Queens' Play (31 page)

O’LiamRoe let him go. ‘You don’t recall a child who is liable to be killed?’

There was a long silence. Then Thady Boy Ballagh and Lymond, the one at last fused into the other, huddled loose in his haphazard corner and sighed. ‘Richard will look after it.’

O’LiamRoe said, ‘
You bloody plague’s meat,’
and stopped himself short, to resume in measured tones. ‘Your brother is a marked man,’ he said. ‘He can do nothing.’

‘Neither can I, then. I’m busy,’ said the satisfied voice.

‘You are indeed,’ said O’LiamRoe cuttingly. ‘You are busy destroying. What hope has a soft, vain, inward-looking society against such as you?’

Like river water coming smooth down a dam, Thady Boy began to slide down his wall. ‘I can’t make music and live like a choirboy,’ he said.

A memory of the divine theory of self-expression floated through O’LiamRoe’s head, followed by another about the universal sanctity of high art. He said flatly, ‘You weren’t hired to make music. If you’re going to abuse the power it gives you, then you’d better not make it at all,’

Lymond started to giggle. With an effort, O’LiamRoe stuck to the important thing he had to say, his breathing passionately fast, his face pale. ‘Your job is with the young Queen. Maybe there is a man or a woman alive who can wring the wine from your guts and send you
back there to do it. Myself, I can see no need to help. I am for leaving tonight.’

Sitting on the floor, Thady Boy was laughing so hard now that he made himself retch. When he could speak,
‘Leaving the other bitch to cut her own throat
,’ he said.

There was a cup half full of wine at O’LiamRoe’s side. He flung it like a stone at Thady Boy’s head. A wash of pink malmsey, like rain on a window, slipped over the ollave’s sickly, glistening face and Thady Boy, staring open-eyed through it, heaved with laughter and the vaulting admixture of crude oil and wine and rich food.

There was a fair store of liquid in the room, both water and wine. O’LiamRoe gave Lymond it all, in shock after icy shock, hurled two-handed into his face; pursuing him with silent savagery as he rolled and paddled and scraped on all fours over the floor, stopped again and again, choking, panting, convulsed with idiot laughter as the next bucketful caught him like a blow.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the blistering rage died away. Suddenly cold and shaking, O’LiamRoe lowered his pitcher.

Huddled like a water rat at his feet, Thady Boy was laughing still, in the high, whistling gasps of near hysteria, and at his movements ripples ran out over the floor. A finger of water, hissing, fled into the fire. The dark stains of wine joined, in moist red falls, over bedclothes and tapestries; the ivory and tortoise-shell posts were streaked and beaded; the secretaire dripped. The smell of food, of sweat, of stale and fresh wine was unbearable.

So were his thoughts. Driving leaden feet over the splashing, slippery floor, O’LiamRoe strode, and nearly ran, from the room. Behind him, the laughter came to an unsteady halt, and was replaced by a cracked and insalubrious voice.

There was a brief silence. Then, ‘Alash, it is too bad,’ said the voice again, reflectively; and giggled; and said nothing more.

Margaret Erskine arrived white-faced half an hour later. The floor had begun to dry by then, in islanded patches in front of the big lively fire. She moved through the room like someone running a race, checking neither at the stench nor the gross usage exposed all about her. There was only the firelight to see by, since someone had put out the candles: the room was filled by shadows, running back from the great hearth. The atmosphere of the place stirred chokingly like some
deadly tide, to the disordered rhythm of the fire. It was clammily hot.

During wars lasting as long as she could remember, through two young marriages and all the familiar and malodorous all-night sessions of the peer and the bonnet-laird, she knew with precision what to expect, and with resignation what to do about it.

But this was going to be different. Thady Boy had been travelling about since O’LiamRoe left him. That much was obvious by the overturned chairs, the avalanche of bedclothes, the rucked tapestry all pressed into service to keep him erect.

This persevering activity had now ended. It was quiet—too quiet. Flouting her fears, she hoped stoutly that he could at least recognize her, and somehow manage to move. She could not lift him alone.

In all this, she had forgotten that Lymond simply might not have heard her. In fact, he was standing, held up by two chairs, in the shadows beyond the fireplace, most of his sodden clothing thrown off, and his dripping, tangled head turned to the wall. The long fingers of one hand, cramped fast on the wood, were clearly picked out by the fire, and she could hear the thick force of his breathing.

