straightened. “Well?”
“All right,” said Scott, making up his mind, rather to his own surprise. “I’m half asleep, that’s all. I’m sorry. Lead on. It was very good of you to …”
And in ten minutes he was in bed, although it was a long time before he fell asleep.
* * *
Long before he woke, Christian Stewart left the castle with her retinue, riding as fast as Sym would allow her. It had taken her a good part of the night to accept the fact that she must leave; and Buccleuch, who had no liking for playing the jailer or the spy, was relieved to see her go.
At six o’clock, a fist crashed on Scott’s door, and a roar summoned him to fling on a robe and meet his father in the hall. He did so, and found a room full of cowed servitors, his hostess in a state of fluent resignation, and his father in a temper.
“Ho!” said Buccleuch, when his son appeared. “Ho! So it’s come to it that ye canny even snib a bolt behind ye, now. Or didn’t ye mean to snib it?”
With his new arts, Will Scott kept surmise and recollection out of his face. “What bolt?”
“What bolt!” snarled Sir Wat. “The wee snib on the back yett to the kennels. The trap door in the kitchen, ye gomerel. They found it this morning, as free as Hosea’s wife, and yon three stookies littered in the passages with their heads dunted.”
Scott’s mouth opened. “Then Lymond’s gone?”
His sire was sarcastic. “Well, he didna pop out of the hole, bash three fellows on the head and pop back in again, just for the devil of it. Of course he’s gone! There’s half Threave out hunting him, but deil knows the start he’s got. And it’s your fault, ye damned fool!”
This was a surprise. Scott said indignantly, “How?”
Agnes Herries said severely, “I told you to bolt that trap properly. How you could be so careless!”
Scott stared at her. “You told me … ?”
She stared back. “Sleepy you may have been, but not too sleepy to forget that, I hope. Even my three men remember it quite distinctly. So if the trap wasn’t properly fastened, you have only yourself to blame.