Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [118]
The two wet hands twisted in his. ‘To see how the rich people live.’ Below the dyed hair, his face was blotched with crimson and lard. O’LiamRoe, his pulse hammering, could not take his eyes from its ruined intelligence. Thady Boy began to buckle gently again. Even the frenetic gaity had now evidently worn off, and his closing eyes showed a sort of sluggish content. O’LiamRoe pulled him erect. ‘You are rich. Or so they tell me. Have you forgotten who you are? What is your name?’
The sodden mass hung obedient from his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ said Thady Boy.
‘You are the Master of Culter, God forgive you and all who made you. Why are you here?’
There was a long pause. ‘I can’t remember,’ said the drunk man very courteously.
O’LiamRoe let him go. ‘You don’t recall a child who is liable to be killed?’
There was a long silence. Then Thady Boy Ballagh and Lymond, the one at last fused into the other, huddled loose in his haphazard corner and sighed. ‘Richard will look after it.’
O’LiamRoe said, ‘You bloody plague’s meat,’ and stopped himself short, to resume in measured tones. ‘Your brother is a marked man,’ he said. ‘He can do nothing.’
‘Neither can I, then. I’m busy,’ said the satisfied voice.
‘You are indeed,’ said O’LiamRoe cuttingly. ‘You are busy destroying. What hope has a soft, vain, inward-looking society against such as you?’
Like river water coming smooth down a dam, Thady Boy began to slide down his wall. ‘I can’t make music and live like a choirboy,’ he said.
A memory of the divine theory of self-expression floated through O’LiamRoe’s head, followed by another about the universal sanctity of high art. He said flatly, ‘You weren’t hired to make music. If you’re going to abuse the power it gives you, then you’d better not make it at all,’
Lymond started to giggle. With an effort, O’LiamRoe stuck to the important thing he had to say, his breathing passionately fast, his face pale. ‘Your job is with the young Queen. Maybe there is a man or a woman alive who can wring the wine from your guts and send you back there to do it. Myself, I can see no need to help. I am for leaving tonight.’
Sitting on the floor, Thady Boy was laughing so hard now that he made himself retch. When he could speak, ‘Leaving the other bitch to cut her own throat,’ he said.
There was a cup half full of wine at O’LiamRoe’s side. He flung it like a stone at Thady Boy’s head. A wash of pink malmsey, like rain on a window, slipped over the ollave’s sickly, glistening face and Thady Boy, staring open-eyed through it, heaved with laughter and the vaulting admixture of crude oil and wine and rich food.
There was a fair store of liquid in the room, both water and wine. O’LiamRoe gave Lymond it all, in shock after icy shock, hurled two-handed into his face; pursuing him with silent savagery as he rolled and paddled and scraped on all fours over the floor, stopped again and again, choking, panting, convulsed with idiot laughter as the next bucketful caught him like a blow.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the blistering rage died away. Suddenly cold and shaking, O’LiamRoe lowered his pitcher.
Huddled like a water rat at his feet, Thady Boy was laughing still, in the high, whistling gasps of near hysteria, and at his movements ripples ran out over the floor. A finger of water, hissing, fled into the fire. The dark stains of wine joined, in moist red falls, over bedclothes and tapestries; the ivory and tortoise-shell posts were streaked and beaded; the secretaire dripped. The smell of food, of sweat, of stale and fresh wine was unbearable.
So were his thoughts. Driving leaden feet over the splashing, slippery floor, O’LiamRoe strode, and nearly ran, from the room. Behind him, the laughter came to an unsteady halt, and was replaced by a cracked and insalubrious voice.
‘They shall heap sorrow on their heads
Which run as they were mad
To offer to the idle gods.
Alas, it is too bad.’
There was a brief silence. Then, ‘Alash, it is too bad,’ said the voice again, reflectively; and giggled; and said