The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [168]
Konstantin and half his company were to remain behind here to protect him, and to escort him when the time came to Moscow, to consult for the last time with Killingworth, and to speak for the last time with the Tsar.
But by the time he had arrived at Moscow, Lymond would have left on his campaign against the Crimean Tartars. And by the time Lymond came north from that, Chancellor would be at St Nicholas with Robert Best and his son, preparing to sail home to England.
To sail home to ruin, and possibly death. He had been told at all costs to bring Francis Crawford home with him, and this he had not done. He knew that, so far as high-powered soliciting could make it, Philippa’s divorce from her spouse was secure. He knew that to bring Lymond home, even if it were possible, would involve extirpating a difficult and clever and dangerous man from his own chosen and brilliant setting, and throwing him instead into all the small, insidious intrigues which throttled the court of Queen Mary.
There was no place for him there or in Scotland, compared to the one he held in Russia. And although Diccon Chancellor once had thought, wistfully, of a land where likeminded friends might meet and might talk and might make new and astounding discoveries, free of fear, he knew that it was not to be found yet in England. And that if it were, and he brought Lymond to it, he might find that he had not brought to England the Francis Crawford who had talked in the church, or in the small wooden hut at Lampozhnya, but the man who had flailed Adam Blacklock, and who had had Aleksandre put to the torture. Who flew Slata Baba and lay with a corsair’s late mistress and who had become what he was by unceasing servility to his Tsar.
So, for all these reasons, he said farewell to Lymond without asking again for his company; without begging; without referring at all to the threat under which he now lay himself. Only he said, ‘You remember the message I brought you. Your wife and your wife’s mother were threatened. You made light of it when we met in the Troitsa. I have no reason to think you have changed your mind now. But when I return, I shall be asked for my answer.’
And Lymond, standing hat in one hand with his loaded sleigh waiting outside, said, ‘Philippa will have her divorce. Of that I am sure, and the danger to Kate will be gone. If you see them both, wish them both happy. As for Lady Lennox, you may give her my explicit refusal.… And when she has spoken to you, Master Chancellor, she will realize that she has the better part. You do not want me in England.’
Chancellor returned the blue stare. Then he said, ‘There is a man in you I would want, but I think Muscovy has half consumed him. You will take care. Somewhere, here or Vologda or Moscow, is the man who bribed Aleksandre to kill you.’
‘I shall take care,’ Lymond said. ‘If I am dead I cannot sponsor your travels. Except, clearly, in a direction you will never be called on to follow. I wish you God speed.’
And he left, swiftly, so that Grey, craning out of the window, lost his last, wistful glimpse of the eagle.
It was not until Chancellor entered the office and began going through all the papers awaiting him that he found among them a sealed packet from Danzig. It was addressed to himself and proved to contain several letters from London including one whose direction he could not read, because it was quite spoiled by sea water or weather. The seal was already broken, so he flattened it open and scanned it.
He knew by the first line what he was reading, and by the time that, without conscience, he had got to the last, he was troubled enough to fold it on hearing Grey’s incoming footsteps, and to keep it inside his purse until later, he could ponder it, and decide how in