The Ringed Castle

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Men who made their availability known and who perhaps went even further, in the early days, before the Queen took her throne with all King Harry’s courage and pride at the start of her realm: What I am, ye right well know. I am your Queen, to whom at my coronation you promised your allegiance. I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth a child, for I was never the mother of any, but certainly if a prince and governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love her child, then assure yourselves that I do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you.…

  She had overthrown the rebels and begun her reign on that blaze of splendour and success, and those who had hesitated became, warmly, her men. They did not wish to be reminded, now, of what had gone before.

  Then the Earl of Arundel, rallying, said, ‘I do not believe his serene highness the Doge would stoop to confiscate an Englishman’s papers.’

  And a Spanish voice; a dry, accented voice which had not spoken in that conclave before said, ‘But it is true.’ And opening the leather box on the floor at his side, Don Juan de Figueroa, representative of his Majesty King Philip drew out a thick bundle of pages tied with tape and placed them on the table beside those other, innocent papers from Vannes’s splintered box.

  ‘It is true, my lords,’ said the Spaniard; and, lifting his sharp eyes, met Lymond’s unreadable blue stare and then, switching, the brown, owl-like gaze of Philippa Somerville. ‘The Doge is our friend: he was anxious that none of the effects of this important Englishman should fall into unauthorized hands and prove an embarrassment to us. A selection of papers was therefore withdrawn from the casket at Venice, and the box resealed and sent on to Padua. I have the missing papers here. The Venetian Ambassador, of his great generosity, has made them available to King Philip and myself. Do you wish to see them?’

  There was another, ragged moment of silence. Then the Earl of Arundel said, speaking as if to a deaf man, ‘We were not made aware of these facts. Are we to take it that King Philip has already perused these documents?’

  ‘He has,’ said the Spaniard.

  ‘And,’ said Pembroke, ‘perhaps Don Juan de Figueroa would tell us whether His Majesty considers them a subject for action?’

  Gazing, one by one at each of these avaricious, important Englishmen, Don Juan pursed his pale, bearded lips. ‘His most serene Majesty,’ de Figueroa said, ‘is of the opinion that these papers are of no importance, and may well be destroyed without further action. He also recommends that, under the circumstances, the case against these men should be dropped, provided they leave the country immediately, and provided that Mr Crawford agrees that his talents and his destiny will be best fulfilled by a speedy return to his master in Russia. Confronted with a man of such ability, we cannot believe that the Tsar will deal harshly with him.’ And he raised his eyebrows, halting.

  There was a short silence. Beside Adam, Guthrie moved sharply and then was still. Tait and Danny were grinning; Ludo looked, thought Adam, aghast. Lady Lennox, who had shut her lips, opened them again and said, ‘And Mr Crawford’s wife?’

  The Spaniard turned and looked at Philippa Somerville, who recalled the sophisticated maxims of Don Alfonso Derronda and favoured him with a long, cool and haughty regard.

  ‘It seems to us,’ said de Figueroa, ‘that Mistress Somerville has not been implicated in anything detrimental to her country, and that it will suffice if she withdraws from the Queen’s Court.’

  Philippa inclined her head. Out of the shattered silence along the ranks of the eminent, the Earl of Arundel said, ‘Mr Crawford. You have heard what has just been said. Are you prepared to sail back to Russia with the fleet presently leaving from Gravesend?’

  ‘I shall be happy to do so,’ said Lymond. He had, Adam noted in the midst of his own voiceless consternation, a faint colour under his skin. He added, ‘I shall leave, if you wish, straight from this place. My baggage can follow me.’

  ‘Then,’ said the Earl of Arundel, moving his eyes slowly along the faces on either side of him, ‘I think we are in accord with you, Don Juan. The papers burn; the prisoners are freed; the matter is ended. Mr Crawford——’

  ‘It will give me pleasure,’ said Don Juan de Figueroa, rising, ‘to assist Mr Crawford to fulfill his generous undertaking to board ship immediately. My lord president, have I your leave?’

  Arundel, half rising, nodded. Vannes, wisely reticent, stood up, but could not refrain from saying, ‘And the prisoners, my lords? When are Master Tait and the others to leave the country?’

