Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [229]
‘Do you think so?’ For a moment the green eyes, diverted, looked at him curiously.
‘I think the rope at the Tour des Minimes—and your regard for him—saved him. You have protected us both, hate us though you may. There is one thing still to be done.’
‘I do not hate you. Nor do I delude myself I can read his mind, human or otherwise.… Go over,’ said Oonagh, her voice, clear and low, reaching his ears on a note of sudden, desperate anger. ‘Go over; go home! Whatever my body may be, my mind is my own. Let him pat and prick your soul as he wishes. I will not be touched.’
Exasperated, O’LiamRoe raised his voice. ‘He has no wish to involve you.’
‘He is involving me this minute, fool that you are. Why else are you free? The rest of that person was human, do you say? A mhuire!’ said the black-haired woman, her dry eyes wide and bitter. ‘Dacent crathur, go home. He is beyond you, that sweet ollave with the love of every girl in the breast of his shirt.… We are the fools, struggling, planning, begging at foolish doors, giving suck to the craven from all our sunken stock of force and eagerness and passion, while you court a strange brat and pare rhymes in Latin.’
She stopped, and for a moment O’LiamRoe faced her in silence. Then, ‘Wait you,’ he said evenly. ‘Since you are so hearty in handing forth blows, let me slip in a small dab of a word. To watch you would be sorrow’s own fun; but it is coming to me that I would not at all fancy being ruled by King Cormac.’
She studdied him, her mind only half arrested. ‘The French King would be your monarch.’
‘You’re complete,’ said O’LiamRoe heartily. ‘The first thing Cormac O’Connor will do when he kicks out the English is to kick out the Frenchmen who helped him. Cock’s bones, if England can barely keep off her elegant knees, what hope has France, with Scotland to look to, and the Pope and the Emperor gnawing at all her fine frontiers?’
‘You would rather have England?’ said Oonagh with contempt. ‘Or your own self, perhaps?’
‘The Cross of Christ,’ said a rolling voice, a round-bellied orator’s organ, just a little hoarse with drink. O’LiamRoe backed. The sleeper had been roused at last. In the doorway, swaying gently, thick-veined brawn enclosed in soiled shirting, his smallcut eyes sparkling, hung Cormac O’Connor.
‘The Cross of Christ about us.… Are we having visitors, girl, and meself not advised? Have you pleased my dilsy, Phelim O’LiamRoe? She’s hard to please, but the kernel’s sweet—as others know.… Ah!’ said Cormac, and strode forward to the woman straight-backed in the bed, the classical, obstinate jaw plain as a melon from ear to chin. ‘Ah, is it your old nightgown you have … will you not make the least set to please us … and the fine, white jewels you have?’
And bending, in one jerk he ripped apart bedgown and robe, baring her from elbow to elbow between his two fists.
She was made small and white, like the green-eyed morrow Lymond had called her, and on the veined skin the week-old bruises were faded yellow. ‘The darling you are!’ said Cormac easily, and turned. ‘A mhuire.… Look at his face! Sure, I woke up too early! Have you had none of the cream, Prince?… Have I given you an appetite?’ And looking from O’LiamRoe’s witless face to the stony one of the woman, he exploded into mirth.
She did not move; even when he flung the two torn edges of her nightrobe crossed and closed, and sank sprawling in her bedside chair, his beard stuck writhing skywards, his black head dug into her thigh. He said, still in a voice of laughter, ‘Or must you wait for a unicorn?’ and twisting, upside down, gave Oonagh a wink before returning to O’LiamRoe.
‘She sent to me—did you know, fine prince?—to set my mind at rest. She said “Cormac love”—and drawing her docile arm over his shoulder, he laid its long palm against his wet, bearded cheek—“Cormac, love, life is an illusion. The great lord of the Slieve Bloom is a blushing small virgin, one of nature’s doorkeepers. You have no rival to fear.” ’
‘Faith, you’re a modest man,