Then he must have sensed she was there. The tortured nerves of his stomach, raw to the point where a thought, a perfume, can be cathartic, revolted as he swung round. He doubled up, closing his arms over his head, but before that, she had caught a glimpse of his dilated eyes, and the queer surprise on his face. He had, she realized, expected to endure it alone.

She pushed the chairs away and gripped him like a nurse, with a practical and impersonal firmness. Then, when it was over, she said in her sensible voice, ‘You know you’ve been made to drink poison. You must walk, my dear.’

The pupils of his eyes were vast and black; in a bright light he would be virtually blind. On her arm his weight was unconsciously relaxed. He said serenely, ‘I don’t need to walk any more.’

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ said Margaret Erskine sharply, and taking a double grip of the reeking shirt, forced him to move. He was full of nightshade, his brain drugged with it. While he could, he had done a good deal himself to get it out of his system. It was her task somehow to keep him roused sufficiently to finish the job.

She bore his full weight during that first turn of the room. Then, blearily, he began to relieve her of the burden, to take a leaden step of his own accord and then, stumbling from wall to wall, with her help to keep moving. She did not look at his face; and afterwards was glad, when she saw his nail marks bloody on his own palms. He had been nearer proper awareness than she had believed.

At the time, he seemed frighteningly distant; and then, when the stupefaction wore off, exhausted by the unending nausea to a point far beyond speech. Presently, in this blind state he came to a halt and,
steadying him, she looked and saw what the belladonna and his own extravagance together had done to Francis Crawford. And she also saw that she could not afford the luxury of tears, for now he had reached the end of his resources. Whether any poison remained or not, she had to let him rest.

She brought him to the hearth, where she had made a rough bed; and he lay breathing fast, racked by dwindling spasms. His eyes, in their chasms of bone, were sealed shut. When, thus immobile, he spoke, her heart lurched with the shock.
‘Mignonne,’
said Lymond placidly,
‘Je vous donne ma mort pour vos étrennes.’

Even in this extremity, damn him, the quotation hurt. ‘I don’t want your death for my dowry,’ said Margaret. ‘Give your rewards to Master Abernaci. He saw you from among the Brazilians, knew at once what was wrong, and came to me.’

‘Nightshade,’ said the quiet voice. ‘Put, I suppose, into the mulled wine. They put it on elephants for a skinned bottom,’ said Lymond, and laughed suddenly and incautiously; then pressed his hands, sweating, against his face.

After a moment she said, ‘If you recognized it, why didn’t you get help? O’LiamRoe—’

‘O’LiamRoe has gone.’ The statement was laconic. ‘If someone is going to be disappointed tomorrow … they may as well believe it to be drunkard’s … good luck.’

Silence fell. The huge fire had roared and flamed its way down to a great, silky pillar of heat, and the burning air shook. The floor had dried. In the steady red light the mired and fingermarked walls, the upset furniture, the ravaged bed, looked urbanely dramatic, as if done in stained glass. Nothing had sublimated the stench. It would have made a fitting tomb, she supposed, for Thady Boy Ballagh. That it was fitting for Francis Crawford she would not believe.

His eyes were shut. On its shadowed side, his face gave away nothing. His profile was rimmed with light, convincing in its purity; reflected light touched the underlid, and the highest part of the cheekbone, and the thick muscle joining cheekbone to jaw. In the darkness, the rest was mercifully lost.

Margaret sat without moving until the first, finest sounds told her that somewhere people were dressing for a new day. Then she stirred, and learned for the first time that he was not asleep. His eyes opened, heavy-lidded but blue, and he said, ‘Yes, you must go,’ and paused, then added, dry-voiced, ‘As a family, the Erskines always seem to be saving me from myself.’

Her own shaken nerves shied from emotion quite as much as his disordered ones. She wondered how much stoicism it had taken to continue playing the fool, knowing the poison was working, and trusting to drink, to oil, to God knew what other impromptu
expedients, to preserve his life and also his appearance of ignorance. Understanding, she had made no effort to tidy the room.

Now, there was so much to say and so little it was possible to put into words without going beyond her control and his own. In the end she bent, adjusting the blanket underneath his head, and said, ‘I told you my role was to sit by the hearth.’

Under his eyes, the light deepened. She had never seen a conscious man lie so still. He said, ‘My role has been less to light fires than to extinguish them, it seems. I was sorry about the little girl. But it couldn’t be helped.’

