The Ringed Castle

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Yes,’ Philippa said; and shook the sock free of her shoulder. Kate had told her of that particular bargain. Kate had told her also of the letter from Lymond to Lord Culter, invoking him by his full name and addressing him nowhere as brother. Of what had happened at their last meeting, or at Berwick, there had been no mention either: merely the outline of Philippa’s present predicament, and the further outline of how Lord Culter, if he so pleased, could help her. And Lymond had signed, omitting pointless civilities, with his surnames.

  She did not know, for Kate did not tell her, that there was no answering letter from Richard Crawford. Only the required document, forwarded by the French Ambassador the day before, and a small parcel with Culter’s seal on it. And even had she seen what the parcel contained, which was merely a trinket, a crested rose-bush with a single black rose set in silver, she would have been none the wiser.

  But Lymond, who did know what it meant, raised his eyebrows at the girl and said, ‘So that at least is happily concluded. Was that all you wanted to tell me? I think d’Harcourt is about to step in.’

  And Philippa said, ‘Oh. I shall tell you later. It’s about Michael Surian, the new Ambassador from Venice to England. He came to Court on the 5th … Mr d’Harcourt, Sir Henry is calling you.’

  ‘No, I think he’s calling you,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said. ‘He says if you’ll cross to his barge, we can take this one home down river afterwards.’ And taking Philippa’s place: ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Ludovic d’Harcourt said to Lymond.

  ‘About feathers,’ said Lymond, his shoulders restfully propped on the cushions. They had begun to move: the grey river wall of the Savoy Palace, green with weed, slid off behind them.

  The barge was really too small for d’Harcourt. He stretched his legs, and then folded them under him; then, bumping his cap on the hood, he felt for and straightened it, smoothing the wild, tightly curled hair. He said, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me. But I heard what you and Sir Henry were discussing at table. You think you know who attacked you in Russia.’

  ‘Well?’ said Lymond. He looked, if anything, bored.

  The fresh face beside him was grim. ‘I know you don’t trust me,’ d’Harcourt said. ‘Probably you don’t trust any of us. Since the day we joined you, you’ve kept us all at our distance, and I don’t say I blame you. You talked to Sir Henry as if your killer was bound to be one of the Muscovy Company in Russia.’

  ‘Well?’ said Lymond again.

  ‘While you know as well as I do,’ said d’Harcourt, ‘that it might be one of us.’

  ‘And is it?’ said Lymond.

  The backs of the rowers, in Sir Henry’s bright livery, moved backwards and forwards. Below them swept the rushing noise of the water, and against that, the creak of timber, the grunts of the oarsmen, the faint sounds, of splashing and calling, of talking and hammering, and the loud, raucous cries of the gulls, floating across the whole sparkling river. Two voices, speaking quietly under the muffling hood, were as private as in a stone room in the Tower. Half turning, Ludovic d’Harcourt looked into blue, cold eyes resting upon him, fully open, and he sustained them, though he reddened more than a little, and said, ‘It could be. I thought you said that you knew.’

  ‘You think I suspect you?’ Lymond said.

  Ludovic d’Harcourt looked down. ‘You would think that after Malta a man could stomach anything. It isn’t so. I couldn’t whip a man as you whipped Adam Blacklock. I couldn’t cosset that bird, and feed it and fly it as you did, or ignore what you could ignore in the man you called master. I couldn’t call men to me across Europe and then gamble their lives as you did, when the Streltsi attacked us in our first days in Moscow. I couldn’t speak to fellow human beings as you do, or deal out unmoved such violent punishments. And I made no secret of it, so that if you suspect me, it is not without cause. Only——’

  ‘You have had a change of heart?’ Lymond said dryly.

  He sat, a big man, with his hands dangling between his knees, and said, ‘It is easy to mock. But you cared for that bloody eagle, and yet you killed it, for a Tartar baby that turned out to be dead already. And at sea … there is no disguise that will serve a man on the sea.’

  ‘So? What are you saying?’ Lymond said.

  ‘That I want to go back with you to Russia,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt bluntly. ‘I shall serve you to the best of my ability. You will be safe from me and I swear I shall protect you against any man wishing to harm you. And if you fear any danger to that girl, I beg you, take her back with you. She is worth … I have never encountered her like.’

