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The River Clyde

The River Clyde
The River Clyde Near Midculter in Lanarkshire

Friday, May 5, 2017

Part Four. The End Game. Chapter VI. Baring.

1. Remiss

Epigraph
Therefore* the nobles and common people being situated in their proper places,
They who are on the other side keep the Queen.
And thus they retain all the strength and fortitude in the kingdom.

*Therefore is an archaic meaning of wherefore and makes the most sense in this context.

August 1548

Twice Lymond had been summoned to account for his treachery at Solway Moss in November 1542. Twice he had failed to appear. He was named outlaw and rebel. He evaded capture and the law for six years, until now. Now he must face the charges: treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, murder, assault, robbery, and more offenses against Crown and Church.

While Lymond awaits trial, set for August 8, Will Scott engages in a "frenzy of inactivity," Buccleuch returns to the siege of Haddington, Richard stays at Midculter but prepares to travel to Edinburgh by the 8th, and Sybilla heads out to who knows where to do who knows what.

***
August 1, 1548

Loose ends begin to be tied up. Sybilla's destination is Ballagan, the Hunter estate. Andrew Hunter at first is welcoming and unconcerned if perhaps puzzled by her visit. His perplexity quickly turns to concern covered by lies. The hexagonal brooch has had a storied history on its return journey to Ballagan: Andrew's mother, Mariotta, Agnes Herries, Sybilla, and finally Dandy.

Sybilla, "the calm within the hurricane," lays out the story of who sent Mariotta the jewels and why: Andrew Hunter sent them in hopes of luring Mariotta away from Richard. As a rich widow, she would solve all Dandy's financial problems. But Mariotta, infatuated with Lymond, assumed the jewels were from him. Once she confided her suspicions to Dandy, he was flummoxed at first but quickly adapted his plan to let Mariotta believe it was Lymond sending the jewels. This still served Dandy's purpose, which was to create a rift between Mariotta and Richard. Mariotta in fact still believes Lymond sent the jewels. But Sybilla knows better. Furthermore, she knows Andrew Hunter has tried to kill Richard four times:
  1. At the papingo shoot.
  2. At the Nith crossing.
  3. With a poisoned drink.
  4. Using the three gypsies on the road.
The papingo shoot: After initially trying and failing to slip away from Mariotta and Agnes, Dandy finally extricated himself with just enough time to position himself "on the flat" from which he would be able to loose his arrow and hit Richard right after Lymond finished shooting at the parrot. Everyone (except Sybilla) assumed it was Lymond who shot his brother. Dandy was trying to kill Richard. Fortunately, he was rushed and not in a good enough position to succeed.

The Nith crossing: Dandy purposely led Richard and Agnes into deep, swirling, treacherous waters. They both would have drowned--and very nearly did--had Richard not been an exceptionally good swimmer and also kept his wits about him. Once Hunter realized Richard and Agnes were not drowned, he had no choice but to assist them out of the river.

The herbal drink: Sybilla mentions this in Pt 3, Ch II, Sec 1. 
“Oh, Richard. Dandy Hunter brought one of his mother’s appalling herbal concoctions under oath to make you take it on your next campaign, but I haven’t the heart to inflict it on you...."
But wise Sybilla, already suspicious of Dandy, checked out the concoction and determined it was poison. Not wanting to tip off Hunter, she said she would lie to him and encouraged Richard to do the same: "I shall tell Dandy you drained every drop and left in a condition of enteric rapture: only remember to fib when you see him.”

The gypsies: Dandy hired the three gypsies to waylay and kill Richard on his way home. However, Johnnie Bullo, the Gypsy King, learned of the plan and stopped the murder. We know from the previous chapter that Andrew Hunter, along with Buccleuch, saw Richard off when he left Edinburgh for Midculter the night the gypsies attacked him. Johnnie is still in Sybilla's "employ," so he had an incentive to stop the murder.

Dandy at last realizes he is trapped and endangered by Sybilla's knowledge. His first reaction is one Sybilla planned for, that is, to murder her. She, however, holds all the cards because Johnnie Bullo stole Dandy's "charter chest" containing the evidence of his treason from the same room where his mother's "valuable" recipe book was located. Sybilla had already located the chest on her earlier visit to Ballagan with Mariotta and Agnes to see Catherine Hunter. (Pt 2, Ch III, Sec 1)

No one else thought anything about Hunter's trips to the Ostrich Inn, which is over the border in England. Molly informed Lymond all about Dandy's business at the Ostrich in Pt 3, Ch III, Sec 1. Molly told Lymond about Will coming to get her to tend Mariotta after her miscarriage:
“It was the same boy who came to fetch me from the Ostrich. Did you know he also had business with Dandy Hunter?”
The preoccupied blue eyes came up, fast. “Tell me.”
Molly shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. Hunter spent nearly a week with us, for no very good reason, and seemed to have a lot of questions to ask on some curious subjects. Joan saw Scott speaking to him the night he came for me....
She gave him a verbatim account of the talk between Scott and Hunter, and he listened without comment. At the end she said, “Take care. Hunter is a lot wiser than the child. It could mean trouble.”
Lymond hinted at Hunter's involvement very subtly during the sword fight with Richard at Flaw Valleys when he quoted a children's rhyme to Richard: ""Handy Dandy prickly prandy..." (Pt 4, Ch 11, Sec 3)

No one else knew Hunter's connection with George Douglas, revealed by the fact that Dandy knew Jonathon Crouch was George's prisoner. The only reason George would have bothered with a minor figure such as Dandy was that they were in "the same sweet trade," that is, they were both spies. But the spy trade was not sufficiently remunerative for Hunter's purposes, so he hatched the Mariotta plot.

Despite the thoroughly damning evidence Sybilla has against Hunter, she has done nothing with it as of yet out of concern for Catherine Hunter and a fascinating Crawfordesque sense of justice:
"I should like to see you hanged. Because of you, I nearly lost every child I have left: I did lose my grandchild. But that would be an insult to all the magnificent, vicious criminals we already have living freely among us."
What an interesting remark! Andrew Hunter caused great pain and suffering to Sybilla and her family, and yet he does not reach the level of a truly vicious criminal deserving death. This remark speaks volumes about the state of affairs in Scotland. There is also her concern for Catherine who, although a thoroughly unpleasant and mean women, still evokes Sybilla's pity. She does not want Hunter's mother to suffer the death of her remaining child because Sybilla knows the bottomless depths of that particular pain.

Sybilla extracts a confession and an exoneration of Lymond from Dandy, which shows far more mercy than he bestowed upon all the Crawfords. The chest with the evidence against Hunter will be opened in two days, giving him enough time to hightail it out of Scotland forever.

***
Catherine Hunter truly is a miserable woman whose sole pleasure seems to come from sharing and inflicting that misery. Sybilla allows Catherine to whine and complain before finally letting her know in Sybilla's no-nonsense way that she is determined to help her against her will, more than Catherine knows and probably deserves. Catherine is not stupid. She knows that Sybilla is here because of trouble, and Catherine is not surprised that it is her son's fault. Sybilla is merciful. She spares Catherine the whole truth and tells her just enough to make it clear there is no alternative. Moreover, Sybilla must have funded Dandy's exile because he left with money in hand, so her mercy extends to generosity. As cold and nasty as Catherine tries to appear towards Dandy, the "the tears lying silently in the bitter troughs and seams of her face" betray the depth of her agony in losing another child. At least with this one there remains hope, however faint, he may someday return.

***
August 3

Back at Midculter Sybilla finally explains what she (and Johnnie Bullo) have been up to, who sent the jewels, and the depth and breadth of Andrew Hunter's treason and murderous plotting against Richard. Despite everything, Richard and Mariotta only want the confession absolving Lymond made public and the rest held in surety for Dandy's continued good behavior (and absence from Scotland).

We learn two other important things in this short section. First, why Sybilla blackmailed Johnnie Bullo. She wanted him to do something dangerously illegal by breaking into Ballagan and stealing the charter chest. Second, why Sybilla let Dandy leave the country. She is terrified of losing her younger son (it is "only five days" until the trial) and she cannot inflict that pain on anyone else, even if she dislikes Catherine and hates Dandy for what he has done.

***
August 3-5

August 3: Will Scot is glumly trying to figure out how or even if he can save Lymond.

August 4: The Crawfords arrive in Edinburgh. Many of their friends have no idea they are not here to enjoy the demise of their black sheep but instead are desperately trying to save him:
...a surprising number of their friends came visiting, with an echo of Lady Hunter’s tart “good riddance” on their lips.
August 5: On orders of "the Crown," Lymond is to face a Judicial Committee of Parliament on the day before the formal trial. "The Crown" in this case is Mary of Guise.

Will Scott is incensed at this illegal action. Richard is calm and philosophical. He understands why the government is doing this and the ramifications of its action. They will question Lymond and decide his guilt before pushing this verdict through Parliament the next day. The reason for this extraordinary hearing is simple:
"Lymond knows too much. He could shatter half the Government at a public hearing.”
Spilling his secrets will not help Lymond. The government has to condemn him and carry out his execution as quickly as possible.

The title of this section is intriguing. Remiss usually means negligent; an earlier meaning is weak. It can also mean slack, sluggish, or indolent. There is also an etymological connection to remission, that is, the forgiveness of sins from Latin for a word meaning sending away. All these make sense in the context of this section: Dandy has been negligent enough to be caught by Sybilla. He is a weak man. His mother is sluggish and indolent. Sybilla provides a kind of forgiveness to both Catherine and Dandy's sins by sending him away. Finally, I wonder if Dunnett had the chess term remis in mind, too. Remis is an archaic term for a draw in chess. At the moment, that is all Sybilla has played to in this dangerous game. Now...

2. The Queen Moves to Her Beginning

August 7

The Assize, a civil and criminal court session, is preparing to get underway. Sybilla must be in a state
of almost unimaginable anxiety knowing the likely outcome, but she bravely "rattles on" to keep from breaking down. Lymond is in the Tolbooth, a fearful place of imprisonment, torture, and execution. The sentiment among the public is clearly against Lymond. The chanting of Psalm 109 must pierce Sybilla's heart. It is a long and dreadful series of curses, which extend to the condemned man's family:
When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
...
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
May their sins always remain before the Lord,
that he may blot out their name from the earth.
There are twelve Assessors, but the key figure here is Henry Lauder, Lord St. Germains, Lord Advocate of Scotland. He is the prosecutor. The opening scene is from his point of view, and it is fascinating because Dunnett offers us Lauder's random thoughts and insights rather than a dull review of the impending legal proceedings. He is not particularly interested in the coming court session, viewing it as yet another dull duty on a hot summer day. His thoughts meander as his eyes wander around the room.

Lauder has just won a bet on whether or not the Earl of Argyll (Archibald Campbell) is on speaking terms with Bishop Reid of Orkney, the President of the Court Session. Lauder wonders if anyone has warned the prisoner about Reid's deaf ear, which is "responsible for more executions, whippings and tongue borings than even its owner realized." The room is stuffy (it is August, after all) and Lauder congratulates himself for wearing his lightest jacket. He rues his baldness. He peruses those assembled, both jurors and spectators, and we thereby learn who else is in the room: among the dozen Assessors are Buccleuch, George Douglas, and John Maxwell (now Herries), all people who might be inclined towards Lymond. Among the spectators are Richard, of course, Tom Erskine, and Will Scott.

Then Lymond is brought in and, at last, Lauder is surprised and intrigued. Clearly, he does not know Lymond.
Unobtrusive, beautiful clothes; fine hands; a burnished head with a long, firm mouth and heavy blue eyes, spaciously set. He had been ill all right: the signs were all there. But his face was beautifully controlled, giving nothing away.
Furthermore, Lymond's voice is wonderful--clear, controlled, perfectly pitched. Lauder gives "an unlegal twitch of pure pleasure" at this unexpected turn of events and prepares to enjoy what until now had promised to be a rather tedious day. 

***
The "preliminary examination," which is of course the real trial with the proceedings the following day a mere formalilty, begins with a dismissal of all the accusations against Lymond regarding harm to his family. Naturally, they have chosen not to pursue these charges. Lauder moves on to:

Charge 1: treasonous association with Lord Wharton three years earlier.

Lymond admits he was with Wharton briefly, only long enough to gain his trust in order to mislead Wharton's men on one of their cross-border raids.

Lymond claims he had never before this involvement with Wharton "commanded a force," but he is unabashed in how he learned to do so. He knows his geography and his chess:
“The one shows you where to go, and the other what to do when you get there. A man so fortified would be unique in Scottish arms, don’t you think?”
Lymond's sardonic side is reasserting itself. Lymond is accused of being in Wharton's pay based on what he had said to Richard: "Well, he's certainly paying me." Lymond explains that when he said his money came from Wharton, he meant he forcibly extracted it, not that he was in Wharton's pay.

Charge 2: "conspiring to lay misleading information about the intentions of the English army during the western invasion of September last year; of attacking a Scottish force under Lord Culter and the Master of Erskine, and of taking from their possession an English messenger bearing a valuable dispatch.”

This charge refers to Lymond's encounter with Richard on the road to Annan. (Pt 1, Ch I, Sec 3) Now it becomes clear what Lymond was doing.
  • Lymond had met Charlie Bannister, the English messenger carrying a message from Grey to Wharton, read his message, and then sent him along his way to Wharton with the message from Grey.
  • Richard's men captured Bannister, who destroyed the message.
  • However, Bannister knew the contents of the message, and Richard was planning to extract it from him.
  • Lymond encountered Richard and his men with Bannister.
  • Knowing Richard would not believe anything he said, Lymond used reverse psychology. He told Richard that Grey's message to Wharton and Lennox ordered them to move north when in fact the message told them to retreat south to England immediately. 
  • Lymond freed Bannister so he could deliver the message to Wharton and Lennox in Annan.
  • Richard did not in fact believe Lymond and moved his troops south as Lymond intended.
  • Richard's men thus encountered Wharton and spent the night chasing him south of Annan.
Charge 3: serving the English on the West March for his own ends.

Lymond is accused of opening an escape route for Lennox and stealing some of the cattle used as decoys. He stole no cattle. All the cattle were returned to the Somervilles. Maxwell, now Baron Herries, speaks for Lymond and confirms his story, adding his own commentary that the plan was Lymond's and the execution a "remarkable feat of leadership." 

Things are not going quite as smoothly as Lauder and Argyll had anticipated. They need to move swiftly to the most damning charges.
...the Lord Advocate, who missed nothing, ran his eye quickly over the remaining charges and caught Argyll’s attention.
Charge 4: writing and sending a message that brought Buccleuch, Culter, and their men into danger from the English army at Heriot.

On the pretext of handing Will Scott over to Grey, who still very much wanted him because of what happened at Hume, Lymond set up an elaborate ruse:
  • Lymond hoped to meet Samuel Harvey, who was supposed to be with Grey.
  • On the pretext of handing over Will Scott, Lymond enticed Grey to meet him at Heriot.
  • Lymond ensured Will was told of the meeting too late to arrive in time.
  • At the same time, Lymond sent messages to Buccleuch and Richard to enable them to capture Grey, not knowing Grey would come with a larger than anticipated force.
  • Grey knew nothing of Lymond's message to Buccleuch and Culter and so did not know the Scots were coming to Heriot.
  • Tom Erskine and George Douglas both confirm Lymond's story that Grey had nothing but enmity for Lymond and was not in collusion with him.
Charge 5: Lymond's treasonous association with Lennox.

Lymond explains his history in the French galleys, how he escaped, and how he applied to Lennox to protect him, knowing Lennox to be a traitor and a thief. Lymond served as Lennox's secretary until he was able to abscond with a rather large portion of the Scottish gold Lennox had stolen, much of which Lymond returned to Scotland by "devious" means. He used the rest to pay an army of mercenaries that became self-supporting on the continent.

Charge 6: Taking a message about Queen Mary's departure for France to Lord Grey at Hexham.

This is "not a matter of doubtful history four years old; but a question of treason freshly committed and subject to minute examination": the events leading up to the death of Acheson at Hexham.

Lymond cannot prove what was in his mind when he shot Acheson. Even Tom's testimony is insufficient because Lymond might have benefited from Acheson's death. And Bishop Reid puts forth Lymond's reputation as a reprobate and abuser of woman by bringing up how Lymond used Margaret Douglas as a human shield at Hexham. Lauder is content to sit back and let the Bishop lead the attack on Lymond's character. 

And now we come to the nub of the matter: Christian Stewart. Henry Lauder knows Reid has touched Lymond's tenderest, sorest spot with Christian:
At last. Now, by God, you’re hating it, thought Lauder. And I’m going to thrash you until you hate me as well. And then, my lad, you’re going to lose that cool temper and the Bishop had better look out.
Lauder lays out the case against Lymond as regards Christian's death. He accuses Lymond of seeking her death, even perhaps of causing it. However, Tom Erskine, Buccleuch, and even George Douglas all speak up in defense of Lymond. Lauder, however, remains unconvinced: 
“We are left with Hexham, and what happened immediately before. So complex is the picture this time, so various the possibilities, that we can isolate the truth, it seems to me, in one way only."
That "one way" is to go back six years to the battle of Solway Moss, Lymond's capture, and Lymond's supposed treason.

But Lymond is on the verge of collapse and an hour's recess is ordered.

***
La Pendu
The Hanged Man
With all the zeal of a reformed alcoholic, Will is determined to redeem himself by saving his former leader. He finally sees a way. Will Scott is off in a hurry to see Big Tommy Palmer, whom Buccleuch had captured during the raid near Haddington. Somehow, Will has gotten wind of the papers in Palmer's possession. Palmer, you may recall, is the late Samuel Harvey's cousin and, it turns out, is now in possession of the dead man's confession that exonerates Lymond. Once Tom Erskine helps Will gain entry to the Castle tower, Will ascertains that Harvey's papers are in Palmer's pack. He tries to extract the papers with money and with threats, but the English are too quick and threaten to burn the papers if Tom or Will call for the guards. Palmer will accept nothing from Will except his agreement to play tarocco until one of them wins everything--all the money, clothes, and other possessions in the room, including Samuel Harvey's confession, Palmer's final stake.


Tarocco is the Italian name for tarot cards. Originally, they were used for games, in particular ones
involving the taking of tricks, similar to the modern game of bridge. It was only later (mid-18th century) that they began to be used for divination.


***
The hour recess stretches into two because of Lymond's poor physical condition. When he reappears before the Assize, he is composed and ready to continue. What follows is a lengthy response to the final charge, an explanation of what happened to Lymond after he was captured at Solway Moss.
  • Lymond, along with about 1,000 other Scottish prisoners, was taken to London.
  • After three days in the Tower, Lymond was moved to private lodgings, the house where he met Margaret Douglas.
  • Lymond did not return to Scotland with the others 10 days later.
  • Lymond was not asked to sign the loyalty oath the King Henry VIII of England because he was not a noble.
  • Margaret Douglas persuaded her uncle King Henry to give Lymond a manor house by telling him that Lymond had discovered a number of state secrets, real or imagined.
  • Lymond cannot return to Scotland because he is thought to be an English spy, but King Henry does not want to kill him because he has become a useful scapegoat.
  • Instead, Henry had Lymond taken to Calais and allowed to fall into the hands of the French, who made him a galley slave.
Lauder turns his formidable rhetorical skills on Lymond, using the young man's own eloquence and composed demeanor against him. Worse still, there is one damning piece of evidence: Lymond's signed letter recommending the convent on his land where he had stored gunpowder before Solway Moss be blown up. Lauder knows that he has cornered his quarry.

***
The tarocco game continues in the "suffocatingly crowded" castle tower. Palmer is a superb player, but his play is "careless" if sure. However, Will has the stronger motive for winning:
After all they’d gone through— after what the Dowager had suffered— after Christian’s death— after the fool he had made of himself twenty times over— no one should present this prize under his nose and snatch it back like a toy from a kitten.
Palmer's superior experience and Scott's determination are making for a grand game and spectacle.

***
The other game is coming to a head. Lauder "was within Lymond’s guard, and the passport was the name of Lymond’s sister." Eloise. Eloise holds the key.

Lymond has admitted the letter is his, but its intended recipients were the Scots, not the English. Lymond's notes were appended to those written by an English spy and left at the convent to incriminate him for the explosion at the convent. Unfortunately for Lymond, the handwriting, while not incontrovertibly his, bears a strong resemblance to Lymond's.

Buccleuch castigates Lymond for not thinking through the possibility that his letter about the gunpowder might be intercepted and used against him and the Scots, as indeed it was. Lymond's response is telling:
Sir Wat said, “Ye gomerel: if that’s right, why the devil didn’t you watch that first letter? You could guess what’d happen to it in the wrong hands, even if you didn’t know the lassies had gone back?”
“The thought isn’t new to me,” said Lymond, his voice empty of expression. “I took all the precautions I could at the time.”
“But not enough.”
“Obviously..."
I am reminded of the previous chapter in which Lymond cries out to Richard that he made "one mistake," a mistake of monumental import for which Eloise and the nuns paid with their lives and Lymond and his family have paid with torment for six years. Lymond has been trying to redeem himself and redress this wrong, but thus far he has failed.

Lauder makes a compelling case against Lymond, most notably calling his character into question. When Bishop Reid joins in and drags Will Scott into the discussion, Buccleuch explodes. Lymond, it seems, transformed his son from a weak, lazy, aimless, stupid boy into an "exceedingly efficient fighting man."

However, the ultimate attack is left to Lauder, who insinuates Lymond may have had a dark motive for wanting the convent destroyed with his sister in it:
"...Mr. Crawford may have had reasons— very cogent reasons of his own— for encouraging and even inciting the attack at the convent."
Lymond understands that Lauder is implying something very ugly, very vile about Eloise, some dark Crawford secret or rumor that has persisted after her death.
“I see this idea is not new to you. Some lawyers believe that dirt will do as well as evidence any day; but Mr. Lauder, all heat and no light, like hell-fire, is not like that. He is simply being provocative; without of course making concessions to the feelings of either the laird of Buccleuch or of other members of my family.”
Lauder has cleverly linked Lymond's supposed corruption of one young person (Will Scott) to another (Eloise) as a way of casting further doubt on Lymond's character. Lymond wants to end the tribunal before any additional opprobrium is directed towards his dead sister and, by implication, his entire family.

Tom Erskine, who has returned from the tower, plays for more time, saying the Assize must hear Will Scott's evidence before concluding the hearing. He tries to speak to Lymond's actions at Hexham. The court is not interested. They are interested in Richard's opinion. Lauder, however, realizes the moment Culter opens his mouth he has made an error in letting Richard speak. Richard's efforts to exonerate his brother are met by Lymond's even more strenuous efforts not to let him do so. Lymond knows Richard will suffer if he is believed to have tried to help him escape, and every fiber of Lymond's being is directed towards protecting Richard and the rest of his family. Lymond dismisses Richard's statements as "whitewashing...intended, I gather, to protect my sister’s reputation: that’s all.”

It does not matter what Richard or Erskine say. Lymond is as good as dead at this point. But Lauder wants it all done with "righteousness and decorum," and he wants to stick to the facts and the legal points of the indictment, eschewing the Bishop's tawdry detour into Lymond's personal failings and scandals.
He [Lauder] was clever enough not to brush again through the harsh Orcadian pastures of Bishop Reid’s imagining.
Instead, Lauder lays out a case as harsh and brutal as Psalm 109.
“Such a man is Crawford of Lymond: such a man this land may pray never to see again in the difficult ways of her history. I say: busy yourself no longer about him, for he is better condemned, and most harshly dead.”
Lymond is offered the opportunity to say something in his own defense, an offer he declines. Instead of offering a defense of his actions or character, Lymond launches into his longest speech of the entire book. The speech is a masterpiece of subtle reasoning ostensibly about patriotism but in fact about much more: "life and no life, fact and lie, treason and patriotism, civilization and savagery."

The climax of Lymond's argument is a strange one under the circumstances: for most men, patriotism and fighting for one's country is nothing more than "a vehicle for shedding boredom and exercising surplus power or surplus talents or surplus money; an immature and bigoted intolerance which becomes the coin of barter in the markets of power.” He believes Scotland is a nation with all its failings and strengths that is worth saving and improving, but only if the Scottish people can "be brought to live in full vigour and serenity, and who, in their compassion and wisdom, will take it and lead it into the [right] path.”

Lauder, bless him, loves Lymond all the more for his eloquence and cool reasoning in the face of almost certain death. Even Argyll is impressed enough by Lymond to admit that the Lord Advocate's portrait of Lymond is "only one reading" of Lymond's character and he did not show them "the whole man." In fact, all the charges except the original charge of treason have been answered in such a way that they cannot be sustained. However, the charge of treason stemming from the events that followed Lymond's capture at Solway Moss and the explosion of the gunpowder stores at Lymond Convent have in no way been satisfactorily addressed. Lymond is warned to prepare himself for the worst.

After this grueling day of "argument and heat and concentration and the concealed ravages of fear," no one remembers they had promised to wait to hear from Will Scott.

***
That night, with candles burning in the tension-filled rooms of Edinburgh, the tarocco game continues in the Castle Tower, stuffed to overflowing with men, sweat, stale air, stale beer, and Will Scott's determined anxiety to win. He has won all but Thomas Palmer's prize: the one and only thing he wants. The tarot cards in his hand, which he stared at "until they glimmered in his eyeballs like invitation cards to hell," are merely good. To win once and for all, Will must trust to luck. He bluffs. Palmer does not have the Fool. Will Scott has won the confession. 
Il Matto
The Fool
Thomas Palmer feels like a winner, too, because he got what he wanted: the greatest tarocco game in his wide experience. But the pièce de résistance he had not imagined in his wildest, most vivid imaginings. Will Scott learned to play tarocco from the man Palmer himself had taught, that man with "a tongue with the perishing shakes," our old friend Jonathan Crouch. Will's time with Crouch while he was in Lymond's custody was not wasted after all.

***
Lauder and Will rouse a drugged Lymond to deliver the good news about Harvey's confession. Lauder seems almost as happy as Will that Lymond will be exonerated. Will learned from George Douglas's wife that Palmer was Harvey's cousin and had the confession. Who switched the pages? No one seems to know whether it was accidental or deliberate, but it hardly seems the kind of thing that would happen by accident. Perhaps, as Will speculates, Harvey simply changed his mind about confessing the truth. Of course there were a lot of Douglases at Haddington at the same time as Harvey and Christian: "We’ve got half his relations in custody here."

The Douglas family comes in for a sustained discussion, which is a good indication that their story, like Lymond's, is not over. There is more Douglas mischief to come! Lymond's insights into the Douglases is spot on and worth remembering:
“The unpleasant truth is that, being a long-sighted family, they will attach themselves to the winning side, and not necessarily to the side that pays them most....These are stormy petrels: they show where the heavy seas are coming from and are to that extent useful."
In short, the Douglases are the canaries in the coal mine, useful indicators of something dangerous up ahead. Only the Douglases, unlike the canaries, usually manage to finagle their way out of peril. Lauder puts Buccleuch into an entirely different class, as a true Scot and a "sturdy patriot" trying by "queer and crooked ways" to navigate the stormy waters of Border politics and warfare.

Against Will's objections, Lymond allows Lauder to take the confession to make known its contents. Contrary to advice he himself has proferred, Lymond admonishes Will that he must learn to trust somebody. This is a very different Francis Crawford from the brash, obnoxious young man we first met flirting with Mariotta and setting fire to Midculter.

What will Lymond do now? Other than come to terms with not being divided into four pieces, he is making no plans. Beaten, drugged, exhausted by the previous day's ordeal, Lymond seems to be almost in shock that his life will continue, and he is none too sure that is a good thing for others or for him:
“There’s an unnatural conspiracy to keep me alive, that’s all. I hope to God you don’t regret it. I hope to God I don’t regret it."
***
Early Morning, August 8

Sybilla is sitting by a window in the Crawford's Edinburgh house, every nerve on end, after finally sending Richard and Mariotta off to bed. Richard had been made to recount every detail of the hearing, and Sybilla knows there is no hope for her younger son now because the only thing needful is missing: proof. Without proof, all her efforts over the past five days to cajole and persuade have come to naught, even though "people would lend her a needle to cobble the moon to her gates if she asked for it."

The refrain of an English ballad keeps running through Sybilla's head:
There was a Ewe had three Lambs,
the one of them was blacke,
There was a man had three sonnes,
Jeffery, James and Jacke,
The one was hangd, the other drownd,
The third was lost and never found,
The old man he fell in a sownd,
come fill us a cup of Sacke.
Choice of Inuentions
She has already lost one of her sheep. Now another is a day away from execution. Lymond is her "black sheep," and why not? she thinks. Why must all the sheep be monotonous white? Why can't some be rare and different? She takes small comfort in the fact that all the misery surrounding Lymond's life has not been entirely in vain. Richard's eyes have finally been opened to the truth about his brother, and that is something.

Into her dark night of the soul rides an unlikely messenger of light. Tom Erskine arrives with news of the miraculous proof of Lymond's innocence.

Within half an hour, Richard and Erskine, along with Lauder, Argyll and other officials, are in Mary of Guise's chamber as Lymond is brought in. This is Mary's first encounter with Lymond. She wants to see him because she is curious. Lymond responds with a self-deprecating pun that he is the curiosity that has gotten himself into this predicament. Mary's own dry wit is on display in her brief scene when she tells Lymond they must speak English because her Justiciar cannot follow him if he speaks French and cannot follow her if she speaks English. 

Mary, accustomed to swimming in the cesspool of corruption, finds herself in a unique situation--addressing an innocent man who has been wrongly accused:
"We had, I thought, reached the safe haven of corruption where we need never fear to misjudge anybody. I am astounded to find myself wrong.”
The Dowager Queen lists all the many ways in which Lymond helped her and Scotland, ways that only this night have been made known to her, including his role as the mysterious monk at Inchmahome who taught her daughter "scurrilous poetry." Mary is appalled to discover that relying on "a shabby and ransacked armoury, I have thrown away tempered steel." How can she compensate Lymond?
"A polite apology, and Mr. Lauder’s regrets?”
“Modified regrets,” said the Lord Advocate. “I love Mr. Crawford like a son, but I wouldn’t have missed that examination.”
“If you mislay your notes,” said Lymond, “you will find them engraved on my liver."
Mary of Guise, grateful though she is for Lymond's services to Scotland and to her, nonetheless questions whether or not he is with her. Francis Crawford, in keeping with his detached, analytical persona, answers honestly that he thinks so. This cannot be the answer the Queen Dowager hopes to hear, but she surely knows it is the honest reply. And an honest man is far more valuable to her than any number of sycophants.

Most important of all the services Lymond has rendered Mary and Scotland is the protection of her daughter, who is sailing to France at this moment, thanks to Lymond's heroic efforts to keep the secret of her departure from the English. For now, the English, who have wooed Scotland with cannon, have lost. What reward other than little Queen Mary's love for Lymond, can her mother offer him?

Lymond says he wants nothing more, but the Dowager Queen knows better, knows there is one thing he desperately wants and needs but will not ask for.  Francis looks as a door is opened into what he assumes is a vacant room, and he thinks...
In a lifetime of empty rooms, this was another.
But waiting within, there is "a whisper of silk, a perfume half remembered, a humane, quizzical, intuitive presence." Sybilla throws open her arms and, we imagine, embraces her wayward, wonderful black sheep.

So ends Lymond's first adventure, in the arms of his mother, who welcomes him back into the fold.


Final Comments

The introduction of the occult via the palmistry, the Philosopher's Stone, and the tarocco game are instances of an important theme that runs throughout The Lymond Chronicles. This is interesting because Lymond himself seems to be a quintessentially rational man of the Renaissance, a humanist who would reject such esoteric pursuits as superstitions.

The Game of Kings has no traditional antagonist against whom our protagonist struggles. There are numerous villains (and one really great villainess in Margaret Douglas). One could argue that Lymond is both the protaganist and antagonist, being the conflicted, contradictory, obdurate fellow he is. I think the real antagonist is Lymond's past, against which he fights the entire novel.

Francis Crawford's motives throughout The Lymond Chronicles are a source of endless speculation and fascination for readers. In The Game of Kings he has come back to Scotland to try to prove his innocence and clear his name. That, however, is a goal, not a motive. His motive in restoring his reputation is to remove any doubt or scandal associated with the Crawfords. He is more interested in his family's name and honor than his own personal repute or even his life.

Dunnett has been called a master of the "unreliable narrator," a character whose point of view for whatever reason cannot be trusted as accurate, truthful, or factual. The one person whose perspective is missing from almost all of The Game of Kings is Francis Crawford's. However, when the Queen Dowager opens the door to the room where Sybilla is waiting, we finally have the benefit of Lymond's point of view. He stands looking beyond the open door into what appears to be an empty room, expecting nothing as he has come to expect nothing. Then, with the first whiff of Sybilla's perfume and soft rustle of her gown, memories of his mother come flooding in moments before she appears and opens her arms to gather him in.



Favorite Line
“That,” said Henry Lauder, closing his spectacles and throwing his pen in the wastepaper basket, “is a brain. If I were ten years younger and a lassie, I’d woo him myself.”
Questions
  1. What do you think of Sybilla's decision to show Andrew Hunter mercy by letting him escape given that he caused her grandchild's death, tried to murder Richard, and framed Lymond at every turn? Is she too generous?
  2. What dark secret or at least rumor about Eloise do you think Lymond is trying to hide? Do we have any hints?
  3. Mary of Guise asks Lymond if he is with her, and he replies that he thinks so. Then he says, "There is a divine solution..." What do you think Lymond means by "a divine solution"?
  4. If he were not driven to clear his family name, do you think Lymond would have bothered to return to Scotland to try to restore his own reputation? He could have easily lived out his life abroad and not have suffered the way he does by returning.
  5. Why would Dunnett wait until the very end of the book to show us, however briefly, a scene from Lymond's perspective?
  6. How do you think Lymond feels at the very end when he is exonerated and he sees his mother? 
  7. Do you think Lymond believes what he did was worth the cost, in particular, the deaths of Turkey Mat, Sym, and, most importantly, Christian?
Words that Describe Lymond in Baring
  • determined
  • sardonic
  • resigned
  • exhausted
  • passionate
  • controlled
  • insightful
  • logical
  • eloquent
  • witty
  • surprised
  • relieved
  • grateful
  • happy?


Part Four. The End Game. Chapter III. Knight Adversary

1. Strange Refuge

Saturday, June 23

Epigraph:
And it also behooves [people] that they first heal themselves and also rid themselves of all disease and vices and show themselves whole and pure and ready to heal others.

In other words, heal yourself before you try to heal others.

Apostume or aposteme is a pus-filled abscess, but I thought a more general term like disease better makes the point.

The Dovecote
The men in the dovecote hear the bell of Hexham Abbey ('With my living voice I drive away all things that may do hurt') and the approach of a single rider coming quickly towards them as the evening approaches.

The wait in the dovecote must have seemed interminable to them all, especially Richard, who still cannot seem to grasp why Tom prevented him from going to Hexham. At least Richard's blood fury appears to have waned a tiny bit and the rush of adrenaline from the fight and the pursuit has no doubt subsided, leaving him irritable and impatient, but not in a murderous rage. He has regained some measure of self control.

Still, all Richard cares about is Lymond's status and whereabouts. He does not even appreciate that Acheson was prevented from exposing the Scots' plans and thereby causing untold harm to the nation. He is maniacally focused on Lymond. Tom tries without success to convince Richard that Lymond is no traitor, but Richard refuses to believe him:
There was no softening in Richard’s face. “He had to choose between Grey and you, and he plumped for the likelier prospect, that’s all.…Justifiably: you rescued him, didn’t you?” 
Tom does not have time to deal with this pig-headed fool Culter. He is leaving and washing his hands of this feud. If Richard wants Lymond dead, then by God, Richard can kill him or simply leave Lymond to die. Richard will not do this because he wants his brother "killed publicly and lawfully and painfully and fully conscious." In fact, the last Erskine sees of Richard, he is leaning over Lymond's unconscious body, excitedly tallying his brother's numerous and potentially deadly wounds. Richard's behavior, I must say, is ghoulish.

***
Only Richard and Francis remain in the dovecote, and only Richard is awake. This is a most unusual circumstance: Lymond completely out of commission--and silent. Richard's military training automatically kicks in as he cleans and binds his brother's wounds, all the while noting the old ones made not only by weapons of war but also by the lash, the oars, and, probably most horrifically, the branding iron.

Aside: France branded galley slaves with GAL or TF (travaux forcés, 'forced labour'); branding was legal in France until 1832.

Richard evinces no pity. His actions appear to be thoroughly mechanical. The exhaustion of the day gives way to a short but deep sleep for Richard.

***
June 25-29

Richard wakes in a stupor, momentarily confused and forgetful of the circumstances until he spies Lymond's limpid blue eyes gazing at him. Richard is all business, building up the fire and putting water on to boil. Lymond's first words tug the thread of memory: "You still snore like a frog." Once again, Richard is compared to the frog of the children's song that Lymond alluded to in their first meeting since Lymond's return to Scotland. (Pt 1, Ch I, Sec 3)

Richard builds a "cathedral of boughs" to protect them from the elements, and Lymond plays upon the ecclesiastical image, telling Richard that if he is waiting to pray over his dead body, he need not delay. Richard is in no hurry and plans, in fact, to keep Francis alive. When Lymond says that "the fenestration seems fairly extensive" he alludes to the many wounds to his body. As Richard prepares to deal more effectively with the injuries than he was able to the night before, Lymond gently mocks him:
“Two chapters of Anatomía Porci [a medieval book of anatomy based on dissection of pigs] and they think they’re Avicenna [the great Persian physician]."
This is the second time Lymond has alluded to himself as porcine. The first was when he arrived at Flaw Valleys and compared himself to St. Anthony's pig. (Pt 4, Ch II, Sec 2) Lymond hardly sounds like a man brimming with venom towards his brother, does he?

Richard does the best he can under the circumstances. His brother's injuries must be very serious because even the voluble Lymond has nothing to say during the cleaning and dressing of his wounds. All the time he is cleansing Lymond's injuries, Richard cannot help thinking that this is the body Mariotta has known so intimately. And this is the man who killed his son. Given this belief, it is no wonder Richard loathes Lymond and wants him dead. But not yet. Not until Lymond is well enough to stand trial.

Lymond says he "loves sadism too," but sadism is derived from the name of Count Donatien A.F. de Sade (1740-1815), commonly known as the Marquis de Sade. It is a small, forgivable error.


***
Richard spends the rest of the day looking for a new hiding place, one that is both sheltered and remote. Lymond is convinced he is dying and he wants to have it out with Richard before it is too late. He wants to talk about Mariotta. With the little strength he has, fighting against the waves of nausea that come with extreme pain, Lymond pushes Richard hard to listen to what he has to say or never learn the truth: "You idiot...you nearly lost her, but not to me."

