Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [224]
Piedar Dooly heard, and spat, grinning, as the yellow head in a huddle of Archers took to horse. Far through the forest, on the flank leading to Bére, Robin Stewart, he supposed, was waiting patiently for his fine guest tomorrow. O’LiamRoe heard too, his mind busy. As Thady Boy’s master, he would have some explaining to do. But not as much, Christ, as Lymond. With thought working, cold as acid, on the stately procession home, the King would not rest, nor would his lords, the perfect image of learning and chivalry, until this small and festering dart was removed from their side.
It was done in the King’s cabinet at Châteaubriant that night.
When they brought O’LiamRoe into the brightly lit room, lined with bitter night-faces, the Prince of Barrow’s tongue was creaming over with quip and insult to let fly at the master figures. It was for this that he had stayed.
—Of course he knew Thady Boy was no ollave; what of it? he would say. Thady Boy only existed because the Queen Dowager of Scotland desired it. Lymond had risked his own safety to remain and protect the child and draw off her enemies so that the Franco-Scottish talks might proceed unimpaired, and no dire change of crown or impolitic accusation might destroy them.
That in exposing himself, Francis Crawford had foundered—that, surely, they could understand. If he had no positive evidence of another’s guilt, he had indirect evidence of his innocence: the elephants at Rouen, the impressive performance in London, the injuries he had received in the Tower at Amboise. Jenny’s son could speak of the arsenic.… But no, Jenny’s son was perhaps better left out. And to summon Abernaci would destroy his livelihood; to call Tosh would be to endanger his safety. And Oonagh …
Thought stopped, and restarted, freshly armoured. They would laugh at the old women, he and Lymond. He and Lymond, outside the fence together, shrugging off involvement and the poison all run out.
Then Phelim O’LiamRoe, Prince of Barrow, was ushered into the little cabinet, through the heat and the drawling, arguing voices, to find Lymond standing tabardless, his hair in his eyes, his scraped hands lashed tight behind him; and saw foolishly that there are circumstances under which it is a little hard to sparkle with provocative wit. ‘Et dis-donc’, said the King, his voice flat with distaste. ‘Whom do you serve?’
With a slow and studied exasperation, Crawford of Lymond shook his head. His eyes, brilliant in his pale face, passed over O’LiamRoe, ignoring him; rested for a second on the Queen Mother, and flickered back again. What message he had received or conveyed, O’LiamRoe could not tell. ‘I sell experience … and buy it; and pay due tax on the merchandise as you see. I serve my own whims, that is all.’
‘You are here,’ said the slow voice, ‘as an accredited herald to Madame ma bonne soeur, the Queen Dowager of Scotland. It would appear to us that Madame my sister is your mistress and that the Prince of Barrow was your knowing accomplice.’
No one spoke. In the recesses of the silence crowded all the weary weeks of this sojourn in France; the gold almost promised, the marriage contract almost confirmed, the regency almost achieved. In it lay coiled the absent power of Cormac O’Connor, the beckoning fame and treasure of the Italian wars, the sweet compliance of England, balm to smooth minds overfretted by Scots.
Lord d’Aubigny had less patience than the others. Stretching his well-kept hand, he removed the whip from the sergeant beside him, and with an easy snap, touched the flat back across and across, like a lion tamer.
Lymond turned, so fast that he almost took the last lash in his face, and d’Aubigny, taken by surprise, stepped back.
‘If you have a case, make it. If you have a question, put it. It is interesting, I admit, but it would take more time than you can spare to thrash me into compliance.’
A whip cracked again, a small whip, razor-sharp across the legs,