Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [249]
It was a very large lion, shaved to a tawny velvet, tail to ruff. The frenzied mane, fit for a Cardinal or a Chancellor and thick with gold dust, framed a blunt tulip muzzle, a seamed mouth and two pale golden eyeballs. The mouth opened, showing the pink ridges of arch and palate; the lion roared.
There was a cage at his elbow. His wet hands slipping on the metal, Cholet jumped for it and started to climb. As he struggled upwards, he could see that the stinking little alleyways of box and cage immediately around him were empty. Further afield, he discovered the reason: the menagerie itself was surrounded. Someone had organized the frolic and dispersed the volunteers; and a ring of men, keepers, mahouts, waterboys, was moving inwards quickly, the bright sun on their weapons. Nearer still was the white head of the big man who had chased him, and not far from that the turbaned head of the Keeper. Two others, fair and auburn, followed.
Over his shoulder, Michel Hérisson, avidly following every development, was addressing Lymond as he stalked forward, breathing hard, his white hair blush-pink at the roots. ‘Ha! Ye can swim like a blue-bellied viper, but what have ye done about Robin Stewart?’
His drying hair lifted about his head, someone’s short sword ready in his hand, Lymond was not responsive. ‘Left him to go his own gait for five minutes.… Christ, Michel, my leisure in the last half hour has been a little circumscribed. What does it matter? Cholet’s as good as caught in the act. D’Aubigny can’t make Stewart take the blame now, can’t do anything against Beck’s testimony, and Cholet’s, as well as Piedar Dooly’s account of what Stewart told him. Lord d’Aubigny’s guilt is clear.’
Michel Hérisson, a spear in his horny hand, dropped suddenly back. ‘But Stewart doesn’t know that. He summoned you, and you didn’t come. In Stewart’s terms, that means a knife in your back. If you don’t want three Queens mourning their darling boy, my advice would be—go and find him first, fast.’
On his other side, O’LiamRoe’s damp head unexpectedly turned. ‘There’s truth in that. He’s a queer, violent fellow, Francis; and he’s rightly vexed. You’d look the world’s fool if you or your precious Queen had a little accident in that quarter now.’
‘All right, give me a jacket,’ said Lymond. ‘Since you’re all so damned glib … I was going, naturally, as soon as we have Cholet; but not naked, for preference.’
He was pulling on Michel’s elephant-drenched taffeta when the lion roared. The mouth of Abernaci, stump-toothed in his sun-blackened face, unclasped in a charming smile of pure pleasure. ‘Per Dinci, it’s Betsy,’ he said. ‘Betsy, ma doo! Betsy, ma cabbage! Do you have him, Betsy, love?’
Artus Cholet, three-quarters way up the chimpanzees’ cage, and pinned there forever by two hairy hands tight on his buttons, saw the little turbaned figure dance into the alley, saw the lion at his heels turn its great head, and saw the Keeper walk up and scratch it cheerfully under the ear. The lion purred. ‘Ma bonny wee flower,’ the Indian said. ‘Hae ye a buss for your auld mither today?’ There was a sound of a dreadful embrace.
‘My God,’ said Lymond, halting with Hérisson and O’LiamRoe at his side. ‘Mother and daughter.’
‘Eh, tiens—and there’s Cholet like a side of beef on the cage there. Hi!’ Hérisson, pleased, waved his arms to attract his victim’s attention while Abernaci, catching Lymond’s eye, blew his whistle. The beaters began to run in. The monkey startled by the blast, dropped its hands. Cholet, dizzy with chagrin and exhaustion, clung, hesitated, then collecting himself suddenly, clambered to the cage top.
At its foot, Michel Hérisson spread himself in luxurious stance, arms folded, head back, eyes surveying the multiplying audience and finishing, at last, on Lymond’s calm face. For a moment, under the splendid hair, the florid brow creased. ‘With the compliments of … the Hérisson family,’ he said.
Round him, his friends were silent. Above him, squat against the dying pall from the lake, Artus Cholet stared speechlessly at his fate. He had