The Ringed Castle (65 page)

Lymond and the Marquis of Allendale climbed the stairs of the lodging Edmund Roberts shared with his fellows, and stood in the empty parlour while Roberts found and brought out the letter which Buckland had mentioned. ‘There you are. It’s never been opened. You’ll likely have all the news in it already, in ten other ways. But you might as well have it.’ He paused. ‘What beats all of us, is why Diccon never gave it you in the first place.’

‘He must have forgotten,’ Lymond said. It had been put in fresh wrappers and sealed, as Roberts said. He wondered if it was Chancellor’s seal, and held it out to the candle to see, just before he put the letter away.

The seal was Chancellor’s. And dim under the wrapper, he could see the original cover, much over-written. Beneath it all, his own name and direction were here and there dimly visible. The handwriting, he recognized in a moment, was Philippa’s.

Lymond looked up. ‘Do you mind if I glance at this? It has to do with the meeting I’m going to.’

Roberts, jovial and relaxed with good food and malmsey, made him free of the candle. ‘I’ll be sorry to lose your company. We had some good chats, back in Edinburgh. You know a good lot about iron, for a man who says he’s a soldier. I told the Company that you’re interested. Henry Sidney will tell you. Have you finished?’

‘Yes,’ said Lymond. ‘Yes … thank you.’

It was, if you considered it, a remarkably legible letter, in view of the tour it had made. From Philippa’s round hand in London by some means on shipboard to Emden, and from there to Bremen and Hamburg, Lübeck and Rostock, Stettin and Danzig, Königsberg and Memel, Riga and Novgorod, Tver and Moscow. From Moscow to Kholmogory. And there, it must have been read by Richard Chancellor, who had resealed it and put it into his chest where it remained, through the wreck at Pitsligo and after, to finish here, in an anonymous parlour in an English garrison town, being read by the man it was written to.

And it was obvious, now, why Chancellor had not handed it over. The misguided schoolgirl you married had written carefully to inform you that you were born out of wedlock: an idea by no means new; one so well-supported that already one was more than half-way towards accepting it. So, as Richard had so coincidentally said, one was a bastard. But …

He read it through twice, trying to memorize it, for he supposed it was important.
After the birth of Richard, Sybilla had no more children … You and your sister were born to your father in France; of mother or mothers unknown.…

He did not look again at the ending:…
since it seemed to me that by ignoring it, you were doing yourself and your folk a disservice.… The people among whom you grew up are your dearest
 … but lifted the papers, and holding them into the flame, let the whole thing take fire and burn down to ashes.

‘I told you. You knew it already,’ Roberts said.

‘No. It was news,’ Lymond said.

And Austin Grey, looking at him with those attentive dark eyes said unexpectedly, ‘Bad news? I am sorry.’

Lymond put a picturesque hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ he said, faintly chiding. ‘It makes everyday commerce most trying. It was a letter from my dear wife.… I have just remembered where we are going. Do you suppose she shows her mail to her mother?’

Austin said, ‘You will know better than I do.’

‘But I don’t,’ Lymond said. ‘I didn’t know she could write, until recently. She spent most of her time in the cradle. And if Kate knows what she wrote in that letter, you have no idea what an intriguing meeting this is going to be. You will have your divorce by next Friday.… You are passionately in love with the lady, I take it?’

Austin said, ‘I think Mr Roberts probably wants to go to bed.’

‘No, he doesn’t. He’s enjoying the conversation,’ Lymond said. ‘But we shall respect your finer feelings if you insist on it.’ And, smiling, he did indeed exchange all the necessary courtesies which placed them, five minutes later, outside in the still, snowy street.

‘The inn is there,’ Allendale said, and pointed. ‘You have only to ask for Mistress Somerville.’

Lymond made no move to go. ‘I can be a great deal ruder than this,’ he said. ‘You really must stand and fight. You won’t safeguard the Somervilles by running.’

He did stand then, very straight and slender against the dark snow, with no fear on his face. ‘I don’t need to fight,’ said Austin Grey. ‘You haven’t become what you are without intelligence. You know the world, and you know Philippa’s mother. You won’t harm either of them.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I am not perhaps as easily upset as I look. I think I can protect them, if I have to.’

‘Can you?’ Lymond said. ‘I am going to call on Philippa, when we get to London. What will you do if I take her straight to my lodging and rape her?’

Austin was very white. ‘Kill you,’ he said. ‘If I can.’

