Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [157]
When, late in the afternoon, the door opened on Sir John Atkinson accompanied by the herald Vervassal, Harisson’s sheer, frozen panic could have been axed in the cask and sold off by the pound. He dared not even burst into recriminations before the sheriff’s cold eye. John Atkinson was a merchant, a guild master and accustomed to judging cloth and men. It was in fact Lymond’s tailoring, although the sheriff may not have known it, which led him, after a brief and minatory preamble, to allow the herald to interview his prisoner alone.
Today Lymond wore the tabard of his office. Before the armorial blaze of blue and red and cloth of gold Harisson was aware, for the second time, of his own imperfect state: his immaculate grey hair unkempt; his linen unchanged. Cap in hand, the herald was assuring the sheriff that he might call on the resources of his nation to clear up this unfortunate and unauthorized attempt to change allegiance. Then, as the sheriff left, Vervassal pulled on the crimson velvet hat turned up with ermine and, shutting the door with his stick, addressed Harisson with the clear fluency he remembered.
‘Since neither of us is the host, we may as well both sit down. Spare me your fury. I know I have ruined your defence; but at least I have rescued your skin. My lord of Warwick is perfectly aware that you have promised to betray him to the French Ambassador, and the French Ambassador is quite aware that the secret you promised to sell him concerned Robin Stewart’s plot. The confiscated letters were only a pretext. Warwick wants you out of the way until he finds out how much de Chémault knows.’
Vervassal paused. He had spoken in English as excellent as his French had been. Harisson realized, as his brain darted shrilling among the impossible obstacles of this fresh landscape, that this man, whose own name he did not know, must be not French but Scots. He sat down.
‘Better,’ said Francis Crawford, and choosing a high chair, seated himself quietly, the links shivering on his broad chain. An idea struggled in the chaos of Brice Harisson’s mind. ‘Lennox!’ he said sharply. ‘Lennox has told Warwick these things?’ And, as Vervassal inclined his head, ‘But how the devil could he know?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said the herald calmly. ‘But the Prince of Barrow, it seems, understands Gaelic; and the Earl of Lennox is suspicious enough of his guest to see that he is followed. O’LiamRoe was at the Red Lion.’
He waited until Harisson had finished swearing and said, ‘Quite. The fact remains that, so far as Warwick knows, he has only to rid himself of you, and he may proceed with the scheme without the French Ambassador or anyone else knowing what secret you were about to confide. An excuse for death or life imprisonment won’t be hard, I fancy, to find. In fact, he has already found it.’
It was coming too fast now for Harisson. The cold was in every dapper limb, and his face and posture spelled their fear unregarded. ‘But you say de Chémault does know.’
‘Unofficially only.’
‘Warwick will deny his interest. He’ll lie about it.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then how could he touch me?’ cried Brice Harisson, harried by this clear-eyed messenger of fate into perspicacity. ‘A false charge against me would only admit his own guilt. He should be begging me to protect him!’
‘That is why,’ said Lymond gently, ‘you are here, and not in Newgate. He is waiting to see how much de Chémault knows. It is for you to make sure, here, now, publicly and through me, that the French Ambassador knows everything, and that Warwick is aware that he knows. Let me call in Atkinson and tell the whole story of Robin Stewart to us both. You will be free by the morning.’
Momentarily discarding the picture of himself confessing publicly to a sheriff of the City of London that he had attempted to sell to France the most intimate details of an English-inspired attempt to poison a future French Queen, Harisson seized another ghoul by the hind leg and flung it to the fate snapping at his heels. ‘Free to get a knife in my back from Robin Stewart. How long do you think I