Under the circumstances, Richard retains admirable command of himself. Even the doves seem to taunt him with the words of the old Scottish Ballad of Cospatrick:
O rowe my ladye in satin and silk,
And wash my son in the morning milk!
Richard's mind reels with the "resurrected deaths he had died because of Lymond." Richard reaches a crossroads at this moment, and it says a great deal about his character that he chooses to unbuckle his sword belt and agree to hear Lymond out. In reality, Richard could have killed his brother, buried the body, and reported that Francis died of his considerable injuries. No one would challenge him, although some might suspect that Francis was helped along by Richard. Instead, he chooses to listen to the man he just the day before vowed to kill and came very close to so doing.

Lymond is beginning to return to his old, mouthy self, throwing out a reference to the fable of the old man and the three young men, casting himself as the old man. This fable is an odd one for Lymond to allude to at this moment.

The old man in the fable is found planting trees by three young men, who mock him for bothering to do so since he won't live long enough to enjoy the fruit of the trees. The old man tells the young men that he plants the trees because others before him have done things to care for him and he is now doing something for future generations. And besides, no one knows the hour of his death--who knows? He might outlive them all. Which he does. The moral of the fable is two-fold: it is our duty to care for others, especially those who come after us, and no one knows when he will die; the young should not presume they will outlive the old.

Lymond is very subtly telling Richard that all the things he has been doing are for the benefit of others (including you, Richard, if you would pay attention) and fate may determine that he, Lymond, may outlive those who are sure he will die soon.

When Lymond tells Richard that Mariotta is "no marrow of mine," he means she is not his mate (or lover). He does confess to being too forward with her at Midculter when they first met, but he attributes that to his drunkenness, and pledges it will not happen again.

We are now treated to an full-blown Lymond-style explanation of what happened between Mariotta and Francis.
  • After the initial encounter at Midculter, Lymond tried to get as far away from Mariotta as possible.
  • She ran away from Midculter out of anger and frustration with Richard.
  • The English caught her.
  • Lymond's men rescued Mariotta from the English and brought her to Lymond's hangout because she fell ill.
  • Lymond posits he could have simply returned Mariotta to Midculter dead but untouched.
  • Lymond did not send Mariotta any jewels.
  • Lymond knows who did send the jewels, and so does Sybilla.
Before he passes out, Lymond alludes to something he once told someone else about truth. I believe he refers to the moment at the fair after the papingo shoot when he is alone with Christian in the fortune teller's tent. He says,
"Truth’s nothing but falsehood with the edges sharpened up, and ill-tempered at that: no repair, no retraction, no possible going back once it’s out." (Pt 1, Ch VII, Sec 2)
Everyone says they want the truth, but frequently they regret hearing it. Truth is a dangerous thing. Once spoken, it cannot be unsaid or unheard. But Lymond seems to be rambling, stringing together divergent imagery and allusions, Greek (Phoenissae), Assyrian (Ninevah), Roman, and Hindu.

The elephant's head riding on a rat refers to Ganesha, a Hindu deity. Often called "the remover of obstacles," he is also the god of wisdom and prudence. He is frequently depicted riding on a rat. There are many interpretations of this image, a prominent one being that Ganesha is subduing the pesky, destructive rodent. Also, the animal Ganesha rides is sometimes a mouse, which links this image directly to "The Ballad of the Frog and the Mouse" that made its appearance in Richard and Francis's first encounter. (Pt 1, Ch I, Sec 3) The question here is, who is the Ganesha and who is the rat?

Ganesha on his Rat

With Lymond fading in and out of consciousness, Richard is determined that he not die because he is not finished with his brother. Richard tends Lymond with all the skills he has learned in the field among wounded and sick men. He does so with a purpose:
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.
Why? Why is Richard longing for Francis to know and acknowledge the nursing? Richard muses that Lymond needs two or three weeks of convalescence before he can travel, and this delights Richard. Why? Because Lymond is a man who prizes self-control and who cannot bear dependence on any living being. This forced period of dependency and incapacitation, Richard reckons, should be enough time to break Lymond's carefully constructed façade of self-control and self-sufficiency once and for all. Richard plans to strip him bare emotionally just as he is physically exposed, weak and vulnerable as a newborn--and completely at Richard's mercy. Richard plans to break Francis just as he had promised Mariotta earlier:
“I will bring him to you,” said Richard. “I will bring him to you on his knees, and weeping, and begging aloud to be killed.” (Pt 3, Ch II, Sec 1)
***
Lymond is alone, pondering in pain and under the brutality of a hot early summer sun whether he is experiencing brotherly love or raging madness. Two days of misery have passed with Richard doing what is necessary to keep him alive but little or nothing for his comfort. Richard has been fishing because, as he says sarcastically, he hasn't Lymond talent for killing birds, a none-too-subtle reference to the papingo shoot. Richard, of course, believes Francis shot him at that event.

Perhaps giving in to momentary compassion, Richard moves Lymond out of the sun and asks the interesting question about whether Patey Liddell has ever been whipped. Patey used Crawfordmuir gold to gild the shooting glove for Lymond, who left it at the papingo shoot, a red herring Richard followed to Perth. Richard will happily have Patey whipped, ostensibly for possession of illegal gold but in reality for adding the gold to Lymond's glove, which Richard views as a betrayal and a humiliation.

Richard admits he did not connect the Crawfordmuir gold and Patey at first, but guesses that their mother did. Lymond confirms that. We already knew Sybilla was helping Lymond, but this is the first time Richard has his suspicions confirmed. 

Note that Richard displays some of that Crawford wit himself, just as he did when he saved Agnes Herries in the river:
[Lymond] “How dull of some of you. What a delicious smell. You nurse; you cook. Do you sew?”
[Richard] “I reap..."
The brothers' banter continues with Lymond asking how long Richard was in prison when he refused to obey the Queen Dowager's orders to go to Edinburgh to buck up Arran and she has him briefly imprisoned. (Pt 3, Ch III, Sec 1) Richard's retort is vicious, referring to Lymond's hands scarred at the oars:
Richard rubbed the palm of his hand on his seat, and then held it up, square, clean and unmarked, for Lymond to see. “I was lucky. No one could tell, could they?”
Running down a litany of Richard's failures, Lymond hits his brother hard. Perhaps the toughest blow concerns the fighting at Durisdeer in February when Harry Wharton burned the town to the ground and slaughtered many of its residents. The Scots drove the English back and technically won the battle, but Lymond is telling Richard that the victory was incomplete. The Scots could have and should have stopped "young Harry" Wharton sooner and thus possibly captured Harry's father Lord Wharton and Grey. Instead, it was Lymond and his men who caught Harry Wharton and "shaved and cropped him with his own knife" while both Wharton and Grey escaped to fight another day, which they did and will again.

Richard's excuse for letting the English go is facetious but designed to make the point that he believes Lymond relied upon the enemy for his funding. Lymond is only half joking when he says he relied instead on "force of character," the other lure being money but not as an English agent or spy.

When Richard dangles the "what next" question before Francis, it is Lymond's turn to bite. Lymond's reaction is concern not for himself but for Sybilla, Richard, Mariotta, and any children that might follow. Lymond lays out the case for Richard killing him and avoiding the sensation of a trial:
“The scandal of five years ago will be nothing compared to what they’ll raise in open court. You know damned well I’ll be found guilty: nobody has any illusions about that. But you’ve got the rest of your life to live, and what’s more important, so has Mother and so has your wife. Do you want your sons to have that sort of nauseating exhibition cast up to them?”
The "scandal of five years ago" got Lymond branded traitor when he supposedly turned coat after the battle of Solway Moss where he was taken prisoner by the English. He came back to Scotland less than a year ago in August 1547.

Richard is not buying what Lymond is selling, but Francis refuses to relent. He gives Richard an eloquent tongue lashing for his foolish, single-minded pursuit of him, even though he admits that at first he understood why Richard would feel the need to capture and kill him: "I was labelled cur, and in the end I had to bark. Not entirely your fault." But Richard developed a maniacal obsession that led him astray and away from his duty to his family, his friends, and his country. None of what Lymond says moves Richard, who keeps pushes the fish he has cooked at Lymond.

It is necessary to discuss the fish symbolism given that fish or fishing is mentioned nine times in two pages. The obvious symbolism is Christian: Christ is the "fisher of men" and the ichthys is a Christian symbol. But the fish has older symbolic meaning. Fish is a sacred or forbidden food in some near-eastern religions and Orpheus is the "fisher god." This potential connection with Lymond is especially interesting. Orpheus was the musician and poet who was able to charm even the stones with his music: "with his songs, Orpheus, the bard of Thrace, allured the trees, the savage animals, and even the insensate rocks, to follow him." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11) This sounds a great deal like Lymond, who is able to enthrall and manipulate people with his voice.

"Lymond would not break." Try as he might, Richard has not succeeded in bringing his brother to his knees and instead finds himself at a dangerous breaking point, "his hands murderers at his sides." Richard controls his desire to kill Lymond because he has figured out that this is what his brother is trying to drive him to do. Then Richard makes a mistake. He hears a horse in the distance and leaves off cleaning a rabbit to silence his horse. When he comes back, he finds Lymond has taken his knife. This is the first time Lymond has risen from his makeshift bed and his exhaustion shows. Richard knows exactly what Francis has done, but Richard remarks on Lymond's "mental agility" instead:
“This peculiar mental agility of yours has been no friend to you, has it? Without it, you might have survived, harmless, in a lukewarm limbo of drink and drugs and insipid women—”
This is a fascinating insight into Richard's opinion of Francis: dissolute, lecherous, and indifferent except that his slashing tongue and keen intellect keep intervening to get him in trouble. Taking full advantage of Lymond's weakness, Richard sharpens his attack, running down a list of things Lymond must miss from his outlaw life: money, authority, adulation, "the vicarious thrill of defying nations," fame, and "the love of young boys." Is this last an implication that Lymond is homosexual? Unlikely; Richard is probably referring to the fact that Lymond took Will Scott under his tutelage, twisting and manipulating him into his acolyte. This interpretation is borne out by the next phrase: "And your women."

Finally, the first fissure appears: the mention of Christian is the catalyst that initiates the process of breaking Lymond. At last, Richard has figured out what will get to Francis, and he uses this knowledge mercilessly: the people who died because of Lymond. Christian, Turkey Mat, and, worst of all, Eloise, their younger sister.

It seems odd that it took Richard six days to figure out how to destroy Lymond's self-control by taunting him with those whose deaths Francis feels responsible for. Why didn't Richard use this approach sooner? I believe it is because Richard waited until Francis had recovered to an extent where he could engage in a prolonged discussion and react to the jibes. Until this point, Lymond has simply been too ill to give Richard the reaction he is seeking.

Now comes one of the most puzzling and oft-discussed passages in The Game of Kings or any of the books in the series, in fact.
“The only daughter, and the finest child. The most vivid, the most eager, the most intelligent. By now, cherished by her own lover, with her own children in her arms. Once, late at night when you were away, she told me …”
What did Eloise tell Richard? I am sorry to tell you, dear reader, that this question is not answered in this book or, not explicitly, in any other. There are many, many clues to the mystery of what Eloise told Richard, and there is a discussion of this with Dorothy Dunnett herself that explains what Eloise said. However, Dunnett expects a great deal from her readers, so I strongly recommend you to keep reading and decide for yourself by the end of The Lymond Chronicles what Eloise said that so upset Lymond. I do believe the answer becomes clear by the end of the series. I would definitely not read any commentary of this subject because it will spoil a major story line.

What matters now is that Lymond blames himself for Eloise's death. So does Richard, claiming Francis wanted Eloise "burned alive." A change comes over Lymond, one so shocking even Richard is astonished as he is "swept into a ... foreign dimension." Never again would Lymond's pretenses, his mockery, his playacting, his many masks hide his true face from Richard. We hear Lymond speak without art or artifice, a rare event.
Why? I made one mistake. Who doesn’t?"
Why can't anyone trust him? Why must he be haunted and hunted for one mistake when others make many more and do not suffer as he has? Why does no one show him a shred of charity? Especially Richard, with whom he shares not only the experience of growing up together but also their bond of blood.

Richard is unmoved and unpersuaded.
“Do you think my life,” said Richard violently, “is a matter for your tarnished and paltry conscience?”
There was a silence. Then the Master said at last, “Why else should I say what I have done?”
This is an extremely important moment, but it is one that escapes Richard, as many things do. For all his virtues, Richard is, to put it bluntly, a bit dense. Lymond for once is telling him the unvarnished truth.

Richard does not buy this explanation. He thinks Lymond is simply a whining, sniveling coward afraid of the noose. But not, apparently, afraid of death, because at this moment Lymond attempts to take his own life. Richard will not permit such a clean end. Their struggle is titanic. Richard must be shocked that one who has been so ill could still retain so much physical strength and grim determination. But Richard is also determined, determined that the hangman will not be cheated. Then something unexpected happens:
...an astonishing light broke on Richard.
Blue eyes met grey, and Richard read in them a power and a determination that he suddenly knew were unassailable. Anger left him.
Could this be the beginning of a change in Richard's attitude towards his brother?

