Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [28]
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Christian left the situation in Sym’s hands that night. Next morning, however, she woke thinking of her prisoner, and obtaining food and wine by a shameless lie in the kitchen, made her way with it up the private stair.
Inside the sickroom, she was aware of a strange step even before she shut the door; and indeed as she turned to do so, a voice said readily, “You may want to come back later, Lady Christian. Sym is out, and I’m up and standing by the window.”
She shut the door. “Ah, you’re feeling better. My dear man, not even an attack on my virtue would drive me downstairs till I’ve done. I’ve already climbed more steps this morning than a bell ringer.”
He laughed, but did not come to help her, she noticed; and, respecting his tact, she took the tray herself to the window seat and laid it on a kist. Then, sitting by the bed, she ascertained that the fever was gone, the headache was less; that he was profoundly grateful, and remarkably well up in current events.
“So Simon has been talking to you.”
“He has seldom stopped. He tells me Lord Fleming’s widow and family are all at Stirling, and thinks it uncommonly rash of you to stay behind. With which, as a special hazard myself, I must agree.”
She shrugged. “I can do more good here at the moment than in Stirling.” And felt impelled to add, “Naturally, I can’t risk being an encumbrance, or a hostage either. If things get much worse—or much better for that matter—a friend of the family will take me to Stirling.”
“And I shall stay with captors somewhat less benign. Ah me,” he said rather ruefully. “It may sound selfish but, as the poet said, words is but wind, but dunts is the devil.”
“Doesn’t that depend who you are?” she remarked. “If you bear a Scots name, you’ve nothing to fear. Or is this officer, but doubt, still callit Deid?”
There was a pause. Then he said, “Are you quoting from me?”
“Your very words last night.”
“Oh. I must have been in dire spirits. Have you ever lost your memory? I suppose not. It’s an experience. Pleasant but precarious, like the gentleman who sat under palm trees feeding fruit to a lion …” Pausing for breath, he added, “I rely on you to put down any lacunae to the effects of a blow on the head. I am but ane mad man that thou hast here met—”
“—I do you pray,” she said gravely, “cast that name from you away.”
Delighted, he took her up at once. “Yes, of course. Call you Hector, or Oliver … What else? Sir Porteous—Amadas—Perdiccas—Florent … How common the predicament seems to be. Most of the heroes and all the poets appear to have been there before me. I am as I am, and so will I be; but how that I am, none knoweth truly … Disdain me not without desert! Forsake me not till I deserve, nor hate me not till I offend.” And he abandoned English plaintively.
“Li rosignox est mon père, qui chante sur le ramée el plus haut boscage
La seraine, ele est ma mère, qui chante en la mer salée, el plus haut rivage …”
“Your French is excellent, of course,” said Christian. “And you disliked being called English.”
“Thank you.”
“Implying Scottish rather than English affinities—”
“I hoped you’d notice that.”
“—In which case,” said Christian reasonably, “do you not owe it to yourself to appear in public? Someone here might even recognize you.”
“A shrewd move, decidedly,” said the prisoner with interest. “If I disagree, I am undoubtedly lying about my loss of memory. On the other hand, it might be genuine, and my belief that I am Scots might be unfounded; in which case your friend Hugh, according to Sym, will be apt to give free play to his prejudices, and your hopes of a ransom will vanish.”
“You must think us very mistrustful,” said Christian equably. “Why should you be lying? If you are English, you would have no motive for hiding your name. The sooner we know, the sooner we should arrange your freedom.”
“I find the Socratean method even more uncomfortable than plain sarcasm. I propose to say what you wish me to say, viz.: there are two exceptions in your category. If I were English but destitute, and if