Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [259]
“You are not dealing with a simple man. The accusations against him are astonishing in their variety. We have dealt with all but the most serious, and it would take a bold man to say ‘This is true’ and ‘This is untrue.’ His past connections with Lord Wharton were deliberate and innocent, he claims. There is no proof either way. His actions at Annan may have sprung from well-intentioned, if obscure motives. That again we shall never know.
“Whether for his own benefit or not, he appears to have given a certain amount of aid to the Crown during the famous cattle raid on the western march. In the same way he rendered us all a service at Hume—this time entirely for his own benefit. At Heriot he played a dangerous game—again for his own ends—in which his own brother and the Buccleuch family were pawns though it appears, generous ones, in the way they have spoken for him. His connection with the Earl of Lennox again is a matter unproven either way—guilty or innocent—but again material reward enters the picture, and it seems likely that what was done was done for this reason.
“We are left with Hexham, and what happened immediately before. So complex is the picture this time, so various the possibilities, that we can isolate the truth, it seems to me, in one way only.
“To know what was in his brain as he drew back that bow at Hexham we must look at the record of his actions in the past for his real ambitions, his real mind on issues moral and ethical and all those intangible things which dictate whether a man conducts his body for the profit of his body, or for the greater renown and comfort of his country, or in the service of his God.
“We have not found out these things this afternoon; and we shall not find them in those things I have mentioned. For this we must go further back, to the dreadful and deadly crimes of which Francis Crawford was accused six years ago, and for which he has still to answer. These are the matters I am proposing to bring before you now.”
A macer, hurrying from Lord Culter’s side, bent and said something to Argyll. The Justiciar’s voice said, “What? Oh.… Certainly. No purpose in endangering—” And wriggling back his sleeves, the Earl whacked the table. “Adjournment for an hour. Break off meantime, Mr. Lauder.”
The Lord Advocate followed his eyes, then turned back, bowed and sat down as Sir James Foulis appeared at his elbow. “The old fool: it’s been coming for half an hour. Hasn’t he got eyes?” said Lauder comfortably. Through the curtain of officials and guards he could see that Lymond had lowered his head on crossed arms, exposing nothing but the nape of his neck and the admirable lace of his shirt.
The room was clangorous with conversation. Most of them, Committee and witnesses, were on their feet with a flopping and unpuckering of robes, a stretching and a crackling of paper. They gathered in half-prepared knots, mesmerized still by the rigours and tensions of the day, and unwilling to leave while the play was not yet done.
After less than two minutes Lymond gripped the arms of his chair, and then rose. The moment’s collapse, Lauder guessed, had been a bitter humiliation: he had not yet regained any colour. Nevertheless he made a deep and impeccable bow to Argyll and walked out through the door without pausing.
“That,” said Henry Lauder, closing his spectacles and throwing his pen in the wastepaper basket, “is a brain. If I were ten years younger and a lassie, I’d woo him myself.”
Foulis of Colinton caught Oxengang’s eye and grinned; to Lauder he said, “Well, he timed that little episode neatly enough.”
“He timed it?” The Lord Advocate, peeling off his soaking robe, was making for the cool air outside. “He timed it? Don’t be a bloody fool, Jamie.”
Will Scott was among the last to move. As he made to get up, a heavy hand cuffed his head and he looked around