Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [52]
What else he was going to say was never known.
The door burst open, the tapestries flapped, and a human tornado, enveloped in a whorl of depot-stamped canvas and trailed by protesting soldiers, erupted into the room.
The visitor brushed off his escorts, slamming the door in their faces, and strode headlong to Grey’s desk.
“Madre Dios! Caballeros, su ayuda … su venganza! Ladrónes!” Hissing, the newcomer fixed his lordship with a burning eye, and even Lord Grey had to admit the magnificence of his rage.
“He sido mortificado, insultado—hombre—me hecho hazmerreír!—Mirame!” screamed the insulted one, and peeled off the canvas.
Mr. Secretary Myles, tried beyond endurance, gave a soul-destroying quack. Dudley and Grey, pinned to the petrified edge of diplomacy, gazed at the sorry remains of a ruffled shirt, pleated and trimmed with shredded bullion; hair, once black, oiled and curled, swooning from a coarse woollen cap, askew; and below, bare thighs, blue with cold, and tarred and feathered from toe to knee as a duck goes to market. A single destitute earring winked next to the highbred nose and smooth olive skin.
Lord Grey, recovering an aplomb he had hardly known for a month, rendered sympathy, concern and indignation in a mollifying buzz. By a combined effort he and Dudley got the still-detonating visitor into a chair, rewrapped in Dudley’s cloak, and his feet in a pewter basin of hot water to melt off the tar. He was brought a pot of mulled wine and invited, at last, to address himself to Mr. Myles, who spoke Spanish.
The caballero was displeased. “But,” he said with some hauteur, “I speak the Scottish perfecto.”
“Oh,” said Dudley, taken aback. He, Grey and Myles waited.
The Spanish gentleman inspected his feet, sat back and proceeded to prove his point. He introduced himself: Don Luis Fernando de Cordoba y Avila, leader of the captured supply train, and said much about his relatives on both sides. He referred in passing without deference to His Majesty the Emperor; to the noble and adventurous life of himself and a few compatriots as masters of their own swords in London and Flanders, and drew their attention to the proverb “Un hidalgo no debe a otro que a Dios, y al Rei nada.”
Mr. Myles was anxious to translate. Grey restrained him. “I can gueth.”
“De veras,” said Don Luis politely. “My Lordship has the true Spanish lisp of Castile. His Spanish sin dude is as much good as the mine.”
At this point, discretion came to Mr. Myles, and he studied the floor.
“And now,” said Don Luis. He rose splashily to his feet. “To action, señores. Mas veen quatro ojos que no dos. If the señores will lend clothing to myself and my men, with your aid we shall follow and kill the animals who put the hand on us. By el engaño, the trick.”
The dark face flamed with renewed vitality. “The leader, I wish to meet. The confusion with the horses, the skilful overcoming of such a man as me: there is no man mediocre. Ay, ay, dios. Y cuando … When I meet him …”
“You may meet him now, if you with,” said Grey calmly. “We have him and motht of hith men locked up here.”
“Que pasa? How is this?” Lord Grey saw with satisfaction that the caballero was impressed at last.
“Pero—como asi?”
They explained. Don Luis, the ends of his cloak slopping in the bath, stood in astonishment. Then he swept out of the tub, imprinting the carpet with black sticky footmarks.
“This terrible Señor Huile! Lead me to him!”
“Señor … Wait a moment,” said Grey sharply.
Don Luis paused in the midst of a characteristic rush to the door.
Grey said, “You don’t by any chanth know how the leader wath called?”
“But of course!” said Don Luis simply. “Do you not? It is Don Huile del Escocia.”
“Don …” Dudley suddenly experienced a terrible nostalgia for the King’s English, unadorned. “He can’t be called that. He’s a Scotsman.”
“No, no.” Don Luis was annoyed at his own stupidity. “This I translate to remember. El nombre de pila …”
(“Christian name,” said Mr. Myles surreptitiously.)
“… It is