Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [202]
Encores quand morte seray
L’esprit en aura souvenance.
Her eyes were closed with tears: strangers—foreigners—what were they to her? The man was playing still, his eyes resting on the windows as they had done all along. Through the glass she saw that a column of mounted men had come over the moor and up to her lodge gates: like squirrels their faces were pricked at her windows; like Ulysses perhaps their ears were tingling with the music of the sirens. She dried her cheeks and walked forward a little, and Lymond, seeing her reflection in the panes, raised his hands.
The horseman in the lead was bending down, addressing someone very young or very small. Kate saw the white flash of a face, and one bare arm waving toward the house. She was infinitely more afraid of the immobile man at the keyboard. She rested her hands, as in prayer, on the instrument. “It happened peacefully.”
“Did it?” said Lymond.
The entire file had moved forward to the gatehouse. There seemed to be a moment of confusion, then the doors opened and the horsemen came through, rather fast.
“I believe she meant what she said,” said Kate. “About being contented.”
She wasn’t sure if he heard her. After a moment he stirred, and lifting a hand to the keys again, picked out some slow chords. “It was the Frogge on the wall, Humble-dum; humble-dum.”
“You didn’t finish it for her, after all,” said Kate.
The house was alive with noise. He said nothing and did nothing; and at length even Kate’s resolution gave way. “Who are they? What do they want? Who is it?”
He had watched the long file of horsemen sweep over the moor: while he loosed his fierce elegies he had watched them sense the music on the wind and point to him like hounds. He had promised Christian music for her minion and outrider, and he kept his promise.
“What is it?” cried Kate, and Lymond turned with grim finality from the keys. “What is it? The end of the song. Where Dickie our Drake, Mrs. Somerville, takes the Frog.”
And on the last word, the stark and pitiful peace of his anthems had gone. With a crash of bruised post and split panels and an assault which sent gut and sounding board screaming, the door of the music room opened.
“—Richard, my brother,” ended Lymond.
It was Culter, his search over.
Broad, powerful, shivering within the frame of smashed wood, he was a primitive figure, of pantheistic and dreadful force. Standing still, all his mind and his passions embraced the two silent people by the window, allowing the texture, the luxury, the exquisite savour of the prize to drive him to ecstasy. A little sound, involuntary and wordless, broke from him.
For a moment, she thought it was going to strike an answer from Lymond. Another person might have screamed at him, or at the intruders; but Kate did neither: she literally held her breath, watching pressures she could only guess at being licked by this vengeful fire. She obeyed an instinct to keep quiet, and by lending Lymond the support of her calmness, to avert the thing that would destroy them all.
He succeeded. In the teeth of unleashed hatred and on the heels of tragedy he shackled human reaction and, rising smoothly and quickly, addressed his brother as men poured into the room.
“I know. Aha, Oho, and every other bloody ejaculation. Let’s take it as read. You’re delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can’t wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and your presence blasphemous, thus concluding the exchange of civilities and letting us get out of here. If there’s anything novel or extra you want to add, you can think of it on the way home.”
The words struck and fell dead to the ground. Richard made not the slightest movement, his grey eyes wetly shining; the fat veins visible on his temple and neck. “He’s in a hurry, isn’t he? It’s a love nest, as I live. Who’s the wench?”
“The wench is a lady, and mistress of this house,” said Lymond in the same controlled and insulting voice. “Erskine: take him downstairs. Something’s happened.”
Lord Culter grinned lecherously. “I’m sure it has.