Against the door, his eyes heavy with wine, Lymond scanned her from her milky throat to her green-slippered feet. ‘Dear Joleta,’ he said. ‘You’ve been reading too many Italian books. There’s such a thing, you know, as seducing in hate.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ said Joleta steadily. ‘Love is stronger than hate. Love is stronger than anything. Where there’s love, there can be no evil.’
‘Maybe,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘But I am not, sweeting, in love.’
‘But I am,’ said Joleta Malett desperately. And pulling, tight-fisted, at the silken cord that bound her high-waisted dress, she dragged first girdle then buttons apart until the green stuff, gaping loose to the waist, slid from her bare shoulders and hung from her elbows, tight-sleeved like a courtesan’s robe.
She wore nothing beneath. Her flesh breathed sweetness and warmth, and her sixteen-year-old breasts, round and rosy in firelight, lay high and ripe in their calyx of green. Three-quarters stripped, trembling, her eyes black with a queer ecstasy, half missionary, half not, Joleta caught Lymond’s cold, clever hand and slid it round and over and down all her warm flesh.
There was a heady pause. She felt him steady himself after the first, quick-breathing shock; then the fingers which lay so passively in hers suddenly gripped like a vice. She gasped, and in the same moment heard what he had heard: distant galloping hooves which moment by moment became nearer and sharper until in seconds a neighing horse came to a jangling halt in the silent courtyard below. There were running footsteps, then a swordhilt hammered home again and again on the inn’s big oaken door while a harsh voice yelled for admittance.
The voice was the voice of Randy Bell, and the name he was shouting was Lymond’s.
The cries tore across the sleeping peace of the night: the roaring as the angry innkeeper stormed to the doorstep roused every soul in the wing. Across the corridor Jerott Blyth shot up in bed and a moment later Blacklock, grumbling, got out. He said, ‘Christ, it’s Randy. Look, you’re decent at least. Go down and let him in before he breaks down the door. I’ll tell Lymond.’
‘Tell Lymond?’ Jerott was cold, ‘He could hardly help hearing that, unless he’s stone dead.’
‘He may not be dead but he may very likely be stone drunk,’ said Adam with reason. ‘Go on. You had the damned bedclothes all night. You ought to be warm.’
And, repressing a strong desire to curse, Jerott went. As he began to run downstairs Blacklock crossed the corridor and gave an almighty bang on Lymond’s shut door. ‘Francis? Send her out. I’ll take her next door. The room’s empty.’
Before he had finished, the door was open. Inside, Lymond, an extraordinary expression on his face, half of mischief, half of malice, propelled towards Blacklock a slender, golden-topped figure muffled in a great cloak. ‘Look out, she’s half naked,’ said Lymond calmly. ‘And if you force her, you lecherous scribbler, you can explain to Gabriel, not me.’ And, half pulled, half carried, Joleta Malett was carted away.
Two minutes later, Randy Bell was upstairs, taking three at a time, with Jerott casting questions at his heels, and hardly taking time to knock on the door, they were both into Lymond’s room.
Lymond, awake, alert and neatly dressed in London russet, laid down his book by the fire and gravely welcomed them in.
‘It’s the Hot Trodd!’ said Randy Bell. ‘Word came today from the Wardens to St Mary’s. Someone’s taken a great herd of Kerr animals, and Cessford and Ferniehurst are riding over the Border tonight.’
‘How exciting,’ said Lymond, staring at the panting physician. ‘But not enough, I think, to keep me from my modest couch. Sir Graham, I take it, is leading a company after the chosen of the children of Benjamin?’
Randy Bell flung his helmet on a settle and sat down with a crash. ‘That isn’t all. The freebooters have been at Buccleuch beasts as well. Half the Scotts round about Branxholm are off to the Debatable too. All, thank God, except the old man himself. He’s away at Paisley and hasn’t been told.’
‘Now that,’ said Lymond, his voice changing, ‘is news.’ And rising swiftly, he opened the shutters. It was a clear spring night, with Jupiter bright as a diamond above. ‘Give me an hour to finish what I have to do here. Jerott, get dressed and set off at once for St Mary’s with Blacklock and Bell. When I’m ready, I’ll follow. We should get directions there, and fresh horses, and with any luck catch up with Sir Graham before the Scotts and Kerrs find their herds or each other.… It’s a pity it’s such a clear night. Randy, I’m sorry, but you must come back with us. Could you arrange post-horses quickly below while the other two dress?’
