The Ringed Castle: Fifth in the Legendary Lymond Chronicles

  ‘But she is my wife,’ Lymond said.

  ‘Not——’

  ‘Yes!’ said Lymond softly. ‘Before God and man. And for that, my dear Marquis, you would hang. If, of course, she told you about it in the first place.’

  Allendale’s hand was on his sword. He took it off again and drew a long breath. His body was trembling. He said, in a low voice, ‘This is uncivil.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s quicker than question and answer,’ Lymond said. ‘And we know where we stand. I’m delighted, in fact, to have met you. You may have her first, when the Pope and I have both finished.’ And he walked off, smiling, into the inn, leaving Austin Grey standing where he was, very still in the snow.

  He brought the same bright, deadly mood to the meeting with Philippa’s mother, and Kate Somerville, that small, wise friend of long ago who knew him better than anyone, stood in her small crowded bedchamber and watched him come in, fair and smiling and elegant with his face marred and marring shadows, too, in his eyes and about his temples and mouth which had never been there before.

  He saw the woman she had always been, buttoned purposefully into a gown which, on equal purpose, would not be her best, with her brown hair accommodated hopefully in a rather nice cap but coming down, and her brown eyes, frowning, on the marks on his face. He said, ‘Richard, you will have heard. It probably did him a lot of good, because he wanted to do it so badly. I received your unaddressed, badly spelt note with all the polysyllables.’

  ‘Yes. Well,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know what you want to be called.’

  ‘Home, like the cattle?’ said Lymond. ‘No. No, that is what we are all trying to avoid talking about. I don’t object to being called by my Christian name, on purely social occasions. The Russian version was Frangike. Rather scented, I thought. Or alternatively, like a new brand of onion.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you meant to get drunk,’ Kate said flatly, ‘but you are, rather. Would you like to sit down over there?’

  He took the chair she indicated, on one side of the fire, by the bed. ‘But you must sit down as well.’

  Kate Somerville stood, her lips shut, and looked at him. ‘I don’t know that I want to. Are we going to have a sensible discussion?’ she said.

  ‘Well, you are sensible,’ Lymond said. ‘And I am not unconscious, yet. The trouble appears to be with the subject. I am here, on legal advice, as your son-in-law.’

  ‘I’m not going to sit down,’ Kate said, in some desperation, in view of the fact that her limbs would hardly uphold her.

  The beautiful, intolerant blue eyes surveyed her. ‘It is perfectly safe to sit down with sons-in-law. Not with prospective fiancés. I have just asked Austin Grey what he would do if I carried Philippa off and then ravished her.’

  He stared at Kate.

  Kate licked her lips and surmised. ‘Kill you?’ she said. Her voice, she found, was not totally reliable.

  ‘Yes. That’s satisfactory, isn’t it? I thought perhaps she was in love with Diccon Chancellor.’

  He never said what he meant. He never said what he meant.… All through their encounters, their clashes, their crossing of swords she had known that and learned a little to deal with it, and to translate, if only to herself, what lay under the stream of hurtful, facile words. And, suddenly, this time she felt panic, a seizure of fear so unexpected that she stared at him, quite unseeing, listening to the tone of the words. And then she saw what was behind it, and sat down.

  ‘I think everyone was,’ said Kate Somerville.

  Lymond said abruptly, ‘What about the divorce?’

  Kate said, ‘Lady Lennox is blocking it. The grounds, as you may have heard, are the test case of the Constable’s son.’

  ‘Why is she opposing it?’ Lymond said. ‘She knows the situation?’

  Her confidence mildly restored, Kate threw him a look of withering irony. ‘You mean is Philippa moaning and plucking off daisy petals? I am sorry to dispel the fancy. Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles.’

  ‘That was the impression I got,’ Lymond said. ‘So why …?’

  ‘Because Lady Lennox wants to hurt you through her. At least, that is my reading,’ Kate Somerville said. ‘You have Laurence Hussey with you just now, haven’t you?’

  ‘Wills, wives and wrecks?’ Lymond said. ‘Yes; he’s been concerned in the Edward. What else—ah. Boyar Angus has just died at Tantallon Castle.’

