Part 34 (1/2)
Richard was building a cathedral of boughs. ”Who else? He brought you here and then took his men home. We're just outside Hexham..
There was a difficult pause. Then Lymond said clearly, ”If you're waiting to preach in articulo mortis, don't put it off for my sake..
The oblique inquiry gave Richard the metal he needed. He said with a grim pleasure, ”I don't mind waiting..
Something-hardly laughter-glimmered in the heavy eyes. ”Neither do I. But the fenestration seems fairly extensive..
Richard had hung a can of water over the new fire, and his fresh bandages were waiting. ”Not if you have a good surgeon..
The careful voice was resigned. ”Two chapters of Anatontia Porci and they think they're Avicenna. Don't trouble. No wriggling and no recantations from this quarter..
”You're surprised?” Richard tested the water with a broad finger. ”What did you expect? That I'd curse you, kill you and drop you in the Billy Mire?.
”Yes. You tell me why not: I can't help you. Overtures of friends.h.i.+p from me would sound d.a.m.ned silly at this point . . . I can't drink any more..
Richard took away the flask. ”You said no recantations..
”That doesn't rule out the plain, freestanding explanation..
”Make it later,” said Richard equably, unwinding bits of torn sheet. ”You'll have plenty of time.” He knelt, and the incalculable eyes dropped.
It was not a pretty business: a grim, forbidding task even had there been proper gear and the skilled treatment of the doctor he was not. The bowls of water became scarlet and the makes.h.i.+ft wads reeked.
Explanations. What explained the killing of one's son? The seduction of one's wife? And these were the hands that Mariotta knew better than he did: this the mouth; this the marked body.
Lymond took too long to recover when the dressing was done. But in the end his eyes opened, and after a time he spoke. ”All right. I love sadism too,” he said. ”But try that too often, Master Haly Abbas Cat, and you won't have a mouse left to play with. . . . Your move..
Richard was careful. ”Not yet,” he said. ”When I make it, I want your undivided attention. All you have to do is get well..
* * *That day Lord Culter spent some time looking for a fresh harbour for his patient: one that would give some shelter, and be sufficiently remote from both houses and paths.
Late in the afternoon, on his last sally, his arms full of moss for dressings, he found the ideal spot. A small stream running through sandstone had created a toy gorge within which for perhaps twenty yards the bottom widened on each side of the water into a secluded and gra.s.sy meadow. There was room there, and in other and more distant bays, to graze his horse, and better still, a place where the rocky sides of the banks steeply overhung and enclosed the gra.s.s, forming a shallow cave within. There he could safely light fires, and there too they would be dry in bad weather.
He explored it thoroughly, and it was inter than it should have been when he returned.
Lymond watched him pack with bright eyes. ”Hub! Are we setting up house elsewhere? Far away?.
”A short ride. I'll strap you to Bryony..
There was a pause. Then, detached, the Master observed, ”Richard. You can't seriously picture me pursuing a healthy career as a sieve. Time isn't on your side either. Stop toying with the prey and let's get this thing over with. Say what you have to say to me..
”We didn't,” observed Richard, ”take long to get to the wriggling..
”No. I'm only trying to find a knee-high viewpoint that'll interest you. Before one of us bores the other to death I have to talk to you about Mariotta..
Lord Culter straightened, the two packs under his arms. ”Not to me..
”To you, here and now. After which you can make your own conversation in whatever d.a.m.ned draughty hole you've picked for yourself, and put your own b.l.o.o.d.y feet over your bottom like the Romans when it rains. Mariotta-.
”You're not dying,” said Richard. ”Keep your pitiful confessions for someone else..
”Whose guts are they?” demanded Lymond, offended. His hair was dark with sweat and his fingers cramped, resisting the oncoming tides. ”I'm going to tell you what happened, brother mine. You'll have to execute me, leave me, or listen to me..
”Or remove your tongue..
”Happy are the cicadas' lives. Go ahead. But then you'll never know the truth..
”I know all I need to know..
”What do you know? How to match, but not how to marry. How to choose, but not how to husband. Grand Amour should be received royally, Richard, as a harsh and n.o.ble art. You idiot. . . . You nearly lost her. But not to me..
