The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [216]
The number of cottages amazed him with their roofs of thatch instead of wood shingle. More than that, the number of buildings everywhere constructed of stone. Lacking Plummer, it was left to Adam to explain how Russia’s condensing damps and deep frosts were no problem in Scotland; to display the solid charms of the abbeys they stayed in and the French graces of the great royal homes with their carved walls and picturesque gardens; their fountains and chapels, their beautiful ceilings. He explained, with unwonted enthusiasm, the schooling provided by church and by tutor, referred to the number of eminent universities (four), and pointed out, in Aberdeen, the only granite cathedral in the known world. He then remembered, somewhat belatedly, the well known antipathy of the Russian Orthodox Church towards the church of his fathers, and cast round for rescue by Culter. It was not until Culter left them, to ride south on business to Edinburgh, that the rôle of guide was taken over and executed, without quarter, by Lymond.
He was not concerned, it soon appeared, with the superior blessings of climate or culture; he did not offer, as Adam had vaguely envisaged, to immerse their visitor in a total full day’s performance of Davie Lyndesay’s Three Estates. He was curt with Osep’s complaint that, in Scotland, one ate at eleven in the morning and then failed, as in Muscovy, to retire for one’s afternoon of restorative slumber. He answered instead questions about weights and coinage and taxes, trying to instil into the merchant’s head the matters he had begun to learn long ago in Vologda and, with his pitiful English, had forgotten. He explained briefly, and with great clarity, the workings of the burghs of barony through which they were passing, the function of the professional guilds, and from there, the operation of church, law and parliament, illustrating the lectures from their surroundings and their company as they progressed. He pointed out, uncompromisingly, the uses of good communication, including paved roads in town and in country and the lessons of husbandry: how the hogs were fed; the sheep and poultry of better quality; the beef better flavoured and firm. He then applied all he had related, item by item, to the future welfare of Russia.
Riding on Nepeja’s other side, Danny Hislop saw with fascination a hearty, devious, half-educated Russian Governor becoming, under his eyes, a harassed and rebellious graduate. And catching the gaze of his fellows, shrugged with mock anguish, and grinned.
They were met, by the Queen Dowager’s command, at the estuary crossing at Queensferry, and from there taken by her lords into the city of Edinburgh.
Separated by three files from his mentor and able, at last, to unbutton his normal thought processes, Osep Nepeja’s first words on standing on the hill of Corstorphine and beholding, far over the marsh, the end-rock and castle of Edinburgh, bore witness to a long and weary journey, of which this was by no means the end. ‘Do we climb it on ropes?’ he remarked. ‘Or do they take up the horses in buckets?’
They were given a house in the High Street, the steep cobbled main street of Edinburgh, which led down to the Queen’s home at Holy-rood, and up to the heights of the castle. Riding up from the West Bow to reach it, Nepeja saw a thoroughfare lined with tall grey stone houses, each with its turnpike stair; its flight of steps from first floor to street. And since, shoulder to shoulder, they admitted no entrance between them, you found your way through them by pends, arched tunnels pierced in the stonework which led through to green sloping gardens,