Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [262]
They waited as the pages flicked over. He went through them all, folded the papers and handed them with an inaudible remark to the Englishman, Frank, who was nearest. Then he returned to the table. “You want these papers?”
“Yes,” said Scott shortly. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Jesus. Whose life? A Scotsman’s?”
“… Yes.”
Palmer grinned more widely. “That’s all right: I’m not the vindictive sort. Sine lucro friget ludus, eh? You want this, you say. Then play me for it.”
“I’m offering you any price you ask,” said Scott.
“I don’t want money.”
“Then I’ll give you what you do want. Your freedom. Your immediate release, Sir Thomas, in exchange for these papers.”
Palmer sat down with a thump, still grinning. “I like Edinburgh. I like the Castle. I like the company. I can get my freedom any time, for a little cash, and a damned bore it is, with Willie Grey in both ears and the Protector under my hat. Give me the man who can stretch me at tarocco and you can keep Berwick and every bumbling Northerner in it.”
Scott sat down himself rather suddenly. “For God’s sake, I’ll play cards with you all night, if that’s all you want. I’ll play every day for a month without the sniff of a win. But not to gamble on this kind of stake. What do you take me for?”
The big man was shuffling the cards. “A member of a practical nation. I don’t want bad play and a sure win: I get enough of it. I don’t want a game that’s a duty or an imposition or a debt or any other damned, dreary penance. I don’t like it and the tarots don’t like it. Look at them!” With a flip of his thick fingers he sent the cards reeling across the polished wood, convulsed, mouthing and snarling. “Nobody’s going to fob them off with paltry wagers of three louis a game. They want flesh, do the tarots.”
Scott and Erskine were standing shoulder to shoulder. “Get the guard,” said the boy without turning his head. “Quickly. Christian Stewart was killed for these papers.”
Erskine didn’t go for the guard: he took action. The dive he made for the fireplace was nearly quick enough, but not quite. By the time his outstretched hand had reached the man Frank, the papers were already curling in the smoke a foot above the little fire.
“Call the guard—or try that again—and Frank’ll throw the whole thing in the fire,” said Palmer agreeably. He settled comfortably in his chair. “God! I was bored. Come along, laddie. I’ve plenty of time. I’ll play you tarocco, my boy, for all the money and every stitch each of us possesses in this room, and these papers go into the rest on my side last of all.”
There was a short silence. Then Scott said, “Let me see the papers.”
“No.”
The boy bit his lip, staring at Palmer’s cheerful face. “It might take all night.”
The tooth winked and wagged. “It might take a good deal longer. Are you in a hurry?”—and continued to wink as Scott argued. At the end of it he picked up the cards and started to ruffle them through his big hands. “It’s no concern of mine what you want them for. I’ve told you the conditions.” He looked up. “Why’re you worrying? You might win the lot in an hour.”
Scott sat down. In silence he untied and pulled off his jerkin and in silence he pushed up his shirt sleeves and laid his hands flat on the table. “Very well,” he said flatly. “For God’s sake let’s start.”
* * *
The hour of recess had, inevitably, nearly doubled before the Committee was harried together again; and even so, the interrogation had been under way for some time when Tom Erskine finally slid into his seat, passing on the way a face he knew: Mylne, the Queen’s surgeon. But Lymond seemed perfectly composed in his chair: the abuses to his body were perhaps visible, but not those to his intellect, which showed fresh and sinewy still under the sharp and thickening barbs from Lauder. The Lord Advocate was beginning to concentrate his attack: the darts glanced in the silence and were returned, with unfailing felicity.
Erskine said