‘What remains to do here?’ said Jerott Blyth. If you looked closely at Lymond’s eyes and caught the smell of his breath, it was plain that Thompson had liberated him from his lofty principles all right.
‘I,’ said Lymond with simple truth, ‘am going to bed.’
Five minutes later, Lymond saw Blyth and Bell off downstairs, and walked across to where Adam Blacklock was hastily dressing.
He had a bitten finger. ‘She w-wanted to scream,’ he said. ‘So I stopped her. Her c-cloak fell off.’
‘I expect it did,’ said Lymond. ‘And then she w-wanted to scream again?’
It was Blacklock’s turn then to realize that he was not perfectly sober. Francis Crawford was not given normally to mimicry unless he wanted to wound. The artist said briefly, ‘N-not on my account, I promise you.’
Lymond looked up suddenly, searching Blacklock’s face; and his own expression altered. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t baiting you because of that, but you’re a bloody fool, Adam. What happened, you couldn’t sleep and saw Joleta earlier entering my room? In any case, you get the cup and the cash prize as well. Two minutes later and Blyth and Randy Bell would have been in the room, their eyes hung on jemmy-bands.’
‘And now?’ said Blacklock. From the stir below, and the clacking of hooves on the cobbles, they could hear that the others were ready.
He had left a buckle undone. Lymond fastened it, delicately, giving it all his attention, and stood back to admire. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I am going in my drunken lust to visit Gabriel’s sister, candidior candidis, the virginal Joleta. And once there, to rifle at leisure her sixteen-year-old charms.’
Though the headache which had crippled him all evening, Adam stared back at the icy blue eyes. Lymond, worldly as he was, must surely have noted what he had noted. ‘She’s in love with you,’ Adam observed.
‘Is she? Perhaps. We’ll know, shan’t we,’ said Lymond absently, ‘in one hour from now?’
*
But he spent longer with Joleta than that. As Bell, Blacklock and Blyth cantered out of the yard and the tavern settled once more to its rest, Lymond unlocked the room where Adam had concealed Gabriel’s sister. Inside it was cold and dark and only dimly, by her hurried breathing, could one distinguish the child huddled there in her cloak.
Without speaking Lymond crossed the room and lifting her, quite unresisting, carried her in a crushed, silent bundle to his warm, bright room next door. There he laid her softly on the bed, spread out the apricot hair on the pillowcase, and with gentle fingers laid back the cloak, unveiling once more to the firelight the bared silk of her beautiful body. Then he walked away and sat down. ‘All right. Fascinate me,’ he said, and settled back in his chair.
Joleta sat up.
‘And a very pretty beginning. A little too spry, maybe, for the perfect effect. We mustn’t bustle through the programme, you know.’
‘What programme?’ said Joleta. ‘Who were these men? They tried.…’
‘That was Adam Blacklock, saving your honour,’ said Lymond comfortably. ‘The newcomer was from St Mary’s, to tell me that your brother has marched to battle, armed to the halo. I should be there too. I chose, sister-seraph, to be here.’
Sitting bolt upright in a tumble of green wool, golden hair and white flesh, she gave him back stare for stare. ‘Even though you dislike me?’
‘I’m a quick convert,’ said Lymond. ‘I thought I’d try love. Stronger than hate, if you remember. Tant que je vivrai en âge fleurissant, servirai Amour, le dieu puissant.’
Straight as a fawn, Joleta sat in the blaze of her hair. ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘my reputation concerned you.’
Lymond laughed. ‘After darting in and out of my bedroom all night with twigs in your beak? There’s a love-nest here all right, sweetheart, as far as the inn is concerned, although St Mary’s may not know of it yet. In which case, why not nestle?’
There was a short silence. Then Joleta said, masking her face suddenly in her long hands, ‘Help me. Help me. I love you.’
‘Good,’ said Lymond encouragingly. ‘Now you finish undressing.’
Slowly, her hands came down, hovered over the clasps of her girdle and then stopped. Two tears washed down her flushed cheeks. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Beautiful,’ said Lymond approvingly. ‘Now I should come over and unfasten it. I’m tired. You do it.’