‘But she is my wife,’ Lymond said.

‘Not——’

‘Yes!’ said Lymond softly. ‘Before God and man. And for that, my dear Marquis, you would hang. If, of course, she told you about it in the first place.’

Allendale’s hand was on his sword. He took it off again and drew a long breath. His body was trembling. He said, in a low voice, ‘This is uncivil.’

‘Yes, but it’s quicker than question and answer,’ Lymond said. ‘And we know where we stand. I’m delighted, in fact, to have met you. You may have her first, when the Pope and I have both finished.’ And he walked off, smiling, into the inn, leaving Austin Grey standing where he was, very still in the snow.

He brought the same bright, deadly mood to the meeting with Philippa’s mother, and Kate Somerville, that small, wise friend of long ago who knew him better than anyone, stood in her small crowded bedchamber and watched him come in, fair and smiling and elegant with his face marred and marring shadows, too, in his eyes and about his temples and mouth which had never been there before.

He saw the woman she had always been, buttoned purposefully into a gown which, on equal purpose, would not be her best, with her brown hair accommodated hopefully in a rather nice cap but coming down, and her brown eyes, frowning, on the marks on his face. He said, ‘Richard, you will have heard. It probably did him a lot of good, because he wanted to do it so badly. I received your unaddressed, badly spelt note with all the polysyllables.’

‘Yes. Well,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know what you want to be called.’

‘Home, like the cattle?’ said Lymond. ‘No. No, that is what we are all trying to avoid talking about. I don’t object to being called by my Christian name, on purely social occasions. The Russian version was Frangike. Rather scented, I thought. Or alternatively, like a new brand of onion.’

‘I don’t suppose you meant to get drunk,’ Kate said flatly, ‘but you are, rather. Would you like to sit down over there?’

He took the chair she indicated, on one side of the fire, by the bed. ‘But you must sit down as well.’

Kate Somerville stood, her lips shut, and looked at him. ‘I don’t know that I want to. Are we going to have a sensible discussion?’ she said.

‘Well, you are sensible,’ Lymond said. ‘And I am not unconscious, yet. The trouble appears to be with the subject. I am here, on legal advice, as your son-in-law.’

‘I’m not going to sit down,’ Kate said, in some desperation, in view of the fact that her limbs would hardly uphold her.

The beautiful, intolerant blue eyes surveyed her. ‘It is perfectly safe to sit down with sons-in-law. Not with prospective fiancés. I have just asked Austin Grey what he would do if I carried Philippa off and then ravished her.’

He stared at Kate.

Kate licked her lips and surmised. ‘Kill you?’ she said. Her voice, she found, was not totally reliable.

‘Yes. That’s satisfactory, isn’t it? I thought perhaps she was in love with Diccon Chancellor.’

He never said what he meant. He never said what he meant.… All through their encounters, their clashes, their crossing of swords she had known that and learned a little to deal with it, and to translate, if only to herself, what lay under the stream of hurtful, facile words. And, suddenly, this time she felt panic, a seizure of fear so unexpected that she stared at him, quite unseeing, listening to the tone of the words. And then she saw what was behind it, and sat down.

‘I think everyone was,’ said Kate Somerville.

Lymond said abruptly, ‘What about the divorce?’

Kate said, ‘Lady Lennox is blocking it. The grounds, as you may have heard, are the test case of the Constable’s son.’

‘Why is she opposing it?’ Lymond said. ‘She knows the situation?’

Her confidence mildly restored, Kate threw him a look of withering irony. ‘You mean is Philippa moaning and plucking off daisy petals? I am sorry to dispel the fancy. Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles.’

‘That was the impression I got,’ Lymond said. ‘So why …?’

‘Because Lady Lennox wants to hurt you through her. At least, that is my reading,’ Kate Somerville said. ‘You have Laurence Hussey with you just now, haven’t you?’

‘Wills, wives and wrecks?’ Lymond said. ‘Yes; he’s been concerned in the
Edward
. What else—ah. Boyar Angus has just died at Tantallon Castle.’

‘I wish,’ said Kate, ‘you were just a little more sober.… The Earl of Angus is dead, Lady Lennox’s father. There arises the matter of the inheritance. All those rich lands, and Tantallon Castle, one of the strongest in Scotland.’

