Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [198]
There was a shocking pause. Then the bushes parted. Through them bounced a half-dressed, half-drunk and wholly belligerent young man whom Stewart recognized in a single, hate-filled glance as one of those sharing Lymond’s tent. ‘What in the name’s going on here … Crawford!’
For Lymond in three dancing steps had moved into the moonlight from under the lee of Stewart’s high, arrested blade and said, almost stripped of breath, ‘Thank God, George. Did you see him? He ran past over there.’ And pointed, with his sword, to the trees directly opposite the shadows which hid Robin Stewart.
Stewart, girded with muscle and sick resolution which somehow were to help him fight and kill two men instead of one, stood, his chest heaving, stopped on the verge. The young man said short-temperedly, ‘Who?’ and Lymond answered: ‘One of the venturieri—a robber. Or so I suppose. When he heard you, he ran.’
‘Aïe! Bertrand!’ The girl’s voice scraped through the silence. ‘C’aurait dû être Bertrand!’ She had appeared at the edge of the clearing, Stewart saw; a local girl obviously, her hair in a mess. The long gown was kirtled, country style; otherwise, unlike the lady who by tight-lacing bought hell very dear, she was singularly untrammelled. Neither she nor anyone else had glanced behind Lymond’s back, where the bushes were comfortingly thick. The Archer hesitated, then stepped softly among them.
‘Was he a stout man?’ The enquiries of the hasty lover had suddenly become a good deal more cogent. ‘Black-bearded, with a stinking jerkin half-cured?’
‘Christ, yes,’ said Lymond, after the briefest possible pause. His voice sounded odd. ‘Not as the fragrance of him who walks according to the precepts. Her brother?’
‘Mon mari,’ said the girl, and moaned. ‘He will follow you, Georges. He will kill you. Quickly!’ She tugged at him. ‘You must run!’
‘Try that way,’ said Lymond, and indicated the way they had come. ‘It’ll take you back quickest.’ He paused. ‘You fool, you haven’t a sword?’
George, swaying very slightly, fired up. ‘I’ll kill him with my bare—’
‘You won’t get a chance. Here, take mine.’
The young ensign held out his hand, then drew it back. ‘But what about—’
‘He won’t trouble me again. He’s had a taste of the steel. Besides, he knows by now he had made a mistake. Hurry, you imbecile. Good luck.’
Pulled by the lady of his heart, George hesitated no longer. Seizing the weapon and the girl, one in each hand, he disappeared into the undergrowth, and Lymond, alone in the moonlight, collapsed breathless on to the ferns, helpless with laughter. ‘… The next lesson,’ said Francis Crawford, sitting up at length, ‘will be some Quick and Merry Dialogues. Before you cut my throat, dear Robin, may we talk?’
Much later, Stewart realized that fate had improved on some original plan. At the time he only knew, fumbling to recover the blind paths of his wrath, that Lymond had seized the chance neither to betray him nor to escape; but had made instead the one unanswerable affirmation of neutrality: he had disarmed himself.
But for themselves, the wood was empty. You could sense it, vacant around you after the running footsteps died away. Even the wild life, flinching from the metal and the angry voices, had abandoned the arena to Lymond and him. Shakily, cold with overstrain and post-battle nausea, Stewart walked out sword in hand to where his enemy was sitting.
Looking down at the long, exposed throat, ‘What did you do that for?’ said the Archer angrily, ‘Something you want off me, eh? Something you couldna survive, just, without. I hope