Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [159]
‘Not one of his most resounding successes, then, we must admit. You see therefore why I should like to meet him. Also, as you may know, the Earl of Lennox is an old and dear enemy of mine, and by now he also should know where I am. Which means that he will do all he can to encourage Warwick to preserve Robin Stewart and to foil the Ambassador and myself. Think out all I’ve said, my dear Harisson. Your choice is France; or Warwick, Lennox and death.’
For a moment longer, Vervassal remained in the doorway, his head a little bent, his expression strict, as if condemning the dramatic vulgarity of this speech. Then with a kind of shrug of impatience and distaste, he opened the door and went out. The bodyguards outside shut it and Harisson, crouching, remembered not to put his head in his hands and disarrange his hair.
To de Chémault, the account by Lymond of this affair was retiary in its lack of substance. In effect, the herald said only, ‘I am sorry. We have lost him. I rather think I mishandled it. I was counting on some metal in the core, like his brother, but he collapsed like wet fruit. He’ll do precisely what Warwick tells him.’
He had discarded the bright tunic on returning. Now, as he moved to a chair, de Chémault noticed that the hesitation in his walk was after all quite a serious limp. The Ambassador said, ‘It would have served well to have this confession, but no great harm will come of it. It needs only a hint to Warwick that we are aware of the plot. We have no evidence, true, except at second hand, but a hint would deter him. Of that I am sure.’
‘Oh, God, so am I,’ said the man Crawford with the first hint of impatience de Chémault had seen. ‘Even Harisson might have guessed as much if he had had control of his wits for two minutes. The loathsome little muck-worm can confess or hold his tongue, as he likes. I just want to lay hands on Robin Stewart before anyone else does; that is all.’
Brice Harisson did not send for Vervassal. But when two days later Lymond went as he had promised for his answer, Harisson greeted him with smooth affability, and ran on, light as stucco, sparkling with handfuls of Spanish and German, to inform the herald that on second thoughts he had confessed.
And to prove it, he confessed again to the herald, to the sheriff, and to anyone who would listen, the complete tale of his plot with Stewart, his association with Warwick, and of his attempt to sell out Stewart to France. He told it firmly, bravely, and with a masochistic enjoyment which clearly baffled the sheriff, who could hardly understand this sudden eagerness to brand himself traitor. There was a glibness indeed about the whole thing which confirmed Lymond’s own suspicions. In the end he had five minutes only alone with the delicately contrite predicant. He had no need to speak. Harisson did all the talking.
‘I fear,’ said Brice Harisson, ‘that you must think me very stupid. The sense in what you said struck me directly you had gone.’ He gave his unexpected, high laugh. ‘I think the poor sheriff was quite startled when I began to tell him. It has gone to Warwick already, and now they will know, of course, that I have told you. It will all be very simple. Now I was to tell you about Stewart?’
‘Yes.’ His left arm always had to bear the weight of his stick; he moved a little, so that the wall took some of the strain.
‘He’s at the brickworks in Islington. You go to a certain place, and whistle and a boy will fetch him.’ Graphically, Harisson described the place. There was nothing to do but note it, and leave.
Lymond went alone to Islington, and on horseback—something not easy for him yet; but though he whistled, no boy arrived; and though he searched, Robin Stewart had gone.
The bare fields, the lime kilns, the mud and the rubble of Islington had fitted Robin Stewart for all these weeks as an ancient landscape frames and nurtures its fossils.
Flung in grating revulsion from Thady Boy’s perfidy back into the caustic stewardship of his lordship of Aubigny, Stewart had accepted the hated commission to travel to Ireland,