Regardless, Richard has to stop Lymond from harming either of them the only way he knows how. He uses all his considerable strength to attack Lymond where he is wounded, causing what must be indescribable agony.

Richard is not willing to let his brother take his own life even though Lymond eloquently and passionately begs to exercise the right of self-execution. Richard at last has what he told Mariotta he wanted: Lymond on his knees weeping and begging to be killed. Turning away, Richard simply walks off to find his mare. When, some time later, he returns "the clearing was empty. It was no longer a sanctuary, he knew, but the antechamber to a solitary, a desperately wanted death." Lymond is gone.

In contrast to Lymond's raw, explicit thoughts and emotions, we do not know how Richard feels or what he is thinking now that he has achieved his goal of breaking his brother.

***
July 7, 1548

In a few paragraphs Dunnett gives us a remarkable precis of the historical events of this summer of 1548 when the Scots with their French allies faced off against the English and their Spanish, German, and Italian mercenaries. The historic nature of most moments is as invisible to those in its midst as air is to us or water is to fish--it is just there, everywhere and nowhere. The participants are all wrapped up tight in their own miseries and worries and frustrations. Then, something happens that changes everything:
Villegagne quietly left Court, and one evening four galleys of the French fleet slipped anchor at dusk and moved with ductile grace out of the Firth of Forth.

Nicolas Durand, Sieur de Villegagnon [Villegagne], is one of the most intriguing men who ever lived. In addition to leading the daring voyage that spirited the Scottish Queen to France under the noses of the English, he was a member of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, who play a central part in The Disorderly Knights, the third book in The Lymond Chronicles. After fighting on behalf of the Knights and Scotland, he led an expedition to the coast of Brazil to help the Huguenots, who were fleeing persecution in Catholic France, establish a colony in the New World. An island there still bears his name.

But the ships the English were watching and waiting for never came. Why? Because, in a plan equally daring and foolhardy, they sailed not south but north "over the roof of Scotland" to Dumbarton on the west coast where little Queen Mary embarked for France to be raised in the French court as the future queen of both nations should her eventual marriage to the Dauphin of France come to pass. In Haddington for this historic parliament are both Tom Erskine and Will Scott. Will has news for Tom. Buccleuch is planning to go look for Richard and Francis, something Tom would advise against because this is a Crawford family matter best left to them alone.


The Scottish parliament met about a mile outside the besieged town in Haddington Abbey. The town itself was largely under English control since Grey had captured and garrisoned Haddington in February.


***
Early-Mid-July

Richard wakes during a wind storm to discover rational thought, facts, humdrum responsibilities, and a powerful urge to go home have crept back into his conscious mind. After all, what is keeping him from leaving? He has achieved what he set out to do:
The graceless, the dissolute, the debauched, the insolent, the exquisite Lymond was obliterated. As he intended, he had broken his brother. He had, indeed, been more merciful than he had intended.
Intermingled with the resurgence of practical concerns and a yearning to return home, despite what Richard knows will be a painful reunion, is something else: a "stiff-jointed thing at the back of his mind was flexing its subconscious limbs and shaking its aged neck and rearing nearer and nearer his waking mind." It becomes an "obsessive compulsion."

Richard must find his brother.

***
And find him he does. Lymond is again close to death and not at all interested in being rescued or redeemed. But Richard is nothing if not stubborn and determined once he makes his mind up to do something. He has decided Lymond is going to live. Richard does the one thing he can to reach Francis. He talks. He talks and talks and talks about their home and childhood, all the mundane bits and pieces of growing up together that over time form the tapestry of memory. 

As he talks, Richard is amazed to discover things he never realized, especially about his father. It occurs to Richard that Lymond was mimicking the second Baron on the road near Annan (Pt 1, Ch I, Sec 3) when he so crudely and cruelly mocked Richard. Moreover, Richard is forced to consider for the first time the real reasons for Francis's refusal to conform to their father's wishes and perversely challenge him at every turn, inviting his wrath and scorn. Did Lymond "go his own way uncaring, and allow Richard his arena"? Or was it something more? Was this Lymond's (and Sybilla's) plan all along, knowing Richard, however gifted an athlete, could never compete with the brilliant second son Lymond who excelled at so much more?

Richard starts to perceive the flickers of comprehension in Lymond's eyes, so he keeps taking like a "mechanical corncrake" until finally Lymond speaks. Francis still wants to die rather than face trial in Edinburgh. In what must have been a total shock to Lymond as it is to many of us readers, Richard has made an about-face. He now wants to "renovate" his brother just enough to get him in the saddle, take him to Leith, and usher him out of Scotland. 

Richard's decision is uncharacteristic of him. Normally a deliberate, careful thinker, Richard's desire to set Lymond free is "a momentous decision [made] purely on impulse" just as his decision two days earlier to find Lymond and save his life was equally impetuous.

The days pass and the brothers spend this time of Lymond "renovation" talking not about the recent, excruciating past but about impersonal issues about which Lymond makes "shrewd observation over the battlefields and spyholds of half Europe." Richard is surprised and impressed by his baby brother. Finally, in a moment of exasperation, Richard says,
"If only you’d come to us after you left Lennox, instead of …" Instead of foundering in self-pity. He could hardly say that.
Once again, Richard is in for a shock. Francis did return to his family four years ago and was promptly shown the door by the Baron, who "tried to enforce the suggestion with a whip," hardly something Lymond would suffer lightly. No one else knew, except perhaps Sybilla, who has been in on Lymond's schemes from the beginning.

And now, what we have all been waiting for: Lymond begins to explain himself at last. His overall strategy since returning to Scotland was to make sure everyone believed that Richard hated his brother and wanted him if not killed then at least captured. This was the only way Lymond could protect Richard from being tainted or even ruined by his ties to him. Lymond is, after all, accused of treason, and everything he has been doing has been to disassociate himself from Richard and ensure everyone knows Richard is a loyal Scot. In order to protect Richard, Francis has to make Richard hate him. To accomplish this schism, Lymond plotted a series of events to ensure Richard's fury would be stoked.
  • The fire at Midculter (using green wood to ensure lots of smoke and little fire).
  • The "theft" of the silver (to which Sybilla was party).
  • The wounding of Janet Beaton to save her from a possibly fatal attack by one of Lymond's overly enthusiastic men.
The problem was that Lymond really was drunk that day at Midculter. He was not playacting:
"I had to drink the whole bloody night through to get enough courage to visit the castle at all."
And his drunkenness led to some unfortunate unplanned results, including the injury to Janet and the "lunatic blunder" with Mariotta. Richard is at last seeing Lymond as he really is, and he knows that Lymond's actions at Hexham were heroic and self-sacrificing. Francis does not want to discuss Hexham, but Richard finally understands his brother's true motives. As they spend more time together and Richard gets to know the adult Francis he has never before encountered, interesting and random thoughts occur to him:
...once, out of an obscure train of thought, said, “Francis. Did you ever tell Will Scott how old you actually are?” 
Lymond looked blank. “No. Should I?” and Richard grinned.
“Probably not. You appear to be immeasurable in his view, like God and the Devil.”
This is an irresistible hint about Lymond's age, one that will not be satisfied until the fourth book in the series, Pawn in Frankincense. Dunnett keeps us guessing and wondering, and Francis's age is alluded to again before it is revealed. What is important right now is Richard's insight: Lymond is ageless and "immeasurable...like God and the Devil."

Francis offers his brother a way out of his promise to nurse him to health and get him out of the country, but as Richard says with wit, "You think I’ll discard in the perpendicular what I favour in the prone?" Next day, Lymond takes matters into his own hands when he tries riding Bryony knowing that taking off unannounced will inflame Richard, which it does. Lymond is testing both himself and his brother with this little stunt. Richard admits his emotions towards Francis are still "in a muddle," but his promise is still good.

Before they depart for Scotland, Lymond again mentions Mariotta and assures Richard what he has already told him about his wife is true. Lymond reintroduces the topic of their sister Eloise and offers to discuss her, but Richard will have none of that. That's unfortunate for us! Just as we think we might finally learn what happened with Eloise, Richard says, "nope. Don't want to go there."

***
July 15

Kate and Gideon are present at a dinner at Lord Grey's house in Berwick where the plans for fortifying and manning Haddington are laid using salt cellars and ale jugs. Kate comments on the linguistic difficulties the English face trying to lead armies from Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Moreover, once Grey brings up the "nasty business" of Christian's fall and subsequent death at Flaw Valleys, Kate cannot resist pursuing Lymond's fate. She knows he killed Acheson at Hexham but apparently does not know until now that Lymond escaped.

We first encountered Thomas Palmer, Grey's Scottish engineer and cousin of Samuel Harvey's, in Concerted Attack (Pt. 3, Ch. IV, Sec. 1) while Gideon was in London. On that occasion Palmer was instrumental in Margaret Douglas's discovery of Lymond's role in humiliating Grey at Hume and as leader of the band to which Will Scott belonged. Palmer also speaks of "Ned Dudley"; he was the English captain of the guard at Hume castle during the humiliating events involving Will and Lymond.

Later, Gideon and Kate share a few private moments on the castle ramparts, and we have a view into Kate's dear sweet soul:
"I want to put right the world’s sorrows in a night, and it might take a night and a day."
***
July 16, 1548

The French and Scottish rout of the English and Spanish outside Haddington comprises this short section. Grey badly miscalculated, thinking the enemy were withdrawing from the siege of Haddington. Instead, Palmer and John Ellekar, commander of the 400 horse, are assaulted first by French cavalry and then cut off by French foot. The French kill or capture at least 800 English and Spanish soldiers leaving "a Haddington not only lacking the new forces intended for it, but disastrously bled of Ellerkar, Gamboa and the horsemen who had issued to help."

***
During the frenetic retreat, Palmer is captured by the Scots, led by Wat Scott, who sends Palmer along to Edinburgh with some of his men while he continues south, presumably looking for Richard, whom he finds. The encounter between Buccleuch and Culter is tense and wary. Wat may bluster and bray, but he is a cagey old soul who quickly takes the measure of the situation. He figures out that Richard is traveling with his brother and is not going to turn him over without a fight: "Wat’s experienced eye read the tilt of his [Richard's] right arm with accuracy." Richard has his hand on his sword.

Wat is going to let Richard (and Lymond) pass until the Cockburns arrive, whooping and hollering. They assume Richard has captured his brother and is taking him to Edinburgh for trial. Lymond sees what is happening and makes a half-hearted attempt at escape to keep up appearances for Richard's sake. Wat does not betray Richard to the Cockburns and even tries to help him get away with Lymond.

Sadly, the section ends with a terrible irony: "Richard, after all, escorted his young brother to Edinburgh," but very much against his will and desire. How things between the brothers have changed. In breaking Lymond, Richard broke himself, broke his own anger and hatred and envy and resentment all to pieces.

2. One Loss Is Made Good

Mid-July 1548

It has been "three newsless weeks since Tom Erskine's return from Hexham" and Mariotta's nerves are fraying. Sybilla, on the other hand, at least appears sanguine enough to burst into song and flushed with excitement over Johnnie Bullo's midnight experiment to turn lead into gold. Janet is interested, Mariotta is distracted, and Agnes, once awake, is nervous.

At the behest of Sybilla, Johnnie Bullo has been working on his alchemical experiments at Midculter since they reached an agreement for him to set up his laboratory in late November of last year. (Pt 2, Ch II, Sec 1) 

Bullo's laboratory is a rat's nest of equipment and potions and scrawlings and tools and dirty dishes, all adding to the unfamiliar and strange atmosphere. Johnnie puts on quite the show for the ladies, complete with incantations, a glowing furnace, and smoke--lots and lots of smoke. The smoke is essential to his deception, allowing Bullo's slight of hand in switching the jars to hide the lead bar and replace it with the gold-plated one. Sybilla, of course, knows this is an act, and she will have none of it. In fact, Sybilla went along with the charade as a way of exposing Bullo as a charlatan and, in essence, blackmailing him into doing her bidding. She has half her men with their pikestaffs waiting outside should Johnnie try a quick exit. Bullo is philosophic about the situation:
“Have I made an error? I was under the impression you were buying my services.”
The blue eyes were equally seraphic. “Your services proved a little expensive.”
He shrugged a little. “I did all I could be expected to do, barring manufacture fresh time."
Johnnie and Sybilla's efforts to help Lymond have not worked out quite as planned. He is still no closer to redeeming himself. Sybilla, no fool, knew all along that the alchemy was fraudulent; she only went along with and funded Bullo's experiments as a way to stay in contact with the Gypsy King, and now to force him to do something else for her.

It is time for a new approach, and Johnnie somehow figures into that plan.

***
The last time Richard Crawford was at Midculter was March. "For five months he had carried a sleepless sword and husbanded other, corrupt intentions." Now he is headed home in the dark. Lost in thought and worries about how things will turn out, Richard is careless. Three men overtake and unhorse him. Suddenly, another man arrives and the three attackers slip away without a word. Johnnie Bullo explains to Richard these men were not acting on his orders.

