Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [268]
It was beyond human strength to restrain Buccleuch any longer. “Perjure himself!” roared Sir Wat. “Unhealthy emotions! Self-disgust! Are you calling my son a debauchee?”
“I merely pointed out—”
“That boy,” bellowed Sir Wat, “was a shilpit, shiftless, shilly-shallying gomerel before he met up with Francis Crawford. And now, by God—he still maybe makes up his mind three times in the time a normal man would do it once, but I’d sooner have him back of me in an argument or a fight than any finnicking ninny that stayed at home and got wed at St. Cuthbert’s before he stopped talking like the squeak off a tumbler!”
“I don’t deny,” said the Bishop loudly, “that your son is now an exceedingly efficient fighting man: witness his unprecedented attack on yourself. I am only seeking to prove—”
“It seems to me you were only seeking to prove six other things as well,” said Sir Wat threateningly. “And all of them damned insulting.”
“—In any case,” said Henry Lauder quickly, “the point is made. We may be forgiven for believing that associations natural and unnatural come easily to Mr. Crawford. And that brings us, distasteful as it may be, to a popular report very widely current in the months after the disaster at Lymond. I must remind you, Sir Wat, that Mr. Crawford may have had reasons—very cogent reasons of his own—for encouraging and even inciting the attack at the convent.”
The violence with which Lymond propelled himself to his feet was such that his monumental chair rocked behind him. In the flicker of an eye he must have seen his brother half-rise in the same moment, and must have guessed what lay behind the furious anxiety in the grey eyes, and behind the avid expectancy of the Tribunal.
Lauder, waiting, breathed thanks for the instant’s pause before the attack. A storm of emotion might have coalesced all the liking and sympathy which existed already for Lord Culter, and the less than neutral curiosity of people like Herries and Buccleuch. But this fellow fought with his head, not his heart, and the Tribunal would never warm to him. Henry Lauder was not a cynic: he was simply very good indeed at his job.
But Lymond addressed the Committee and not the Queen’s Advocate when he began to speak. The carrying, escharotic voice was thick with sheer cold fury for half a dozen words, and then he had it controlled.
“I see this idea is not new to you. Some lawyers believe that dirt will do as well as evidence any day; but Mr. Lauder, all heat and no light, like hell-fire, is not like that. He is simply being provocative; without of course making concessions to the feelings of either the laird of Buccleuch or of other members of my family.”
Lymond paused, and his voice, rock-steady, dropped a little. “Like Mr. Lauder, I have played on this stage before. I know the value of the stagger, the swoon, the vein swollen with ire and outrage. Mr. Lauder was a little afraid of all these; but instead he counted on me to wreck your amour propre as you had wrecked mine, with sad results for my case.
“That is why you heard the accusation you heard just now, grafted skilfully to the Bishop’s preceding statements about Will Scott of Buccleuch.” He paused.
“There is no foundation whatever for either suggestion. Will Scott is a normal, lively youngster: he left me when he did because he thought I was planning to give him up to the English, among other misconceptions. If you discount his father’s denial, you might also remember his moderation in the Tribunal today. Sir Walter is not a man to hide his feelings. My