Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [265]
“But—we have one piece of evidence in writing. The notes which were picked up in Scotland and attributed to Mr. Crawford; the document he says was the work of an unknown English spy; and which was attributed to him, he says, to ensure his disgrace with us. If that is a forgery; if Mr. Crawford can prove that this paper is none of his; that it was compiled without his knowledge; then the case against him immediately loses its mainstay. Mr. Crawford!”
Like the face of many-eyed Indra, the corporate head of the Committee turned on the exposed chair. Douglas’s lips were tight, his stare thoughtful; Herries wore a look of fastidious concern; Buccleuch was craning forward. Among the benches Lord Culter had made a tent of his hands, and his face was invisible.
The strain on the Master was sufficiently clear now. He sat still, a thin, deep line between his eyes, watching and anticipating Lauder as light might thrust and linger on a falling blade. Their eyes locked. “Mr. Crawford,” said the advocate softly. “This document before me was taken from the pocket of an English soldier after the raid which destroyed the convent of Lymond. It includes these words:
“‘The convent is on my land six miles east of that, and we hid the gunpowder there just before being taken at Solway. If you go immediately, you should be able to reach it before it is discovered: no one else knows of its presence. There is an underground passage to the cellar where the powder is stored, reached in the following way. If it is difficult to move, I suggest you blow up the convent.’”
There was a long silence. Culter did not look up and Erskine, beside him, folded his arms suddenly and gazed at the floor. The Lord Advocate said flatly, “Mr. Crawford. Do you admit that these words are in your handwriting, and were written by you?”
The tyranny of pride and the tyranny of intelligence, however pitilessly forced, could not protect Lymond from this. His eyes, terribly, answered before his voice. “Yes. They were.”
“Do you admit,” asked the lawyer, “that the signature on the last page of this document is yours?”
“It is mine.”
A contraction passed over the Lord Advocate’s face and was gone.
“I see. And,” said Henry Lauder with no levity at all in his voice, “since the English did follow these directions, did find the passage and, when attacked, exploded the convent as you suggested—since these things happened, the deaths of four nuns and ten girls within the convent, including the death of Eloise Crawford, your sister, are your responsibility?”
Flagging and infinite silence.
“Yes. I am responsible,” said Lymond, ashen to the roots of his sun-bleached hair.
* * *
The room in David’s Tower was suffocatingly crowded; chiefly because not only prisoners but all the guards off duty had managed to squeeze in as well. The hottest man there was Frank, sitting by the fire with Samuel Harvey’s statement hovering near the blaze.
If he had expired in a paste of perspiration, nobody would have noticed. The colletic stare of guards and Englishmen alike was on the sweating, subsaltive hands and on the grinning tarots: the impious Papess, the lascivious Lover, the jeering Fool. The two baggage rolls still lay on the floor, but their contents had changed: beside Palmer’s chair lay some of Scott’s money, and some of Palmer’s minor possessions lay at Scott’s hand. Both men were in shirt sleeves.
In the evening light, Will’s face was the paler of the two. The older man was playing with a careless, sure hand: leading, luring, discarding with persistent ingenuity, and had caught Scott out badly several times. None the less Scott won, not once but reasonably often; and when he lost, it was not by an irretrievable margin.
He had a healthy respect by that time for Palmer’s card playing. Watching him seated opposite, massive and smooth as a tree, Scott recognized