Richard overhears his attackers speaking Romany, which in turn reminds Richard of the three arrows from the papingo shoot (Pt 1, Ch VII, Sec 2): "Vivid in his mind was the firelit room at Stirling, and the stained arrows on the table." This was his first encounter with Bullo and his gypsies and was also another close encounter with death. Richard is only mildly surprised to learn from Johnnie that he is at the mercy of Sybilla, not Lymond, whom Bullo calls "the shrewdest" of the Crawfords. What is Sybilla up to? Richard is off to Midculter as fast as Bryony can carry him to find out.

***
Home at last, Richard hesitates on how best to approach Mariotta. "He had removed all traces of his adventure: he had no idea of posing as a brave but battered warrior. Was it equally unfair to take her unaware like this?" If it is, Richard decides it nonetheless must be done and done now. Mariotta immediately perceives the changes in Richard, both in appearance and in demeanor. Possibly still under the influence of the night's unsettling sorcery, Mariotta looks into Richard's eyes wondering if she will see "the devil" there, but all she sees is herself, "sanely, twice over."

The difficult thing Richard had come to discuss quickly enters the conversation. Mariotta is unhappy that Richard would not believe her assertions of innocence but does believe someone else's. Richard is not off to a good start. Mariotta confronts Richard with a terrible choice: either she is lying about what happened when Francis took her to Crawfordmuir or Lymond is. Which is it?
Richard said steadily, “You had no right to ask me that question, and no right to expect me to make that choice.”
“I knew you wouldn’t make it,” she said. “I knew if you had made it, even in your own mind, that Lymond would be dead. I was only—”
“— Frightening me for the good of my soul,” said Richard,
Mariotta is ferreting out the truth using harsh words and brutal tactics. She wants to find out if Richard really does believe her and Lymond's claims that there was never anything between them. She has her answer: he does, because if Richard believed that she and Francis had betrayed him, Richard would have already killed his brother.

Richard makes an essential admission to Mariotta: he has made his fair share of mistakes. But...
“A mistake is something you build on: it’s the irritant that makes the pearl; the flaw that creates the geyser—but a mistake made twice is a folly..."
Just as earlier Lymond admitted he made "one mistake" that set him on this ruthless, unforgiving path in life, Richard is finally able to acknowledge his own mistakes. And, just as Richard reached some level of understanding and forgiveness of Lymond, so does Mariotta forgive Richard.
[Mariotta] “My dear fool, why am I fighting you and denying you and hurting you except that I am so afraid of you, and of myself; because I love you far too well for peace and gentle harmonies.…
The last stumbling block is removed and the couple can go forward in truth and love. Richard and Mariotta probably have the first real conversation of their marriage, and it leads to forgiveness, deeper understanding, commitment, and acknowledgement of their love for each other.

***
In the final brief but enticing scene between Richard and Sybilla, she immediately knows two things: that Mariotta and Richard have made up and that Richard did not kill Francis ("you wouldn't have kissed me, would you?"). But she does not know until now that Lymond is imprisoned and about to stand trial in Edinburgh. Despite what must be a terrible fear for Lymond's life, Sybilla is pleased to learn that Richard has come round and actually tried to help his brother escape:
She drew a finger down his cheek and said, “That was remarkably well done, no matter what came of it. You won’t regret it, either."
Sybilla will not go see Francis in prison in part because it would "only weaken him" and in part because she has places to go and people to see, people who apparently will be none too pleased to see her.  Like Lymond, Sybilla remains an insoluble mystery to Richard.

Questions
  1. Given the events in Hexham Abbey, were you surprised that Tom Erskine was so willing to leave Lymond to die in the dovecote? 
  2. Why did Richard decide not to kill Lymond when he had both the opportunity and the motive to do so?
  3. What was the "one mistake" Lymond says he made?
  4. Who sent the jewels to Mariotta?
  5. Right before Lymond passes out, he says to Richard, “God, I forgot. You don’t like glovers.” Why do you think Lymond alludes to the episode with the gilded glove from the papingo shoot that led Richard on a merry chase at Christmas?
  6. When Richard finally has what he said he wants--Lymond on his knees weeping and begging to die--does Richard savor the moment? How does he feel after breaking Lymond?
  7. Why does Richard change his mind and decide to spirit Lymond out of Scotland rather than take him to Edinburgh to stand trial? 
  8. What does Richard's question to Francis about his age imply?
  9. Why does Dunnett include Kate and Gideon in the scene with Grey and Palmer? Their presence is not necessary to the plot, so there must be another reason they are in the scene.
  10. Why does Buccleuch change his mind and try to help Richard and Lymond get away?
  11. Why does Sybilla believe she now needs to expose Johnnie Bullo as a fraud and blackmail him to help her when before she was simply paying him? 
Favorite Line
You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled.
Words that Describe Lymond in Strange Refuge
  • suicidal
  • hopeless
  • angry
  • despairing
  • exhausted
  • frustrated
  • guilty
  • honest
  • direct
  • afraid
  • determined
  • weak
  • defeated
  • desolate
  • manipulative (still)

Part Four. The End Game. Chapter II. The Ultimate Check 3. The Last Move

Saturday, June 23

We witness a shift in mood and tone as marked as any imaginable when Lymond, brimming with his usual wit and an unusual vivacity arrives back at Flaw Valleys. Lymond compares himself to a persistent cat (we know he is feline in appearance and grace) when he throws out a line from a fable, the moral of which is expressed in these two lines:
Let the door be shut in his face,
He'll come back through the windows.

This is an exact quote from a Jean de la Fontaine fable, The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman (Recueil 1, Livre 2, Fable 18). Fontaine lived in the 17th century, but his fables were mostly drawn from classics, including those of Aesop, Phaedrus, and the Indian fabulist Bidpai (Pilpay). This particular fable has mixed origins, as do most fables.

But Lymond also refers to himself as porcine when he says he is "adhesive as St. Anthony's pig," referring both to the faithful pig that never left the saint's side and also to the expression “to come back more times than Saint Anthony's pig,” which derives from the tradition of saving one pig per litter, ensuring that the pig shows up at church every year to be blessed. Again, the implication is that Lymond is a "bad penny" that keeps turning up.
St. Anthony's Pig from
Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Lhor, Moselle, France
Lymond's "ebullience" makes the situation with Christian that much more terrible:
It was worse than Somerville expected: it was frankly damnable. ...
As he expected, Lymond took the news undemonstratively, in answer to his training; however much the flesh might shrink and melt, the sarcophagus was decently void of temperament.
"The sarcophagus": the stone coffin in which Lymond has ensconced himself through years of harsh experience and training. How tragic!

What follows is some of Dunnett's most powerful, emotionally charged writing in all her novels. Few eyes remain dry during and after reading the deathbed scene.

As in the previous section, Dunnett contrasts the beauty and serenity of the environs with the ugly tragedy of Christian dying:
The music room was filled with sunlight and the smells of warmed wood and fruity earth from Kate’s pot plants. They passed the lute and rebec and the fiddle and harpsichord sealed in silent jubilee...
Kate again impresses not only with her compassion but also with her ability to quash her natural reactions and curiosity "with a prompt if temporary thumb."  She shows us again her affinity with Lymond.

The exchange between Lymond and Christian is perfect, and it seems almost a sacrilege to comment on it, but I will hazard a few thoughts.

Dunnett shows us the similarities at the core of Kate and Christian when she writes that Kate takes "quiet and efficient note of [Christian's] quiet and efficient messages." Lymond continues this "quiet and efficient" manner when he slips in so softly that Kate does not hear him. And he "efficiently" answers Christian's one regret that she is dying without anyone of her own: “Don’t be so superior. Someone of your own is here."

Lymond's kind but subtle words evoke Christian's tears, and she replies:
“It’s witchcraft. You are about to babble like magpies and herring gulls.”

The chattering of magpies were ill omens to the Scots, as recorded in Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, p. 214, and Discovery of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot. And in Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, there is a section on Witches as Gulls (p. 42-43). All these books are freely available through Archive.org.

The Magpie
Lymond cannot help himself. He has to assure Christian and himself that she understood what happened at Threave and how deeply and desperately he now wishes he had never involved her in his efforts to find Samuel Harvey. Christian makes it clear to Lymond she fully understood why he spoke to her as he did at Threave (to protect her reputation and possibly her life and liberty). Lymond is in full self-flagellation mode, saying he has been a "joyless jeweller up to the last, exquisite drop from the crucible." The phrase "joyless jeweller" comes from a medieval English poem, Pearl. It expresses the deep despair of a man who lives while the one he loves resides "glad and bright/In Paradise, of strife unstrained...."

But Christian will have none of his remorse, saying she regrets nothing, except, perhaps:
I mourned a little because nobody would ever point to a page of history and say, ‘The stream turned there to the right, or to the left, because of Christian Stewart.’ You could make that come true for me, if you think you owe me anything. And you could promise me not to retreat to a wine barrel and reduce what we’ve both done to a few artificial bubbles of regrets and self-blame. 
Christian understands the threat to Lymond after she dies, the self-recrimination that might well lead him to the bottom of the wine barrel, or worse. He frightens her with his quotation from Dante's Inferno (Canto II, lines 91-93), in which Beatrice explains why she is unafraid of entering Hell to speak with Virgil: the fires of Hell do not touch her. Christian's strong, negative reaction must indicate she thinks Lymond means he is unafraid of the fires of hell and damnation (remember, he is excommunicated) and possibly implies he might take his own worthless life. This interpretation is supported by the next exchange in which Lymond retracts his statement and, despite not understanding why Christian thinks his life is worthwhile, he does not have the "puny effrontery" to throw away all the two of them have worked so hard to achieve, sadly at the cost of Christian's life.

Christian has already referred to Lymond's fortune telling in the tent (Pt 1, Ch VII, Sec 2) when she says, "You prophesied yourself that I should have all I wanted from life, did you not?" What a sad irony that Lymond's prophesy of Christian's future should end this way, in enemy territory on Kate Somerville's bed with only a stranger and a wanted man for her final comfort.

 Lymond and Christian's sad, sweet final conversation veers to other shared secrets: Lymond's "brilliant pose of anonymity" and the fact Christian knew all along who he was; the open coded letters to Agnes Herries, which Tom burned for Christian. 

"Glossa interlinearis" is explanatory annotation of text written between the lines. If Agnes had been older, more literate, and more experienced, Lymond's message inside the message would not have worked. 

Finally, as Christian begins to fail, she tells Lymond of her last secret, her crowning success--Samuel Harvey's signed and witnessed confession. Lymond leaves Christian's side just long enough for Gideon to show him the papers, which Lymond brings to Christian. He praises her ability to extract such a confession, amazed she could do so short of torture. Christian, dying, craves reassurance this is all Lymond had hoped for. And then the hammer falls on us: the pages are all blank.
Then Lymond picked up Christian’s hand and carried it to his lips, holding it afterward folded in both his own. “More than I ever dreamed of,” he said— and like the serpent she had once called him, snarled voicelessly into Kate’s eyes as she looked up, horror-struck, from what the girl’s lifted hand had left revealed. 
With nothing more than the look on his face, Lymond threatens Kate to keep silent. He will not let Christian die knowing she utterly failed to give him all that he had hoped for, more than he ever dreamed of. 

Now we know why Margaret Douglas uttered that "curious sound, so close to a laugh" in the last section when she opened Christian's saddlebags: she saw the pages were all blank. 

Christian is soothed by Kate's presence, and Kate, always compassionate, stays quietly by her side while Lymond goes to play for Christian. Christian refers to the song Lymond never finished for her back at Boghall, the song about "the unfortunate frog." This occurred in Blindfold Play (Pt 1, Ch 2), and was the song that opened the floodgates of Lymond's memory during his bout of amnesia. The two have come full circle. Now it is Christian who is injured and needs Lymond's music to help her.

But he does not choose a silly child's song. Rather, Lymond sings a chanson with lyrics by Clément Marot. The essence of the words is this: while you live, I will never leave you; when you are dead, I will never forget you. It must have been a performance of incomparable grace and power and beauty, because Kate, a woman of strength and will, "shrank beneath the onslaught of its message: the fury of hope and joy that towered in the notes, outburning the sunlight and outpouring the volumes of the sea." The song is Lymond's final gift to Christian and the vivid expression of his grief that such a life should end on a sorry note of deception. Someone switched the confession with blank pages.

Christian's death in the midst of this glorious cataract of sound was as she wished it: "purposeful and successful; the last struggle unseen by anyone but Kate, and laying no bridle on the living." Lymond, for his part, "had promised Christian music for her minion and outrider, and he kept his promise." Christian's "minion and outrider" were her servant and escort into the land of "milk and honey," into Paradise.

When Lymond tells Christian she shall have "music to sound in a high tower," he is quoting a description of paradise from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which goes on to say that the rivers of Paradise "run milk and honey."

