Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [217]
Acheson groaned.
With sharp distaste Lord Grey said to Lymond’s guards, “Take him away!” but Margaret was already advancing on her tormentor. With all her considerable strength she struck at his mouth with the back-driving flat of her hand and Erskine, his heart in his teeth, saw the Master call smoothly on his reserves.
The woman’s wrist was caught and pulled to him. Then, behind the shield of her body, he side-stepped and snatched. With young Wharton’s bow and quiver in his free hand he backed to the stairs, dragging Margaret, wildly struggling, with him.
He held her, one-handed, until he reached the foot of the steps; then hurling her from him an instant before she fought quite free he turned and raced up the wide, shallow treads.
Erskine was ready. As Lymond crashed breathless beside him in the shelter of the balustrade his sword was out, ready to cut back the expected rush; but the other man was already on his feet again with the bow strung. There was only one arrow. He said under his breath, “Keep down, damn you!” and as Erskine knelt, Lymond took aim below.
Wharton and his son, halfway up the stairs, halted. “Get back!” said the Master.
There was a long pause. Lennox, at the foot of the steps, was bent over his wife. Grey, still at the head of the table, hadn’t moved; the two guards stood helplessly beside him.
Against a bow and a fine marksman, their swords might be unbarrelled shooks. The Whartons recoiled down the stairs and the tilt of the bow followed them. Behind, the gallery was empty, a half-open door leading to the deserted monks’ dormitory, the day stairs, the cloisters, the refectory, the storehouses: a thousand hiding places and a thousand exits.
They held the hour in their fingers, like a day lily. They had merely to destroy Acheson and go.
The bow in his hands, Lymond stood motionless. Erskine was turning on him, riven with urgency, when he saw the movement above his head. On the narrow ledge, to the right, the twin of his own former stance, a man stood with a hackbut.
From that ledge there was no turnpike down to the gallery, but the arquebusier had no need to come closer to Lymond to have him fully in range. Erskine turned, frantic exhortations in his mouth, and saw, at last, why Lymond had made no effort to shoot.
For Acheson had moved. Sitting up, hands on marble, he was attempting weakly to stand. Until he did so, he was totally screened by the parapet. And there was only one arrow.
The loading of an arquebus is a protracted affair. Hidden under the low wall, Erskine had a terrible leisure to watch this man’s quick fingers. He saw the glimmer of the manipulated barrel and knew from the tightening of Lymond’s fingers on the bow that he also had seen.
The Master gave it no other attention. He was talking, the limpid, carrying voice penetrating the transept below as Acheson, disgruntled and bloody, rubbed his black head and muttered.
“Keep your voices down,” said Lymond. “Don’t move. Don’t shout for help. I can kill any one of you from here.” His eyes were tranquil, of a clearheaded strength: there was no hint in them of the day’s exhaustions and disasters. Talking, he moved slowly along the wall, trying to uncover Acheson. The hackbutter, in his haste, dropped something with a small bump and picked it up again.
“… teach you a lesson with some ex cathedra observations,” Lymond was continuing. “You may feel a little foolish; you don’t appear so to me. Wharton is a master of his profession: it’s a profession where one cannot stay detached, and he has paid that penalty. But he knows very well that corrective pressure and armed coercion are two of the longest, least successful and most offensive