The Ringed Castle

by Dorothy Dunnett

  The Ambassador, his eyes sharp beneath untrimmed brows, gave, through Mr Best, his willing agreement. The group of Englishmen bowed, and Master Nepeja; they backed, and the door closed behind them.

  ‘Now, Mr Crawford,’ said Mary of Guise.

  He could not have expected to leave Scotland without this confrontation. Four years before, in this city, he had refused to lead his company of St Mary’s as an instrument of the Queen Dowager’s. Since then, she had tried to form a standing army of her own, and had failed. Now, whatever she guessed, she must know, from the suave, visiting lords who had called on him, who had entertained Buckland and Best, and chatted to Hislop and Blacklock and d’Harcourt, that the nucleus of St Mary’s at least was now in the employment of the Tsar. So now she gazed at the presentable, unpredictable Scotsman before her and said, ‘We hear you favour Muscovy with your advice and your presence. Before your brief sojourn is over, we were curious to learn what gross defects in its people, its form or its management you had found in this country to spurn.’

  It was a game, and these were its opening moves. ‘Your grace,’ Lymond said. ‘What defect has France, that so many of her noblest sons stand at your side? They advise you out of their wisdom, I the Tsar out of my humility.’

  The large, pale eyes studied him from the stiff headdress; her skirts, spread widely about her, did not disguise the strong, big-boned frame of the de Guises, the most powerful family in France. She said, ‘Out of long-standing alliance and amity, France supports this nation, and defends it. We have no such commitments to Muscovy. On whose behalf do you support its Tsar?’

  ‘On my own,’ Lymond said. ‘I am a soldier of fortune.’

  ‘But you are in English company, and supporting an English adventure.’

  ‘Your grace may rest assured,’ Lymond said. ‘My loyalty, as with all mercenaries, is towards the sovereign who pays me. I am not paid by England.’

  ‘And the Tsar is so munificent?’ Mary of Guise observed.

  For this audience he had dressed soberly, neither in the long robes of the Russian merchant nor the tunic and breeches of the Russian soldier. Like any of her courtiers, he wore a formal close-buttoned doublet and cloak, the high stiffened collar opening in front to show a shirt lightly decorated; his long, sombre hose neatly shod, with no extravagance anywhere, except the extravagance inherent in his colouring and style. ‘Or,’ said Mary of Guise, ‘is it power you seek, Mr Crawford? For I cannot, I fear, commend your frankness. Do you still say your only duty to the Tsar is that of adviser?’

  No trace of alarm showed in the chilly blue eyes. ‘It is what the terms of my embassy say.’

  ‘In public, yes. But since we are not on the borders of Russia and our trade, our church and our people are not threatened by this barbarous race, might you not have been candid with us, Mr Crawford? I am told that you are not either leader of the company of St Mary’s or a clerk of the English tongue to Ivan of Russia, but his general, the Supreme Commander of all his armies?’

  ‘It is not a closely kept secret,’ Lymond said pleasantly. ‘It seemed irrelevant to your grace’s Court.’

  Round the Queen were her Council; the men who severally had called on him; colleagues of his brother Culter, lifelong friends of his mother, Sybilla. The blandness they all recognized. And the courtesy. And the arrogance. The feelings of the Queen’s ladies, who had not seen him before, were something again. The Queen said, ‘And irrelevant, it seems, to your brother Midculter, who was not made aware of it. For a man who has attained such high honours so young, you have been slow to announce your good fortune to your queen and to your family. Are we to understand that your new allegiance now conflicts with theirs?’

  Invisibly, Francis Crawford’s patience had come to an end. He said, ‘Your grace: if you know that I am Voevoda Bolshoia of Russia, you also know why I am here.’

  The Queen’s erect shoulders moved, within their wide, stiffened sleeves. ‘I have heard certain rumours. But knowing the Baltic alliances of our dear brother of Spain, I can hardly countenance them.’

  ‘My mission,’ Lymond said, ‘is to serve Russia as best I can. I can only repeat. I am not paid by England, or by the Queen’s husband Philip.’

  ‘Your mission will fail,’ the Queen said. ‘And if war should break out while you are in England, what then?’

