The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [315]
‘They need time,’ Lymond said. ‘I know they need time. And they would have had time if we had been allowed to bring in our trained men; to begin teaching and practising, so that slowly we can rely on ourselves; our own industry. I did not want arms. I wanted iron foundries and founders; I wanted the means to make arms, gradually, as we educated these people towards responsibility. I thought we could surrounded the Tsar with a circle of counsellors so strong that if any one of us died, the rest could carry on; could control him, and perhaps in time, teach him to control himself. It seemed possible. It is still possible. I cannot turn my back on it now.’
‘And the effect on yourself?’ Guthrie said.
For a short time, Lymond was silent. Then he said, ‘I had some strengths, which have grown. I had some weaknesses, which have gone.’
‘That is true,’ Adam Blacklock said. Slumped between floor and wall, he had leaned his tired head on the panelling; his face, with its thin scar, was turned without expression to Lymond. ‘You have become a machine.’
‘No,’ said Philippa. ‘That is not so.’
‘But that is so,’ said Lymond. ‘How could I do my work otherwise?’
‘Then,’ said Philippa, ‘why have you let Lychpole betray you, and then escape scot-free?’
‘Lychpole?’ said Guthrie; and Philippa turned her brown eyes to the settle.
‘How did the Privy Council know that Mr Crawford was gathering information from Venice and England? How did Lady Lennox know Mr Crawford was in Russia before any of us? It was Master Lychpole, in Ascham’s office, who supplied the information to Russia. And although the other clerks were all there today, he was not. He was poor, and he became a double agent because he needed the money. And because of that, you have let him go, haven’t you?’
Ludovic d’Harcourt was staring at her. ‘Then I can tell you, not all of us will be so magnanimous. If that man betrayed us, then he will suffer for it.’
Lymond moved. Turning from Guthrie he walked through the crowded room, picking his way past the books and the charts and the papers round the great Mercator globe and finally perched himself where he had been lying, on the edge of the long wooden trestle under the swaying oil lamp and the mirror. His face, quite composed, showed the burden about the eyes and the brow which Philippa saw, and was sorry for: his voice, though not loud, was clear and even and flowed without stint.
He said, ‘Lychpole is blameless. He is out of the country: I helped him to go overseas before any of this happened, since it seemed possible that his part in the correspondence would come out. It was not Lychpole who betrayed us.’
They had all straightened slightly: they were all looking towards him. In the shadows, the level gaze of John Dee rested, bright as his mirrors, on Lymond.
‘Who betrayed us then?’ Guthrie asked.
And for answer, Lymond looked at Danny Hislop. ‘When Peter Vannes landed, why was there no attempt on his luggage till Sittingbourne?’
Danny flushed and then paled; the light eyes bright, the balding, pale fluffy scalp copied like a dandelion clock by its shadow. ‘Oh, Maeve,’ Danny said. ‘The Wrath and Indignation of a Prince, Mother told me, is Death.… They were expecting an attack. They had a double guard on the casket, in a separate wagon, and it was watched night and day. The men at Dover could do nothing about it, so someone rode to London to warn us and ask for instructions. But you were at Gardington, sir.’
‘So you rode to Sittingbourne. Why then,’ Lymond said, ‘was it Ludo d’Harcourt who made the first attempt on the casket, and not you?’
‘Ask Ludo,’ said Danny bluntly, and the round, pale eyes had lost their facetiousness. ‘You didn’t warn me he was coming. The guard on the box was so thorough that I thought the whole thing was hopeless once I got there. But I had a few men with me, and we hung about, trying to plan a diversion, as I remember, when the diversion happened of its own accord. For some reason, the whole lodging was in an uproar: we couldn’t see why. I thought the guard’s attention would be distracted and I