The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [222]
He had come to a concise halt.
‘And Sybilla?’ Richard said.
Lymond was drawing long breaths now, his hands forced back rigid behind him, driven into the lime of the wall. ‘That is as far as I go,’ he said flatly. ‘I have never in my life subjected you to this kind of inquisition about your purpose, your doings or your relationships. I have answered you fairly enough.’
Richard stood where he was, surveying the clever, imperious face of his only brother. ‘Yes, you have,’ he said at last. ‘You have said that, whatever happens, you want to wield the glory and power of St Mary’s, and that if this means exile from Scotland, it does not matter to you. And you will not face Sybilla because alone of all of us, she does not know you are venal. She still thinks you care for Scotland and for us, and are prepared to think both more important than riches; for our sake to govern your ambition; for the boy’s sake to master your emotions. And when she sees you——’
‘She will know she was wrong,’ Lymond said.
Richard walked over to him. It was not a long way but he walked slowly, as if he were tired, and halted, eventually, face to face with his younger brother. He said, ‘Change your mind. It is the last chance in life you may have.’
Spoken soberly, with all the honesty of which he was capable, it was neither threat nor impassioned appeal but a simple plea, simply put. To which Lymond, looking him in the eyes, shook his head.
And Richard’s temper, so steadfastly held, without warning escaped his control. Even had he known what was coming, Lymond had no chance at all where he stood. Richard’s right arm came up and struck him, as Lymond had in the past inflicted so many blows, but with the clenched fist, not the flat of his hand, and with a violence that drove Francis Crawford sideways into the wall and then pitching away from it. Richard hit him once again, with the same extreme force on the chin, and watched as, quite unable to stop himself, his brother was flung spreadeagled against chest and chair, wall and, finally, floor.
He lay without moving. At that point, Lord Culter felt no strong compulsion to discover what harm he had done. He stood, breathing hard, for a moment and for a moment longer looked down, grimly cradling his knuckles. Then he gazed round and picked up his hat, and found his gloves, and prepared, still short of breath, for departure.
From the door, he glanced back, once, at the unresponsive wreck of the room. ‘Then God damn your soul!’ he said, and walked out.
Chapter 5
Deliciously, for the rest of the household, it was Yeroffia who found his master some five minutes later. Being Russian and not of any repressive Western persuasion, he strode down round the newel-post bellowing, and shortly had Phoma, Adam, Hislop and Nepeja himself in the embattled bedchamber. Lymond, the marks of the blows already thickened and dark on his face, was lying exactly where he had fallen, between the stretcher rails of a stool and an overturned chair, with his head hard against the uncompromising carved doors of a press cupboard.
Osep Nepeja, Slavonian words of alarm and concern issuing from his beard, stood looking at him with a certain solid and undeniable satisfaction. Adam said, ‘Christ!’ and Danny Hislop, wriggling past said, ‘No. Lord Culter, I do declare,’ and, dropping to his knees, found the Voevoda’s wrist, and then his pulse. He sat back on his heels. ‘Cease to mourn. The voice of David will sound again in the land, although you might find a leech to confirm it. He has had an ungodly crack on the head.’
He got up. ‘What shall we do with him? We have him at our mercy. Think of all the browbeaten Streltsi at Vorobiovo who would like to take their revenge at this moment. We could hire out his carcass for money!’
‘There is a Russian proverb,’ Nepeja said. ‘Beat your shuba, and it will be warmer; beat your wife and she shall be sweeter.’
There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered