Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [50]
The explosion had taken place in the middle of the newly arrived wagon train. The carts had already disappeared in smoke, and the nearest thatches were blazing merrily. Grey, staring out, saw the yard striped with shadows running haphazard about the well and courtyard. Then Woodward, Dudley’s lieutenant, appeared below, and some sort of order began to materialize.
Grey opened his mouth and turned, missing in that instant a descending stick, and found himself promptly pinned from behind, with an arm across his mouth.
He bit, fruitlessly and painfully. He kicked, with better results; then, summoning his considerable reserves, embarked on a wrestling trick which most mercenaries would have recognized, but Scott did not. The boy held the older man as long as he was physically able, and then fell back for the fatal instant that was necessary for his lordship to shout, “Help! Guard! Athathinth!” having little time to choose his words; and that was long enough for the guard outside to burst in, and for Dudley to erupt onto his feet.
In the brief and damaging interval which followed, the fighting was less preventative than justly punitive. By the time the interloper had been knocked to, on, and across the floor, the room was packed with avidly assisting soldiery, and the affair had taken on the look of a riot.
Dudley, at a sign from Grey, cleared them all out and gave orders to lock up all the men who were with Taylor. Two pikemen were set against the door, and then Dudley, after a brief inquiry below, joined his lordship in studying his bedraggled captive.
The ex-Mr. Taylor lay on a small carpet, bleeding copiously from the nose and with the beginnings of a glorious black eye. His shirt showed white through the tears in his jerkin, and his skin showed pink through the tears in his shirt; his red hair stood on end.
Surprisingly, he was not an object of pity. His one good eye regarded the two men with a fair assumption of calm, and he even grinned a little, ruefully, at Grey.
“The devil!” he said impertinently. “Now we’ve hardly one whole set of features between us.”
Lord Grey seated himself fastidiously at his desk, first clearing a litter of papers which had whirled from desk to chair. He passed a hand over his thick, fine hair, pulled down his sleeves, and gave a jerk to the short skirt of his doublet.
“Now,” he said, putting thirteen generations of ice into his voice, “let uth thee what we have here.” And he fixed Scott with the kind of look linked with Assizes.
“You have not, of courthe, come from Roxthburgh?”
“Find out!”
“I propothe to thend to Roxthburgh to do jutht that.” He paused.
“Do you know the penalty for arthon and attempted murder? … or wath it a kidnapping? In any cathe, you won’t dithpothe me to lenienthy thith way.”
No reply.
Grey tried again. “I prethume you are a Thcotthman?”
His Lordship’s misfortune was Scott’s downfall as well. He couldn’t resist it.
“Yeth!” said Scott, and got his mouth shut for him by the buckle of his own belt. He tasted blood.
Dudley swung it again, warningly. “Keep a civil tongue, sir. What is your real name?”
“Find out.”
Again the belt. He supposed they questioned him for ten minutes, and still pumped full of excitement, he not only kept them guessing, but in a masochistic way, even enjoyed himself.
Finally Grey swung around to the desk again. “We need to uthe thtronger perthuathion. The men below are obviouthly in colluthion too.”
Dudley said, “They’ve lost their tongues as well,” and went on hurriedly. “Woodward tells me it looks as if most of the stores are missing, even allowing for what was burnt. The boneheaded fool at the gate let them in on the strength of their dress and the seals—they were authentic enough—and—of all things—because he recognized two of the horses. Of course, the train was dead on time, and he was desperate