Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [94]
She read the letter aloud, in the end, with no persuasion at all.
I fear to write. The great Pan is dead: there is no magic to bring you the likeness of my heart. My physical likeness you can have; but that will show you only a camelopard—no hero of romance; no prince of myths and sagas. My face will never do duty for my heart: my voice can never scale the barriers of your youth, your wealth, your hand promised—they say—to another.
But birds of paradise feed on dew and rare vapours and men on Pytan live by the smell of wild apples: so perhaps may the sound of words nourish us both. From here where all is night, I see a foolish-fire, and stretch my hands toward it and hope for miracles.
I cannot come to your nectary. I can only boom like a bittern on my marshes and say, Have pity now, O bright, blissful goddess. Once, I wished to marry you. Now you are betrothed and I must not wish it … but in writing these words I have attained all my object; I have achieved what, with your help, has been all I desired.
Read and remember sometimes the writer. You may see here no more than Mercury’s finger, but its office is no less sincere …
And it ended in Spanish:
Rosa das rosas, et fror das frores
Dona das donas, sennor das sennores …
A whole verse of it followed; then the signature: JOHN MAXWELL.
There was a stunned silence. Christian, staring where she knew Mariotta to be, scowled like a heathen, daring her to laugh. Lady Buccleuch, greatly taken, said, “Well, for thirteen years old I call that a prodigious compliment: hardly a word under four syllables.”
The Dowager was reflective. “Mercury’s finger. How odd. The Spanish, Christian—is it difficult to translate?” She had to repeat herself.
“The Spanish?” said the blind girl. “Oh, I know it. In fact I recently—It’s very well known,” she ended rather lamely.
“You recently translated it? Did you?” asked the Dowager.
“I was going to say, I recently heard someone sing it,” said Christian truthfully. She gave them the gist, her mind elsewhere. I cannot come … In writing these words I have attained all my object … I have achieved what, with your help, has been all I desired. The mischievous, overdecorated tongue was the tongue—surely—of her nameless prisoner of Boghall and Inchmahome and Stirling. The song was his. The artifice was his. But the letter was from the Master of Maxwell: the seal was authentic and the messenger had been from Threave. Finally, it was addressed to Agnes, and not to her.
But he had promised, odd as it had seemed, to write; and he knew that of the household, only she could speak Spanish, and would be shown such a letter. And in it, embedded in sly absurdities, was the news she wanted. Christian became aware that Agnes, in the same tentative voice, was saying, “Then you think I should answer?” and Sybilla was replying, “I think you certainly should. Of course, it’s ridiculously sudden, and you can never tell a man from his letters, and I certainly shouldn’t mention it in the hearing of a Hamilton; but a flirtation by correspondence never did anyone any harm.”
Pause. Then said Agnes, “I can’t write Spanish and I’ve forgotten all my Latin.”
Sybilla answered the panic too, in her calm way. “Then perhaps Christian would help you, dear. Write it together, and see how you get on.”
This was dangerously apt, and Christian felt herself go scarlet. Yet she could certainly help Agnes. And it might be possible—and could do no harm—to slip in some sort of ambiguity of her own. She got up. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll go to your room and compose an answer straight away.”
* * *
The letter had been finished, a meal had been served, and Richard had joined them when Wat Scott of Buccleuch arrived to collect his wife.
The Dowager, who had excellent control of her facial muscles, dispatched servants for food and wine, and drew Buccleuch in a cloud of disarming inquiry to the fire.
Sir Wat sat, throwing an uneasy glance at his host, who said