Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [198]
There was a little silence. Then the blind girl said slowly, “You’re quite safe, you know. Harvey confessed to a lot of things, but they had nothing to do with me. If he signed anything, it’s probably on its way to his relatives in the south. Why on earth should I want it? If you don’t believe me, I’m quite willing to be searched.”
“That’s very sensible of you,” said Margaret Douglas cheerfully. “Because I don’t believe you, and although I’m sure you’ve been most ingenious, I was proposing to search you very thoroughly indeed.”
Sym, coming out of a cloud of misery, suddenly took her up. “Search her! Just try and touch her, ye bitch! Try and touch either of us!”
“You misunderstand me,” said Lady Lennox. “I wouldn’t soil my fingers. On you or your complaisant little mistress.”
Sym cried out. “What have I done? She means ye harm: what have I done? I didna mean—it was just the drink—and she asked me—”
“Never mind, Sym,” said Christian. “I’m afraid it was a mistake. She’s no friend of ours—or of our friends.”
She could hear him swallow. He said in a low voice, “The Master of Culter? She wants to hurt you and the Master of Culter?”
“Yes.”
“Then she willna!” said Sym, and hurled himself at Christian’s horse.
The impact of his body jarred her forward, breathless. She felt him settle behind her, the brush of the reins as he gathered them tight; the firm clasp of his arm around her waist. The horse drew himself in, quivered, and answering Sym’s heels swerved, spun, and drove like an arrow through the cavalcade.
Burst asunder, rearing, scattered, speechless, they looked after the flying horse; then, streaming up from the green Tyneside meadows, scrambling and pecking and hullooing over the little hills, they followed in full cry.
Christian had no breath. Crushed in the boy’s grip, thought was driven from her by the speed of the animal; her hair buffeted and flew about her face, and her skirts tugged and twisted. The clasp at her waist shifted, and she managed a gasp. “Sym, you fool, go back! We’ll be overtaken and it’ll be—all the worse for us both.”
For answer Sym drove his spurs again. “I started the trouble, and I’ll get you out of it, if it’s only to find a place for those papers … could ye get them ready, now?”
She couldn’t. Samuel Harvey’s statement—the paper she had denied to Margaret Douglas—was sewn very thoroughly in her saddlecloth. Nor were they likely, doubly burdened, to make enough ground to retrieve and hide it unseen. She said forcibly, “Simon: stop this horse and turn around. It’s no good!”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, above the thud and jangle and creak of the galloping horse there came an odd, rustling noise. It stopped suddenly with a bump, and Sym gave a little grunt. The arms about her slackened and the pressure at her back shifted. Christian cried once, “Simon!” and then with a clatter the whole body behind her shook itself loose and, rolling over the gelding’s haunches, thudded on the heather.
The horse, already overexcited, entered a glory of self-induced fright and, the reins swaying against its knees, took the bit between its teeth.
The lifeless weight had nearly pulled the girl off too. But, barely realizing what had happened, Christian closed her knees instinctively and gripped the uncut mane with one hand, groping for the fallen reins. They eluded her: the horse was galloping wildly, shoulders and haunches lurching on the uneven ground; scrambling up slopes and down them, reaching higher and higher ground. Bushes clawed at her and once, a whipping branch stung her cheek.
She was holding now with both hands deep in the coarse hair. What kind of country? Not the homely paths between Boghall and Culter, or Stirling, or Dumbarton, or the High Street in Edinburgh with Simon, or Tom, or Jenny Fleming chatting placidly, describing the way to her.
A foreign land. Enemy country, where the earth existed to foster her ill-wishers, and trees to shelter them,