  ‘Ye Gods: another,’ said Lymond staring at him. ‘I must introduce you to her excellent, widowed mother, also multum in parvo: if you can stomach the Somervilles you can probably even contrive to endure my behaviour without sickening. Do I understand that, in your humble Christian fashion, you are indicating that I should look for the culprit in St Mary’s? Now I come to think of it, Fergie Hoddim now and then had a very odd look in his eye.’

  And as d’Harcourt shifted uncontrollably, Lymond sat up and added unexpectedly, ‘I know. It is easy to mock, and not so easy to make a confession of ill will. As it happens, suspicion lies somewhere else, with a man who had access to my correspondence. But if you are concerned about Philippa Somerville, then you can engage your courts of higher authority in all our interests. Because if anything threatens my liberty in the three weeks now left before sailing, Philippa will also be implicated. And far from being allowed to sail with us to Russia, she may not live to sail anywhere at all.’

  Philippa thought, when they stepped out at the River Fleet water-gate, that poor Mr d’Harcourt had been receiving a lecture, so subdued and concerned did he look. But Mr Crawford, on the other hand, sparkled, paralysingly bright and sharp as an icicle; and it was only listening to him, with the inner, divining ear which the Somervilles bent upon everybody, that Philippa noted that the easiness she had felt for a moment had gone. With a sigh and a flip of her sock-hat, Philippa set herself to restore him.

  Since the Dissolution, the handsome buildings and gardens of Blackfriars Monastery had been put to many and impious uses. In its heyday, the Emperor Charles V had stayed there more than thirty years before on his State Visit, and a gallery had been built over the Fleet to join it to the Palace of Bridewell, where lived all his accompanying courtiers.

  Now, the grass was as green and the apple trees still fruited in summer, but the great hall held an hourglass instead of the tall clocks of Nüremberg, and instead of warming the short Flemish frame of the Emperor, who had wept, last year, turning back to the gates of his palace, the gaping fireplace served to heat the glue-pots and size-pans; to boil the water for sponging and to dry the clay and the paste, the painted boards and the strange moulded figures which the office of the Queen’s Revels and Masques had to furnish.

  At the door they met Philip Gunter, the sober merchant from Corn-hill who supplied Sir Henry with most of his bedding and hangings and who, delivering buckram and bells to the Office, had remained there to speak to Sir Henry. It was, Philippa said, a matter of choosing a tapestry. The two men disappeared and Philippa, aping faintly the custodian of King Arthur’s Round Table, led Mr Crawford, Mr d’Harcourt and Nicholas through the door and into the hall of the Revels.

  At first, dazzled by the sun, the gloom seemed unrelieved and the smell of horse hoofs and flax oil unbearable. Then it could be seen that sun, of a sort, was entering through the high rows of dim churchly windows, and that the vast fire at one end, spitting coal dust and wood smoke and frying jewels of rosin was barred by the untoward assembly of manifold objects for drying.

  On either side of the fire were the benches: long, rough benches with butts of thread on them, and cutting and paring knives, and shears, and pins and bodkins and thimbles, and coils of wire and black chalk and rolls of tinfoil. And paper and ink, and fine pens of swans’ quills, and powder for dusting. And nails and cering candles and rubbing brushes. And on shelves over the tab
les, painters’ pots of red lead and yellow ochre and vermilion, and saffron and sap green and dragon red, and a row of wood headblocks for hats, on which some treasonable hand had sketched royal likenesses.

  Gum arabic over there. Beside the fire, buckets of glue, thick as cloth at the edges, and painters’ paste of thick flour and white wine, reeking gently. And against the wall, stacks of pasteboard with cut buckram long as bolsters leaning beside them, and the painters crawling between on the rushes: Dick and George, the Bosum brothers. Philippa introduced them. John, the property maker. The twenty tailors, crosslegged among the bales of new cloth sent straight from the Queen’s own royal wardrobe: twenty-five yards of red velvet; fifteen yards of carnation velvet; nine yards of purple gold sarsanet, twenty-five yards of yellow, forty-nine yards of red, thirty-three yards of white and four of silver. Philippa admired them, and the Yeoman of the Revels, John Holt, called her by name.

  ‘They know you,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt

  ‘She is the model,’ said Lymond, ‘for their dragons. What are they preparing for? War with the French?’

  Philippa smiled at John Holt. ‘A St Mark’s Day Masque for the Duchesses. Allmaynes, Pilgrims and Irishmen, with their Incidents. Right, Master Holt?’

