Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [261]
Lennox sat stiffly, blond head facing front, sagging mouth pursed; looking neither to Warwick’s fool Northampton nor to the Scottish seats, where Sir George’s smooth face was turned, feasting on subtle discomforts.
The voice in Lennox’s ears was not that of his brother; it was the voice of Robin Stewart, an unknown Archer now, pray God, dead, who had bleated to Warwick. Who had told Warwick that they could easily enter Scotland, having at their hand Lennox, nearest the crown after the Queen.
But Warwick had settled for alliance with France. And he and Margaret had saved their necks—if they had saved their necks—at brother John’s expense. He hated them both: John Stewart, who had put him in this ludicrous quandary; and Lymond, of course, Lymond, But if the fight had been real, he would have wished his brother first dead.
The jousting was over, with all the buttoned lances; the foot matches with vizors open, with blunted lances and swords, had ended too. Pages were running; horses trotted off, tassels swaying; sheared plumes were recovered, sand reswept.
Music replaced the trumpets for the space of the interval, and there was a tumble of dwarfs. Brusquet, a little wary, not now so carefree as of old, was among them.
‘Well, my dear,’ said Sir George Douglas to Margaret Erskine at his side, ‘this, I believe, is when the holy relics at St. Denis are usually taken down and exposed, by all right-minded people, against fiends, bogles and your friend Mr. Crawford. The fatal cartels have been exchanged by heralds, I hear, no less. And his Most Christian Majesty in his desire to look all ways at once, has forgotten the most vital thing of all, which is—’
‘What?’ Pushed into this extended strain, angry and worried, as she had been angry and worried for eight months about her wild, wayward protégé, on top of the shattering relief of knowing that at last Mary was safe, Margaret Erskine had begun to feel above all else the need to get out of France; to fly back to her own cool, green country, her baby, and the gentle, loving steadfastness of Tom.
She had sat by the hearth, as she had promised, but the other promise she had made to Lymond she had never meant to keep. He was afraid of his power; he had had to learn to live with its effects. Three people had suffered by his presence in France, and she had done nothing to help them or him, for the strength to sustain this burden was the very backbone of leadership, and he had to acquire it.
She knew now, from O’LiamRoe, how Lymond had been forced to face this issue at length. She knew, too, that other barriers had gone. He was free at last of all constraint with herself; and free too of Sybilla his mother, whose wits were as sharp as his own, and whose company he had precipitately left because it was so congenial and safe. Thinking of something else O’LiamRoe had once said, she had asked Francis Crawford that afternoon, ‘And now will you marry?’
He had looked startled, and then amused. ‘And whom do you suggest?’
‘Is there no one?’ she had said.
‘A name has been put forward,’ he had answered, looking even more entertained. ‘If I could remember what it was.’
She did not know what he meant; she did know that he was not interested. At her expression, evidently, he had laughed aloud then. ‘Better to be whipped than humoured; better to be crushed than cherished.… It was a woman told me that. I live in a world of men, my dear,’ Lymond had said. ‘I love you all, but I shall never marry you.’
And so, looking up at Sir George, Margaret Erskine snapped. ‘He has forgotten what?’
‘My dear, never underestimate a Stewart. He has forgotten that my dear Lord of Aubigny can prescribe the choice of weapon. As defender, Lymond has got to supply every piece of armour, every weapon, every item of horseflesh that his lordship conceives he might need to fight with. And if I know d’Aubigny, his