The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [316]
‘Well, d’Harcourt?’ said Lymond.
‘That is right,’ said Ludo d’Harcourt.
‘I know that is right,’ said Lymond gently. ‘But as you know perfectly well, I didn’t send you to Sittingbourne. How did you know about Peter Vannes? How did you know we wanted the papers in the casket?’
‘I heard you tell Danny,’ d’Harcourt said. For a moment he was silent, then he said, ‘Do you remember what we talked about once, on our way to the Revels by river? How you said you knew who had tried to kill you in Russia; whom Lady Lennox had paid to see you dead if you didn’t return? You had been talking about the members of the Muscovy Company. And I said that it might just as easily be one of ourselves?’
‘I remember,’ Lymond said.
Danny said, his voice thin, ‘Ware riot. Ware riot, dear hunters. He couldn’t have heard you telling me about Peter Vannes.’
‘But I did,’ d’Harcourt said. ‘And then the messenger came, and you took Dimmock’s best horse and dashed off, and I wondered why Peter Vannes hadn’t been intercepted at Dover, as you’d planned. So I followed. And you didn’t make an attempt on the casket, did you, Danny? I did, and I failed, and then, when you realized what was happening, you made your own effort, which naturally ended in capture. But the papers were still there intact, with whatever harm they were going to do us. And you, of course would run no risk. You were the paid agent of the Crown and Lady Lennox.’
‘Is that true?’ Guthrie said; and Adam, studying Lymond’s face, felt sick at heart.
Lymond stirred, and then, watching his hands, answered Guthrie. ‘I told Henry Sidney I knew who it was. And of course, it was likely to be someone close to me, at St Mary’s, if it were not Bartholomew Lychpole over here. And it was soon proved, in fact, not to be Lychpole, because the English Privy Council continued obviously to receive their information even when Lychpole had none—because, as it happened, my dear wife Mistress Philippa had purloined the last batch of dispatches, thinking to prevent them from falling into Lychpole’s innocent clutches.
‘In fact, the dispatches were innocuous because I had already warned all my correspondents that Lychpole’s identity had been betrayed to the English Council; and Lychpole himself had of intent been sending nothing that mattered. For matters of moment all my correspondents have been using other channels and a very complicated cipher indeed, both of which we owe to Master John Dee.’
‘So you did know it was Hislop,’ Guthrie said. ‘Even in Russia?’
‘Not at first,’ Lymond said. ‘I had a great many correspondents. I made a great many inquiries. One of the first places I wrote to, in connection with the annulment of my marriage, was the Order of Knights Hospitallers on Malta. I found out nothing reprehensible about Danny, except that he was a Bishop’s bastard, which he had never concealed from us. From Malta, I found out that Ludovic d’Harcourt had been dismissed from the Order on account of a forbidden affair with a woman.’
‘Branding me, straight away, as a traitor,’ said Ludo with angry sarcasm. Danny Hislop, out of all expectation, had not interrupted.
‘And from Lady Dormer, who had staying with her the new English representative of the Order,’ said Lymond, ‘I found out the name of the lady.’
There was a long silence. Then Philippa, rather pale, said, ‘Joleta?’
And Lymond, watching her steadily, said, ‘Joleta Reid Malett who died through my agency. The sister of Gabriel, whom I set out to dispatch also, and did.’
‘And mother of the baby Khaireddin …’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt; and, his mouth open, staring at them all, started to sob.
‘… who is alive,’ Lymond said.
Philippa made a sound and tried to recall it, too tardily, for she saw the response to it flash into Lymond’s face and then vanish again behind the admirable control.
D’Harcourt said ‘You were offered your life in exchange for one of two children. You let them kill