  ‘I am an envoy of the Tsar,’ Lymond said. ‘Not of Scotland.’

  ‘So, to the outward eye, it would seem,’ said Mary of Guise. ‘But I, because I am a woman, know that you are not only Scottish bred and bear the gift of a French Comté, but you have a kindness for us and our daughter which has been manifest over many years and does live, I believe, somewhere still. Mr Crawford, you have not been open with me, but I shall bare my heart and my mind before you. Where your conscience may take you, or your fortune, in England or Scotland or Russia, will you take our fee and serve us?’

  He was an enviable prize; and he knew it. She was only the latest in a long, long line of men and women who had come to him, smiling, with offers. ‘Your grace is too kind,’ Lymond said. ‘But I fear my time and my conscience have already been purchased.’

  And at last, she had received an answer she could not gracefully turn. For a long moment she stared at Mr Crawford of Lymond, Count of Sevigny; and then, turning the light eyes to her Chamberlain, she gave the nod which signified instant dismissal. To Lymond, ‘Then, you may leave, sir,’ she said, and did not again offer her hand. And as he bowed, smiling, and turned to go, there was more than one man among those about her who would willingly have spun him round and disfigured that worldly, impervious face.

  The Muscovite Ambassador stayed a month longer in Scotland, and, held by a certain doomed fascination, the three officers of St Mary’s stayed with him, acting as his equerries; forming, in the rare leisure moments of John Buckland and Robert Best, a strange brotherhood which had grown without warning: the closeness of a group of men who have lived and faced danger together, and suffered a loss.

  Danny Hislop had always intended to stay. Now Ludovic d’Harcourt as well deferred and then dismissed his plans to travel to London and make anew career for himself either there or in France, and Adam, for reasons so fragile he would have admitted them to nobody, had tacitly decided the same. While Nepeja was in England, they would stay with him. ‘Otherwise, poor Osep,’ said Danny Hislop, ‘as the likeness of the Ass bearing books, poor Osep will finish in Bedlam. What will you do, Ludo, if he gets another eagle? They have them in Scotland.’

  But since the journey to Pitsligo from St Nicholas, Ludovic d’Harcourt was no longer so easy to bait on the subject of Lymond. And the process of self-questioning, observed by Danny’s bright, ironic gaze, had begun even sooner than that, on the night Lymond had shot Slata Baba. Now, staring critically at d’Harcourt without waiting for him to answer, Danny said, ‘You just admire him because he can swim better than you can. You realize you are joining the choir?’

  Ludovic flushed and Adam said, ‘Danny, be quiet.’

  ‘Don’t interfere with my subject,’ Danny Hislop said smartly. ‘I’m not in St Mary’s because I like it. I am embarked spellbound on a study of devil-worship. Tell me, what is going to happen when the sweet Philippa comes inside his range?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Robert Best shortly. ‘She is at the English court with Queen Mary. I was told all about her before I came up.’

  ‘And?’ said Danny encouragingly.

  ‘And nothing. She has work that she likes, and a mind of her own, and a group of excellent friends, with one or two who want to be more. She isn’t troubled about the divorce. But the moment it comes, she will marry.’

  ‘And then he will be … available,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt thoughtfully.

  ‘For Güzel?’ Danny said. ‘No, how silly. Availability has been nothing if not the keynote these two years or more. For somebody’s wealthy widow? She need not trust her delicate health to the long journey to Russia. Someone should suggest it to the Voevoda. A
mistress in Moscow, and a bonny wee wife with a mutch and a full belly in England. Which reminds me——’

  ‘The new ladies have arrived,’ said Adam grimly. ‘Guaranteed of clean stock, and inured to Russian practices. Osep has announced himself suited.’

  ‘For the time being,’ said Danny, open-eyed. ‘That’s ten since Pitsligo. Do you think it is a subversive attempt at colonization, or the long Russian nights that ought to be setting in about now in Vologda?’

  ‘We shall have to wait till the spring,’ Adam said, ‘to find out.’

