Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [71]
‘Stewart thinks it’s perfect,’ said Thady Boy idly. ‘The joy unspeakable, the comfort inestimable, the pleasure without murmuring, the hilarity without care. He can’t get into it—that’s his only complaint.’
‘He could have my room.…’ The former owner of Luadhas came round the corner of the paddock, a promised leash in his hand. ‘I’m after buying the Irish wolfhound there,’ added O’LiamRoe quickly.
‘Why in God’s name,’ said Lymond, ‘do you want a dog?’
And, studying O’LiamRoe’s pink face, answered himself instantly. ‘Of course,’ said Thady Boy. ‘To corrupt a lady of gentle bearing, vide Frère Lubin.… A formidable wooing, my dear. I’m willing to wager the O’Dwyer kennels are awash with wolfhounds; but please yourself. Does the creature run well? You’d better let Piedar try her for you tomorrow.’
The wolfhound Luadhas rose, lifting her long, Byzantine face. Shoulders bunched, forelegs taut, flanks shuddering, she stretched; and collapsing, shook herself. O’LiamRoe sneezed. There was a peal of laughter from Thady Boy. The great bony mat of a dog, stalking forward, gazed anxiously at the Prince of Barrow and licked his hand. O’LiamRoe was pleased, and rather touched, and not a whit embarrassed, now the story was out.
Robin Stewart, who was viewing the progress of O’LiamRoe’s glacierlike wooing with some private pleasure, also derived some entertainment from the news of the purchase. It was he who, passing Neuvy, mentioned to Mistress Boyle that the Irishman and his intended gift would be on display at the chase the next morning. The girl he found unstirred to the point of impatience; but not Theresa Boyle, who, ablaze with jolly malice, made instant plans for herself and Oonagh O’Dwyer to be invited to hunt the king of venery, the melancholy hare, next morning from Blois.
The chase was launched from a little wood, white with dawn frost, threaded with rimed oak and hornbeam, and one or two wide-girthed chestnuts.
It had been a sharp night; but now the early sun, glaring cross-grained through the branches, laid fresh black contours, thinly prowling, over the people below.
They wore grey velvet under the pewter trees; and they laughed, dismounted, and warmed themselves at the braziers patched red like salamanders here and there in the white dusk. Grooms, pages, kennelmen, muleteers, wheeled and whisked through the throng; low tables appeared under the trees, and crested hampers began to yield up their patties and wine while the dogs, tongues lolling, tails swaying, were chased off the cloths.
Margaret Erskine was late, as was all the little Queen’s entourage. Mary had been sick and Janet Sinclair and she had been up half the night until, hot-eyed, they had seen her drop into slumber. Rising at five this morning, seeing that James and Agnes were awake, soothing Janet, getting a sleepy child dressed and out to the courtyard, and finally collecting Tom’s brothers and their grooms, together with their own equerries and pages, had been a formidable task, made no sweeter by the thought that Jenny, retiring radiant for the night in clouds of musk and lynx trimmings, had planned to sleep late and avoid the hunt. Whatever fascination Lymond held for her mother, it had no power at five in the morning.
Francis, Duke de Guise, young, splendid, finely bearded, with his pleasant, full-lipped smile and long nose, was master of the day’s hunt. A jewel mine of courtesies and a living casket of diplomacy, he would in any case have paid tribute to the King’s mistress by asking her advice. Today, by mutual consent, both Diane and the Duke treated the small Queen as their patron. Kneeling, her uncle gravely discussed where the formes were, which hares to chase, and where