The sword was in Culter's hand. The thoughtful eyes of his brother and even the shadowed walls of the dovecote disappeared. With the last rags of self-possession, Richard drove himself out of the door.
And bathe my son in morning milk, said the doves. And other voices, too, hammered in his ears. Here, reeking and blubbering over the green fields, were the resurrected deaths he had died because of Lymond. ”You haven't packed the ladies off to Stirling, have you?”- An arrow, tearing ignominiously into one's shoulder, before a shouting crowd-a drunken glover and a frozen ride-the prison at Dumbarton and the walk across the ballroom floor-the failure at Heriot;the trickery with Scott; and monstrously, Mariotta, Mariotta, Mariotta, blazing with jewels.
”Believe, if you like, that the child is Lymond's.” . . . ”He is with Mariotta now.” . . . ”ft would have been a boy..
The gra.s.s at his feet, the blue sky, the short purple shadows of the trees, came into focus again. He unbuckled his dagger, and laying it together with his sword within the doorway, walked back and seated himself on the edge of the stone table. ”Go on. We have five minutes to spare. Discourse on the seductive arts. I want to quote you to Mariotta..
”I,” said Lymond plaintively, ”am the octogenarian who planted. In my marrows are my monument; and your wife, thank G.o.d, is no marrow of mine. I was gallant at Midculter, G.o.d save me, through being most d.a.m.nably drunk: but never again..
”You didn't approach her, or she you?.
”My dear a.s.s, I ran like a corncrake. You can ask leading questions till you're cross-eyed as Strabo: that's what happened. Unfortunately, becoming tired of home life, she ran too; and got herself taken by the Englisn. I had her redeemed, like a fool, and my poor morons brought her to me when she fell ill on the road instead of running like h.e.l.l when at least she'd have arrived at Midculter unsullied, if dead..
Richard said quietly, ”I hope she thanked you for the trinkets, since she had the chance..
”She did. It was a little embarra.s.sing,” said Lymond. ”Because I didn't send them..
”Oh. You haven't any idea who did, I suppose? Buccleuch, for example?.
He bent suddenly to enclose Lymond's wrist, his eyes intent, as the Master's weakened voice said, ”I don't see why I should spoil another man's fun. . . . Although he must have been d.a.m.ned annoyed to find me getting the credit for it all. . . . If you're curious, you could try asking Mother..
Richard laid down the scarred hand. ”I don't mean to exact retribution from all my wife's lovers. Just those actually related to me. Although you'll be glad to hear that Sybilla is still your infatuated devotee..
His brother's gaze was unexpectedly severe, with a marked line between the brows. He said, ”But Mariotta is not. She made it quiteclear before she left that she thought my existence unnecessary, and that the third baron was her only patron. What you did when she got back G.o.d knows, but it didn't sound very intelligent in the fourth-hand version I got, and if she agrees in the end to come back to you it'll be a miracle of constant vapidity over a.s.siduous obstinacy. . . .” p.r.o.ne on the spread rug, he studied Richard's expression of harsh amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Not very convincing?”'”'Jo..
”No, I suppose not. I could enact you Phoenissae-like tragedies and you'd believe them, but the truth, as I once said to someone-.
”What?.
”Is a queer thing to meddle with,” said Lymond rapidly. ”Must we go? Accord me a niche. I don't mind being calx in a columbarium:the doves will feed me and I shall rise and found Nineveh.
Hic turtur gemit, drowning the groans of the Britons. . . . Must we go? An elephant's head riding on a rat-the symbol of prudence, Richard. Are you listening?.
Richard was already kneeling, hands gripped as if physical force could hammer back the shutters closing on life and consciousness. ”You aren't going to die. Not until I'm ready for you..
”Don't be silly, Richard,” said Lymond, coming from a great distance. For a moment his quick mind cleared; he squinted at the darkening cupola with clouded eyes, and then closed them with a wisp of a grin. ”G.o.d, I forgot. You don't like glovers..
He fought for Lymond's life for two days: thorough, methodical, intelligent; mending with dedicated skill like a man cleaning and mending an engine of war. He longed for his brother, desperately ill as he was, to know what was being done for him, and to savour this devoted nursing at his hands.