  ‘I wish,’ said Kate, ‘you were just a little more sober.… The Earl of Angus is dead, Lady Lennox’s father. There arises the matter of the inheritance. All those rich lands, and Tantallon Castle, one of the strongest in Scotland.’

  ‘The laird of Craigmillar is in it,’ said Lymond comfortably. ‘He told me the other day. Holding it for the Queen. But Margaret Lennox, of course, will lay claim to the lands and the Earldom, and Master Hussey, being a civil law practitioner and a member of Doctors’ Commons, will no doubt be asked to pursue it.… He seems a harmless enough little man. What has Philippa done?’ said Lymond.

  ‘Passed on to your family a Lennox plot to control Scotland,’ said Kate bluntly.

  Lymond’s eyes studied hers. ‘Who in turn, in their simple, loyal way, have passed it on to the Queen Dowager. Who will therefore take great pleasure in squashing any claim whatever from the Lennox family to the Earldom of Angus?’

  ‘You aren’t drunk,’ said Kate.

  ‘No. I have had a severe blow on the head, and a great deal of provocation. But Kate, Philippa can only be harmed if Master Hussey discovers what the Queen Dowager knows about the Lennox plot, and how she knows it. Who would tell Hussey?’

  ‘Maitland of Lethington,’ Kate Somerville said.

  ‘Who is close to the Queen, and loves the Lennoxes? And then Mary Tudor is told that her young lady in waiting has been passing State secrets to Scotland. How very careless of Margaret. Lennox secrets are usually very large and costive and never pass anything anywhere, like English bowels in hot weather. Where did Philippa hear this?’

  ‘From the lady Elizabeth,’ said Kate shortly.

  After a while, he let out his breath slowly and began, equally slowly, to shake his head without speaking. Kate said, ‘Well?’

  Francis Crawford got up and lifting his cloak, tossed it on her bed. Then, edging round furniture, he worked his way across the small room thoughtfully and stood looking at his mother-in-law, with a sober expression for once. ‘What do you know?’ he said at length.

  Kate said, her eyes very large, ‘I find your rudeness abominable and your politeness obnoxious but my goodness, Francis Crawford, what terrifies me more than a jungle of tigers is the moment when you look worried. I know only what Richard has guessed, and if Richard has guessed it, then you have been over-relaxing with your secrets also. What is your interest in Elizabeth and the late William Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire?’

  There was a pause. ‘Academic,’ said Lymond.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Kate. ‘There is something to connect Philippa with the Queen’s sister. Now there is something, academic or not, which connects you to Elizabeth too. It only needs a shred of evidence to send you both to the headsman for spying. And Elizabeth with you.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go back to Russia,’ Lymond said. But she did not smile, and after a moment he said, half to himself, ‘How she must hate me.’

  Kate said quietly, ‘Margaret Lennox?’ and he nodded, his back to the wall. ‘I suppose she is older than me by … oh, about the same as the difference between Philippa’s age and mine. I was sixteen. Seventeen, perhaps. She has never forgiven me. And now she wants Elizabeth out of the way. For that, of course, leaves the child Queen of Scots as the next heir to England and Scotland. And if anything happens to her …’

  ‘Margaret Lennox,’ said Philippa’s mother.

  ‘Or the boy. Darnley. It must seem very tempting to get rid of me as well. But she won’t do it.’

  Kate said, ‘How can you
be sure?’

  Lymond said, ‘If I were unsure, I shouldn’t be going to London.’

  ‘And Philippa?’

  ‘The divorce,’ Lymond said. ‘The divorce, somehow, as quickly as possible. And get her into church with young Tristram Trusty.’

  ‘There are quite a lot of young Tristram Trusties,’ said Kate. ‘One of them Spanish.’

  ‘Well, if she can stomach it; that,’ said Lymond without compunction, ‘would without doubt be safest of all. In any case, leave the other side of it to me. I shall see they don’t touch her. What about money?’

  ‘Well, she has all yours, if that’s what you mean,’ said her mother. ‘The entire possessions of the Donatis and another fortune waiting to be picked up, I gather, in France. From a witch?’