He had seen Mary’s face, then. She said, ‘You will be able to put it right one day,’ and knew sinkingly that she must bring herself to go, even while he looked like this. And he was alone; there was no one she could confide him to.… God knew what abuses he would lay upon his strength tomorrow, next week, next month—whatever murderous terms this abominable undertaking would occupy. Out of her despair, resting irresolute by his pillow, she burst out, ‘If only Robin Stewart, even, were here. Who will look after you?’

Even without looking, she felt beneath her the little shock of his surprise. Then he gave a stifled sound not far distant from a laugh, arrested it, then unfolding his arm slowly, like a man in a dream, touched her hand and then lightly held it. His fingers felt cool and insubstantial, and thoughtlessly indulgent. ‘But, my dear,’ said Lymond. ‘Robin Stewart is the murderer.’

I
N the weeks that followed, Margaret Erskine found herself sorely tried. Stewart’s journey to Ireland and back could take a month, even without a delay there on his mission. A month to wait, and observe Thady Boy’s return to carefree excesses. A month to watch Jenny, glorious Jenny, coolly set out to build a court for herself, dazzling her admirers; drawing the benefice seekers to her side. The royal child, Margaret’s half-brother or sister, was due in less than four months, and Margaret knew how the women about the King were reacting. Jenny herself paid no attention. She had never demanded deference. She simply assumed, once the news became public, that they would defer.

But in much less than a month there came the check on Lymond which Margaret was silently praying for. Sooner than they had thought possible, Richard Crawford, third baron Culter, with his short and glittering train, answered his summons to Blois.

Early that day, John Stewart of Aubigny also came back to Court, after a spell at his castle of La Verrerie, and heard for the first time a mildly surprising item of news. As soon as he could, he sought out Thady, taking George Douglas with him, to ask why O’LiamRoe had gone.

The ollave had been on the terrace, with a small and exuberant party, playing quoits. Sir George’s speculative eye, looking him over, noticed the suffused eyes and the softer weight and the decisive air of abandon. He also noted, privately, that this young man had been sharply ill, and was not yet quite recovered.

Thady Boy answered his lordship, however, with unfettered buoyancy. ‘Are you not for believing all you’re told? He had an urgent message from home. Or that’s what he said.’

‘I know,’ said Lord d’Aubigny quickly. ‘But—’

‘ ’Tis a real student of humanity you are,’ said Thady cheerfully. ‘But, of course, he got no such message. Sickly, impotent, inable and
unmeet was Phelim O’LiamRoe. The lady of his heart upset all his plans, and he could think of nothing but home. Oonagh O’Dwyer was all that was keeping O’LiamRoe in France; surely all the world knows that thing.’

‘All the world knows, of course,’ offered George Douglas politely, ‘of his ollave’s famous
serena
last month.’

Lord d’Aubigny, relieved, paid no attention. ‘I’m glad. I had a notion, Ballagh, it might have been something Stewart had done. He’s a good man, Robin, but unstable, you know. A little erratic. He took a fancy to you, I expect you know; was threatening one day recently to leave and go with you back to Ireland. Then he went quite the opposite way. Last time I saw him, he was consigning every Irishman to the devil. Unstable. So I hoped nothing had been said.…’

Thady Boy’s dark smile grew. ‘ ’Tis a fine Archer you have there, true, but a thought clinging. No blame to him that O’LiamRoe went. Quite the other way. It was O’LiamRoe telling him to his face that I had no intention of going with him to Ireland—a true word, but I would have put it more sweetly myself—that put the pot on the boil. I saw Robin myself before he went. I doubt, my lord, that you won’t see that fine fellow again.’

Lord d’Aubigny showed no signs of sorrow at this. He said kindly, ‘And what of you, Ballagh? I hope you’re staying?’

‘As long as the King wants me.’

‘Then you must come to La Verrerie again. I have some friends who want to hear that fine playing.’ Objets d’art were Lord d’Aubigny’s business. ‘You’re staying at Blois, then?’

Part of the Court was moving upriver shortly. ‘So they say. I go where I’m taken.’ The silken arm of d’Enghien suddenly encircled his shoulders. Jean de Bourbon, smiling cursorily at the others, said, ‘You’re holding up the whole game, my dear. Are you feeling well?’

Sir George Douglas’s smile was quite masterly, and almost won a response from Francis Crawford. Sir George said, ‘He’d better be, after challenging that Cornishman.’