  ‘Right, Mistress Philippa,’ said the Yeoman. He turned, grinning, to the two men and the boy. ‘I don’t know how we’d have managed with those Turks, but for Mistress Philippa.’

  ‘Mistress Philippa is excellent at managing Turks,’ Lymond said. ‘Allmaynes … Yes. Irishmen … I believe so. But pilgrims? Mistress Philippa, could you manage pilgrims?’

  She looked up at him, her brown eyes astonished. ‘I start with the Whifflers,’ said Philippa, ‘and work my way up.’

  ‘Whifflers?’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt.

  ‘They march in front of the pilgrimage,’ offered Nicholas eagerly. ‘And clear the way with wood wands. The wands striking the air make a——’

  ‘Whiffle,’ said Philippa gently.

  ‘To make people buffle,’ said Lymond, even more gently. ‘Unlike hufflers.…’

  ‘Who take umbrage too readily,’ said Philippa, frowning at him. She said to Master Holt, ‘I arranged with Master Becher the milliner to leave me his drakes’ necks.’

  ‘They’re there, Mistress Philippa.’ They followed him across to the store racks. Nearing the tall wooden erections, Nicholas saw for the first time how many there were. What seemed at first a thick screen of shelving was in fact a type of rough scaffolding filling a good half of the great hall, and halting just before the clear firelit space where the men worked. Between the long racks the carpenters had left passages, so that moving along and reading all the crabbed labels, you could identify the baskets and hampers and chests; and the mysterious bales wrapped in cloth and the other, towering objects muffled in ticking, whose nature you couldn’t even guess at, not on a quick visit, with grown-ups all around you.

  ‘Drakes’ necks?’ Lymond said. He lifted a basket of brass bells in passing and shook it, so that all the tailors looked up. Master Holt, walking heavily in front, hoped the young people weren’t going to be any trouble. ‘For the pilgrims, the Germans or the Irishmen? What will Mr Becher’s ducks do?’

  ‘Form a harem,’ Philippa said. ‘Like Vladimir, who converted your Russia to Christianity. He had, I am reliably told, three thousand five hundred concubines.’

  ‘I should think,’ Lymond said, ‘Christianity was his only hope of survival.’

  Nicholas cried, ‘Look! A dragon?’

  It was indeed, painted green and red, with a plated mouth and a flax-box beside it. Ludovic d’Harcourt, suddenly entering into the spirit of the thing, picked the box up. ‘Gentlemen!’ said Master Holt, smiling anxiously. ‘Gentlemen, please! The stuffs are the Queen’s, and strongly inflammable.…’ Ludovic d’Harcourt tossed the flax-box to Lymond, who tossed it to Nicholas, who gave it to Philippa. She handed it, apologetically, to Master Holt. The procession moved on.

  The labels were enchanting. Cats, to fur a garment, read Nicholas. Masks of Covetous Men with Long Noses. A coat for the Ape. Furred Heads for Savage Men. And bales and bales of cloth of gold and cloth of silver and velvet. Hangings from the King’s old timber Houses, to cut down for masques. Crates of old masquing garments for men. Crates of ditto for women. Antique Head Trimmed About with Changeable and Red Sarsanet …

  ‘Who does that remind you of?’ said Lymond.

  ‘Ox Legs for Satyrs. Who does that remind you of?’ Philippa said. ‘Wigs,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt, embarked, oblivious, on a tour of his own. ‘Canvas shirts of mail. A pottle of aqua vite to burn in a masque … empty.’

  ‘A pity,’ said Lymond. ‘My God. Hay, for the Stuffing of Deaths.’

  They all came to a halt. ‘Medioxes, stuffed with Hay, Half Death, Half Man,’ Philippa read.

  ‘Now I do know who that reminds me of,’ said Lymond feelingly. ‘How much farther, for heaven’s sake, to your butchered drakes’ necks?’

  ‘Here,’ said Philippa. They had reached a tall stand filled with parcels of feathers: red and white plumes for angels’ wings, pheasants’ tails, peacocks’ plumes, cranes’ feathers trimmed over with spangles. The Yeoman, delving, pulled out a shimmering bundle and shook out a fur made, indeed, of drakes’ necks. Nicholas had found a stand full of wooden swords, hatchets, targets and staves, and, seizing a sword and a shield, had attacked Lymond and d’Harcourt. And nothing loth, his two elders, who happened to be among the best fighting men then in Christendom and had not touched a weapon in anger for ten months, lifted a sword each in turn and set to, delicately.