  ‘Not a witch,’ said Lymond. He made his way back again and picked up his cloak. ‘She can keep it. I have enough in Russia to do several lifetimes over.… They told me that if I didn’t come back, they would force you to marry?’

  In the plain, sensible face, the brown eyes were derisive. ‘Is that why you came back?’ said Kate Somerville.

  ‘No. I knew you could handle it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate. ‘I thought perhaps you had had one of Philippa’s persuasive letters.’

  He stood with the cloak in his hands, quite still, looking at her. At length: ‘I had two,’ he said.

  Kate said, ‘I’m glad. She wanted you to know how things were. She told Richard she would be writing.’

  Lymond said, ‘Kate. Do you know what you are saying?’

  Kate said sharply, ‘Of course I know what I’m saying. Philippa has been worried sick, and so has Richard and so have I. Now we have you back, at least for a visit. You’re here, and still nothing happens. It’s a thousand times worse for her.’

  Lymond said, ‘You promised——’

  ‘Not to talk about it. I’m breaking my promise.’

  ‘Because,’ Lymond said carefully, ‘of what Philippa wrote in her letters?’

  ‘Because the person who brings you up matters,’ snapped Kate. ‘And it’s time you thought less of your emotional feather bed and more of other people’s. And when you look like that, I know exactly how your odious father came to be detested. Stop!’

  ‘To hear more?’ said Lymond. ‘Goodbye, Kate.’

  ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Wait. There is someone out in the passage to see you.’ She grabbed his arm and he stopped, his face hard with animosity.

  ‘Who? The child, on its hindquarters, begging?’

  ‘No …’ said Kate, and fell back as he wrenched his arm from her grasp and, swinging from her, pulled the door open.

  Outside, standing very straight and patiently against the opposite wall was a small person in a long, hooded cloak worked with fur, with jewels on her lightly clasped fingers and more, gleaming through the chain at her throat. Her hair, unlike Kate’s, was dressed with shining and perfect elaboration below a fragile French hood and its colour, once so blonde, had turned the pure porcelain white which suits only a fair, finegrained skin, and makes the depth of blue eyes still more striking.

  Small and silent and elegant she waited, and did not move as the door was pulled open, although the hem of her skirt, had you looked closely, was trembling and her eyes, hollow with vigils, were unnaturally dark.

  So, as Lymond strode out and stopped, rigid and white by the doorpost, Sybilla set eyes on Francis, the son of her heart; and so Francis Crawford, after four years of unharnessed power, came face to face at last with his mother.

  And Kate, falling upon the door and looking up at her self-contained relative by marriage, saw his face torn apart and left, raw as a wound without features; only pain and shock and despair and appalled recognition, all the more terrible for being perfectly voiceless.

  There was time to comprehend it, and to see a reflection of it begin to break in Sybilla’s paper-white face. There was time for Kate to cling to the door and realize, with a sickening ache in her chest, the size and scale of the mistake she had made. Then Lymond drew a long, unsteady breath and moved. Without a word or a glance, he thrust between Kate and his mother, and walked to the end of the passage. For a moment, his back to them, he paused. Then with his fist he struck the door open and vanished. A moment later, they heard his step on the stair, and the main door opening, with an ostler’s voice wishing him a good night. Had they looked out of the window, they might even have seen him walk off through the snow, his bare head bright and dark by turns under the lamps.

  But they did not see it, for Kate was on her knees on the cold flags of the public inn passage, crying, and Sybilla was standing beside her, on the same forlorn spot, and unseeing, stroking her hair.

  The girl Osep Nepeja did not want was coming downstairs as Francis Crawford came into their lodging, and she drew aside on the landing, since she saw it was the head one, the one who paid and never came near them. Who likely, they said, wasn’t able.

  But Lymond greeted her, smiling, and smiling gripped her and walked her into his room and kicked the door shut.

  Half-way through the night she said, ‘What’s the matter?’ but he didn’t answer.

  And Osep’s friend drew a long, lonely sigh, there in the darkness; for he had been thoroughly able, and she had thought that perhaps he had liked her. But it was the old story. Some bought a drug for their troubles; and some bought a body. She waited until she thought he was sleeping, and left him, with her money, and a few extra coins as a keepsake.