Thady Boy’s surprise was guarded. Discovering his quoit, he hooked the iron abstractedly on d’Enghien’s high-bred hand, then queried, ‘What Cornishman?’

There followed the small silence of the faux pas. Then d’Enghien said, ‘You’re going to the Cardinal’s tonight, Thady? But of course you are. Everyone is.’

Sir George Douglas continued for him. ‘He is having wrestlers after supper. The story is that you challenged one of them to a bout. Is it not true?’

Surprise, annoyance, acceptance and a wild and untrustworthy enthusiasm informed the ollave’s sallow face. ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Thady Boy cheerfully. ‘Someone, I would guess, is wanting to contrive
a piquant sauce for the dish—probably that very Cardinal Charles. But it’s a matter, you know, of a challenge; and
dhia
, I never refused a challenge of any kind yet.’

He did not, as it happened, know that as he uttered the words, his brother had ridden into the open courtyard beyond the quadrangle at his back, and dismounting, had entered the château.

Because her dear brother the King had made certain, quite properly, that the Scottish Dowager and her friends would be watched, no one in her suite was able to warn Lymond that Lord Culter had arrived. In any case, while his lordship was being welcomed by the Constable, taken to the King, and confronted, in the royal presence, with the Dowager with tranquil assurance on both sides, Lymond was launching a fruitless search for a wrestler.

By late afternoon, the Cornishman had still not been found; a fact significant enough in itself. Lymond wasted no more time on it. He went straight to his room and, lying flat on the tortoise-shell bed, forced himself to rest for an hour. There, after making an inadequate toilet for the Cardinal of Lorraine’s supper party, he was collected by a party of fellow guests, already too talkative and exchanging aqua vitae and bad puns. Then, avoiding the official party which included the royal family, the Constable and Diane, they set out for the Hôtel de Guise. The Cardinal’s sister Mary, Queen Dowager of Scotland, was already there, together with her brother the Duke, the Erskines and Lord Culter.

By then Richard Crawford of Culter knew all that he needed to know about his younger brother.

Erskine had prepared him, as best he could, with a swift narration of all Lymond had done, followed by an unadorned account of his conduct. Lord Culter heard it with complete calm; at one or two points his mouth twitched. At the end he said, ‘Well, Tom; you know Francis as well as I do. Your confidence isn’t shaken, surely?’

Erskine’s answer had no hesitation. ‘No. But my God, Richard, be prepared.’

‘A fan, and his clothes hung with bells?’ Then, as Erskine hesitated, ‘No. Obviously. One of his grosser deceptions. It would be irresistible, given the Court of France and O’LiamRoe.’ Richard Crawford’s grey eyes were amused. ‘Thank you, Tom. I am amply warned.’

This steadiness, this quality of tough-minded tranquillity which could sometimes seem stolid, was balm to the disease of danger and unrest which was preying on them all. In this was Culter’s great strength. Now in his mid-thirties, quiet, stocky and unremarkable, he was still nearly unique for his time in that he was perfectly reliable.
It seemed as if he had set himself since boyhood to outweigh all the wanton recklessness of the younger brother; and had brought to it much the same deliberate power. Where Francis had ranged Europe in blazing notoriety, Richard had stayed at home, husbanding his wide estates, fighting for them when he must. Beyond this, and the joy he now possessed with Mariotta, his dark Irish wife, there was nothing more he desired.

When, black-headed and sardonic, Lymond had departed for France, Lord Culter and his mother had been, in their different ways, thankful to see him set off at last, wholly on pleasure bent. For family reasons, Richard himself had not wished to go with the Queen Dowager to France. She, in turn, had been as anxious for him to stay: one of the few watchdogs she could trust. So that the bare, censored terms of her message, arriving at Midculter with the King of France’s pressing invitation, were enough to confirm that the summons was not of her seeking, and that her reactions to it were being watched. They had even included an invitation to his mother. Lord Culter had hesitated a moment; then, ashamed, had taken it to her.

All the fair delicacy which had been Lymond’s at birth could be seen in Sybilla. White-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, she read the two messages and said instantly, ‘Francis, of course, embarking on some nutritive project, while all within hearing drop prone and their matins madly say.… Do you think they expect me to appear, unworldly and strongly maternal, like a Scotch clocking hen? It will be a pleasure to refuse.’

