Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [45]
Trois ramiers des boi
Deux tourterelles
Une pertriolle …
Will was ready for lapping. He picked up the waxed thread and glanced at the ruined Peel Tower, their present headquarters, which he controlled during Lymond’s current absence. They moved about throughout the year, he knew: sometimes to farms; sometimes in the open or under canvas; sometimes to deserted buildings like this one.
They were extravagantly paid, all of them. In return, they suffered a grinding and despotic discipline. In Lymond’s hands they were fashioned into a shining and precise instrument for advanced theft, blackmail and espionage; and faults in the instrument were dealt with instantly and with a horrid inventiveness.
For the thick-skinned, there was physical punishment. There was also a less respectable kind. Scott had seen, and would not forget, a courageous and rational man on his knees, weeping tears through his fingers as skin after skin of self-respect and human dignity peeled off him under Lymond’s verbal lash.
He learned to recognize from the slurred walk and the gentle dishevelment when Lymond was no longer quite sober; and with the rest to walk softly at such times. He didn’t mind. He had reached the point where he would notice nothing beyond the beauty and efficiency of superbly planned crime. One should always flee the impure. He was out of the muddle of truths and half-truths, and into the daylight. Only when—if—he were in Lymond’s shoes, there were a few things he would change.
Scott finished the knots, smiling.
Une pertriolle
Qui vole et vole et vole
Une pertriolle
Qui vole du bois au champ.
The Master’s party returned to the tower just before dawn, rampaging hungry and saddle-sore. They fell over and quarrelled with the litter of sleeping bodies, kicked up the cooks and battered one of the boys until he had got the tallow dips and fires going again.
Scott and Matthew, cursing, got them settled down after a bit, and when the horses had been seen to and food was on the board, Will climbed the stairs to Lymond’s room.
The yellow-headed man had lit a candle, showing his hair and clothes full of dust, and was reading what seemed to be a letter. Scott said, “Nothing to report, sir. Did you have a good night?” with a professional woodenness, a little overdone.
Lymond hardly looked up. He finished reading, unbuckling his belt with one hand; then laid down the paper and threw scabbard and belt on the bed. “Excellent, Marigold. One generally does, at the Ostrich.”
This was true. The Ostrich was an inn within first-posting stage on the Cumberland side of the London road, whose comforts were peculiarly comforting and whose clientele was select.
Scott said nothing. The Master, who seemed unusually happy, pulled off his boots, slung them across the room and slopped some ale from jug to cup.
“A splendid night,” said Lymond, running on. “Of wyne and wax, of gamyn and gle. And profitable. Indeed, it’s an instruction to see how human messengers-at-arms can be, when they set their minds to it, if it’s minds I mean. Sic peril lies in paramours. Oh, well. And that, my Wally Gowdy, was only half the night’s work.”
Scott said obediently, “And the other half?”
“Concerned a distinguished nobleman set upon by marauders on the high road to Scotland, until bravely rescued by myself …”
Scott gave up. “I didn’t know you’d turned philanthropist.”
Lymond produced the sweet-rancid smile. “I refer you to John Maxwell. He gave me to understand he was my eternal debtor for saving his life. And at that,” he said, laying down the empty cup, “your colleagues fought each other like shrews. I thought at one time the Cleg was going to forget himself and spit me.”
Scott understood. “This was Maxwell of Threave and Caerlaverock? You want him in your debt?”
“The Master of Maxwell,” said Lymond, “is an important personage