The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [215]
The two men, talking, disappeared with Alec Fraser into the Ambassador’s room, and the door shut behind them.
Danny Hislop, who had slept for thirty-six hours, on and off, with a sporadic remission for eating, stretched himself and said, ‘So that nice man is Belial’s family.’
‘Do you think,’ d’Harcourt said critically, ‘he has enjoyed the reunion?’
‘Do you think,’ Danny Hislop said even more critically, ‘either of them has enjoyed the reunion? I know that smile. Cooled in snake blood.’
‘In which case,’ said Blacklock with foreboding, ‘we are due for a hell of a journey to Edinburgh.’
‘Via Aberdeen,’ Hislop said. ‘My wife’s Da’s the Provost.’
They left Philorth next day, on the Earl Marischal’s horses, with Nepeja in borrowed clothes bringing up the rear of the little procession, the third Baron Culter beside him.
Lymond was not in borrowed clothes, because alone of all their possessions, his had been loaded into the pinnace. For that, and for Chancellor’s chest, now on its way safely to London, he had Adam Blacklock to thank.
Riding beside him now, at the head of the company, Adam found occasion to ask the question he had been longing to put, ever since they rode through the arched gate of Philorth and left the grey manor behind, and the yellow green grass, and the beach upon which the long breakers moved in dark pleatings, under a clear, light blue sky white with cloud.
The sun was low. It struck the grass like green fur, with a sparkle; the hills were like half-dried velvet and the thin coloured leaves of the trees glittered in the long shadows and orient light: autumn trees, their branches combed by the gale and moving overhead in veil upon veil of chestnut and auburn and yellow, of flame and chrome and veridian; the large coin of the poplar paper-yellow against the fine hazy mist of the birch; the sprays hanging, nebula upon nebula, coarse grained and fine as bright flour, swaying over the riders as they made their way south in the clear, mellow air.
And as they rode, they were partnered with music, voices and lute, just and sweet in sonorous harmony, from a cheerful cluster of pilgrims who joined them, riding in company. The music, light and merry, accompanied them. The leaves, in notes and chords and cadenzas soared overhead, and the yellow sun shone upon them through the long dancing nets of the trees.
‘That prophecy,’ Adam Blacklock said then to Lymond. ‘I can guess. It was that you and your brother should meet once again.’
He could not see Lymond’s face, but his voice was perfectly clear. ‘No. In fact it wasn’t,’ he said.
Adam was shocked, as well as disappointed. ‘Oh. So,’ he said, ‘it didn’t come true?’
‘I’m afraid,’ Lymond said with infinite calmness, ‘I’m rather afraid that it did.… Do you really enjoy poor motet singing?’
Adam stared at him, his eyes open, words of informed protest hanging, unsaid and smug on his lips.
Lymond did not, however, wait for an answer. ‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I can tolerate Robert Carver, and times when I find him quite incredibly banal. I wish you well of him.’ And touching his spurs to his horse, he drew it out of the column and into a sudden full gallop which took him far ahead, and through the distant dazzle of trees, and out of sight of the whole trotting convoy.
Danny Hislop touched his horse to ride, busily, beside Adam’s. ‘He remembered an appointment?’
‘He remembered something you have forgotten,’ Adam said. ‘That this is his country.’
Chapter 4
Fortunately or unfortunately, the effects of shock and exhaustion do not last for ever. By the time the train of Osep Grigorievich Nepeja, Envoy and Nuntio to the great lord and Emperor of all Russia, had creaked into Edinburgh, a full choral rendering of O bone Jesu with John Fethy playing would have found the Voevoda once again quite impervious, as he was to the whims and vagaries of his Ambassador Osep.
Restored, by time and by deference, to more sanguine good spirits, Osep Nepeja sat on his horse, full bearded, bluff as Magog and stared about him, uttering questions. All, on this