Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [253]
Lymond said evenly, “I had earlier encountered the messenger and after reading his dispatch put him on the right road to reach Lord Wharton. When my men found him in Lord Culter’s grasp he had destroyed his message and my brother was naturally bent on preventing him from delivering it verbally.”
“But you thought he should be permitted to do so?”
“Yes. Isn’t it obvious? The message was from Lord Grey ordering Lennox and Wharton to retreat immediately.”
The whirl of ensuing comment gave Lauder time to savour annoyance. Gladstanes said, “And did they? Does anyone know?” and someone called, “Aye, Jock: my boy was in it. He told me the English pulled out of Annan that night, though the previous evening they’d every look of long roots.”
“In that case,” said the Lord Advocate, caressing his blue chin lovingly, “why, I wonder, did Mr. Crawford tell his brother the English were coming north?”
“Because I knew he would assume the opposite and take his men south to attack,” said the Master promptly. “Which he did. I believe they were chasing Wharton south of Annan all night.”
The Lord Justice-General cut across the hubbub. “If we grant your enmity toward Wharton—and I see you are prepared to cite witnesses for this—I still think you have to answer the charge of serving the English on the West March—whether Wharton, Lennox or another—for your own ends,” he said. “There are witnesses, it says here, to your activities during the invasion of six months ago, when you opened the way of escape for Lord Lennox while appropriating for yourself some of the cattle used as decoys.”
The face turned toward him was quite composed. “Most of the English who could still move had escaped by that time. The cattle were not for my own use: I returned them to their original owners, an English family to whom a number of Scots besides myself owe a great deal. For my part in the raid, Baron Herries can speak better than I can.”
This time the noise took much longer to die down. When it did, John Maxwell leaned back in his carved chair and astonishingly raised his deep voice, the impersonal yellow eyes fixed on the panel.
“The plan for the cattle raid was Mr. Crawford’s, made in a chance encounter when I was ignorant of his identity. I could take little active part. But he and his band drove all the livestock from the south side of the Border and succeeded in taking them to the right place at the appointed time in spite of very bad conditions: a quite remarkable feat of leadership. The Whartons detest him. The young one did his best to slit his throat a month or two later at Durisdeer.”
He stopped speaking as suddenly as he had begun and restored the front legs of his chair to the ground, ignoring the commotion on either side. First blood, miraculously, to the panel.
Licensed by the moment’s suspended excitement, Lymond stirred, and moving back a little, sat down in the chair provided for him. Lord Culter, watching, leaned back suddenly in his own seat and the Lord Advocate, who missed nothing, ran his eye quickly over the remaining charges and caught Argyll’s attention.
The Chief Justice thumped on the table. “Quiet, gentlemen! We have a great deal to get through.… Mr. Crawford, your explanations so far have been plausible if not entirely, as you will admit, supported by tangible proof. We now wish to examine your relationship with Lord Grey de Wilton, the Lord Lieutenant of the English army in the north. On the occasion of Lord Grey’s invasion of Scotland on the twenty-first of April last, you were the author of a message, purporting to come from a member of your band, which had the result of bringing the Laird of Buccleuch and Lord Culter, with their respective forces, in dangerous proximity to the English army?”
“It brought them, as I thought, within easy reach of Lord Grey himself,” said Lymond briefly. “The approach of Lord Grey’s troops at the same time was unfortunate and unforeseen.”
“You claim,” said the Lord Advocate, “that this was done purely to enable your brother, with whom you were not on good terms, and Sir Walter