  It was Pembroke who answered. ‘They are mercenaries. They will have no trouble in finding employment, or a ship to carry them wherever they wish to go. Some, I take it, may wish to return with Mr Crawford to Russia. The rest have three days in which to leave this island. Meanwhile Sir Henry Jerningham, I am sure, will continue to see to their comfort.’

  Guthrie said, ‘We wish to go back to Russia.’ Adam looked at him.

  ‘All of you?’

  Adam opened his mouth. ‘All of us,’ said Fergie Hoddim.

  ‘Except me,’ said Hercules Tait. ‘I am no longer, alas, a man of the sword.’

  ‘All of you, except Master Tait?’ said Arundel once more. Philippa’s face was expressionless: Lymond’s was not.

  Ludo d’Harcourt said flatly, ‘If Mr Crawford goes, I will go.’

  ‘Then it seems,’ said Lord Arundel, ‘that we shall require river transport for six people. Don Juan?’

  ‘It can be arranged,’ said the Spaniard, and, completing his walk over the floor, called for his captain and secretary, and spoke to them. Sir William Petre, gathering his robes, walked round the table to Lymond.

  ‘Provided you wished indeed to return to your Tsar, I must congratulate you, sir, on this outcome. And on possessing a master so alert to the value of information. I doubt if any western nation could command such a distinguished espionage service.’ He smiled, his eyes unsmiling. ‘When did you have your audience with King Philip, Mr Crawford?’

  ‘I cannot quite recall, my lord,’ Lymond said. ‘But I think shortly after we concluded the agreement concerning the munitions of war. It was a pleasure to revive my rusting Spanish.’

  ‘Ah. You speak Spanish,’ said Petre. ‘It is a gift some on the Council would envy you.… You exercised care, I take it, in stowing the pewter?’

  ‘Master Dimmock,’ said Lymond, ‘was most generous with advice concerning the pewter. I trust the lion and lioness will prove no more dangerous. It is my conviction that, in matters of trade, the English and Muscovites will deal well together.’

  And Sir William Petre, bowing with something close to a genuine smile, straightened and said, ‘You are indeed serious about returning to Russia. I see that. Do you expect to recover the ground you have lost? May we look to see you stand friend to our merchants in Moscow?’

  ‘So far as I am able,’ Lymond said. ‘My first duty is to the realm and its ruler.’

  ‘And Scotland?’ said the voice of Lady Lennox beside him; and as he turned, the black eyes looked into his with bitterness and with anger and with something else too well hidden to identify.’ Scotland may slide at France’s petticoat tails, losing her men, her pride and her nationhood, and you no longer care for it?’

  Lymond returned the challenge standing at ease, self possessed from the sheen of his hair to the fall of his exquisite robe. ‘Would she have fared better, do you suppose, at England’s petticoat tails, which seem to be sliding with equal haste in a different direction? Or do you mean that Scotland should rise and overthrow her French rulers and appoint a King of her own, with Stewart blood in his veins as strong as that of the little Queen Mary? But would such a king not constitute a threat in himself to your monarchy? And where, besides, could one find such a paragon?’

  Pembroke and Arundel, Paget and Petre were all within range of that deliberate, carrying voice. Margaret Lennox did not look at the other men round her. But, her colour high and her carriage stiff and erect and unyielding, she sai
d, ‘Mr Elder: I think we must go. The whims and humours of his unfortunate master appear to have affected Mr Crawford’s whirligig brain.’ And turning her head, ‘Where shall we find you next?’ said Margaret Lennox to the boy from long ago who was now so obdurately a man. ‘In New Spain, perhaps, in a mantle of feathers, running errands with knots on a string? Before you die, there must be nothing you have not experienced. When you die—and I shall be there—it will be an experience which no man has savoured. Guard your health, Mr Crawford. I should not like you to leave us too soon.’

  For a moment longer, she held his eyes. Then, waiting neither for Elder nor Philippa, Margaret Lennox brought her train round to her hand and, gathering it, walked from the room.

  ‘Talking of feathers,’ said Francis Crawford conversationally to his elegant, seraglio-trained wife.

  ‘Or feather-brains,’ said Philippa Somerville furiously. Her eyes, glassy with rage, glared at her spouse. ‘You heard what the Tsar threatened. He’ll have your head in a blood-bowl like Cyrus.’

