Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [30]
A clash of swords above her drove the blood from her heart. She stopped, and was rewarded with a crack of gasping laughter. “Man, it’s not shinty! Use yourself neatly: see, to the left; forward; then up and through.”
There was a further clatter as pupil evidently followed suit. She swept to the stairhead.
“You pair of fools: they can hear your swords in Biggar. Sym. Is this the way you look after a sick man? And you, whoever-you-are! You’re taking our care of you very lightly.” Ignoring excuse and apology, she dispatched Sym to keep guard at the top of the stair, and seized the other man by the arm. “You deserve to hop like St. Vitus: turning fencing master with the fever hardly off you. Sit down at the stair bottom. Your head—”
“—Would serve a cat in a bowl eight days,” he said, with another gasping laugh, and set about controlling his breath.
The doorway in the turret looked onto her private garden. Overlooked by the deserted wing and surrounded by an eight-foot wall it was silent and secret. The sun was warm; the peace absolute.
Beguiled from her duty she rested too, shoulders held by the wall, face upturned to the sun. Nothing moved but great rumours of perfume swelling and fading, sforzando and diminuendo; an orchestration of woodwind in the warm air.
Silence, broken by three golden notes of a lute: her own, she remembered, left on the bottom step. She said, “If you play, please go on. Music’s my joy and my obsession.”
“What shall it be?” He ruffled the strings, and made a false start. Then a spray of notes flew into the air, modulating in descending arpeggios. He suddenly sang, neatly and gaily,
“En mai au douz tens nouvel
Que raverdissent prael,
Oi soz un arbroisel
Chanter le rosignolet.
Saderala don!
Tant fet bon
Dormir lez le buissonet.”
He paused, and evidently accepting her smile, continued. Tentatively, Christian joined him next time:
“Saderala don!
Tant fet bon
Dormir lez le buissonet.”
They sang the last chorus together, melody and descant, and when he stopped she said trumphantly, “Sang School! I knew it!”
Plucking crotchets like raindrops, he responded. “Am I a schoolmaster, think you?”
“Or a monk?”—innocently.
Laughter intensified in the voice. “When clerics sing like little birds?—No, surely not …” and he swept tempestuously into a song made immortal by its far from clerical sentiments; and from there to an estampie she did not recognize.
His playing was restrained and skilled. Drifting from this to that composer, he discoursed gently about musical theory and philosophy; and she found herself stating her own views, asking questions, listening intently. With humble and rather touching delight, she entered into her own world; the world of sound, and was happy until Conscience put a hand on her shoulder. She said suddenly, “Who is Jonathan Crouch?”
“Who?” he said lazily. “Oh, Jonathan Crouch. He’s an Englishman, at present pris—”
The hiatus, the inhalation, the shaken voice, were plain for her to hear. “You use drastic methods, don’t you?” he said.
Christian replied quickly. “Memory’s a strange thing, taken unawares. Sym told me you spoke the name in your sleep.”
“Did I? Then it must have some personal importance, I suppose … but what? I’m sorry. It’s vanished. Try again.”
“Then it probably isn’t your own name?”
His laugh sounded genuine enough. “God forbid! Surely I’d know it if I heard it?”
“It might strike you suddenly. Or maybe you’d rather select one? O Dermyne, O Donnall, O Dochardy droch …”
“No,” he said. “Look, we could go on forever. I think I prefer being an old, nameless article to a new-minted one with a false label around my neck. Or, indeed, anything of a ropelike character. Leave me to spend my remaining wit on Jonathan Crouch, and in the meantime let there be dancing and singing and all manner of joy …”
The lute sang, irresistibly, and so did he.
“The Frogge would a wooing ride
Humble-dum, humble-dum
Sword and buckler by his side
Tweedle, tweedle twino.
“When he was upon his high horse set
Humble-dum, humble-dum