Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [62]
Mr. Liddell was lively as a frog, his small face niellated with gold dust, and his white hair trained over his ears, which were missing. Patey readily explained how this happened, and the numerous versions, in toto, lent substance to Sybilla’s private belief that the man was a rogue. He was also a brilliant goldsmith; and the source to Lady Culter of much simple entertainment.
Why she had made this appointment for today, the morning of the Wapenshaw, was beyond her to recall. Why indeed the plans for the Wapenshaw had been allowed to stand so soon after Pinkie was another matter, but the Dowager could guess. She thought, with unusual depression, that it was probably just as well, under the circumstances, to have a count of arms: that had begun in the morning and would be over by now. And if the Queen thought that outdoor exercise would keep the lieges from one another’s throats until the meeting was safely convened, she was probably, in a French way, right. This brought her mind on to her son.
“Patey!” said the Dowager at the top of her voice. “It isn’t a tapestry! Haven’t you done yet?”
Patey Liddell raised a denunciatory finger. “You moved!”
“I can’t help moving,” said Sybilla, in a nicely controlled shriek. “Your wretched cushion’s come adrift from the stool: it’s like trying to steer hurley-hackit. Are you going to be long?”
The old man beamed, nodding vaguely. “A wee thing to the right.”
Lady Culter turned obediently. “Are-you-going-to-be-much-longer?”
Patey worked away, his tongue silently tracking the strokes of his brush. “As to that,” he said piously, “the gude Lord alone kens. You’ve changed your hair, tae.”
“I’ve washed it,” said Lady Culter tartly. “If you think I’m going to remain unchanged and unwashed for sixteen months while you immortalize me, you’re wrong. If you could pin up the sun permanently in the top left corner of your ceiling, you would.”
“Ah, the bonny lad,” said Patey, working phonetically through the last sentence. “Only the other day I said to him, says I: wi’ the separations o’ war, says I, whitna better than a bonny picter o’ the wee lassie tae carry neist the heart.”
“What did he say?” shouted Sybilla with interest.
“He said,” said Patey, a shade reluctantly, “that he’d think about it when he kent whit I was charging for this yin. Acourse, I told him, it’s all in the frame. Says I, gin ye choose gold now, that’d be a wee thing costlier than your dear mother’s: on the other hand, tin’s dirt cheap, and if the lassie puts up wi’ the insult, who’m I tae—” He raised an astonished eye from the floor. “’S breid! There’s a customer!” And before Sybilla could murmur, he skipped to the stairs and vanished.
The Dowager instantly got off her seat and picked up the miniature. The likeness was, she thought, fairly good. Appraising her face at one remove, she was glad to find that sixty harassing years had left it, on the whole, quite presentable. The eyes and bones, of course, had always been good.
“But I must have it today!” A familiar voice, laboriously distinct, rose through the peephole, and the Dowager, entranced, prepared to listen.
Patey’s voice said, “Well, it’s no done yet, Sir Andra.”
“Then when will it be ready?” Hunter sounded impatient, and Sybilla sympathized. There was another exchange, then silence as Patey disappeared to the back of the shop. Then a new voice:
“Hullo, Sir Andrew! Man, what’s happened to your face?”
The Dowager had no special interest in Sir George Douglas, but her wandering attention was jerked by Sir Andrew’s reply.
“My face?” said Sir Andrew, and laughed ruefully. “God; like the beggar, I’m all face. It was that damned Crouch man, the prisoner of war.”
“Good Lord!” Sir George sounded startled. “I must say, he’d none of the air of a man-eater.”
“Dammit, it wasn’t Crouch that did the damage,” said Hunter. “It was some murderous brute with a black mask who smashed the house open, tied up Mother like a boiling fowl and thumped me—I must confess—to a pulp. It wasn’t too funny at the time.”
“No, of course not.… What about Crouch?