  ‘Not Cyrus,’ said Lymond. ‘I’m the other one. He pincheth and spareth and pineth his life. To coffer up bags for to leave to his wife. The pay is good. And I’ve remembered another quotation about Greeks.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Philippa.

  ‘You can try it on Master Vannes. Greeks in bed, Italians at table, are most neat. It doesn’t mention Spanish. Which will you have, Philippa? I like your Austin. I haven’t met your Don Alfonso.’

  ‘Earrings,’ Philippa said. ‘And eyes like dome-headed rivets. I don’t know which I shall have. I can’t have any, until someone annuls this——’ She broke off. ‘How am I going to get this marriage dissolved if you go back to Russia?’

  ‘Desertion?’ Lymond suggested easily. ‘Which reminds me. There were one or two mysteries about these last proceedings which I can see are going to be for ever unexplained. I think I owe you another debt. I owe you a great many debts, it would appear: it is time I removed myself and allowed you to allot your endowments where they are better deserved. Goodbye.’

  He smiled, but did not kiss her cheek, as Don Alfonso would have done; or take her hand, as Austin effected so gracefully, or hug her, as Jane or Kate would have felt impelled to do.

  He said again, without the smile, ‘Goodbye, Yunitsa,’ and turning walked out of the room.

  Ludovic d’Harcourt, come to take his wistful leave, stood beside Philippa, as Lymond vanished. ‘Yunitsa?’ he queried.

  She smiled, bringing her gaze back to her hand as he lifted and kissed it. ‘A stupid joke. It means heifer, he tells me.’

  ‘It means heifer,’ d’Harcourt agreed; and, since the others were becoming impatient, pressed her hand and abandoned the subject without informing her how much more it meant.

  *

  The barge which Don Juan had commanded for Mr Crawford and his five friends was a fine one, with a gay canopy aft, and eight oarsmen in livery, who made the boat fly after its shadow in the ripe evening sunlight so that it shot London Bridge like a greyhound. It also held, between the canopy and the rowers, a captain and four armed militiamen. The King of Spain was anxious to speed his embarrassing guests towards Russia.

  But Gravesend, twenty-four miles off, was not to be compassed in an evening. Just short of Greenwich, as the first riverside lights were spiralling down through the water, the portside rowers began pulling hard for the right bank and the captain, leaning over with deference, indicated to Mr Crawford from Russia that lodging had been arranged here for his party that night.

  Mr Crawford from Russia, in the midst of a white-hot, furious quarrel which had lasted all the way from Westminster, acknowledged the information and continued in an undertone to issue commands to his subordinates.

  Fergie Hoddim, for the five hundredth time, said, ‘Aye, we hear ye. But if a man says he’s going to Muscovy, how do you mean to impede him?’

  ‘You are not going,’ Lymond said. ‘No one is going but myself. You can get off the boat here and you can spend the night if you wish at the King of Spain’s expense, and then you can go to the devil. But you are not boarding the Primrose. Any of you.’

  ‘You’re falsing the doom,’ Fergie said. ‘You canna false the doom. It’s agreed, and that’s an end o’ it.’

  As the sky darkened, the lights on either bank became suddenly stronger: the rowers, shipping oars, were drifting gently towards a low landing stage. Behind them, another boat was coming to shore. ‘Anyway,’ Guthrie said. ‘If you can go to Russia with impunity, why should we be less adequate?’

  The other boat, swinging across, appeared to be heading straight for them. The captain of the royal barge, confident in the power of his gilded prow and three silken banners, gave a cursory shout. The other boat barely altered direction. Lymond said, ‘I am exceedingly tired of this argument.’

  ‘So,’ said Guthrie, ‘are we.’ He was looking over his shoulder. Immediately, it seemed, the other barge, not quite as large as their own, moved quickly forward and hung floating, side by side with the barge from Westminster, the two gunwales grazing together. An outburst of shouting exploded.

