Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [176]
Halfway through this painstaking speech, he knew that he had won.
Then, ‘Christ,’ Stewart said. ‘Christ …’ His eyes starry, hooded with bone, his thin chest pumping, he saw something beyond the stone walls that lit the seams and hollows of hunger in his long face and fired his dull eyes. ‘I could soup them up clean. First the tane, then the tother. Christ, I’ll have the two of them yet.’
The hollow eyes, shifting, found the window, dancing in the bright sun, with the smells of dust and greenery and horses and all the life of the great, living fortress bursting soft on the wind. Then Stewart turned, and his gaze, newly clear, rested on O’LiamRoe’s pale, placid face. ‘Sakes alive,’ said the Archer, and stared. ‘Whatever came to your whiskers? Man, man, you’d break the heart of a fresh-clippit yowe!’
Back at his inn, where he had booked a private room indefinitely, O’LiamRoe wrote a brief message for Francis Crawford at Durham House. It said simply, ‘He will travel to France, and he has agreed to give evidence against his employer, but so far will mention no names. His only condition is that you should not travel with him but that both you and I should be at hand, if not present, when he answers these charges before the French King. This I have promised. It is for you to arrange. I can be found at this address when the time comes to leave.’
Then he settled to wait. His summons came in the end; but not for three weeks—weeks during which Stewart, aided by his gaolers, nursed himself back to health while both the French Ambassador and Lymond awaited instructions from France. On the 7th of May they came. Nestling among expressions of fierce delight and admiring pleasure in the stout English honesty thus displayed was King Henri’s demand that the person of Stewart be delivered across the Channel forthwith (at English expense) and a signed confession with him.
The English King and Council, reiterating horror at the whole affair and favouring the severest punishment as an example and a deterrent, thought that the French Ambassador ought to take charge of the crossing. M. de Chémault demurred. The English Council argued. There was a polite and pointed wrangle, ending in agreement to send Stewart to Calais, under strong English guard, from whence he would be the responsibility of France. England would also obtain and hand over a written confession.
The written confession, however, never materialized. Twice approached on de Chémault’s behalf, Warwick was both honest and apologetic but produced only promises. In the end, on a windy, grey morning in the middle of May, the Ambassador went himself to Holborn to see his lordship. Later on the same day, O’LiamRoe received his summons to Durham House.
The stick had gone, and with it any undue need to exercise the humanities. ‘I got your note,’ said Lymond, inclining his fair head and crossing smoothly to the study fireplace where O’LiamRoe stood. ‘How did you persuade him? A pact of resistance aimed at me?’
‘More or less,’ said O’LiamRoe steadily.
‘Of course.’ The steely, restless figure dropped into a chair. ‘Well, think twice before you do anything piquant. Our nations, yours and mine, are exceedingly open to hurt, and I personally am not. You realize, of course, that O’Connor will be there?’
There was no smile on O’LiamRoe’s likable face. ‘Of course.’
‘He and Paris, I am told, have asked for an army of 5,000 men to rouse all Ireland and even Wales. The Queen Dowager and my friend the Vidame think he should get them. The Constable is not so sure.’
‘The Queen Dowager is still in France?’
Lymond was examining his delicate fingers. ‘Her departure from Amboise is delayed, it is rumoured, by the King’s fancy for one in her train. The first hints about Stewart have got to the Loire. The Dowaager will stay at least until that is settled. In fact, I fancy she is in trouble of another kind, too; but that is by the way. We shall arrive, my dear Phelim, in the vanguard of a large embassy from