  Lymond was in Pitsligo. In spite of his efforts there, or perhaps because of them, little was found of the thousand pounds’ worth of goods reckoned to be taken from the wreck of the Edward, although he and the Commissioners made exhaustive inquiries, and January was spent in laborious sittings, attended by Nepeja in Edinburgh, during which innumerable witnesses travelled backwards and forwards from Buchan, and innumerable lawyers made speeches, comprehensible and quite otherwise. By the end of the month even the Ambassador’s will was worn down. And by the beginning of February, he had agreed with grumbling reluctance at last, to sign a document giving Lewis, Roberts and Buckland full powers as his legal administrators to pursue the cause of his lost possessions in Scotland, and had notified his willingness to proceed on his way south.

  If the bells of St Giles did not ring, there was a certain sense of release in the city and Best and Buckland and Gilpin, with the way open before them to London, became, even in Nepeja’s presence, dangerously hilarious. Nepeja, who had just received his congé and a four-hundred-pound gold chain from the Dowager, merely sat in his beard and smiled grimly.

  No further summons from Court came for Lymond. But on February 13th, the eve of their departure from Edinburgh, he received one final visit from Richard his brother.

  They had not met since the first journey south from Pitsligo and now, in the slender privacy of a small room high in the Ambassador’s lodging, neither showed any wish to break into fluent reconciliation, or indeed, unnecessary speech of any kind. Richard, dressed for court, made no attempt to sit down. He said, ‘Since I hear you are leaving, I have come to put certain matters before you. They are important. If I were a different manner of person, no doubt I should do more than this; I should plead, and I should cajole. I mean you to understand that if I cannot do that, it is not because I don’t think them worthy. I wish you to listen to them and I will accept the answer you give me. I should only warn you, Francis, that on these matters, I will not brook lightness or insolence.’

  Half-dressed; straying about a strewn room and arrested, as so often before, in the act of abandonment, Francis Crawford drew a long breath of monumental patience and said, ‘No, but Christ, you invite it. Let me do your work for you. You want me to stay here in Scotland. The answer is, no. You want me to visit Sybilla. The answer is, no. The Queen Dowager is anxious, through you, to lay hands on St Mary’s. The answer is, no. Failing that, she would like me to spy for her in England. The answer is, no.’

  If it had been reeled off with defiance, Richard could perhaps have tolerated it. Instead, delivered with restraint and with clarity, it was the voice of the Voevoda Bolshoia, unquestioned master of armies, giving his considered decisions. And although these were what he had promised to hear and accept, the cavalier judgements, in cold blood, on all the principles and people he held dearest stopped his voice, in a sort of nerve-storm of grief and resentment. And when he could speak: ‘You are a bastard,’ he said.

  He was nearly killed, then. He half recognized the look on Lymond’s face, and thought it an attack of plain anger. In any case, he was occupied in finding words for something which had to be said, and by the time he was speaking, Lymond was standing with his back to the wall, far away from him and resigned, apparently, to hearing him out. Richard said, ‘There have been so many misunderstandings in the past. What you did, often, was done for good reason. I know I am simple. I know you are devious. But, oh God, if there is any good reason for what you are doing now; any excuse; any unknown factor or subtle circumstance you are afraid I can’t grasp, for the mercy of God, this time, tell me.’

  ‘What shall I tell you?’ Lymond said. As on the beach, the movement of his dress betrayed, if one cared to look for it, the depth of his breathing; otherwise, back to the wall, he did not stir. ‘Graham Malett made a tool of St Mary’s which would have wrecked Scotland. I do not want the Queen Dowager to have that power. I cannot spy for Scotland with any plausibility: I shall be watched. I cannot spy with any moral sanction either: I am trusted and liberally paid by the Tsar, and it is in his interest that trade between England and Russia should proceed without interruption, and that his first officer should not, if possible, be beheaded for espionage. I have told you why I do not want to see my son.’

  He had come to a concise halt.

  ‘And Sybilla?’ Richard said.

  Lymond was drawing long breaths now, his hands forced back rigid behind him, driven into the lime of the wall. ‘That is as far as I go,’ he said flatly. ‘I have never in my life subjected you to this kind of inquisition about your purpose, your doings or your relationships. I have answered you fairly enough.’

