The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [95]
Diccon swung round and stared at his countryman, while Lymond leaned back, his hands loose before him and broke into genuine, uninhibited laughter. Chancellor said, ‘Is that true?’
Rob Best nodded.
‘You soft-headed idiot: and I suppose you planned to help her?’
‘She thought better of it. At least she didn’t turn up,’ Rob Best said. ‘She was worried in case Mr Crawford wasn’t getting her letters.’
‘Maybe she’ll get on the Edward next time,’ Lymond said. He was still sobbing faintly. ‘Maybe she’ll arrive in the spring. Or maybe she’ll send her intended, thundering out his thrasonicall threats.’ He said something in Russian to Osep Nepeja, and Nepeja laughed. It was too idiomatic for Diccon, who caught only the one word, ‘Güzel’.
Chancellor said, ‘I find the situation less comic than you do. Until now, I had no idea that Mistress Philippa knew that you were in Russia. I was told to open the matter of divorce by someone quite other, who did.’
‘Told?’ Lymond repeated. His face and his hands, very still on the table, told Diccon nothing at all, except that he had his attention.
‘By the Countess of Lennox.’
‘Ah,’ said Lymond, on a long, noiseless sigh and stretched his back slowly, like an athlete, Diccon thought, kept too long indoors. ‘And why should the Countess of Lennox be concerned with Philippa’s marriage?’
‘Because,’ said Diccon Chancellor, ‘Flaw Valleys is a manor of strategic importance placed on the English side of the Scots border. And because Philippa’s mother is widowed, and could not hold it against you or your friends.’
The limpid gaze was full of encouragement. ‘How exciting,’ said Lymond. ‘I had no idea that we had declared war on each other.’ A thought illuminated the untrustworthy contours of his shadowless face. ‘Or do you think the Countess of Lennox will come on the Edward?’
‘We are not at war with Scotland,’ said Chancellor curtly.
‘And I am no threat to Flaw Valleys so long as I remain safely in Russia, which I have every intention of doing. I cannot see, Mr Chancellor,’ said Lymond agreeably, ‘that my affairs constitute a serious problem, either to my bride’s courting, or to the security of England, or to you. Meanwhile, we are imposing unimaginable tedium upon our kind hosts.’
And bowing, he turned to his neighbour, breaking into a murmur of Russian; nor did he speak English at any point for the rest of the meal.
On a sudden impulse, Diccon Chancellor crossed to the Troitsa Cathedral on his own late that evening, and lit a candle before the sparkling Trinity, and made a brief and private prayer to do with his ship and his sons. On the way back across the dark paths under the trees, he found his way barred by six armed men, one of whom addressed him in Russian, demanding that he should come with them quietly.
Unarmed and unescorted, attack was the last thing he had expected within the confines of the monastery. Diccon Chancellor ducked and ran, opening his mouth to shout as he did so, and was brought up like a galloping calf by the grip of men’s arms round his shoulders, and the flat of a man’s sweaty palm on his mouth.
He bit the flesh at his lips and almost tore himself free at that; then the men closed round him tighter than ever, and as he drew breath to call out once more, one drew a club and hit him, briefly and expertly, at the nape of the neck. He slid to the ground, into blackness.
He woke in bed, in a small, whitewashed room hung with dark, jewelled ikons, and two silver lamps whose glow touched the bright hair and calm face of the man kneeling beside him, a wrought metal dipper smelling of aqua-vite in his hands.
‘My apologies,’ Lymond said. There was no one else in the room.
Diccon Chancellor dug in one elbow, and sat up, with elaborate care. Speech eluded him.
Lymond held out the koush. ‘But you shouldn’t have tried to eall out.’
Chancellor sipped, and the power of speech returned, quickly. ‘In the dark, with six armed men at my back? What in hell’s name are you playing at?’
‘They were in my livery,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘Rumour said the Pilot General was observant.