Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [158]
‘The Ambassador can have him safely under lock and key still,’ said Vervassal, ‘if you tell me now where he is.’
There was a silence. Harisson suddenly felt exhausted, physically battered as if he had been fighting; his hands, knotted between his calves, were tensed, ready to fling out, to strike the table, to sweep through his hair as fresh evils appeared. He needed help, and he had nowhere to look; for Somerset, walking in the shadow of the block, couldn’t protect him. ‘Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you,’ Brice Harisson said.
Vervassal’s reply was perfectly tranquil. ‘I can do nothing for you that would impute guilt of conspiracy to my mistress. Only Warwick can free you. And then only if you publicly confess.’
By now, it was too much. ‘If he’s arrested me on suspicion of going to de Chémault,’ said Brice Harisson sarcastically, ‘he’ll be damned sure to free me when he knows why.… I’ll get out of it somehow.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Vervassal. ‘Then your mind is not very quick. I have shown you the only way. Warwick is unlikely to stir until he thinks he has de Chémault’s position clear. You have one day’s grace, perhaps two. When you have considered what I have said, send for me. In the meantime I make you this offer. I cannot contrive your escape. But the Ambassador and I from this moment will use all our powers to have your offence mitigated on the grounds of these letters, and will try to prevent Warwick bringing forward any charges more serious. In return we must have the means of preventing Warwick’s share of the plot going further. Tell me where Robin Stewart is.’
The comfortable room, with its wood and tapestry and leather was growing dark. In the jewelled light from the fire the herald’s gold tissue glistened flatly, and the Scottish leopards in their silken pastures, rising lean from the shadows, offered haunch, head and claw to the glow.
‘No,’ said Harisson.
‘You wish Stewart and Lord Warwick to pursue this plan to their joint profit?’ continued the light, ironical voice from the darkness.
The word Harisson used to describe Robin Stewart escaped unwanted from his congested mind, and was not in Gaelic. It was then, indeed, that not only his logic left him, but the thin veneer of accomplishment which had handsomely covered a soul and mind much less than handsome. ‘God damn Robin Stewart to hell,’ said his friend furiously, the pliant voice sliding high on the thin scale of hysteria. ‘I want to get out of here alive—that’s all I want!’ And to the voice of irony and reason he simply repeated, higher and harder, ‘No! No! No! No!’
Vervassal waited no longer. He rose, dim in the near-dark, and bending, lit a taper from the fire and carried it delicately to the sconce by the door. A branch of silver candlesticks sprang to life, sparkling on his tabard and the feathered gold of his hair round the red velvet cap. His face was shadowed.
‘I shall be back in two days,’ said the herald. ‘Send to de Chémault when you want me.’
Like a bird’s, Harisson’s two hands clung to his chair, and his skull and ears, undisguised, made a foolish patch of shade on the back. ‘I don’t want you,’ he said. ‘You devil, whoever you are, I don’t want you.’
Beneath the golden light the other man’s face was luminous as alabaster. ‘Dear me, you are appallingly ignorant of affairs. Haven’t you found out?’ said the herald gently. ‘The Ambassador knows—it is no secret, I assure you. My name is Francis Crawford of Lymond. My brother is Culter. I am not, of course, an officer of the Lyon Court. But temporarily Herald to the high and mighty Princess Mary, Queen Dowager of Scotland, in absence of better.’
On Harisson’s chair, the small, wishbone hands had sprung open; in the darkness the round, desperate eyes strained. ‘That’s the man—’ Harisson broke off, then, raggedly, gave a high laugh. ‘You’re Lymond? My God, did he even bungle that one as well? You’re the man Robin Stewart thinks he murdered!