Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [179]
“There, sir,” said the soldier beside him.
“I see.” Gideon scrutinized the seated figure, far across the water. The bent head was unmistakable. “He hasn’t tried to cross the river?” There was a ford of sorts at that point.
“No, sir. But the river’s a bit high.”
“I see that. All right. Send a boat across for him and bring him to my room.”
Downstairs, waiting at his desk, it seemed to Gideon a long time before the door opened. Someone said, “The Master of Culter, sir,” and shut it again, and Gideon looked up.
It was the familiar, elegant presence, but quieter, less dynamic than he remembered. Lymond came only a few paces into the room; not far enough to catch the dying light from the windows, and Gideon saw only the pale gleam of his head, with indistinguishable, two-dimensional features, as if face and hands had blown like flock to their appointed places in the shadows. Lymond’s voice was pleasant, unchanged. “Armageddon,” he said.
“Hardly,” answered Gideon dryly. “You got my message?”
“Admirably delivered. Yes. Mr. Harvey came?”
“And went. We waited for you all day yesterday.”
“Then,” said Lymond dispassionately, “I’m too late.”
Gideon was annoyed. He said brusquely, “Mr. Harvey was in charge of a convoy urgently wanted at Haddington. I could hardly keep him indefinitely to suit your convenience. Our arrangement was quite clear.”
“I know. My fault. I was detained,” said Lymond. “The little squirrel, full of business. It was good of you to make the appointment at all.”
“I set some store by keeping my word. The matter was not, it seems, of very great moment to you after all.”
There was a pause. Then Lymond, rather helplessly, began to laugh. “Strike on, strike on, Glasgèrion. Prophète de malheur, babillarde …” And as once before, was betrayed by the uncertain, wanton luxuriance of voice. “You’re drunk,” said Gideon, disgusted to the soul, and slammed back his chair.
“Drunk?” The voice was alight with self-mockery. “O my God … Of Paradise ne can I not speak properly, for I am not there.… Damnably, damnably sober, Mr. Somerville,” said the Master unsteadily.
Gideon crossed the room in three steps. Faultlessly erect, his clothing a bloody pulp, his eyes brilliant, Lymond spoke quietly. “—But sicker than Rudel. Don’t be alarmed. It’s merely the effects of insufficient transport over damnable country in inclement weather. I was locked up in Threave until yesterday morning.”
Gideon said incredulously, “You came here on foot?”
“Most of the way. Running like a dog. And aquatics, too: hence the mess. I was sorry to give your boatman the trouble of fetching me, but nothing short of Buccleuch’s bloodhounds would make me swim any more.”
“I’m damned sorry.” Gideon was uncomfortably shocked.
“It might have been worse. But it would be a courtesy,” said Lymond with care, “if I could make myself presentable before we talk.”
In ten minutes of Gideon at his most practical, the prisoner of Threave found himself, unresisting, in bed at Wark.
* * *
At his own request, Lymond came back to the study at nightfall, clean, bandaged, freshly dressed and anointed, as he pointed out, with delicate things of sweet smell. He seemed, if not exactly full of energy, at least perfectly composed.
“I warned you about Scott,” said Gideon, who had opened by demanding an explanation of the Master’s delay.
“It was my own fault for being so intent on the unfortunate Harvey. As to that—”
“You say,” said Gideon, interrupting calmly, “that you have disbanded your men?”
“Cryand with many a piteous peep—by God, they hated it. Yes.”
“And are now therefore entirely at my disposal?”
“The Scot, the Frencheman, the Pope and heresie, overcommed by Trothe have had a fall. Again yes.”
“I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk—just once—in prose like other people.”
“All right,” said Lymond, and quoted with malice. “And as for Scottishe men and Englishe men be not enemyes by nature but by custome; not by our good wyll, but by theyre own follye: whiche shoulde take more honour in being coupled