The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [318]
‘Yes,’ said Lymond. ‘But this is not the place nor the time.’
‘I shall not embarrass you,’ said John Dee gently; and Lymond flushed. Dee said, ‘It is not one thing you seek, I fancy, but two; and the place for neither is Russia. The first you will have. The second you shall never have, nor would it be just that you should.’
His voice altered. ‘But if you must sail, you will have need of your gold. It is here. Your gentlemen here brought it from the Philip and Mary, in a box of surpassing antiquity.’ And lifting the cloth from the board on which Lymond was sitting he revealed a battered Egyptian sarcophagus, resting beneath, painted with lotus flowers and the names of one of the pantheistic God-triads: Ptah, Sekhet and Imhotep.
Lymond loosed a short sigh. ‘Characteristic,’ he said, ‘to the last. But I hardly think I shall be troubled by customs duties. Is it heavy?’
‘Inordinately so,’ said Guthrie dryly. ‘I would advise you to repack the contents and leave it.’
And so, bending, Lymond dragged the coffin from under the trestle, and as the others watched, John Dee gave him a chisel. He loosened the nails along three of its sides; then he lifted the lid and easing it, laid it quite open.
Inside, there was no duty-free cargo of spice-bags. There was no visible fortune in ikons; no parcels of plate, or caskets of jewels or of money. Instead the coffin held what it was meant to contain: a wrapped and embalmed human body. The head and face of the corpse were uncovered, displaying fine locks of bright guinea-gold, and a man’s features, large and handsome and peaceful in death. In recent death: in a death of no more than two or three years’ duration.
Far from her side, Güzel had given her student his last and most telling test. In the shroud lay the corpse of the man Lymond had killed: Joleta’s brother, Graham Reid Malett.
As he was meant to, Francis Crawford himself saw it first. The blow to the stomach was physical: it brought an explosion of nausea so violent it all but undid him. He had to grip with the whole of his will, not to give way to the instinct for refuge: refuge anywhere private and dark: against the wall; in the trench of a chair; behind the safe, bloodless fence of his fingers.
He is not a machine, Philippa had said twice already. And he knew that after the first shock, she was standing there watching him; her own horror engulfed in her boundless Somerville concern for his feelings. Adam Blacklock, his face sallow, had gone to the window.
Lymond’s face since the blow had been colourless; nor in the smallest act did he betray himself. Instead, with a fine, measured smoothness, he spoke to them. ‘You heard d’Harcourt talk of Sir Graham Reid Malett. He was a senior Knight of the Order, and a great man whose ambition destroyed him.’
‘And this is the man you killed?’ said John Dee.
‘Yes,’ Lymond said. ‘I only hope I look as eligible two years after someone assassinates me. Where do you think my dear Güzel has put my worldly possessions? Or am I to survive on the stimulating effects of revulsion?’
Philippa was looking at him, but Lymond did not give her a glance. He slid a hand, delicately probing along the dead man’s big-boned, bandaged side. Danny Hislop, determined but pallid, said ‘I don’t suppose your gold could be inside the body?’
And Lymond, astonished, said, ‘Do you think that even Güzel …? Ah well. Perhaps Mr Dee could provide me with scissors …?’
Philippa left the room. Lymond saw her go, and then saw Adam turn and run after her. Dee, at the end of the coffin, had made no move to give Lymond what he asked for. He said coolly, ‘You have gone too far.’
‘I know,’ Lymond said. The light swam, like a lamp in the fog, and then became quite brilliant again. He said, ‘In any case, I have no time to seek it. I must leave. You will allow me?’
‘We shall not stop you,’ Guthrie