Lymond's very bad day is about to get worse. Richard, Tom, and the Erskine men approach: "like Ulysses perhaps their ears were tingling with the music of the sirens." Kate does not know who these men are, but she is "infinitely more afraid of the immobile man at the keyboard." He says nothing when she tries to offer comfort until he breaks once again into song. This time it is the "unfortunate frog" song that we know from Capture of a King's Pawn (Pt 1, Ch I, Sec 3) is closely associated with Francis and his brother. At that time, Lymond and Richard were in a potentially deadly confrontation, while Tom's men were on their way to assist Culter. Yet again, we are come full circle, but this time the "frog" seems to be in trouble and the "duck" is about to take his revenge, just as happens in the penultimate verse of the song:
Then came in Dicke our Drake,
humble dum, humble dum,
And drew the frogge euen to the lake,
tweedle, tweedle twino.
Richard's dramatic entry into the music room starkly contrasts with Lymond's earlier appearance at Christian's side. Lymond's entrance was so quiet and gentle even Kate did not realize he was there until he spoke. By contrast, Richard enters, smashing the door like an avenging god, "a primitive figure, of pantheistic and dreadful force." Where Lymond was almost incapacitated by grief and guilt, Richard is exultant and thrilled to have cornered his quarry at last. 

Dunnett has slowly, oh so slowly, revealed Lymond's true nature to us, but always we saw the kind, compassionate, gentle, caring man behind the brutal, callous, crude façade whenever he was with Christian (or the little Queen). His concern for Christian and his reaction to her fatal injury show us a man who is quite capable of at least one kind of love: agape. Agape is selfless love, the love in 1 Corinthians 13:13: "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love [agape]," translated as "charity" in the King James version on the New Testament. In spite of Lymond's best efforts to mask his true self, Kate Somerville, a shrewd observer of human nature, is no longer fooled.

Fighting every human impulse to cry out, Kate remains still and silent, seeking to infuse Lymond with her calmness. She succeeds. All Lymond wants to do at this moment is tell Tom about the tragedy of Christian's death and then get out of the Somerville home and leave the family--and Christian--in peace. Richard, in the throes of a delirious passion about to be fulfilled, will have none of it. He behaves atrociously, mocking the redoubtable Kate as Lymond's lover and her own bedroom as their love nest. He goes so far as to smack Kate so hard with the flat of his hand as to knock her to the floor and bruise her cheek (it is the first time Richard has ever hit a woman). Neither Lymond nor Kate succeed in stopping Richard from throwing back the bed curtains to reveal Christian's corpse.
Over their tawdrinesses grieved the benign detachment of death.
This is how poor Tom Erskine learns of his fiance's death. Richard, naturally, jumps to the conclusion that Lymond has killed his lover Christian and therefore must die here and now:
“I’d neither foul a cage by capturing you nor offend justice by taking you to Court. Covet the sunshine: you are dying.”
Kate and the now-present Gideon try desperately to convince Richard of Lymond's innocence in Christian's death, but Richard simply recites the list of his brother's damning behavior towards Christian. Lymond, keeping his cool in an almost superhuman fashion, says he will go quietly to Edinburgh to stand trial, pointing out that Richard could find himself in legal jeopardy if he kills him. Both Lymond and Gideon also argue that Wharton and Grey are nearby in Hexham, and should the English show up at Flaw Valleys, Richard, Tom, and the men with them do not have a chance.

Note that Lymond, even in the excruciating circumstance of Christian's death and a vicious verbal barrage from his brother is worried for Richard's safety and even his life should Richard execute him without trial.

Richard ignores everyone. He is planning a trial by combat. Lymond says he will not fight and even points out the psychological benefit to Richard of a trial: "Think how deliciously prolonged it would all be.” Richard again ignores him; he knows Lymond will fight.

In the meantime, Kate goes to Tom Erskine kneeling at Christian's bedside in silent grief.
Then he raised a face curiously blurred, as if the subcutaneous fat had melted and recongealed in his grief.
Kate tells Tom the whole story of Christian, Lymond, Samuel Harvey, the papers--and Margaret Douglas. At the end Tom wants to understand why she did it. The best Kate can offer is that Christian liked to help anyone, especially one perhaps undeservedly branded as a blackguard. Kate can only tell Tom what she saw and heard: nothing but respect and kindness, nothing untoward, nothing "of guilt or offence in anything they said. And more than that. It was you I was to tell of her regrets, and to you I was to give her love." Kate is impressed by Tom.

***
Dunnett gives us new insights into Gideon Somerville's character. Intelligent and deep, Gideon suffers from an affliction not uncommon among such types: indecision and self doubt (the "Hamlet syndrome"). He has stood by and watched shallow men of lesser intellect become leaders, men of action making decisions that affect others, such as himself, who feel helpless to chart their own destinies. He regrets this passivity most deeply on a day such as this.

But in this situation, Gideon reasons he must step aside and take no action other than to make sure his family are safe and out of the fray. He is if not content then he is at least resigned to let events unfold as they will, and he is relieved when Tom Erskine appears and takes charge.

Once again Tom warns Richard of the potentially dire consequences for him unless he has evidence against Lymond that their quarrel is something more than a private matter. Richard offers him the proof: Lymond is carrying papers that reveal the Scottish plans to spirit the little queen out of Scotland to France. In short, Lymond is once again a traitor. Of course, Lymond denies this and points a finger at Adam Acheson, George Douglas's courier, who the Scots found with only two letters from George, both concerning the fate of his sons, now in English custody. Acheson placed the mysterious third letter, which he had opened and read while Lymond slept, into Lymond's baggage to incriminate him. And it has.

Citing Lymond's right to hear all the charges against him, Erskine demands that Richard also list his private reasons for the trial by combat. They are terrible, even including the killing of Richard's son. None of this will spur Lymond to fight. Richard presses on, saying they must all assume Lymond is guilty of all these crimes, both public and private.
“You can assume,” said Lymond, stirred at last into straight speaking, “that I’m trying to prevent you from getting your bloody throat cut; that’s all.” [emphasis added]
Once again, Lymond is exclusively concerned with protecting Richard. However, Richard finally says something that spurs Lymond to fight: the accusations that he laid a finger on Christian or had anything to do with her death. Lymond will not fight to defend himself or his reputation. He only agrees to fight to defend Christian's honor and virtue.

Lymond's reference to a "tin-foil trial" sounds like an anachronism, but it is not. Tin is one of the most ancient metals; in fact, tin was mixed with copper to create the alloy bronze--hence, the Bronze Age. But tin itself is too soft to have many uses, and tin pounded into foil would be flimsy, just like this proposed trial.

Despite Lymond's promise, it was going to happen, and it was going to happen here at Flaw Valleys.

I must pause here and say a few words about the sword fight. It is widely acknowledged as one of the most magnificent pieces of writing ever and possibly the single best sword fight ever put to paper. I almost feel I am desecrating the scene by discussing it. I can add nothing to it. Read it and read it again. You will never read better and probably never read its equal.

A few more comments: Erskine has to threaten Richard to complete the necessary oaths. Richard claims he has no right hand, and Tom calmly says he has the power to make that literally true. This moment gives us profound insight into Tom Erskine. In fact, the whole chapter does. He is a resolute, strong, unflappable leader. It is no wonder he impresses Kate. Christian would never have agreed to marry a lesser man.

The oath requires Richard and Francis to touch their right hands while placing their left on the Bible. Richard refused to grasp his brother's hand: he "touched the proffered hand with the tips of his fingers, his left hand on the book between them so that their joined arms made the required cross, and his eyes were anarchists in the community of his hands." [emphasis added] Watch for the symbolism of the cross to recur.

Once again, Dunnett interjects the peaceful, quiet beauty of the day and the room into an otherwise violent, ugly scene:
[Erskine] paused, looking up at the brilliant windows and Kate’s bright chestnuts beyond. A goose, frowning, marched across the grass. Inside, the sun prinked and patterned the floor, aureoled the two white-shirted men, standing widely separated, and fell upon itself, reflected in the steel, with redoubled kisses.
 Both men are kissed by the sun as if it were their lover. Can writing be any better than this?

Lymond toys with Richard. He is not fighting, he is, once again, play acting. All through the first ten minutes, Lymond chatters, moving easily from one quotation and allusion to another. He insults Richard. He makes fun of him. He even provokes some in the audience to laughter. Lymond himself experiences one of his moments of barbarous hilarity:
Lymond said once, in a breathless voice curiously close to laughter, “He’s twice the size of common men, wi’ thewes and sinewes strong..."
Richard gradually realizes Francis is not fighting. He tests his theory by laying himself open to attack and, as Richard suspects, Lymond refuses to capitalize on this opportunity. At this moment, a new crisis occurs: Acheson has escaped. Lymond tries to convince everyone to let him lead them to Acheson, arguing that the courier knows the contents of the letter and is heading to Hexham to share them with Lord Grey. Acheson must be stopped. Only Lymond is familiar with the road to Hexham and the location of Grey in the town. Erskine sees the necessity of trusting Lymond, but Richard will have none of it. He does not believe Lymond would do anything except lead the Scots into an English trap, and he is still in a white-hot fever of revenge and hatred, threatening to kill any man who tries to interfere with the combat.

Richard knows he finally has the motivation to make Lymond fight: "The way to that door is through me." Lymond takes his brother's offer, displaying an air and a voice none of these men had ever experienced. Artist that she was, Dunnett describes the beginning of the genuine combat in artistic terms:
It was as if some flawed and clouded screen had slid from the air, leaving it thin and bright; informing the white figures and pale heads, fair and brown, with an engraver’s beauty of exact and flexible outline, and lending a weightlessness and authority to their art.
The beauty, always the beauty, in right there before our eyes even in the midst of loss and anger if we just look with clarity of vision and mind. The fight is thoroughly cinematic--the whole scene plays out before your mind's eye even if you know nothing of sword fighting. You can see the room--the tall windows and the window seats, the ropes delineating the arena, the failing light--and hear the held breath of the audience and the rasping breathing of the combatants. The sweat running down their faces, the skittering hose on the floor, the clash of metal on metal. All of it fairly leaps off the page and into the reader's imagination.

Lymond makes one near-fatal mistake when Richard is able to knock his dagger from his hand. But Lymond recovers and works his way purposely down the long room to his pack. Richard and the observers believe Lymond is exhausted (he is) and thus making a critical error (he is not).
Lymond stepped back into the trap. The cloth caught him; he stumbled, and Richard, with all the power of his shoulder, brought three feet of accurate death to cleave the fair, unsettled head. It fell on a crucifix of steel.
Here is the cross imagery again.

Lymond's maneuvering himself into the "trap" was part of a careful plan to disarm his brother, grab his baggage, throw it out the tall window, and escape. Masterful.

Two more things to notice. Lymond almost met his match in Richard: "perhaps for the first time in his life, Lymond also was stretched to the limit..." This tells us Lymond is a swordsman almost beyond measure because Richard is one of the best, possibly the best, in Scotland. Second, once again Lymond employs a child's rhyme in speaking to Richard after he disarms him: "Handy Dandy prickly prandy..." Lymond subconsciously appeals to Richard's memory of their childhood, presumably a far happier time.

A brief interlude in the music room between Gideon and Kate follows as the Scots exit Flaw Valleys leaving behind Lymond's unmarred rapier and victory. Gideon asks Kate how good an Englishwoman she and and she says, "not very." Neither Kate nor Gideon is going to lift a finger to help Grey against the Scots who have just left their home in shambles. There are diverse possible interpretations of the Somervilles' lack of, for want of a better term, patriotic fervor, including their innate desire to avoid embroiling themselves in politics and the fact they are both extremely impressed by Francis Crawford and Tom Erksine. Interestingly, Philippa is the one who pointed Richard and Tom towards the house where Lymond was attending the dying Christian. Philippa's rancor towards Lymond has, if anything, increased since his fateful inquisition of the child.

The scene shifts to the chase: Lymond chasing Acheson and the Scots chasing Lymond and Acheson. Dunnett masterfully evokes the hot, dry day: "grit-blasted socket of the sun, following the wisp of dust...a baked and unprinted crust of hills...The dust of whin and seeding grass, of baked earth and broken pollen attacked and burned them..."

During the grueling ride Tom observes something important about the Crawford brothers.
It struck him that today’s disastrous encounter between the two had done nothing so much as reveal how brilliantly alike the brothers were. It further struck him that if they did approach any closer to Lymond, his job was to prevent Osiris from being destroyed by brother Set.

Osiris as the Moon God
The fact that Erskine's mind runs to the story of Osiris and Set is fascinating. Osiris was king of Egypt. His younger brother Set was jealous of him and did not command the respect of those on earth or in the underworld. Set murdered Osiris and usurped the throne. Osiris' wife Isis rescued the pieces of Osiris' body and posthumously conceived a son (Horus) with him. Ultimately, Horus defeated Set, became king, and Osiris was resurrected. What I find interesting is that, on first glance, I assumed Lymond was Osiris and Richard Set, but I do not believe that to be the case. Osiris is the older, "the king" (the Baron, in this case) and Set the usurper. Tom's thought processes make sense: he knows Lymond has the ability to destroy Richard. Notice he does not say murder, but destroy. Richard's killing Lymond would destroy Richard and the entire Crawford family. Erskine knows he must keep the brothers apart for both their sakes as well as for the sake of Scotland. If you need any more convincing, consider this: Set was the god of chaos, disorder, and storms. Sounds a lot like Lymond, doesn't it?


