Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [74]
The Dowager spoke quietly. “What about Richard?”
“It’s all right.” Christian was quick in defence of the absent Mariotta. “As a matter of fact, he’s asleep, and …” And it won’t do him any harm to be spared a performance of wifely reproach, her hesitation added.
The Dowager made no objection. So the gypsies left, and a little later, wrapped in heavy cloaks and hoods, the three girls walked out with Tom Erskine, and an unobtrusive following of Erskine’s men. Sir Andrew and Buccleuch left. In the snug parlour the big fire hissed and murmured in the silence, glimmering on mother and son. Sitting beside Richard’s quiet couch, Sybilla put on her spectacles and threaded a needle. Then she put it down and sat quite still for a long time, staring owlishly into space.
And it was into space that at last she spoke. “Oh, my darling!” said Sybilla. “I do hope I’ve done the best thing.”
* * *
“Are you all right?” asked Tom Erskine. And again, later on, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling all right?”
“Of course. It’s the cold,” said Christian rather snappishly, and relaxing her grip on his arm, tried furiously to still the uncalled-for and humiliating frisson set up by her nerves.
It was not the cold, as she well knew. It was the crowded strain of the day; the blaring darkness; the devils’ orchestra of uncouth music; the coarse chatter, the catcalls and the mindless, ganting laughter. The Fair had become by night a bloated Saturnalia, sodden, sottish and leering of voice. She was buffeted by blundering bodies and twitched by grasping hands. Smells assailed her: beer smells, food smells and leather smells; the stink of human bodies and once, as two struggling shapes crashed into her, the reek of blood, forcing on the mind the warm fire and the reeking arrows of an hour before—Culter’s voice: “If that’s what a life of depravity does for your archery”; Mariotta’s: “He seems able to do almost anything he wants”; the Dowager, bandaging with cool hands, refusing to panic.…
“Buy a rare pippin!” said a voice in her ear. “A fine rosy pippin for a fine rosy lass—”
“A chain of gold for that bonny dress, now! Five crowns and a kiss for yourself, my bonny may!”
“Hatpins, sweeting: a thousand and a half for sixteen pence—”
“A puppet for your sister!”
“Mackerel!”
“Hot pies!”—And grease brushing her cheek as the pastry was thrust upward. The shaking became uncontrollable.
“Tell your fortune, lassies!” in the sly, garlic-laden voice.
It was some kind of a booth. First Agnes went in; then Mariotta; and they were both quite remarkably reticent when they came out. Tom, waiting with Christian, was bored. “It sounds poor stuff to me. Let’s go home.”
Agnes objected. “Christian hasn’t been yet.”
“Fortune, lady?” said Bullo’s voice again, at Christian’s elbow. “One other lady?”
“I’ll come with you—”
“Oh, no you won’t.” Christian eluded Tom deftly. “If I’m going to have the secrets of my boudoir revealed, you’re staying outside. Master Bullo will take me.”
Silently, the gypsy caught her sleeve, and they moved forward. Something brushed her hood, and from the deadening of noise, she guessed the tent flap had closed behind her. Underfoot, the street cobbles were spread with fabric; the darkness was stuffy and cold, smelling vaguely of cheap incense. She walked a few paces, and then was aware of a new aperture. The grip on her elbow disappeared; Bullo’s soft steps could be heard receding; then these in turn were cut off. This time, there was absolute silence.
Her face forced into lines of composure, her betraying hands tight-held behind her back, Christian stood quite still and waited in the cold and the dark.
Mothlike in its lightness and rapid insistency, the so-familiar voice spoke. “This, of course, is the chamber of devils, who sit in hexagon babbling like herring gulls about the ruin of charity and the disorderly rupture of souls.… The aforesaid malignants have provided a chair,