Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [54]
Lymond sprang to his feet.
He’s going to throw it away, thought Erskine. Step out of character, wreck the whole evening’s work. He’s going to turn round and treat them like bloody servants … Christ! For Lymond’s sharp blue gaze, swinging round, had caught the stiff face of the Queen Mother of Scotland. With every nerve end in his body, Tom Erskine willed the Dowager to school her face. The shadow of a threat, the shadow of an appeal, the slightest effort to prompt him, and she had ceded the evening; she had lost Thady Boy Ballagh; and she had lost Lymond for good.
The Queen Mother stared at Lymond, the sea-cold gaze without focus, and, scratching her nose, turned to ask her neighbour a question. But already the danger had passed. Lymond, standing, had looked beyond her and caught the flare of pure anger in Margaret Erskine’s brown eyes. His own narrowed. He hesitated for a second; then turning, allowed St. André without protest to claw open his doublet.
Under the egg-stained shirt, the burns were obvious where the acid had caught his shoulders and back. Madame de Valentinois rose. ‘Bring M. Ballagh to me.’
From the high chair the King spoke to Lord d’Aubigny and his lordship moved also towards the ollave. John Stewart’s manner had undergone a slight change. A wit, a poet, a singer of sorts who had caught the imagination of the Court, was a different proposition from the shabby bundle of sops he had chivvied from inn parlour to inn.
He halted by Master Ballagh. ‘The King wishes me to say that he had of course no idea of your hurt, or he would not have thrust this entertainment upon you. He bids me say that you are welcome to join his Court for its winter sojourn on the Loire; and that if he so wishes, the Prince of Barrow may remain also in France. I am to offer you a bed in this lodging for tonight, and to give you the King’s permission to retire.’ He had won.
He also had, by any standards a memorable couchée that night in the King’s Lodging of the Abbey of St. Ouen, painted with egg yolk and turpentine and bandaged under the supervision of the Duchess of Valentinois herself, until at length, unrecognizable in borrowed night robes, he had his bedroom to himself.
When, late that night, the knock came to his door, Lymond was by no means asleep. His occupation since the last servant left was shatteringly clear from his too-steady gaze and his less than steady hands. Wrapped in a furred bedgown, he had been drinking seriously for a long time. Behind him, the little room was cracklingly neat: a characteristic of his own which was quite foreign to Thady Boy. What he had expected as he opened the door no one could have guessed. What he saw made him stop short, vigilant and more than half sobered.
Outside was Margaret Erskine.
Shapeless, brown-eyed, rather pale, neat as a nun in her day dress, with a single good jewel pinned to her breast, Jenny Fleming’s daughter seemed quite composed; visiting wild younger sons in their sleeping quarters might have been a nightly occupation.
A smile, bracketing his still mouth, spread like bane over Lymond’s pale face. ‘Come in, sweeting. I have a friendly bed.’
She disregarded it, entering prosaically and shutting the door at her back. ‘Why drown your victories?’ she asked. ‘You have succeeded, have you not? You need not leave France.’
For answer, Lymond tossed the tangled hair back from his eyes and broke into an accurate parody of the Queen Mother’s fractured Franco-Scots. ‘I mean to take this man in his failure, Master Erskine—in his failure and not in his success.’ He shook his head, mourning. ‘I have succeeded; but unless I’m careful, by God, the Dowager will have me trussed and indented as her servingman yet.’
Margaret Erskine drew out a chair and, sitting, looked up at the sweat-beaded, sardonic face. ‘You heard that. I’m sorry.’
‘Like The O’LiamRoe,’ said Lymond with a large and positive gesture, ‘I feel I deserve a little amusement at someone