Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [177]
Sybilla rose and with an odd compound of a sigh and a smile, sat down in her own carved chair. “Time will do it for you, my infant, and much too quickly. Your tragedy was that the man you became involved with was the very person who created the flaw in Richard’s maturing. And if that was anyone’s fault, it was probably mine.… How prosy we are; drunk with the dear indulgences of synthesis and self-pity and criticizing other people’s love affairs. Do you feel better or worse?”
“Better,” said Mariotta; and crossing to sit on the arm of the Dowager’s chair, bent to kiss one flawless cheek.
Tom Erskine was with them when, much later, Christian arrived from Threave. She was aching and dirty, with more than weariness in her eyes. Sybilla, watching the blind face, seated her quickly, and the girl wasted no time. Turning the fine eyes on the Dowager, she said simply, “They have Francis.”
The reaction was curious. “Who?” demanded Erskine. And “Who?” said Sybilla in a tone so different that the blind girl gave a quick, rueful smile. Sybilla possessed herself of one of Christian’s hands. “So,” she said. “We are coming into the open. Tell us.” And she did so.
At the end, the Dowager spoke. “Richard knows nothing of this? Good. Tom—you’re not to tell him, either. The longer we can keep them apart … I wonder …”
“Stop wondering,” said the girl. “It’s my turn now.”
“Go on,” said Sybilla gently.
“I made a mess of things at Threave,” said Christian bluntly. “There was some pretty dangerous horseplay going on, and by the time it was stopped they knew I wasn’t quite—disinterested. After that I was guarded; Sym as well. But the point is this. He had great hopes, apparently, of an encounter with a man called Samuel Harvey: he was on his way to meet him at Wark when he was taken—I got that much out of Buccleuch’s idiot son. Well, he’s missed that meeting now. But maybe another could be arranged—for us. At any rate, George Douglas is mixed up in the business somehow, and I’m going to see him. If persuasion or threats can do anything, I’m going to make him help.”
“Help? Help who?” demanded Tom Erskine, bemused.
There was a moment’s silence. “My younger son,” said Sybilla quietly. “We are a tenacious family, and you have a very kindhearted fiancée. Helping Lymond has been rather a concern of ours—am I right, Christian?—for some months now.”
Christian opened her hands in mock despair. “How did you guess?”
“Nobody ever,” said the Dowager sorrowfully, “credits me with normal thought processes. When a mysterious man creates a royal scandal on the banks of the Lake of Menteith with the keenest ears in Scotland strolling utterly oblivious—by her own account—in the locality, I begin to wonder. I also wonder when a delicately reared child sends a court into fits with a riddle which I invented myself. And when Andrew Hunter and Richard both mention a name I have heard you repeat, and the name is connected with Lymond …”
“And then you probably noticed the gypsy.”
“I noticed, certainly, that the gypsies who put in such a timely appearance before I lost all my silver were the same ones you were so anxious to speak to in Stirling—yes.”
“Was that why you kept Johnnie Bullo beside you?”
“To begin with. I’m disappointed in Johnnie,” said the Dowager with some severity. She opened a workbag, took out her embroidery, and put the horn-rimmed spectacles on her nose. “Johnnie turned out to be rather much of an individualist. It would serve him right if someone taught him a lesson.”
“Bullo … ?” said Mariotta. “But that’s the man who … I don’t understand,” she said despairingly.
“We’re congratulating each other on how clever we’ve been,” said Sybilla. “Quite without reason. For there is the dear man in prison at Threave, and here we are, doing very little about it.”
“You’ve been helping Lymond?” said Mariotta, and stood up.
Sybilla looked up. She put down her needle, drew off her spectacles and gave Mariotta all her