Richard is at the end of his endurance and drops back, giving Tom a chance to ensure he goes alone to find Lymond and Acheson. Erskine realizes that Richard's rancor has not ebbed with his energy, and he would interfere with the primary--the only--mission: to stop Acheson from delivering the message about the Scots' plans to remove the queen to France. Richard's hatred has blinded him to the urgency of the mission, and he would readily commit fratricide should the opportunity arise. Lymond, it should be noted, passed on the chance to kill Richard.

Tom watches as Lymond desperately but unsuccessfully tries to catch up with Acheson. Once the failure is apparent, Tom leaves, ordering his men to wait two hours only and to keep Richard Crawford from following at all costs. The section ends with Tom's well-hewn sense of irony in his observation that the building in which his men are to sequester Richard is a dovecote. Doves are well-recognized symbols of peace, love, and the Holy Spirit.

***
Perhaps surprisingly, Acheson is unperturbed by Lymond's arrival. After all, Acheson has no "political reason" to mistrust him and is only irritated that Lymond delayed his arrival in Hexham. In fact, it is remarkably convenient that Lymond has reappeared to be delivered to the English. Has Lymond found the opened dispatch Acheson hid in his baggage? Probably not since, to Acheson, it appears that Lymond bears him no grudge. So it comes as a shock when Lymond pulls his weapon and stabs him in the chest. Saved by the chain mail under his outer garments, Acheson barely escapes Lymond's second attempt to kill him by means of his horse's hoofs.

Meanwhile, in the confusion Tom bluffs his way into Hexham, waving the cover that had contained the dispatch to Grey. Acheson and Lymond are both in the Abbey. Tom knows his chances of leaving Hexham alive are slim, but his primary concern at the moment is "whether he had to assassinate one man, or two." Erskine is still uncertain where Lymond's loyalties lie.

Inside the abbey, Tom works his way quickly but carefully to a hiding place on a ledge overlooking the transcept. Peeking between the tapestries,
Candlelight fell on his fingers, and animated conversation sprang to his ears with a paralyzing vigour. Then a known voice, Lymond’s voice, beating home some fragment of rhetoric, said startlingly, “I can give you one name that you can’t give me: cuckold, Lord Lennox!”
***
The long final section of the chapter starts back in time to let the reader experience what was occurring inside the church while Tom Erskine gets into Hexham and finds his way to the abbey. 
Hexham Abbey Church
The "sour and surly waters of incompatibility" are swirling inside the abbey: Lennox, Margaret, Wharton, and Grey all have good reasons for their irritability and irritation with each other. Not one of them wants to be there, but we were told that "half the English army" is in Hexham, where Grey is picking up reinforcements from Wharton. Margaret came to meet her husband and bring her hostage Christian with her in hopes of exchanging her for Lymond. That is undoubtedly the "annoying tale" Margaret has been regaling them with. 

Then, "at the unlikeliest moment, the fish had swallowed the hook." Lymond is brought in, battered, disheveled, and "roughly as humble as Shishman, Emperor of the Slavs," slayer of dragons. Lymond claims that it was Acheson who told him about the deal to exchange him for Christian, but we know this is untrue. George Douglas told him of the ultimatum, so Lymond is protecting George. George was not supposed to tell Lymond of the planned exchange; George was only supposed to get Lymond to follow the trail of Samuel Harvey into the English trap. Instead, George told Lymond Harvey was dead and that Christian was being held as a pawn to be exchanged for Lymond. Margaret is put a bit off her game by the thrill of cornering her prey because she fails to ask Lymond how it is that Acheson supposedly knew about the deal to exchange Lymond for Christian.

All Margaret wants now is for her husband to slay Francis, but everyone else there wants a piece of Lymond. We are treated to a litany of Lymond's crimes against each of them. Grey simply wants him taken out and hanged, but these others vociferously object, giving Lymond his chance. He takes over the scene like a master of ceremonies instead of a condemned prisoner, mocking them for not displaying "English unity." Even Grey, the most level-headed of the bunch, is drawn into debate with Lymond.

When Grey starts to chastise the Douglases, Lymond, "playing for time," smoothly inserts a comment about the Lennoxes. In it, Lymond mixes Biblical and Greek mythological allusions to make his point. A "Dead sea apple," also known as a Sodom apple, supposedly dissolves into ash or smoke when picked. An apple figures prominently in the Greek myth about the judgment of Paris. Paris of Troy was ordered by Zeus (who knew better than to get in the middle of such things) to judge among three goddesses who would win a prize apple inscribed "to the fairest." Each goddess promised Paris a reward should he choose her. He selected Aphrodite because she promised him Helen of Troy...and the rest, as they say, is history.

So how does all this apply to the Lennoxes? Here's what Francis says:
"A Lennox pressed is a Dead Sea apple, held by London instead of by Paris; and for the richest, not the fairest."
Put Matthew Lennox under duress and he crumbles into ash. And he is now under the control of the English instead of the French (he is good at switching sides), but most of all he is under the control of his wife Margaret, "the richest, not the fairest": she is no Helen of Troy, but she might just cause a war. So many insults packed into one little sentence.

Lymond keeps up his tirade against Lennox, playing, always playing for more time to hatch and enact a plan. Lennox and the others may be frothing with anger and venom, but Francis Crawford is not. All this is play-acting again with a definite purpose in mind: to stop Acheson from telling what he knows about the Scots' plans for their queen.

Now we are back to the point at which Tom Erskine arrives on the scene. Lennox is just about to assault Lymond when a new player literally inserts himself between Matthew and Francis. Henry "Hot Helmet Harry" Wharton appears, and he, too, has to be restrained from killing Lymond.

At this point, the reader might reasonably ask, why doesn't Lord Grey, who is the senior person in the room, just let one of these people kill Lymond and be done with it? The question is not addressed, but I think the answer is an obvious one: Grey is "Field-marshal and Captain-general of the horse, Governor of Berwick, Warden of the East Marches and General of Northern Parts on behalf of His Majesty King Edward VI of England." For all his faults, he represents the English king and he does not condone murder. He wants Lymond hanged in accordance with English law.

Still playing for time, Lymond keeps up his steady stream of insults, now directing them towards Harry Wharton. We learn about another incident involving Harry. Lymond and his men captured Harry and cut off his beard and his hair at Durisdeer using his own knife. This had been alluded to earlier, when Lymond intervened to save John Maxwell from Harry Wharton:
Except for an episode which he made memorable both for John Maxwell and Lord Wharton’s son, he [Lymond] took no part in the fighting...(Pt 3, Ch II, Sec 2)
Now we know what the "memorable" episode at Durisdeer was!

Tom does not know whether to admire Lymond's courage or reprove his recklessness. He hasn't long to consider it because Acheson is faintly stirring, and this means Lymond has to do something soon. It also pushes Tom to act. He cautiously works his way to the balcony overlooking the transept. Erskine notices that Lymond has managed to position himself closer to Acheson and, in so doing, probably caught sight of Tom. The English are still tangled in Lymond's sticky verbal web, which has certainly entrapped Matthew Lennox. The final insult comes when Lymond says to him, "Didn’t you know that Margaret spent her sojourn in Scotland with me?" Lymond is convincing--he had access to a letter from Matthew to Margaret. He continues:
"Didn’t you know she was using the war as a fulcrum for her fishing line with myself as the prey? I was to be driven into the nets since, unlike the beaver, my self-defence stops short of unserviceable gestures. Do you find that objectionable? Pitiful? Even a little ludicrous, perhaps? A self-interest so insanely exclusive that it includes even murder?"
Notice that Lymond addresses Matthew, not Margaret. He knows she is well beyond shame or humiliation or even most forms of manipulation. Francis also guesses that Lennox himself is largely ignorant of Margaret's schemes, which included the deaths of Christian and Sym.

When Lymond says his self defense is unlike the beaver's, he is alluding to the behavior of the beaver, whose testicles were valued for their medicinal qualities. The story is that a beaver, rather than being captured, would bite off its own testicles. The fable goes back at least to Aesop, and the belief in this particular beaver behavior persisted into the Middle Ages in Europe. Lymond refers to the act as an "unserviceable [unworkable] gesture," but one Margaret probably would applaud in his case.

Everyone except Margaret is mesmerized. Lymond just keeps it up, his voice now "stripped of its normal pleasant negligence." His accusations against Margaret have the unmistakable ring of truth. All the people there know that Samuel Harvey was alive until very recently and had information Lymond was desperate to receive. Lymond finally provokes Margaret into saying what she really thinks, undoubtedly to the disgust of all present--that Christian is better off dead. This is over the line. No one, her husband least of all, rushes to her defense. They know her too well to see her as the aggrieved party, and Lymond's story holds together.

Lymond does not relent. Above all, he is trying to keep everyone's focus firmly fixed on him--anywhere except on Acheson. He ups the level of his attacks on the Lennoxes, in particular, detailing Margaret's overweening ambition. Lymond contends that Margaret uses Matthew as she would any man, Tudor, Douglas, Crawford, and who knows who else to satisfy that ambition.

His tactic works. Just as he hopes, Margaret cannot take it any longer and launches an attack on him. Lymond smoothly uses Margaret as a shield while grabbing Harry Wharton's bow and quiver. Lymond has seen Tom on the balcony. What follows is a tense standoff. Lymond has one arrow. Grey, the Whartons, the Lennoxes, the two guards are immobilized by that one arrow, which could end any one of their lives. All Tom and Lymond need do is kill Acheson and leave--their way is open and there is no one to impede their flight.

"They held the hour in their fingers, like a day lily." The day lily gets its name from the fact that each bud blooms for one day, making each hour precious.

The Arquebusier
That is, until Tom catches sight of an arquebusier on the ledge above them. At the same time, Acheson sits up and is shielded from Lymond by a parapet. The arquebusier starts the arduous process of loading his weapon. Lymond knows he is there and knows what his presence means. All the while Lymond keeps talking, talking, talking. What he says is not pointless blather. Indeed, Lymond refers to his adjuration to Grey as ex cathedra or authoritative. He is making a point worth regarding: hunt, if you must, for that individual man who, such as I, is a nuisance to you and your cause, but never let that search be driven by your vanity, your hurt ego, or it will cost you. You may get your man in the end, but the price will be too high, as it is today:
"Today...such an error has cost you a war."

Now unfolds as if in slow motion the two virtually simultaneous shots, one from Lymond's bow, the other from the hackbut.
Lymond smiled once, with a kind of surprised pleasure, and releasing the deadly, unerring arrow, shot Acheson through the heart. 
If not a moment of barbarous hilarity, this is surely a moment of great ironic delight for Francis Crawford. He knows he is about to be shot, probably fatally wounded, by the arquebusier, and the irony that he will die at the hands of the English, for whom the Scots believe he has been working, while preserving a secret essential to the security of a country that regards him as a traitor elicits this single smile.

Rarely has death-dealing sounded so beautiful. All the English eyes look up from the dead body of Acheson, whose message about the Scottish queen dies on his lips, towards Lymond, exquisite, brave, and sardonic as always as he falls unconscious into Tom's gentle arms.

Lymond's last words are from a poem by John Skelton (1463-1529), Why Come Ye Not to Court?, about Cardinal Balue, who under the influence of King Louis XI became a cardinal rather miraculously after being beheaded, drawn, and quartered:
Committed open treason
And against his lord sovereign;
Wherefore he suffered pain,
Was headed, drawn, and quartered,
And died stinkingly martyred.
Lo, yet for all that
He wore a cardinal's hat...
Lymond is accused of betraying his country and in danger of execution, so it is not surprising that this line comes into his mind as he slips "bit by bit" into unconsciousness. It recalls the last time he saw George Douglas when Lymond chose to turn himself over to the English in exchange for Christian:
"Do-to the book; quench the candle; ring the bell. Of course I shall go. Why else was I born?” said Lymond with bitter finality."
Here in the Abbey at Hexham, Lymond believes he dies not only a damned excommunicant but also a traitor.

Favorite Line
Kate smoothed the crumpled sheets with gentle fingers, and spoke aloud. “He was very nearly good enough for you, that one,” she said; and drawing the yellow curtains, shut out the sun.
Questions
  1. Does the description of Lymond as living in a sarcophagus mean that he sees himself as already dead or is it only a reference to emotional death?
  2. Why does Christian want Kate and not Lymond to remain by her side while she dies?
  3. Who do you think switched the confession, giving Christian blank pages? 
  4. Why is Kate "infinitely more afraid of the immobile man at the keyboard [Lymond]"?
  5. Who is paying Acheson to frame Lymond? Presumably it is not George Douglas, who is betraying the plans to remove the queen to France, because he wanted his letter delivered personally to Lord Grey.
  6. What is Tom Erskine's opinion of Francis Crawford now, do you think?
Words that Describe Lymond in The Last Move
  • exhausted
  • guilt-ridden
  • tightly wound
  • stretched to the limit of endurance
  • gentle
  • loving
  • kind
  • sensitive
  • sincere
  • honest
  • honorable
  • despairing
  • controlled
  • passionate
  • articulate
  • manipulative
  • sardonic
  • disciplined
  • wily
  • vindictive
  • desperate
  • determined
  • furious
  • outraged
  • mouthy
  • impudent
  • amused
  • fatalistic