She was crying harder, silently, the streaks silvering her firm little breasts. ‘I meant … I don’t know how to make love.’
‘Joleta!’ said Lymond. ‘Magnificent girl. You deserve to be put in a play.’ He got up, his eyes blazingly blue, his walk not yet quite steady, and began to approach. ‘Then I shall have to teach you. Isn’t that what they all say?’ And smiling, he brushed aside her hovering hands, and with smiling violence snapped the remaining clasps of her gown.
Below him, her white-lashed eyes were open and clear; the blood pulsed in her white throat. Wet with tears, the hair coiled round her neck and caught in the fine russet of his clothes. ‘Be gentle,’ she said, and Lymond, gripping her, shook his fair head.
‘With you, no, angel-sister; not with you. For what you need, my Joleta,’ said Francis Crawford, and his own teeth showed for a moment white against his hard mouth, ‘is a master.’
Three hours later Richard Crawford in the other wing of the inn woke from the sleep of the healthily tired to find his landlord battering on his locked door.
From that anxious gentleman he discovered that two of the men from St Mary’s had left the tavern at midnight, and that Thompson, on no doubt urgent concerns of his own, had also later departed, forgetting to settle his score. Having reassured the man with an English rose noble and the sight of some more, Richard got rid of him, robed, and marched to his brother’s wing to investigate.
Lymond’s door was locked, and his rap went unanswered, despite distinct sounds from within. Having made sure that Blacklock and Jerott Blyth had indeed vanished, Lord Culter returned to his brother’s room and this time, annoyed, both rattled the latch and addressed him. ‘Francis, you unmitigated rake. Put her down, whoever she is, and emerge.’
Behind the door something crashed, and Lymond chuckled. There was a short silence, then the sound of a minor struggle, and he laughed again. When he spoke, his voice was quite close to the other side of the door. ‘It’s all right, Richard. The others were called back and I shall be following them in five minutes. Pay the accounting if Thompson doesn’t, will you? I’ll put it right with you later.’
‘If you live,’ said Richard drily. Something hit the inner side of the door and fell, breaking. ‘What’s happened? Come out without your money?’
Lymond didn’t answer. Instead, the key rattled. Richard heard his brother say something sharply and brutally, a tone of voice he had never heard him use in a bedroom before. There was one movement of extreme violence and a woman’s voice, directly cut off. Then the key turned and the door blundered open.
Inside, eyes crazed, hair wild, a ripped sheet clutched round her naked sixteen-year-old body, Gabriel’s beloved child-sister stood swaying.
Speechless, Richard Crawford stood stupidly staring, first at the child, then beyond her to where his younger brother, his imprisoning arm dropped to his side, turned abruptly and, kicking his way through the shambles, walked back to the fire.
In silence, his face drained of colour, Richard held out his two hands to the girl.
Joleta stared back. The sheet, unheeded, hung from her bruised arms and her cheeks were stained and dirtied with tears. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘Too late for help.’ And before he could move, slipped to the floor, lying quiet with her bright hair on his shoes.
Slowly, Richard knelt. He gathered up the light weight, folding the torn sheet softly about her, and carrying her into Lymond’s room, laid her on the wrecked bed. Then he closed the door, equally slowly, and standing before it, as Lymond hours earlier had done, he said quietly to Lymond’s still back, ‘So this is the outcome of it all. This is why Tom Erskine preserved you; why Christian Stewart died and Gabriel has worked to redeem you … for this. Francis, I would sooner have discovered you dead.’
His brother turned. Fair hair tumbled, eyes blazingly bright, he was breathing hard still, his fine shirt twisted loose from its cords. ‘I wish to God it had been anyone but you,’ he said. ‘Because for my sake and Joleta’s honour you won’t tell, will you?’ His voice was bitter. ‘You’ll go home and mope like a dog, so that Sybilla is sure to wonder what’s wrong. It won’t occur to you …’ He stopped.
Richard found that he was not only cold, but trembling with shock and loathing and fear. ‘What won’t occur to me?’
‘That she was a bitch,’ Lymond said. ‘Just a bitch who needed a lesson.’
He waited without moving while Richard strode up to him, and did not lift his hands even when Culter took him in a double grip that must have hurt to the bone.
