The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [2]
They looked at Mr Crawford’s motherless son. ‘Who’s his mother?’ Sir Thomas said with blossoming interest. ‘Don’t tell me Lymond married before he left Scotland. Too busy with other men’s sisters.’
Archie said, ‘No. He didna marry Kuzúm’s mother. She’s deid.’
Which was true. With a charming artlessness, Philippa squashed Tom Wharton’s further inquiries and, prattling, prepared to detach herself. Austin Grey said, ‘You aren’t going home to Flaw Valleys?’
For a moment, staring at him, she thought of disaster. Her home was burnt down and Kate dead? The Scots had come over the Border and levelled it? Kate had married again without telling her? Philippa said, ‘Yes. Why not?’
And Austin Grey said quickly, ‘It’s all right. Your mother is quite all right. She isn’t there, that’s all. She’s gone to stay at Midculter Castle in Scotland.’
Which was how, wheeling about, the small but resolute migration from Turkey abjured the delights of home and Flaw Valleys and turned up six days later in Scotland.
Austin Grey, as it happened, reached Scotland before them. Voluntary and kind-hearted harbinger, he took his horse over the Border and traversing the hills of the Lowlands reached that part of Lanarkshire west where the castle of Midculter stood. There he called on Sybilla, the Dowager Lady Culter, and delivered to her certain papers at Philippa Somerville’s behest.
Sybilla welcomed him in. White-haired, blue-eyed and urbane, she was quite capable of dealing with diffident young English noblemen and putting them instantly and disarmingly at their ease. Only after he had settled in front of her beautiful fireplace with a cup of her equally desirable wine in his hand did she glance at the packet he had given her and say, ‘But it is for Mistress Somerville of Flaw Valleys?’
Austin Grey said, ‘Yes. I thought she was here?’
For an elderly lady, the blue eyes confronting him were disconcertingly shrewd. ‘Yes, she is,’ Sybilla said. ‘May I know who this is from?’
‘I felt,’ said Austin Grey, ‘that you should break the news, Lady Culter. Mistress Somerville’s daughter is home. She is travelling north. She should be with you in two or three days. The letters are from Philippa to her mother.’
Sybilla’s eyes had become very bright. Then, ‘You’ve seen her, Lord Allendale?’ she said gently.
Austin said, ‘She is in good heart, and travelling well. Only slowly, because of the baby.’
Lady Culter said nothing. She sat and looked at the young English messenger, with her lips parted and her eyes rather wide, so that the white skin of her brow was finely pleated. He hesitated and said, ‘Your son’s child. Mr Crawford’s small boy called Kuzúm.’
‘They found him,’ Sybilla said.
He said, carefully, ‘I don’t know the story. But they have him quite safe, Lady Culter. If I may say so, he has just your colouring.’
‘And my son?’ Sybilla said finally.
‘I gather … Perhaps the letters will tell you,’ said Austin Grey. ‘I gather he is still overseas.’
He left soon after that. But not before a light, brown-haired woman entered, whom he had seen all his youth about Hexham with her late husband Gideon Somerville, and her one small unkempt daughter Philippa. Kate Somerville came forward to greet him and was forestalled by her hostess the Dowager. ‘Kate, he has letters from Philippa. She’s safe, and on her way here with the child.’
But since women’s tears, suppressed, made him uncomfortable, Austin Grey left as soon as possible after that.
By the time Philippa arrived at Midculter her mother and Kuzúm’s grandmother between them knew the contents of the letters and diaries by heart and still could not reconcile them with the undersized fifteen-year-old who had left her uncle’s home in London two winters ago, to plant herself willy nilly in the unsuitable company of Lady Culter’s younger son Francis … Francis Crawford of Lymond, the hard-living leader of mercenaries whose by-blow Kuzúm had been snatched