Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [37]
She flung back her head, emitted a peal of laughter, and lowering a face wiped clean of levity said, ‘O’LiamRoe, I’ve been fairly bothered out of my senses with that thing. Had I never sent you a message, you would have behaved like a dove and be sitting at Court with your two shoes on the white neck of a lady-in-waiting, with respect and deference and fine meals and a sweet kiss in a corner to keep you warm this winter.’
‘Indeed; and it’s quilted frieze I prefer,’ said O’LiamRoe politely, beginning the introductions. ‘And with Thady Boy at the criminality too, we have fairly enjoyed ourselves putting a blot or two in the terrible rule books they have.’
‘Sweet, sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ said Mistress Boyle, sitting. ‘But I’ll not count myself pardoned till I hear the whole tale; and what the King said; and what our pretty de Genstan got out of his mouth, and the hairs on him stiff as a hog brush with fright.’
As O’LiamRoe told it, it was a rollicking story. While her aunt howled and chortled, mopping her eyes, Oonagh withdrew to where Robin Stewart sat, grinning, beside Thady Boy, who was engaged puff-eyed and scowling over a solitary game of cards. Acid in her low voice, she addressed the secretary. ‘The tale is beneath the notice of an ollave of the highest grade?’
He picked up a card and laid it down doubtfully. ‘The novelty, I would say, is the least thing worn off. But the first time I heard it, surely, the balls of my eyes set to whirling like mill paddles from fright.’
She was cold. ‘Why? You had nothing to lose.’
‘A man with a deficient helmet is not called to pay forfeit,’ said Thady Boy calmly. He shuffled the cards.
‘A man who helps to hide printing presses might have to forfeit more than he bargained for,’ said Oonagh. ‘You flatter yourself, my jolly boy.’
For a moment he was quite still. Then he lifted his head. Oonagh O’Dwyer, cold, hard-wrought with unleashed storms and eaten with pride, looked full into his eyes. The heavy gaze, warm, cloudless and deliberate, held hers as long as it needed, and tossed it aside. Deep lines of mischief and laughter sprang to Thady Boy’s dark face. He laughed. ‘No. I flatter you, my dear, don’t you think?’ he said, and returned placidly to his game.
Her breath beating unregarded in her throat, she got up then, her hands taut, and looked down on his bent head. In Irish, she said, ‘Thady Boy Ballagh: would you not expect the name Boy on a yellow-haired man?’
O’LiamRoe heard it. He gave a quick glance at his ollave; but Lymond’s Gaelic was adequate, he was certain, and the black hair had been re-dyed that morning. Thady answered in English.
‘I pushed up through the sod yellow as a crocus, they tell me, and so they christened me after Papa. Boy was all they ever knew of his name; but he left the English version well accredited and they had no reason to disbelieve him in Gaelic. Oh, bad end to it!’ He glanced up, gathering together the cards. ‘Ah, the dear sympathy in that sweet eye … I haven’t the least objection, mind; but it’s fairly taking my mind off my game.’
Her voice was quiet. ‘Women grow in the fields of France like turnips. Don’t you care for them?’
Thady Boy smiled, running the cards lightly through long fingers. ‘Experiments have been a little restricted by the curfew.’
She watched his hands too. ‘La Veuve at Dieppe will be son to the heart. Won’t you miss her down there on the Loire?’
The cards danced without a pause. Behind them, amid the laughter and talk, O’LiamRoe had become quiet. Thady Boy took his time. He dealt himself a hand, turned up a card, and drew one from the pack before he said, ‘No. A dear, neat little soul like a pot of strawberries, would you say; but hard, hard on the purse.’ And he paid no more attention. She turned on her heel.
It was a long time before she and her aunt left, and still longer before the other visitors followed, and at last they were left alone with their Archer as guard. For once O’LiamRoe