  It was too neat to be quite accidental. Lymond jumped to his feet. He had backed, weaponless, one hand on the struts of the canopy when someone seized him from behind, and someone else from the side. He reacted instantly, twisting half free and ducking, with his knees and elbows and balled fists already seeking and finding their marks. In the rocking boat, two might have failed to hold him. But when a third hard body flung itself on him, helped by another and yet another, the combined weight was enough to dislodge him. His face grim, his concerted muscular strength resisting every pull, blow and thrust of his attackers, Francis Crawford was dragged from his barge and thrown headlong into the other boat while his assailants, jumping, landed on top of him. Then the second boat, pushing off, fled with its captive across the dark water.

  The shock of landing knocked Lymond breathless. He was lying half over a bench, with someone pressing hard on his back and someone else gripping his right arm: ahead he could see the scuffed buskins of the first oarsman; behind, Alec Guthrie’s calf boots. The pain in his diaphragm lessened; his breath came back; power returned fully to all his limbs. While the men above him still thought him helpless Lymond drew a long, noiseless breath, and then with every ounce of spring in his body kicked and rolled over and then, rising, kicked and struck again and again, feeling the blows ring on bone and sink into flesh, planting, without mercy, the agonizing punches, on Guthrie, on Blacklock, on Hoddim, on Hislop, on d’Harcourt. On all his own men, who had taken the law into their own hands and believed they could command him.

  It was Alec Guthrie who stopped Lymond as he got to the gunwale and was ready, half-freed, to dive over. Guthrie who seized him round the waist, his face marked as Lymond’s own face was bruised, but who used his hands to inflict pain and to control, so that Lymond could not quite take the last step which would take him over and into the river.

  Then Francis Crawford slid his one free hand inside his coat and dragged from it the glittering blade he always carried and said, ‘Now!’ to Guthrie. And this time, it was magisterial.

  It was the only word any of them had spoken. Lymond’s face held naked and uncontrolled anger: Lymond’s eyes stared into Guthrie’s and Guthrie, in silence, tightened his crippling grip. Then Francis Crawford said softly, through the great breaths he was taking above Guthrie’s head, ‘I am not to be stopped. I will sail at all costs, and not one of you is going to prevent me. If you try, I shall kill you.’

  The rowers, pulling hard, had almost taken them to the opposite shore. Across the dark river came the exploding of a hackbut, and shouting. They could see the other boat, with some of its oars dropped, getting raggedly under way to follow them. There came, clearly, a great deal of shouting. Faces, dimly white, turned from the few small wherries still plying past them, and someone yelled from a caravel anchored upstream a little. Then Guthrie, disregarding every warning, thr
ew his bearded head up and flung out his arm to seize Lymond’s arm with the knife; and Lymond stabbed him.

  He stabbed Hislop too, before they got a grip of him, and slashed Hoddim across arm and chest. He fought as he had said he would fight, without quarter and without mercy, because he was on his way to board a ship waiting to sail at Gravesend, and no man, friend or enemy, was going to stop him.

  He might have done more except for the hirer of the boat, who stepped quietly round with a bottom plank, and felled him, cleanly and with a blow to his unguarded head.

  Chapter 14

  He awoke under his own reflection, with the sound of low, uneasy, talk going on about him. The hurt in his head was greater than it had ever been; worse than when Richard had reached the end of his decent forbearance; worse even than it had been at Volos, when he had been heavily addicted to opium for months, and the lack of it had driven him nearly out of his mind.

  He had survived that. He would survive this. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the lids rest in the two drained excavations which were all that seemed left of his face. Then he opened them, and, holding them open, let them travel over the mirror above him.

  Himself, stripped of his coat, lying prostrate—limp, bloody Lamuel in the lamplight on a rough trestle table in the centre of a small crowded room, which held somewhere a vague smell of sulphur and horseradish.

  And faces all round him: some clear-cut and sharp in the same light; some obscured; some lost in the shadows. Seven faces. One of them, seeing the movement of his lashes, looked up and watched the glass also.

  It was Philippa. Francis Crawford closed his eyes and ridiculously, for a man who had struck to kill without hesitation that evening, said to himself, Pray God, let me not weep.

  ‘He is awake,’ Philippa said. And John Dee, whose room it was, rose and touched Lymond’s wrist, and after waiting a moment said, ‘Yes. Then, sir! come attend to your reckoning. You have caused deep injury to those who wished most to help you. A headache is less than you merit.’