Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
There was, he noted the briefest pause. Then she said, ‘He is unlikely to move in any direction until he has traced Robin Stewart.’
And that meant that Stewart’s disappearance had surprised his own principal, surprised and worried him. Was he afraid Stewart would betray him? Or had he merely been counting on Stewart to blame if any future scheme went wrong? And how had this unknown gentleman—God, he must beg this woman to tell him his name—how had he learned that Stewart had vanished?
The pain, drawing together its forces, began to concentrate in a kind of white haze. He said disingenuously, ‘But Stewart, surely, should be due back by now?’ and knew instantly, by her face, what her rejoinder would be. She smiled. ‘Oh come, my dear. George Paris serves anyone who will pay him. Did you think your little interview at the Isle d’Or was going to be exclusive?’
Her voice was thin; the sunlight darkening. There was not much time. Sacrificing everything to precision, his voice spiderlike in his own ears, Lymond said, ‘If this man is exposed, he will drag you down with him. If he is not, he will turn on you sooner or later in self-defence. Tell me his name and let me deal with him. This is my training and my vocation; and no one else can do it. I promise you that. Give me your discretion. You have a unique power. You can do something here and now that will give you in hundreds and thousands the posterity you will never have of your own. If you wait, you lose everything. I promise you that, too. And losing it, what will you be?’
She had risen as he was speaking, a lighted spar in her hand. Shielding it with her palm she crossed to one side of the pallet, then the other, and delicately lit the fine tapers. A sweet and sickly odour stirred in the room. Then she stood, head tilted, and looked at him, the heavy coiling black hair all bronzed by the light.
‘… What shall I be? Like Thady Boy Ballagh, surely,’ she said in her worn, bitter voice; and lying open-eyed and still under the smoke, Francis Crawford did not reply.
At the door, Oonagh turned. ‘I would sooner let Phelim O’LiamRoe deal with any secret of mine than I should entrust it to you. You will stay here until I bring someone to see you, and whatever he thinks fit will be done. If you escape to your Scottish friends, I shall inform the French King where you are. If you escape to your French friends, if you are seen abroad in the street, if you move from this room, you will be tried for heresy, theft and high treason. The catch-thieves have been searching Amboise and Blois for you since last week. Every boat leaving Nantes has been watched. They have indisputable proof that the trip-rope accident at the Tour des Minimes was conceived by you. They have found royal jewels in your room and are already questioning your identity. Even without further evidence, the slightest investigation into your credentials will be enough to have you hanged for a spy. A fascinating situation. Think it over next time you are awake.… Good night. Sleep well,’ said Oonagh O’Dwyer.
She had made only one error. The news she had just given him roused nothing but a sense of challenge and an instant, reluctant admiration. But what she had said just before had set free his cold, quick, terrifying temper. His legs and left arm were strapped down to the bed, but his right arm, slung because of the collarbone and wrist, was quite free. Violently, belabouring the pain for one instant back from his senses, he pulled the arm from its sling and struck the nearest torchère at his side as hard as he could.
It succeeded better than he had blindly hoped. The floor had been left piled thick with dry rushes. The oily tapers, rolling, bestowed a rosy carpet of fire which lit all the bright waxen wood, and the wrench of the cracked clavicle, sagging with its own weight, forced him, gasping, into blackness. Oonagh, no more than two steps from the door, saw the dark head buried in the dragged linen, the hand falling, lit by the fire. Then she screamed,