  Master Holt, turning, said, ‘Gentlemen! The stands are not stable!’ but this time was ignored.

  They were certainly not very stable. As the boy, laughing, prodded and dodged, the two men moved like wraiths after, swords clacking, and turned on the tall posts like maypoles: a lion’s head of paste and silk feathers, dislodged, dropped from above on a shelf full of lan-thorns. ‘Gentlemen!’ the Yeoman said again.

  ‘Yes, gentlemen: said Philippa impatiently, and seizing a stout wooden heading axe, let it fall on the next person who passed.

  It was Lymond. He dropped to his knees, his hands covering the nape of his neck, his skin flushed with laughter. Philippa, lowering the axe, said, ‘I have never in the whole of my life seen you laugh before.’

  He looked up at the red sock, still gasping. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is ridiculous. Although, now you mention it, I didn’t laugh last time it happened. Hit d’Harcourt on the head and see if he laughs.’

  But d’Harcourt had put back his sword and had found something else meanwhile to look at. ‘Plays,’ he called. ‘Books and books of manuscripts. Listen to this.’

  He didn’t read very well, but it was enough to expose the lapses in the playwright’s inspiration. Crowding round him they found some Udall, and Philippa, clad in her drakes’ necks, declaimed a sentence or two. Lymond, finding a ready-made balcony on some high shelf, perched himself on it, gesticulating, and recited some more. The stand rocked.

  ‘My God,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt, echoing the Yeoman of the Revels, for other reasons entirely. ‘Listen to this. Love and Life, by William Baldwyn. A Comedy concerning the Way to Life. There be in it of sundry personages 62, and the play is three hours long. I bring in a young man whom I name Lamuel, who hath a servant called Lob. These two will attempt the world to seek their fortune. They meet with Lust, Luck and Love. Lust promiseth them Lechery——’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Lymond said.

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Philippa. ‘Go on, Ludo.’

  ‘They follow Luck and through Lechery be lost, then through Luck they recover. Luck bringeth them to Lordship, from which through … I can’t go on,’ said d’Harcourt, painfully. ‘It says all the players’ names begin with L.’

  ‘And so they do,’ said Philippa, reading. ‘Leonard Lustyguts an Epicure. Lame Lazar a Spittleman. Liegerdemayn an Old Courtier; Lammarkin, a Lance knight;
Little-lookedfor, Death; Layies Lechery a Sumtuous Hore.… But the play is missing.’

  ‘They never did it,’ Nicholas Chancellor said. He, too, was flushed with pleasure, in this unforeseen romp in the Revels. ‘It was all full of Ls.’

  ‘I can guess,’ Philippa said. There was a wig box beside her. She hauled off the sock and jammed on her head a long flaxen wig, with a headpiece of spangled white sarsanet. ‘I’m Lechery, a Luscious Hore …’

  ‘Wait,’ said Lymond. His jerkin off, he was rummaging shirt-sleeved through the stands: a moment later, he emerged with a long Turkey gown which he tossed to d’Harcourt. ‘Come on, Hospitaller. You’re Lame Lazar. Nicholas, you can be Luck. And’—as Nicholas caught the red cloth cloak tossed him—‘and I, of course, shall be Lamuel the Lewd.’ A satin doublet of hideous orange engulfed him for a moment, and then he pulled it down, and began to tramp, without progressing, before Philippa. ‘Now go on.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.… No, I haven’t,’ said Philippa. Long Sunday evenings of nonsensical charades with Kate and Gideon paraded before her, and evenings spent devising songs, and poems, and doggerel, with Ls or without.… She drew breath and started, haltingly, making it up as she went.

  ‘I’m Lechery a Luscious Hore

  A Lady Loose who Lists to Lower

  Her Limbs upon a Lance Knight’s Lap

  His Lips to Buss and Cheeks to Clap.…’

  ‘Very good. Not enough Ls in the last line,’ said Lymond critically.

  ‘Then you do better,’ said Philippa, incensed.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ said the Yeoman.

  ‘And I, Limp Lamuel Longing Sigh,

  Beside Light Lechery to Lie

  Lo Here I Learn my Lesson Lewd

  And Love and Lounge in Lassitude.’

  ‘What in God’s name is going on?’ said Sir Henry Sidney’s voice, from behind stacks of shelving.