Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [181]
‘Nearly as well,’ said O’LiamRoe mildly, ‘as in the Slieve Bloom, in the one year in six that some bodach isn’t making his hero’s mark battle-marching across it.’
‘Fair weather after you,’ the big man had said, with something approaching a laugh. ‘If slavery with a full belly appeals to you. You will excuse me if Cormac O’Connor is not in it.’
‘Ah, the silly fellow you are,’ had replied O’LiamRoe, opening his pale eyes wide, the growing hair silky over his brow. ‘What for would I be wanting Cormac O’Connor any time of my life, or any possession of Cormac O’Connor’s, or any ambition of Cormac O’Connor’s, or any thing which he thinks he has and he does not have at all?’
And the big man, at that, had raised the glazed brown back of his hand as if to strike the other; but Richard had moved forward and Cormac, wheeling, had marched without speaking away.
‘Ah, ’tis a Crawford,’ the Prince of Barrow had said, an odd, breathless look on his tender-skinned face. ‘Gallant champions all. If you catch sight of a girl called Martine, you might tell her to make short work of it; for the steam is fairly beginning to come off the darling situation here.’
Then Francis arrived, exactly on time. In the private room he had hired, sparing comment on either illness or recovery, ‘You incredible liar,’ said Lord Culter calmly. ‘You promised to be out of the country by Lent.’
‘Always excepting a damnum fatale. I had a damnum fatale,’ said Lymond, settling luxuriously in a doublet as soft as a glove. ‘I’ll take you to Sevigny some day. Nick Applegarth looks after it for me—he left a leg on one of our common battlefields. And how is Robin Stewart, by nature privily mixed?’
‘On his way to Angers, I understand,’ said Richard. ‘Throwing off confessions like a fire stick. His best so far was at Calais, so they tell me. A copy is on its way to the King now.’
Recently Lymond had acquired a direct gaze which his brother found vaguely disquieting. ‘So O’LiamRoe’s testimony will not be required,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘And where is the Prince of Barrow now studying the hazels of scientific composition?’
‘He’s going to Angers as well. He got an informal welcome, but not unfriendly,’ said Richard. ‘He and Dooly are in lodgings, but come to Court quite a lot,’ And he related the tale of the great confrontation.
‘Oh, God,’ said Lymond. ‘O’Connor will toss him one-handed from Neuvy straight into Tír-Tairngiri. And the Queen? D’Aubigny won’t attempt anything now, of course. He must be sitting at home in quite a ferment wondering whether Robin Stewart will denounce him.’
Lord Culter said sharply, ‘I thought he had already.’
‘He has hinted to Warwick. But he’s unlikely to amplify the hint. It makes no difference to him; he’s going to die anyway. And where his dear John Stewart is concerned, the King as you know would believe nothing without proof; and probably nothing with it either. And proof is what I have come back to find.… Other people have been working for d’Aubigny, after all,’ said Lord Culter’s brother, his gaze limpid. ‘I have hopes of tracing one of them already. Someone in Dieppe has found out for me a connection between d’Aubigny and the owner of the galliasse which nearly sank O’LiamRoe and myself on arrival—a man called Antonius Beck, who has probably done a good deal, one way or another, for d’Aubigny. I have a friend in Rouen who seems to think he can trace Master Beck without any trouble, and who is quite certain he can make him confess. And in addition,’ said Lymond, doing his work thoroughly, ‘there is a woman who knows at least as much as Robin Stewart about what has been going on. I shall deal with her myself.’
Answering amusement lit Richard’s eyes. ‘Rumours of