Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [58]
Sir George found himself for some reason smiling back. For an instant he was overcome with an extraordinary feeling of kinship for this odd sharp-witted person. Borne on the tide of this sensation, he said, “Then to seal our bargain, will you drink with me? I have a very fine claret to hand …”
His visitor assented politely, adding, as Sir George crossed to the armory, “Although I trust you have nothing against beer?”
“On the contrary,” said Sir George, pouring with an anticipatory hand.
“Because—your health—” said the other, “I took the liberty of leaving a hogshead for you with your Chamberlain below. A little stirred up, I’m afraid; but it should settle.” And, understanding each other very well, the eyes of the two men met; Sir George’s alight with evocative delight.
Left alone after bidding his anonymous friend goodbye, Douglas returned to the study and stood for a moment, playing absently with the ruby where it lay on the table. “Well, I shan’t make that mistake again.”
He slipped it back on his finger and gazed at it for a moment. “But if he doesn’t fancy bullion, what sort of bait is he going to take, this wild cormorant, this acidulous osprey of ours? Something. There must be something he wants. And whatever it is, by God, I’ll find it and make a collar and chain of it with ‘Douglas’ in fine Gothic letters on the neck.”
* * *
The spirit of Ballaggan Keep, imperious, impervious, implacable, brooding over its fastness like a tribal mascot, was Dame Catherine, Sir Andrew’s mother.
Catherine Hunter was rising seventy, and crippled in her lower limbs to a degree which condemned her to bed or chair for life. This, together with the loss of her husband at Flodden and the death shortly afterward of a brilliant older son, had turned the wines of her palmy days—already rather a variable commodity—into a corked and vinegary brew.
The keep, tall, gauche and of no particular charm for the passer-by, was stuffed inside with the prizes of Lady Hunter’s epicurean eye. No rushes covered the floors: these were set with Spanish azulejos and covered with rugs from Turkey and the Levant. The beds were wrought and gilded, and hung with heavy taffetas; the chests and tables in marble and scented woods wore tapestry cloths and carried a pellicle of Aldine folios. Other specimens of her library shared bedside honours with her Maltese terrier Cavall.
The accretion of all these aids to graceful living would have taxed a larger estate than Ballaggan. Lamentably aware that—even if gold mines sprang beneath his feet, like Olwen’s trefoils—his mother’s fancy would still outpace him, Sir Andrew was sometimes reduced to a state of nervous irritation very close to rebellion. That he invariably spared her either complaint or reproach labelled him a soft mark among his fellow knights and earned him a solid revenue of womanly sympathy.
It also brought him the admiration of Mr. Jonathan Crouch, whose temporary career as a prisoner of war, or a sort of promissary note on two legs, had brought him finally to lodge with Sir Andrew.
With Mr. Crouch came his tongue, his teeth, his lips, his hard and soft palate, his maxillary muscles, larynx, epiglottis and lungs: all the apparatus which enabled him, ne plus ultra, to talk. Like the enchanted garden of Jannes, tenanted by daemons, the keep of Ballaggan encased the ceaseless drone of Mr. Crouch’s voice. He droned through September until it and his captors were exhausted; then pounced on October with undimmed vigour and worried the blameless days for a fortnight.
By the middle Saturday of the month, atrophy had set in, reaching its nadir in the dead time between two and four, when Sir Andrew, whatever business was pressing, visited his mother’s room to sit with her. Lady Hunter, strutted upright with pillows, was brushing the terrier rhythmically as it lay cushioned across her knees. Her face, bewigged and topped by a hooped pearl cap, had the skin of an invalid and her mouth, lightly whiskered, was hatched, above and below, with the spidery wrinkles forced by powerful