The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett Page B

He laughed again as Lennox, who had spun around, took a step forward. With his free hand, the Master pulled off his steel bonnet and tossed it neatly into the hearth. The peats clouded with smoke, then blazed around it, lighting the pallid face and the colourless hair, stained with sweat. “Money,” he said.
    Lord Lennox stared. A tide of scarlet, patched and mottled, washed up to the roots of his hair and disappeared, taking horror and disbelief with it, and leaving the face swollen with rage. “It’s Crawford of Lymond!” said the Earl of Lennox, and the pale eyes, china-hard, shot to his lordly colleague. “Here, in Annan. In the middle of your precious guard!” He exploded into ugly language. “Your chicken-livered rabbit of a son … !”
    Lord Wharton spoke sharply. “Control yourself, sir!” and his eyes, on Harry, promised payment by someone, in time, for Lord Lennox’sbad temper. He addressed Lymond. “How did you get past the gate?”
    Scott had finished lashing young Wharton to a bench, and was regagging him methodically. Watching him, his knife lingering at Harry’s back, Lymond replied. “My dear sir, how to avoid it? Their hospitality was most pressing. Besides, I got the password from Bannister.”
    “Bannister?”
    “The Protector’s messenger. He fell in with us.”
    Wharton said sharply, “You have his dispatch then?”
    The fair brows were raised. “Dear me, no! I’ve finished with huckstering these days. Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness. I hope to be appreciated for my beaux yeux alone—and those of Harry, of course. Manhood but prudence is a fury blind.”
    Too wise a fox to be baited, Wharton kept to the point. “Then I take it this man Bannister is dead?”
    “He was in the best of health when I left him,” said Lymond, surprised. “In fact, I had him escorted part of the way. The roads to the north are rather busy with Scottish gentlemen.”
    “In fact, you sold him to the other side, this time!” said Lennox, making his first contribution to the conversation.
    Lymond looked mildly chagrined. “Not at all. What a reputation to have! Not all of us have your lordship’s gift for trusteeship.”
    This was a very shrewd hit. Everyone present knew that Lennox, ostensibly acting for the Scottish Queen Dowager, had once taken delivery of a shipload of French gold and arms on her behalf; and had then shipped himself and the gold south to England.
    For a moment the earl was speechless with anger. “You have the damnable effrontery—My God, if I’d only left you lashed to your stinking oars! You were grateful enough when I clothed you and fed you and gave you money … more fool I. I was repaid all right! Bring a cow to the hall,” Lennox snarled, “and she will to the byre again.”
    “And foul water slockens fire,” added Lymond. His voice became noticeably mellow. “But then I was brought up in bad company. From oar to oar, you might say.”
    If his previous remark had caused an explosion, this one was greeted with a silence which could be felt. Scott, his heart thudding inexplicably, looked from Lymond’s imperturbable face to Lennox, who had gone bone-white.
    “And how,” pursued the Master suavely, “is the Pearl of Pearls?”
    He was talking about the Countess of Lennox, and this time the allusion was unmistakable. Scott saw in Lord Wharton’s face, for an instant, the same kind of shocked surprise that he felt himself; then Lennox’s sword came hissing from its scabbard and Wharton, with a curse, sprang to put a hand on his arm. “Put up, my lord!”
    The Earl of Lennox didn’t even look at him. He said through his teeth, “I’ll suffer insult and insolence for no man’s brat!”
    “Then you have me to reckon with as well, my Lord Lennox,” said Wharton furiously. “Put up!”
    There was a long pause. The knife glittered in Lymond’s hand, over young Harry’s spine; Wharton’s fingers dug into the earl’s arm. Lennox swore, and rammed home the