Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [128]
There were three claimants to the earldom of Morton, and Lord Maxwell and George Douglas’s son were the only two that mattered. Richard said, ‘I hear he has threatened to expose you,’ and regretted it, for his brother looked surprised and said, ‘Oh, Lord, that was nothing. Mischief. He’s the ingenious conspirator who had you sent for, I should be fairly sure. He always appears to be maintaining great structures of intrigue, but half the time if you subtracted George Douglas the erection would stand just as before. Stronger, probably. But he would come to her for Morton and she needn’t lose Maxwell. He has power enough. He’d be perfectly happy with money. She’ll need all the support she can get to cancel the crass stupidity … You’ve heard of Jenny’s little exercise?’
Richard’s mouth twitched. ‘Scotland is ringing with it. It must have caused quite a stir.’
Lymond got to his feet, tardier in his movements than once he had been. ‘Oh, it did. Fair Diana, the lantern of the night, became dim and pale. The Constable has retracted, and so has the King. And Catherine, of course, is simply waiting her chance to send Jenny home. All most desirable, of course.’
‘Tom and Margaret did their best to put a stop to it. I know you did, too.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘She was flattered. I had to fight, positively, for my reputation.’
He again began to pack, talking intermittently as he did so. Richard listened to a quiet and dispassionate analysis of leading members of King Henri’s court. It was exceedingly funny and tearingly precise; it rang true, alarmingly, as if the wax tablets of the Recording Angel were being leafed through on a lectern. They had not touched at all on the business which had brought Lymond to France. In the middle of it Lymond said, without a break, in the same conversational tone, ‘Wait a moment, will you?’ and went off, swiftly, through the same door as before.
The lack of fuss for a moment deceived even Richard. Then he saw the unpacked litter and realized that for five minutes he had been watching a private rearguard action of Francis’s own. In two strides he was out of his chair and across to the other room.
The attack this time had been a bad one. There had been no real hope of disguising it, as Lymond must have known. Even Culter, who had hardly led a sheltered life, had seldom seen a man so mercilessly sick. His breath coming hard, Richard dropped to his knees at his brother’s side and supported him until it was over. Then, smoothly powerful, he lifted Francis in his arms and carried him expertly through to the fancy tortoise-shell bed.
Lymond’s eyes were shut; the dead man’s pinches, like freckles, blue on the skin. His face, in the clearing light, was as Margaret Erskine had said. Last night, in the kind glow of the candles, it had been possible to recall, comfortably, his impudent talent for acting. When presently he stirred, Richard hanging over his bed spoke with something near malevolence. ‘You damned young fool. I know you, remember? I suppose that was just something you ate; or are you bloody well pregnant as well?’
Lymond waited a long time, apparently unwilling to take a breath, and then said, ‘Richard. Rescues on the hour, like one of Purves’s clocks. Would you bring me—?’
‘No.’ Richard, pitiless, answered him.
‘—Only a twopenny pint of claret?’ For an instant, his driving need was visible behind the coolly brazening eyes. Then he resigned from Richard’s grey stare and drank, without further comment, the water which was all Richard brought.
Presently he sat up, with caution, embracing one string-gartered knee. ‘Forgive me. My guts are unmantled and my sinews unmanned. God knows, it’s an offence against decent living; but it will go.’
‘When,’ said Richard, face and voice quite unaltered, ‘did you last taste solid food?’
‘Liquids,’ said Lymond. ‘I thrive best on strong fermented liquids. Saffron milk, like the fairies.’ He laughed a little, and then sobered. ‘I don’t starve, I promise you. If Nicholas the