The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [311]
Pembroke and Arundel, Paget and Petre were all within range of that deliberate, carrying voice. Margaret Lennox did not look at the other men round her. But, her colour high and her carriage stiff and erect and unyielding, she said, ‘Mr Elder: I think we must go. The whims and humours of his unfortunate master appear to have affected Mr Crawford’s whirligig brain.’ And turning her head, ‘Where shall we find you next?’ said Margaret Lennox to the boy from long ago who was now so obdurately a man. ‘In New Spain, perhaps, in a mantle of feathers, running errands with knots on a string? Before you die, there must be nothing you have not experienced. When you die—and I shall be there—it will be an experience which no man has savoured. Guard your health, Mr Crawford. I should not like you to leave us too soon.’
For a moment longer, she held his eyes. Then, waiting neither for Elder nor Philippa, Margaret Lennox brought her train round to her hand and, gathering it, walked from the room.
‘Talking of feathers,’ said Francis Crawford conversationally to his elegant, seraglio-trained wife.
‘Or feather-brains,’ said Philippa Somerville furiously. Her eyes, glassy with rage, glared at her spouse. ‘You heard what the Tsar threatened. He’ll have your head in a blood-bowl like Cyrus.’
‘Not Cyrus,’ said Lymond. ‘I’m the other one. He pincheth and spareth and pineth his life. To coffer up bags for to leave to his wife. The pay is good. And I’ve remembered another quotation about Greeks.’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Philippa.
‘You can try it on Master Vannes. Greeks in bed, Italians at table, are most neat. It doesn’t mention Spanish. Which will you have, Philippa? I like your Austin. I haven’t met your Don Alfonso.’
‘Earrings,’ Philippa said. ‘And eyes like dome-headed rivets. I don’t know which I shall have. I can’t have any, until someone annuls this——’ She broke off. ‘How am I going to get this marriage dissolved if you go back to Russia?’
‘Desertion?’ Lymond suggested easily. ‘Which reminds me. There were one or two mysteries about these last proceedings which I can see are going to be for ever unexplained. I think I owe you another debt. I owe you a great many debts, it would appear: it is time I removed myself and allowed you to allot your endowments where they are better deserved. Goodbye.’
He smiled, but did not kiss her cheek, as Don Alfonso would have done; or take her hand, as Austin effected so gracefully, or hug her, as Jane or Kate would have felt impelled to do.
He said again, without the smile, ‘Goodbye, Yunitsa,’ and turning walked out of the room.
Ludovic d’Harcourt, come to take his wistful leave, stood beside Philippa, as Lymond vanished. ‘Yunitsa?’ he queried.
She smiled, bringing her gaze back to her hand as he lifted and kissed it. ‘A stupid joke. It means heifer, he tells me.’
‘It means heifer,’ d’Harcourt agreed; and, since the others were becoming impatient, pressed her hand and abandoned the subject without informing her how much more it meant.
*
The barge which Don Juan had commanded for Mr Crawford and his five friends was a fine one, with a gay canopy aft, and eight oarsmen in livery, who made the boat fly after its shadow in the ripe evening sunlight so that it shot London Bridge like a greyhound. It also held, between the canopy and the rowers, a captain and four armed militiamen. The King of Spain was anxious to speed his embarrassing guests towards Russia.
But Gravesend, twenty-four miles off, was not to be compassed in an evening. Just short of Greenwich, as the first riverside lights were spiralling down through the water, the portside rowers began pulling hard for the right bank and the captain, leaning over with deference, indicated to Mr Crawford from Russia that lodging had been arranged here for his party that night.
Mr Crawford from Russia, in the midst of a white-hot, furious quarrel which had lasted all the way from Westminster, acknowledged the information and continued in an undertone