Lymond reading notes 4 – Game of Kings – The Play for Jonathan Crouch
Stirling
Arran the Governor, awaiting the final, destined disaster of Somerset’s attack, saw Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin in lapidary capitals before him and was sick with nerves.
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
“numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided”
This refers to the spirit writing on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace. It’s from the book of Daniel and is the origin of the phrase – The writing on the wall – meaning impending doom.
“Fighting had left Wat Scott of Buccleuch unaltered: bonnet crammed with Buccleuch bees…”
He takes Tom’s news of Will being with Lymond surprisingly calmly. In fact there’s a suggestion that he’s quite pleased to see him doing something with conviction.
We also learn that neither Tom or Wat have much time for George Douglas.
The news comes that the Protector’s army is on the march, but not as everyone in Stirling feared, towards them, but south, back to England. It’s a miraculous let-off for Scotland.
Relieved of the need to defend the town Tom travels to the Lake of Menteith, where the royal family has been moved for safety.
It is commonly said to be the only lake in Scotland, where we mostly call them lochs, but in fact in this case Lake comes from Laich, meaning an area of low flat ground, often a wetland, and indeed the Lake is shallow. So shallow in fact that in very cold weather it freezes over and is used for outdoor curling.
We get a lovely description of lights and music floating across the water from the Priory, echoing the opening description of the Nor Loch.
There the young Queen, her mother, Sybilla, Mariotta, and Christian are hiding on the islands of Inch Talla and Inchmahome.
Christian pumps Tom for information about Crouch, then to his surprise declares the matter closed – perhaps assisted by Sybilla, who steps on his toe, apparently by accident. Sybilla never does anything by accident – a bit like her author!
‘My dear man,’ said Sybilla next day, placidly stitching before Earl John’s big fire. ‘Admit you’ve never had to live with eight children on an island, and every one with the instincts of a full-grown lemming.’
We hear that Mariotta has been a bundle of nerves since her encounter with Lymond at Midculter.
Andrew Hunter is there too, and Mariotta asks him what men – like Richard – talk about.
He was taken aback, but he answered her. ‘What does Richard discuss with other men? Horses, of course. And pigs. And the state of the barley, and the new cocks, and the hawking, and what the Estates are up to, and the wrestlers, and any new shiploads he’s expecting, and the rates of exchange, and taxes, and poaching, and pistols, and the price of roofing, and his deerhound litter, and Milanese armour, and the lambing … Richard’s interests,’ said Sir Andrew, with a hint of defensiveness in the soft voice, ‘are pretty wide.’
‘But never dull. I wonder,’ said Mariotta, her eyes expressionless, ‘what Lymond makes of light conversation?’
Hunter sat up. ‘Lymond’s conversation doesn’t give me a moment’s alarm. It’s his actions that hurt. Richard’s bent on this challenge at the Wapenshaw and, my God! if he goes, it’ll be suicide.’
Do I detect a touch of sarcasm in that “But never dull.”? From all this we can surmise that despite the marriage between Richard and Mariotta being a superficially successful match, there are tensions, and one of them seems to be that they don’t seem to talk about anything substantial. We get the impression that Richard doesn’t talk of estate matters or politics to her, perhaps regarding that as men’s concerns. Which makes you wonder what else he doesn’t talk about, and what else is left to talk about! Maybe she got more conversation from Lymond in the stairwell at Midculter than she’s had from Richard since they were married!
A stushie develops
The next day Marie de Guise is in a rage, but it takes us a while to discover why.
The Dowager Lady Culter, who was also seated, wisely said nothing, partly out of diplomacy and partly from sheer respect for her vocal chords: a very small child with tousled red hair standing before her continued to hammer on her knee in a detached sort of way, screaming gibberish at the top of her voice. ‘Hurble-purple, hurble-purple, hurble-purple!’ chanted the child.
Thus are we introduced to Mary Queen of Scots, in a way unique to Dorothy.
It takes the unflappable Sybilla to unravel the cause of the upset and her assessment also explains what has taken place to the reader – an interesting writing technique.
Mary has been taken to the gardens at the edge of the lake, by boat, by her maid Elspet, who leaves her playing for a while to meet her boyfriend. What happened next is as yet unclear and we’re told that Mary was accosted and then the maid returns and bundles her into the boat in a panic. There are accusations that Mary might have been kidnapped but that appears unlikely – a maid returning is hardly likely to be able to prevent a man from taking a 4-year-old if that was the intent.
Sybilla downplays it and suggests they ask Mary:
‘Marie! Come and tell Maman what the ill-doing man did?’
‘What ill-doing man?’ asked the red-haired child,..’
