The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [42]
Lymond closed the door and crossed the carpet towards her. ‘I am not tired,’ he said. ‘I have been stabbed, fenced with, caressed and plucked like a chicken, and I have also drunk and eaten far more than I hope ever to be asked to again. But I am satisfied. As the Bishop of Arras remarked——’
‘A good peace can only be made by a good war? It is peace then?’ said Güzel. ‘Ivan has admitted you to his Council?’
‘Yes. He may not be aware of it yet, but he has,’ Lymond said. ‘I am far too dirty for your exquisite cushions.’
‘You are,’ said Güzel. ‘Take off your coat and your jerkin.’ She watched him. ‘What have you been doing? Your shirt will have to go, too. If you look over there, there is a finished night robe I was going to give you. What have you been doing?’
‘Baiting a boyar or two,’ Lymond said. ‘How did you know so much about the road to Astrakhan?’ The robe she had shown him was fox-trimmed, and of Persian silk. Bare to the waist he allowed it to fall over his shoulders and subsided, with the oiled ease of total physical control, among the cushions beyond the low brazier.
‘You are an animal,’ the Mistress said. ‘Barbarous Scot. You have no shame and no shyness. Who do you think nursed you in those days out of Volos?’
‘Master Grossmeyer,’ said Lymond. ‘The sick do not interest you, unless with very good reason. Did you learn of the road to Astrakhan from Suunbeka or Ediger?’
‘Suunbeka and her son have become Christian,’ Güzel said. ‘She has turned her back on the Tartars, her people.’
‘She is none the less Yamgurchei’s daughter as well as the captive widow of the last Khan of Kazan. I salute the persuasiveness of your doctor, your cook and your sewing women, not to mention your personal charms. The incident did all that was necessary.’
‘The Tsar is lonely,’ Güzel said calmly. ‘Since his illness, he and his wife have lost confidence in Sylvester and Adashev. Anastasia is looking, too, for someone strongwilled who will steady him. There is a vein of unnatural violence.’
‘In his brother. In his great-grandfather. But in himself I see nothing yet. There may be a good mind under all that loose-lipped emotion. But it is a gamble from moment to moment whether one is about to be embraced or garotted.’
‘Can you control him?’ Güzel asked. There was a tap on the door. Leila came in followed by Venceslas bearing a tray: he dispensed wine, which Lymond waved aside, and withdrew.
‘I think so. We can do a great deal for him, if he will allow us. Whether I can also control the boyars at the same time is a matter which only the hangman will finally tell.… Güzel, I wish you to take back Venceslas.’
She looked up from her Sassinian goblet of wine. ‘He is clumsy?’
‘No. Like the elephant, a beast very docible and apt to be taught. But I prefer not to be served out of gratitude.’
‘Now I,’ Güzel said, ‘think that the most intriguing form of service of all. I was sorry for him. In the manner of this most hoggish of nations, his father had drunk wife and children completely away. I redeemed Venceslas from the inn he was slaving for. Would you put him back? I thought tonight you were no friend to the winecup?’
The dense brown eyes were watching him as he lay on her cushions: his veiled lids and lit golden hair, and the polished brown skin between the open furs of his robe. He raised his eyebrows, studying the pattern of cut velvet under his fingers, and said, ‘Do you want to hear of it? I joined the men of St Mary’s at Plummer’s brave piece of self-assertion