Long ago it had been recognized by all who knew Sybilla that, though she doted on her two sons, her astringent soul belonged to the younger. Richard did not grudge it. He had sufficient happiness at home here in Midculter not to deny Francis any comfort he could snatch. And always, as she had proved yet again, Sybilla’s quick mind and formidable intelligence kept her impulses controlled and her judgment sound.

She was watching him. ‘Such a pity. Not a time to be away.’

He was thinking, too, of Mariotta. And it was because of her that he said, almost before his mother stopped speaking, ‘Either the Queen is in trouble, or Francis … or both. The sooner I go and find out what that fool of a son of yours is doing, the sooner we shall both be back.’

In all her long life, Sybilla had perfected a blithe self-control which was absolute; if she had gone, the watchers, whoever they were, would have learned nothing from her face.

But she knew, who knew him through and through, that they might have learned something from Lymond’s.

But Richard, obviously, was another matter.

A good quarter drunk, the Bourbon party arrived in the Rue Chemonton, Thady Boy in its midst, and swept into the wide, low-ceilinged
room in the Hôtel de Guise where their host’s scarlet gown glowed by the silks of his sister.

Margaret Erskine saw them come; saw Culter’s grey eyes rest on his brother, flatten and glance smoothly away; saw Lymond’s blue gaze return the look and continue unbroken to deposit its bloodshot burden of greeting on his major ecclesiastical target. In neither face was there a trace of recognition. They were a capable pair.

The meal was a princely one, perfectly served. Lord Culter without evident effort created small talk in an impeccable flow, and only Margaret, her senses unnaturally raw, saw that he was watching his brother throughout. Lymond’s behaviour, as always, went to the limits of polite usage and then hurtled off into space. Bursts of laughter rose like cannon-shot from his side of the table, and his voice was blurring, as it always did by this time. When the boards were drawn, he had drunk enough, and so had most of the men, to be ready for whatever outrageous feat of inventiveness sprang into his head. No one had troubled to ask him to play.

At this point, judging the ollave’s condition with skill, the Cardinal signed to bring on the wrestlers.

Jousting, fencing, fighting with staffs—this kind of knockabout combat was an old distraction; fresh, lively and painful, boisterous, sometimes malicious, they rejoiced in it to a man. Only Margaret, it seemed, was aware tonight of the queer tension in the air; only to her mind had the breathing space of good company and laughter suddenly shrunk, as if a door had shut in some lukewarm brood chamber, and something uncouth and organic had started to grow. Rumour had it that the chief wrestler, the Cornishman, had been challenged by Thady. True or not, the ollave seemed to be ready to wrestle; as the first exhibition bout started she saw something like eagerness on Lymond’s slackened face. It disturbed her. His mind was never, as a rule, so simple to read.

During the bout, her uneasiness grew. One man, the smaller, was quite new. The other, the Cornishman, had fought already at Court on that December night when Thady had roused all Blois with his race. He was a big man, over six feet and solid, with the vast limbs and the cream and rose-flooded flesh of the sandy-haired. His head was shaved, like his partner’s. They were both in soft boiled leather, a second skin sewn on them, body and limbs, and their clipped feet slapped bare on the tiles. The weapons were as usual: the cudgel and the shield with the iron prong at its foot. The straining, thinly gloved muscles glistened with oil; as the bodies groaned and grunted and collided and gasped the firelight varnished them, dripping, bald, squat and scarlet as Burmese teak.

Watching, Margaret became aware of yet one thing more. Whenever the Cornishman’s attention was free, the white-lashed eyes
turned towards Thady. In them was very little of intelligence and nothing of amity. They expressed scorn, she thought, and excitement, and something else she could not properly name. Only Lymond, close by the two men, plainly saw in the pale, pink-rimmed eyes a pleasurable anticipation of murder.

The present bout was soon ended. It had been reasonably exciting. The mild applause, the circling wine, the little stir of gossip and change filled the moment that was suddenly on them, on all those that knew and were concerned, like a burden of unbearable weight. Then the floor was clear, and on it was Thady Boy, portentously solemn, stripped to creased shirt and fat, silk-puffed haunches, club and shield in his hands. Long ago, the stuffed and elaborate clothing he wore had let him dispense with additional padding; his way of life was bringing illusion near enough reality, for the rest. Opposite him now, loosely bent, waited the supple-skinned ox of a Cornishman, the fire red on his skull and his eyes and the silver spike of his shield.