‘He wasn’t a malfaisant. I liked him. Can I –’
‘Mary, was he a monk?’ said Sybilla gently, mindful of one of the unlikelier aspects of Elspet’s story (‘But all the monks are at Sext’).
‘He was a nice monk,’ said the child, with a single inflection neatly robbing the statement of all value.
All of which alerts us to the fact that all is not what it seems. And there’s a further clue:
‘He said the rhyme, and he knew my name.’
Sybilla expertly diverts attention from further speculation and sums up. So Mary finally gets to say her rhyme:
‘Hurble purple hath a red girdle
A stone in his belly,
A stake through his arse
And yet hurble purple is never the worse.
And demands to know what it is.
But it appears that Sybilla is familiar with the verse and rather deflates Mary by giving the answer. Which leaves the reader to speculate on the meaning behind it all.
Back at the gardens
There is a switch of scene and we are with Christian, saying in French “How do you know him, when he doesn’t know him?” Of course I recognised who it was. Credit me with ears, at least.’
It becomes clear that she’s with Lymond and that she recognised his voice when she heard the fuss when Elspet returned and grabbed Mary and fled back to the island. The mysterious monk was him.
They are in the middle of the maze, surrounded by hedges. Christian asks how Mary had found him and we get a delightful story of how he fell asleep and awoke to find Mary sitting on his chest.
‘She said, “M. l’abbé” (you’ll have gathered I’m dressed like a magpie) – “M. l’abbé, you ’ave greatly insufficient of tonsure.” And I said, “Madame la reine d’Ecosse, you are greatly in excess of tonnage.”
After which exchange of pleasantries …’
‘She got off?’
‘Not at all. She bounced like a cannon ball and said that Dédé –’ ‘Her pony.’ ‘–That Dédé had long yellow teeth; and did I know –’
‘That,’ said Christian in chorus, ‘you can tell a person’s age from their teeth. That’s a favourite one.’
This interchange and the rest of the tale demonstrates that the innocent charming Lymond we saw when he had lost his memory, persists now that it has returned – with Christian and Mary at least. The contrast with how he dealt with Will Scott or his behaviour at Annan could hardly be greater. They clearly enjoy each other’s company and are completely relaxed.
He chides her for trusting him without knowing who he is and giving him access to the young queen’s hiding place, before stopping and berating himself for being rude and ungrateful to her. She changes the subject to his recovery – he explains that he’s much better apart from falling asleep a lot, as when Mary found him.
They discuss who else is with the queen and that Tom had told Buccleuch about Will being with Lymond. He then asks about Crouch and she tells him he’s with George Douglas. Thanking her he then tries to tell her who he is.
‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to know!
There was, for the first time, a weary distaste in his voice. ‘But you require to know – you must see that. This secret – the Queen’s hiding place –’
‘Have you betrayed it? Will you betray it?’
‘No.’
‘Then leave me ignorant,’ said Christian. ‘What would make matters easier for your conscience might make them insupportable for mine. I prefer to be selfish. God knows I’ve been wrong – politically, legally, conventionally and every other way – in judgements before. But these always seemed to me the more irrelevant aspects of human decency … You are at least Scottish, I think?’
‘Yes.’
‘– And in trouble. Well, I’m human,’ said Christian. ‘I don’t want conscience money in the form of secrets: not just now, thank you. But the day you genuinely want help, I’ll be proud to have your confidence. Till then, show your thanks, if you wish to, by letting me have news of you sometimes.’
His silence shows how much this impresses him and they discuss whether she would know Johnnie Bullo’s voice:
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Yes, I shall keep in touch. Not as often as I should like, but certainly more than I ought by all the tenets you quoted.’ They were almost out of the shelter of the box hedges, and he stopped and took her hand, as if examining it. ‘What in God’s name are you going by?’ he said. ‘Instinct? Intuition?’
‘Common sense. Which describes your case as fortunae telum, non culpae.’
(trans. A weapon of fortune, not of guilt.)
We can see a man who is astonished and grateful to find such a degree of trust – perhaps suggesting that he has had so little of it for many years – and full of admiration for her. Christian’s Latin quote also suggests a deeper knowledge of him, his situation, and her belief in his innocence.
He answered, bleakly, in the same language. ‘Heu! The darts which make me suffer are my own. Common sense can be a poor guide and an uncertain surgeon. Better – much better – be foolish, like me. God clip you close,’ he said, and was gone.
That final ‘God clip you close’ strikes me as being said with real sincerity and concern.
We have been told something of his character, quite at contrast with the first views we had of him, and had hints of his backstory without it ever being explicitly mentioned.
And if we pause to consider it we can already tell that this author possesses storytelling skills above the level of most.