The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [289]
At the same time, Danny Hislop’s absence was barely noticed by the household at Fenchurch Street, since something had happened which set all the merchants conferring. News had reached London of Thomas Stafford’s attempt to capture Scarborough Castle, and, helped by all the Spaniards at Westminster, the tale was not long in spreading.
Long ago, Thomas Stafford’s vainglorious plans had been discovered by the English Ambassador to the French Court, and long ago, King Philip had been made aware of them. But from Brussels, King Philip’s advisers were writing him daily: Your Majesty’s affairs will benefit greatly if the English can be made to declare war on the French.…
In all England, therefore, no one had lifted a finger to stop Thomas Stafford from leaving France, nor to prevent Thomas Stafford from landing and declaring Mary Tudor an unrightful and unworthy Queen. Stafford had come from his refuge in France, with French ships and French gold and French soldiers. However Henri of France might deny it, the sluggish citizens of this unfriendly country could place only one interpretation-on that.
‘The French have spared us the trouble of breaking the truce. Now you will see,’ said Philip of Spain to his Councillors. ‘At last … at last we have this nation of Englishmen ready for war.’
Chapter 11
Once before, the old man at Gardington had got the notion that someone would rob him, and all the able boys in the neighbourhood, and one or two lads from the smithies, and some pikemen from the town had come out to lend him a hand, with their bows and long staves and cheap swords and sharp-headed pikes, to protect Leonard Bailey and his property.
That time no thief had come, and the pay had been as you would expect from the twisted old miser, but the woman Dorcas had made them all a rabbit broth with bran bread to dip in it, and if you went about it the right way, she would serve spitted urchins. So when the old man called them round next time, when the great-nephew from overseas was coming to steal the old fellow’s books and cut the old fellow’s throat in his bed, by his way of it, the idle stout arms in the district came again with their bills, and got their potage, and hung about in the barn and garden and kitchen, waiting for the rogue to arrive since news had arrived from a groom at the Chicken that he was coming. There was a lady with him, they said.
Since the rain had come on again, Leonard Bailey’s henchmen were mostly in the barn when his great-nephew finally came to the gate, in a great cloak and a feathered hat with a jewel, and a young, hooded lady with fold after fold of blue velvet skirts hanging down by the fringe of her horsecloth. Twelve pairs of admiring eyes rested on Philippa Somerville, and then the leader, collecting himself, ran to the gate with his fellows and presenting a pike at the gentleman’s chest said, ‘Stand!’
‘That,’ said Lymond with some acerbity, ‘is what I am trying to do. Take my horse, you!’ And dismounting, he threw him the reins and a gold piece together. Philippa, biting her lip, waited for him and was swung down in her turn. The gate was crowded with faces.
‘Well?’ said Lymond.
The spokesman, who had tried the gold in his teeth and then made it vanish, in one miraculous movement, said, jerked a trifle by the big horse’s reins, ‘Are you Mr Crawford of Lymond?’
‘I am Mr Bailey’s great-nephew,’ said Lymond coolly. ‘And you, I suppose, are my cousins?’
There was a chorus of jeers from the gate. The faces were grinning.
‘I had hardly expected such a welcome,’ said Lymond. ‘And on such a wet day. Have you been waiting for long?’
‘Long enough,’ said the spokesman, who had handed the two horses to someone else who was holding them, for nothing. ‘You took your time at the Chicken.’
‘And the rain, I expect, has been making you thirsty?’ Lymond said.
The spokesman, one of the smith’s big