Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [30]
The room looked what it was: an unofficial club, where men of like mind and diverse background could meet away from the hubbub of public taverns. The greetings over, Stewart pulled Thady apart and seated him. ‘He’s a good fellow, Hérisson—a brilliant artist in his day, before the gout. His brother in London was one of the best friends I ever had.’ He picked up two tankards from the deep sill at his side and got up. ‘We help ourselves. Get your drouth in good order, Master Ballagh. It’s a grand wine Michel Hérisson serves, and he doesna measure your mou’.’ And he walked away, leaving behind him for five minutes the competent gaze of Crawford of Lymond.
One of the group before the fire was a minor member of the Queen Dowager’s train; he was talking, in fluent French, about Tom Erskine’s present embassy. From the number of used tankards, the circle had recently been much bigger; and yet the fire was quite fresh, with no long-seated bed of ash. Also, below the talk and laughter, and the chink of wood and metal on stools, there existed a rhythm that was no sound, but a pressure on the soles of the feet. No sooner had it made itself felt than it stopped; and Robin Stewart came back.
He spoke abruptly, after the first pledging draught. ‘Thank God O’LiamRoe isn’t to stay. I canna thole the man, Master Ballagh; and that’s the truth.’
‘It’s fairly dispiriting, I know,’ said Thady Boy, ‘when he makes a virtue of the very things that you would be after being sorry at him for.’
Stewart’s voice slid, aggrieved, into its common note. ‘Shambling here and yon, looking at the Seven Wonders of the world as if they were pared from his toenails, and making such a parade of his poorness and silliness that no man of feeling could bring himself to discomfit him. And all the while you’ve got a gey queer feeling that he thinks you’re the fool and he’s the wise, tolerant fellow laughing up the holes in his sleeve.’
‘Whereas it’s yourself is the wise, tolerant fellow,’ said Thady Boy; and ignoring the Archer’s sudden flush, he stirred a wine ring on the table with a long slender finger. ‘Tell me, since he’s such a wise, scholarly fellow—and he is, make no doubt of that—why he’s brought an ollave to France?’
‘Oh, to add to the splendour of his train, surely,’ said Stewart sarcastically.
‘While parading his lack of polish and his poverty? O’LiamRoe brought a secretary although he is a fairly good humanist, my dear, because he was afraid he mightn’t be quite good enough. He brought his saffron and frieze—’
‘That I respect,’ said Stewart. ‘I can see that. It was a matter of principle because the English proscribed it.’
‘The English proscribed it, true for you; but devil a man, woman or child in the whole of Ireland is paying any regard to it. The O’LiamRoe himself has six silk suits in his wardrobe, but none so grand, let you see, as the gentlemen have in France. Detached irony about the world’s work is O’LiamRoe’s rule; and that is where he is to be pitied, if you are dead keen to be pitying us some way.’
A calmness had come to Robin Stewart: a calmness wrought, had he recognized it, by a man used to dealing with men, who had taken time to feed the lions of envy, curiosity and aggression with these titbits and set them temporarily asleep. He said suddenly, watching the fat man’s dark face, ‘You’re a great one for dissecting, I can see. What do you make, I wonder, of the likes of me?’
‘Ah, the touch I have is only for Irishmen. You’ve no need of an outside opinion, surely. You know yourself, Robin Stewart.’
‘I know myself,’ said the Archer, and his bony hands tightened white on his tankard. ‘And I don’t need to like what I know. But, God, do we know other people?’
‘Who is it—d’Aubigny?—that you dislike? You needn’t see much of him, surely?’
‘He knows the secret of a good life—’
‘Has he taught you it?’
‘I can learn,’ said Stewart with the same suppressed violence. ‘I haven’t a title—I haven’t money or education—I’ve not even a decent name. I’ve got to learn; and I tell you this: I’ll work like a dog for the