Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [113]
The second time, coming to dress for the banquet, he heard Robin Stewart with Thady. He had come at the wrong moment. The conversation, to begin with, must have been a stumbling one. The Archer by now was at his most abrupt and nervously aggressive, his voice splitting a little as his feelings ran beyond it. O’LiamRoe heard that; and heard Thady’s voice in a tone he did not at first recognize, quiet and clear-phrased and sane. He was still, he noticed, using his Irish accent. He spoke for some time; then Stewart replied, but a good deal of the edge had gone. Then Thady said something quite brief, and there was a little silence. It was getting late. O’LiamRoe, feeling that he had done more than enough for Scotland, pushed the door open and went in.
Thady Boy was sitting on the edge of their decorated chest, rather still, looking with calm attention at Robin Stewart’s face. The Archer, evidently just risen, had come forward and had laid a hand, gingerly and enquiringly, like a nervous schoolboy, on Thady arm. Then, without seeing O’LiamRoe, he dropped to his knees.
O’LiamRoe made the next step a heavy one. The Archer looked round. His long-jawed face, hollow with hard work and recent travelling, went scarlet, and then white. He jumped up. Tired of the limp and foetid atmosphere of badly controlled emotion, the Prince of Barrow sailed across to his side of the bedroom, and sitting down, began to fight off his boots. ‘Ah! Don’t let him have you deceived, Stewart. How would he leave? He’s supping with the Cardinal tomorrow, and hunting the day after, and playing quoits with the King the day after that. Let you make haste to make your own plans with friend Paris and leave, for it’s that gay he is, there’s no knowing where he will stop. But, by God, if there was any sense in me, I’d come with you myself.’
For a burning second, no one said anything. Then Robin Stewart, all the sting returned to his voice, said shrilly, ‘God’s curse, I hope not. For five months I’ve had Irishmen falling out of my clothes like lice. I can’t wait to get done with them.’
He saw Thady shake his head; whether at himself or at the Archer was not quite clear. He had time to experience a happy sense of fulfilment before the door burst open and half Stewart’s comrades-in-arms tumbled in, tired of waiting to give him his send-off, and seizing the excuse to capture a better prize at the same time.
By invitation, O’LiamRoe went along with them and, dressed in a brave creation of pastel silk, a little niggardly at the seams, drank mulled wine and added his mite to the loud laughter and wild invention set afloat in the copious backwash of hot mace and ginger. Stewart, who had very little to say anyway, had no need to speak a word. Thady Boy, at his elbow, haunted possibly by his forthcoming exhibition, tipped down the thick, scented liquor, choked, swore, and was the first to stalk off when pages brought the early summons to supper.
From his discreet afternoons with the ladies, O’LiamRoe had sized up the great Court of France and considered that he had its measure. He stepped into the blazing Salle d’Honneur that night, and the reality hit him like a blow on the head.
About him were all the famous, high-browed faces pink-flushed in the firelight, the little pearls and crystals winking in every ear as the restless, chattering heads turned. Tonight, the colours were all different, heaped, tangled and flowing one on top of the other: velvet orangé, tanné, green, cendré, blue, yellow, red cramoisie, white, gold, copper, violet. In her high chair the Queen had thrown back a cloak of white fur sewn with gems; the King was in cloth of gold, Brusquet and the Archers and the dwarfs in attendance.
Everything was here that he could not help but know was beautiful: a good taste made better by wealth, but which would have managed without it; intelligence on a scale which made him remember ruefully his once cynical words;