Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [70]
She looked at him with vague distaste. “You sound like Grandfather Blairquhan.”
“Never mind. How many, and where are they all?”
She said rather sulkily, “You know. I share them with Cathie and Jean. Terregles, Kirkgunzeon, Moffatdale, Lockerbie, Ecclefechan … next to the Maxwell lands on the Border.”
“H’m,” said Hunter. “On the Border. You don’t say how many tenants, but I imagine it’ll run to a few thousand. And who do you imagine is going to look after all that for you and protect it from the English? And, if you’ll forgive me for being practical, who’s going to lead them into the field in wartime? You can’t dodge your national obligations, even if you think you can dodge your moral ones.”
“I knew you were going to sound like Grandfather Blairquhan,” said Agnes pettishly. “Anyway, we’ve all got men kinsfolk who’d do that for us, surely, without having to marry them first. The point is, whether it’s kinsfolk or husbands, they’d do it just because it suits them, no matter whether we were fifty and fat and had bowlegs, and that,” she ended with dignity, “simply isn’t romance as I see it.”
Mariotta suddenly intervened. “Don’t be silly: what do you want? An altruistic uncle for security and a boudoir full of lovers for pleasure?”
“I should like,” pronounced Lady Herries with a stately air, “a husband who put me before business or politics.”
“They don’t exist.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” said Hunter unexpectedly. (Fifteen.) He glanced down, his lips twitching. “You’re being a bit hard, you know; both of you. It’s pretty well a full-time job, these days, keeping a family housed and clothed and warm and protected. Doesn’t leave much time for poetry under the apple trees. But chivalry hasn’t gone: don’t think it. You’ll even find it paramount still with some people, but a trifle the worse for wear, because it’s not the best protection against an aggressive and materialistic world.…” He smiled again, rather ruefully. “And don’t forget: a man has other claims and duties too—to relatives; and old folk; and his friends. He’s not always free, as you seem to think, to slap down the money and carry off the bride of his choice.”
Mariotta said, instantly repentant, “We know that, of course. Agnes only means, I think, that often in arranged marriages there’s a good deal of unhappiness on both sides.”
“—And it’s a pity to go through with it for the sake of posterity if posterity is simply going to repeat the process. Yes. I see that,” said Sir Andrew. “But look around you. I think you’ll find that marital bliss sometimes fights its way to the surface in the end. And then, you see, there are so many other things involved as well—the continuance of a great house, for example—family loyalty’s a powerful thing, and that’s as it should be. Even sometimes the continued existence of a nation—that’s the price royalty pays. And that’s got a romance of its own, of course; not quite the kind you mean, but one that lies perhaps a little deeper.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” retorted her ladyship, “it can bury itself. They won’t get me to marry anyone I don’t want to, contract or no contract. Oh, look: there’s Menteith shooting.”
They were already looking, for young Menteith, Mariotta’s host from Inchmahome, was the nineteenth archer, and the crowd was now perfectly quiet.
He took position, aimed and loosed. His first arrow struck the crossbar on which the parrot was bound. The bar jerked, and held; the arrow twisted and plummeted as the second flew, ruffling the bird’s plumage. Two good shots. A subdued shout went up, followed by a crawling hum of anticipation. The arrow boys, one of them with a goose feather waving in his hatbrim, ran forward briefly into the field; the perch, chipped and scratched, threw a thin wavering shadow toward the castle rock; the autumn leaves, lit by the dipping sun, turned from tawny to crimson.
Richard Crawford, holding himself uncommonly straight, walked steadily across the field and paused at the foot of the perch, looking down momentarily