‘The laird of Craigmillar is in it,’ said Lymond comfortably. ‘He told me the other day. Holding it for the Queen. But Margaret Lennox, of course, will lay claim to the lands and the Earldom, and Master Hussey, being a civil law practitioner and a member of Doctors’ Commons, will no doubt be asked to pursue it.… He seems a harmless enough little man. What has Philippa done?’ said Lymond.

‘Passed on to your family a Lennox plot to control Scotland,’ said Kate bluntly.

Lymond’s eyes studied hers. ‘Who in turn, in their simple, loyal way, have passed it on to the Queen Dowager. Who will therefore take great pleasure in squashing any claim whatever from the Lennox family to the Earldom of Angus?’

‘You aren’t drunk,’ said Kate.

‘No. I have had a severe blow on the head, and a great deal of provocation. But Kate, Philippa can only be harmed if Master Hussey discovers what the Queen Dowager knows about the Lennox plot, and how she knows it. Who would tell Hussey?’

‘Maitland of Lethington,’ Kate Somerville said.

‘Who is close to the Queen, and loves the Lennoxes? And then Mary Tudor is told that her young lady in waiting has been passing State secrets to Scotland. How very careless of Margaret. Lennox secrets are usually very large and costive and never pass anything anywhere, like English bowels in hot weather. Where did Philippa hear this?’

‘From the lady Elizabeth,’ said Kate shortly.

After a while, he let out his breath slowly and began, equally slowly, to shake his head without speaking. Kate said, ‘Well?’

Francis Crawford got up and lifting his cloak, tossed it on her bed. Then, edging round furniture, he worked his way across the small room thoughtfully and stood looking at his mother-in-law, with a sober expression for once. ‘What do you know?’ he said at length.

Kate said, her eyes very large, ‘I find your rudeness abominable and your politeness obnoxious but my goodness, Francis Crawford, what terrifies me more than a jungle of tigers is the moment when you look worried. I know only what Richard has guessed, and if Richard has guessed it, then you have been over-relaxing with your secrets also. What is your interest in Elizabeth and the late William Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire?’

There was a pause. ‘Academic,’ said Lymond.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Kate. ‘There is something to connect Philippa with the Queen’s sister. Now there is something, academic or not, which connects you to Elizabeth too. It only needs a shred of evidence to send you both to the headsman for spying. And Elizabeth with you.’

‘Perhaps I should go back to Russia,’ Lymond said. But she did not smile, and after a moment he said, half to himself, ‘How she must hate me.’

Kate said quietly, ‘Margaret Lennox?’ and he nodded, his back to the wall. ‘I suppose she is older than me by … oh, about the same as the difference between Philippa’s age and mine. I was sixteen. Seventeen, perhaps. She has never forgiven me. And now she wants Elizabeth out of the way. For that, of course, leaves the child Queen of Scots as the next heir to England and Scotland. And if anything happens to her …’

‘Margaret Lennox,’ said Philippa’s mother.

‘Or the boy. Darnley. It must seem very tempting to get rid of me as well. But she won’t do it.’

Kate said, ‘How can you be sure?’

Lymond said, ‘If I were unsure, I shouldn’t be going to London.’

‘And Philippa?’

‘The divorce,’ Lymond said. ‘The divorce, somehow, as quickly as possible. And get her into church with young Tristram Trusty.’

‘There are quite a lot of young Tristram Trusties,’ said Kate. ‘One of them Spanish.’

‘Well, if she can stomach it; that,’ said Lymond without compunction, ‘would without doubt be safest of all. In any case, leave the other side of it to me. I shall see they don’t touch her. What about money?’

‘Well, she has all yours, if that’s what you mean,’ said her mother. ‘The entire possessions of the Donatis and another fortune waiting to be picked up, I gather, in France. From a witch?’

‘Not a witch,’ said Lymond. He made his way back again and picked up his cloak. ‘She can keep it. I have enough in Russia to do several lifetimes over.… They told me that if I didn’t come back, they would force you to marry?’

In the plain, sensible face, the brown eyes were derisive. ‘Is that why you came back?’ said Kate Somerville.

‘No. I knew you could handle it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kate. ‘I thought perhaps you had had one of Philippa’s persuasive letters.’

He stood with the cloak in his hands, quite still, looking at her. At length: ‘I had two,’ he said.

Kate said, ‘I’m glad. She wanted you to know how things were. She told Richard she would be writing.’

Lymond said, ‘Kate. Do you know what you are saying?’