The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [223]
‘He will be, if you leave him there,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said, suddenly arriving. ‘His skull may be fractured, you idiots. Look out. Let me.’ And taking charge, in a Christian way, he supervised the lifting of the Voevoda Bolshoia and his transfer, sensibly, to the bed. Then he got everyone out of the room, keeping Danny.
Danny stood, his hands dangling unhelpfully. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Adam is your man, you know, for sensitive nursing.’
D’Harcourt, his hands pressing through Lymond’s hair, said, ‘But just think how he is going to enjoy finding you watching him when he wakes up. It isn’t fractured. My God, he must be a good man with his fists.’
‘Lymond?’ said Danny sweetly.
‘Lord Culter. I assume,’ Ludovic said. ‘At least, he was the last person up the stairs before Yeroffia. What did they quarrel about?’
‘Can you remember,’ Daniel Hislop said, ‘how many times you have wanted to do that in the last two or three years, and the occasion each time?’
‘Once a day,’ d’Harcourt said. ‘Sometimes twice. And for as many different reasons.’
‘As you say,’ Danny agreed. He dipped a cloth in cold water and squeezed it. ‘He can make you want to knock him down, if he feels like it, by simply saying “good morning”. He possibly said simply “good morning” to Lord Culter. The difference was that, being his brother, Culter hit him. Will he travel tomorrow?’
They both gazed, united in fascination, at the insensible and manhandled person of the sacrosanct Voevoda Bolshoia. ‘I doubt it,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt.
But he did. He stirred some time after that conversation, and if his awakening took rather less time than was obvious, the effect was to cheat Danny Hislop’s expectant ears of whatever uncouth revelations he was hoping for. Without warning, his eyes closed, Lymond said, ‘Hislop?’
‘Yes sir?’ said Danny, jumping. Then he said sympathetically, ‘How are you, sir?’
‘Well enough to guess which vulture would be present,’ said Lymond pleasantly. ‘I wish to know the exact time.’
‘Three by the clock, sir,’ said Danny. ‘I’ll change the cloth. You must have a——’
‘Leave it,’ said Lymond. He opened his eyes. ‘If you are here, where are Blacklock and d’Harcourt?’
‘Downstairs. I don’t know,’ said Danny. ‘Sir.’
‘You have forgotten, in your excited interest in my colourful family affairs, that you were to meet the Queen Dowager’s harbingers at three?’
There was a slight pause. Then Hislop said, with an edge, ‘D’Harcourt will have——’ and was interrupted with impolite flatness.
‘D’Harcourt has news to spread, and will be spreading it, while Blacklock no doubt is wringing his hands at an apothecary’s to find a leech who knows the bottom layer from the buffy coat. What the merchants are saying and doing, I can imagine. Is it really necessary to remind you all that the great adult world must continue, no matter what childish by-play may occur? Get hold of d’Harcourt and get to that meeting. And send Phoma, while you’re at it, to me.’
Danny got up. ‘Yes, sir.’
The open blue eyes travelled up in the general direction of Daniel Hislop’s face. ‘And Hislop?’ said Lymond softly. ‘Don’t sound so aggrieved. There are no rewards, celestial or mundane, for the best display of pure, bloody inquisitiveness.’
Which drove Ludovic d’Harcourt to a deduction, five minutes later, as Daniel Hislop marched into his room. ‘Let me make a guess. He is awake.’
‘He’s awake. The honeymoon,’ said Danny, ‘is over. Come on. We’ve a meeting to go to.’
*
So on the following day, Sunday, February 14th, the cavalcade of Osep Nepeja, his friends, colleagues, English supporters and servants set out from Edinburgh, lavishly escorted, on its fourteen-day journey to London. And straight-backed, wan of face and suavely vitriolic in temper, the Tsar’s friend Mr Crawford rode with them. Since the marks on his face, tenderly discoloured, were so obvious, he made no effort to disguise them, and to the solicitous inquiries of the lairds of Corstophine, Craigmillar and Restalrig, of Innerleithen, Elphinstone