  Chapter 6

  With their funds, their possessions, their lives threatened by the forthcoming war, the merchants of London decided as a measure of trust, a measure of pride and a measure of long-headed commerce to give to Osep Grigorievich Nepeja the finest reception ever received by foreign envoy to the capital city of England. And the Crown, for intricate reasons of its own, elected to support them.

  Come in stately progress; escorted from county to county by sheriffs, the Ambassador’s party was met within twelve miles of London by a company of eighty Muscovite merchants riding in velvet coats and gold chains. By them he was taken to spend the last night of his journey in the house of one of their number, where he was given gold, velvet and silk to make a riding coat for his processional entry. The following day, after an apprehensive night, he was received by an even large number of representatives of the Muscovy Company with even more horses and liveried servants, and taken foxhunting.

  To a man accustomed to hunting bear and seeing three hundred hares slaughtered in one afternoon, it may have seemed a strenuous and not over-productive occupation. But after two weeks of travelling through the rich English countryside and being entertained in commodious English mansions, Osep Nepeja was not the voluble traveller he once had been. He kept his mouth shut, except for smiling, and allowed himself to be led among the fields and commons of the northern suburbs of London, witnessing hawking and archery, and admiring the manors and gardens of the wealthy and the religious houses, ruined or privately bestowed, which gave to the countryside so much of the general appearance of his own suffering land under the Tartars.

  Then, after sufficient time had been wasted, he was led to meet the Queen’s representative the Right Honourable Viscount Montague with three hundred knights, squires, gentlemen and yeomen, all warmly and expensively dressed, and attended a brief open-air ceremony where he received from four richly dressed merchants a large gelding finely trapped, with a footcloth of Orient crimson velvet enriched with gold laces. Mounted on this, he was taken to Smithfield, the first limits of the liberties of the City of London.

  There, translated by Robert Best, the City welcomed him in the person of Sir Thomas Offley, Lord Mayor of London, with his Aldermen all in scarlet, and the procession of Entry formed up. It was, considering the penurious state of the Ambassador and the months of privation which had preceded it, a praiseworthy production. Dressed in his own style (by the Company) in a gown of tissue, embroidered with jewels and pearls, and with a long stiff
cap, also jewelled, set upon his massive brow, the Muscovite Ambassador rode between the Lord Mayor and Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague, with his servants in golden robes following. Behind them, brightly dressed, came the servants and apprentices of both English parties: ahead, in spectacular ranks, rode the knights and merchants, with the other Muscovite guest and his three companions discreetly among them.

  From Buckland and Best, the Muscovy Company knew who Lymond was, and had a very good idea what he was doing there. To their relief, discreetly approached, he had proved last night to be a man of good sense and reason. Nepeja was the Ambassador. Mr Crawford’s rôle, out of the public eye, should appear quite subsidiary. The Company, used to refugees of their own through several reigns, found nothing unusual in dealing with a foreign-born Russian, and in the ease of communication a positive blessing. Riding as it happened beside Sir William Chester, Alderman and merchant, Lymond talked about sugar all the way through Aldersgate and Cheapside and Lombard Street and into the opening of Fenchurch Street, while the London crowds, shouting and struggling, packed the network of streets all about them, and hung out of windows and dropped things, on occasion, on their heads.

  No one fell to their knees and abased their brows to the Queen’s representative, or to the Voevoda Bolshoia, or to the first Ambassador of the lordly Prince Ivan, Tsar of all the Russians, but Master Nepeja had grown used to that. In spite of its money, it was an unruly and barbarous nation. But what would you expect, under the ignorant rule of a woman?

  Lodged under the eaves of the extravagant Fenchurch Street mansion which was to house Nepeja during his sojourn in London, Blacklock, d’Harcourt and Hislop were not the only men of his party that night to throw themselves on their beds with groans of relief and exhaustion. Prone, with his hands over his face, Danny Hislop said, ‘My God. Do you realize there is going to be two months of it? Who is Master John Dimmock?’

  ‘A lion-hunter,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt, his eyes closed. ‘The man with the biggest house and the most money and a penchant for entertaining Russian Governors. I approve of the house. Did you see Nepeja’s rooms?’