‘It would help if I hit you, wouldn’t it?’ said Richard at last. ‘I’m not going to. I merely want to point out that were she three-faced Hecate herself, she is Graham Malett’s sister and a guest under your mother’s roof.’
Loosing his hands, he stepped back. ‘But she isn’t Hecate, is she? She’s sixteen, convent-bred and a little spoiled, and you are afraid of her brother, so you’ve used her … you’ve used her like an old dockside bawd.’
He halted, his voice suddenly out of control. ‘I meant what I said. I wish you’d died first.’
A sort of deadly derision appeared for a second in Lymond’s blank eyes. ‘I don’t think she does,’ he said, and then stopped at the look on her brother’s face. After a moment, he added curtly, ‘Will you take her back to Midculter? Will you say nothing to Sybilla? The girl won’t mention it if you don’t.’
Richard, his flat brown hair fallen over his face, knelt by Joleta, the brisk, the clever, the bright, with whom he had journeyed from France, and took her bleeding wrists in his hands. ‘You can rely on me, as always,’ he said. ‘You know better, of course, than to come to Midculter again.’
He did not look round, and it seemed a long time before Lymond’s voice said, ‘What, then, will you tell Sybilla?’
After a fashion, Lord Culter had clothed her, wrapping her in sheets and blankets, and then in the torn and crushed furry cloak. Her eyes were still closed. Richard raised Joleta Malett again in his arms and looked up, the pink-gold hair streaming over his arm. ‘That you are going abroad. I take it you are. I cannot imagine even you could face Gabriel again.’
‘Then your imagination is uncommonly poor,’ said Lymond with a kind of mulish bravura. ‘I can face anyone except possibly Sybilla. I am going straight back to St Mary’s. Why not? I’ve no more to do here. To market, to market, to buy a plum bun.…’
The door slammed.
‘Home again, home again,’ continued Francis Crawford genteelly to the strewn, empty room. ‘Market is done.’
VIII
The Hot Trodd
(The Scottish Border, May 1552)
THE only person who slept undisturbed that night on either side of the Scottish Border was Philippa Somerville, waiting at Liddel Keep with a small escort and one of Kate’s serving women for Will Scott to take her to Midculter next day.
In fact, Will Scott had forgotten her, being at that moment briskly engaged. The previous night, th
e Kerr sheep and cattle had been lifted by a family of rogues called Turnbull, long since thrown out of Philiphaugh and now lodged uneasily in the Debatable Land. In the morning the family Kerr, led by Sir Walter Kerr of Cessford and Sir John Kerr of Ferniehurst with their sons, nephews and cousins, set off to recover their property, followed a false trail down Jed Water, and spent the day and half the night of the 30th unprofitably roaming round Redesdale.
They did not on this account meet the Scotts, who lost their beasts a little later in the day, the Turnbulls not being a numerous family, and set off eventually, under Sir William Scott, to rake Tyneside and Liddesdale. In doing so, they actually passed through the Turnbulls’ squalid encampment, but found it empty of all but women, since the Turnbulls had not gone home at all, but had wisely kept their booty in a quiet little valley north of the Border until the first twenty-four hours had gone by, the interesting point being that if they could retain possession of the beasts for six days they could keep them for good, since the unfortunate losers were allowed only so long to hunt for them south of the Border.
The family Turnbull, therefore, smart as Chinese Checkers, spent the two days after the robbery moving nimbly up and down hills and keeping successfully just outwith the reach of either the Kerrs or the Scotts, but moving imperceptibly southwards ready, when the time came, to usher their tired beasts into the Debatable Land and home.
They nearly succeeded, but being stupid men, they were beaten by one thing: Will Scott had posted scouts. When, at dusk on the 1st May, the man watching the pass at Canonbie saw the slow-moving, bleating patch of shadow in a far valley appear and make its herded and painful way towards the settlement of Turnbull, he put spurs to his horse, and within the hour, the Scotts had taken the road.
By then, Randy Bell was with them. Neither he nor Jerott nor Adam Blacklock had particularly enjoyed the ride from Dumbarton back to St Mary’s through the previous night, although the last two had slept at least since covering the same ground on the way north. They had reached St Mary’s to find that, as they had expected, Gabriel had long since left with the company to police the Trodd. Messengers hourly told them that he had located the Kerrs and was staying with them, but that the stolen animals had not yet been found. He had not so far been able to trace Will Scott and his party.