  Richard stood where he was, surveying the clever, imperious face of his only brother. ‘Yes, you have,’ he said at last. ‘You have said that, whatever happens, you want to wield the glory and power of St Mary’s, and that if this means exile from Scotland, it does not matter to you. And you will not face Sybilla because alone of all of us, she does not know you are venal. She still thinks you care for Scotland and for us, and are prepared to think both more important than riches; for our sake to govern your ambition; for the boy’s sake to master your emotions. And when she sees you——’

  ‘She will know she was wrong,’ Lymond said.

  Richard walked over to him. It was not a long way but he walked slowly, as if he were tired, and halted, eventually, face to face with his younger brother. He said, ‘Change your mind. It is the last chance in life you may have.’

  Spoken soberly, with all the honesty of which he was capable, it was neither threat nor impassioned appeal but a simple plea, simply put. To which Lymond, looking him in the eyes, shook his head.

  And Richard’s temper, so steadfastly held, without warning escaped his control. Even had he known what was coming, Lymond had no chance at all where he stood. Richard’s right arm came up and struck him, as Lymond had in the past inflicted so many blows, but with the clenched fist, not the flat of his hand, and with a violence that drove Francis Crawford sideways into the wall and then pitching away from it. Richard hit him once again, with the same extreme force on the chin, and watched as, quite unable to stop himself, his brother was flung spreadeagled against chest and chair, wall and, finally, floor.

  He lay without moving. At that point, Lord Culter felt no strong compulsion to discover what harm he had done. He stood, breathing hard, for a moment and for a moment longer looked down, grimly cradling his knuckles. Then he gazed round and picked up his hat, and found his gloves, and prepared, still short of breath, for departure.

  From the door, he glanced back, once, at the unresponsive wreck of the room. ‘Then God damn your soul!’ he said, and walked out.

  Chapter 5

  Deliciously, for the rest of the household, it was Yeroffia who found his master some five minutes later. Being Russian and not of any repressive Western persuasion, he strode down round the newel-post bellowing, and shortly had Phoma, Adam, Hislop and Nepeja himself in the embattled bedchamber. Lymond, the marks of the blows already thickened and dark on his face, was lying exactly where he had fallen, between the stretcher rails of a stool and an overturned chair, with his head hard against the uncompromising carved doors of a press cupboard.

  Osep Nepeja, Slavonian words of alarm and concern issuing from his beard, stood looking at him with a certain solid and undeniable satisfaction. Adam said, ‘Christ!’ and Danny Hislop, wriggling past said, ‘No. Lord Culter, I do decla
re,’ and, dropping to his knees, found the Voevoda’s wrist, and then his pulse. He sat back on his heels. ‘Cease to mourn. The voice of David will sound again in the land, although you might find a leech to confirm it. He has had an ungodly crack on the head.’

  He got up. ‘What shall we do with him? We have him at our mercy. Think of all the browbeaten Streltsi at Vorobiovo who would like to take their revenge at this moment. We could hire out his carcass for money!’

  ‘There is a Russian proverb,’ Nepeja said. ‘Beat your shuba, and it will be warmer; beat your wife and she shall be sweeter.’

  There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. ‘Beat your brother and he shall be deader?’ at length Danny said.

  ‘He will be, if you leave him there,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said, suddenly arriving. ‘His skull may be fractured, you idiots. Look out. Let me.’ And taking charge, in a Christian way, he supervised the lifting of the Voevoda Bolshoia and his transfer, sensibly, to the bed. Then he got everyone out of the room, keeping Danny.

  Danny stood, his hands dangling unhelpfully. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Adam is your man, you know, for sensitive nursing.’

  D’Harcourt, his hands pressing through Lymond’s hair, said, ‘But just think how he is going to enjoy finding you watching him when he wakes up. It isn’t fractured. My God, he must be a good man with his fists.’

  ‘Lymond?’ said Danny sweetly.

  ‘Lord Culter. I assume,’ Ludovic said. ‘At least, he was the last person up the stairs before Yeroffia. What did they quarrel about?’