The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [221]
If the bells of St Giles did not ring, there was a certain sense of release in the city and Best and Buckland and Gilpin, with the way open before them to London, became, even in Nepeja’s presence, dangerously hilarious. Nepeja, who had just received his congé and a four-hundred-pound gold chain from the Dowager, merely sat in his beard and smiled grimly.
No further summons from Court came for Lymond. But on February 13th, the eve of their departure from Edinburgh, he received one final visit from Richard his brother.
They had not met since the first journey south from Pitsligo and now, in the slender privacy of a small room high in the Ambassador’s lodging, neither showed any wish to break into fluent reconciliation, or indeed, unnecessary speech of any kind. Richard, dressed for court, made no attempt to sit down. He said, ‘Since I hear you are leaving, I have come to put certain matters before you. They are important. If I were a different manner of person, no doubt I should do more than this; I should plead, and I should cajole. I mean you to understand that if I cannot do that, it is not because I don’t think them worthy. I wish you to listen to them and I will accept the answer you give me. I should only warn you, Francis, that on these matters, I will not brook lightness or insolence.’
Half-dressed; straying about a strewn room and arrested, as so often before, in the act of abandonment, Francis Crawford drew a long breath of monumental patience and said, ‘No, but Christ, you invite it. Let me do your work for you. You want me to stay here in Scotland. The answer is, no. You want me to visit Sybilla. The answer is, no. The Queen Dowager is anxious, through you, to lay hands on St Mary’s. The answer is, no. Failing that, she would like me to spy for her in England. The answer is, no.’
If it had been reeled off with defiance, Richard could perhaps have tolerated it. Instead, delivered with restraint and with clarity, it was the voice of the Voevoda Bolshoia, unquestioned master of armies, giving his considered decisions. And although these were what he had promised to hear and accept, the cavalier judgements, in cold blood, on all the principles and people he held dearest stopped his voice, in a sort of nerve-storm of grief and resentment. And when he could speak: ‘You are a bastard,’ he said.
He was nearly killed, then. He half recognized the look on Lymond’s face, and thought it an attack of plain anger. In any case, he was occupied in finding words for something which had to be said, and by the time he was speaking, Lymond was standing with his back to the wall, far away from him and resigned, apparently, to hearing him out. Richard said, ‘There have been so many misunderstandings in the past. What you did, often, was done for good reason. I know I am simple. I know you are devious. But, oh God, if there is any good reason for what you are doing now; any excuse; any unknown factor or subtle circumstance you are afraid I can’t grasp, for the mercy of God, this time, tell me.’
‘What shall I tell you?’ Lymond said. As on the beach, the movement of his dress betrayed, if one cared to look for it, the depth of his breathing; otherwise, back to the wall, he did not stir. ‘Graham Malett made a tool of St Mary’s which would have wrecked Scotland. I do not want the Queen Dowager to have that power. I cannot spy for Scotland with any plausibility: I shall be watched. I cannot spy with any moral sanction either: I am trusted and liberally paid by the Tsar, and it is in his interest that trade between England and Russia should proceed without interruption,