The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett Read Free Book Online Page A

his son and heir exposed in the gutter. He tried. But there are two other boys in the family. He’ll get used to it.”
    Lymond shook his head sadly. “There goes your day’s work, Johnnie.”
    Johnnie Bullo slid noiselessly to his feet, an ecstasy of white teeth. He stretched lazily, sketched an elaborate bow to Lymond, nodded to Mat, and made for his pony. On the way, he stopped and prodded the boy with a long, dirty finger. “Home for you, laddie: home!” said he. “You need a longer spoon than the cutlers make to sup with this one.”
    “Well?” said Lymond. And Will Scott, to his secret astonishment, read an invitation in the tone.
    “I haven’t a spoon,” he said. “But I had a knife I could trust.”
    “This?” The Master slipped from his belt the dirk he had removed when Will, the solemn tracker, had been ambushed by his quarry. He tossed it thoughtfully once, twice, and then pitched it to its owner. Will caught it, his expression an odd compound of surprise and mistrust.
    With acute misgiving, Turkey Mat watched him. “You’re not taking him on, sir?”
    “On the contrary,” said the Master, his eyes on Scott “It’s the other way round.”
    Matthew persevered. “He’ll wait till we’re settled, oath or no oath, and then bring Buccleuch and the rest down on top of us.”
    “Will he?” said Lymond. “Will you, Marigold?”
    Brilliant, youthful face confronted restless one.
    A little, malicious smile crossed the Master’s face.
    “Oh, no, he won’t,” said Lymond confidently. “He’s going to be a naughty, naughty rogue like you and me.”
    *  *  *
    Much later, Lymond appeared again, still in riding dress, with a steel helmet fitted closely over his hair. A heavy white cloak marked with some kind of embroidery in red hung over one arm.
    “Mat, I’m off to Annan. I leave you in charge. If that English messenger gets into trouble, Jess’s Joe will report to you. Take all the men you need to free him and get him to Annan. I shall be back before dawn. Then we move to the Peel Tower.”
    Turkey’s hand automatically massaged his stomach. “Fair enough.” He added bluntly, “You’ll not expect us to get you out of Annan if you fall into trouble?”
    “My dear Mat, I can’t possibly fall into trouble,” said Lymond. “I shall be under the best protection. I’m taking Will Scott with me.”
2. Pins and Counterpins
    That evening at sunset the whaup and peewit lay quiet in Annandale and the black shadows of the Torthorwald and Mousewald hills marched east over moors prickling with movement and furtive noise.
    Darkness fell, and two horsemen slipped silently around the hills and made directly for the gates of Annan, capital town of the district and newly possessed and occupied by the English army of Lord Wharton. On the last rise the riders paused to look down at the red eye in the plain, the bloody glitter of the river and the drifting thickets of white smoke. The wooden houses of Annan were on fire.
    A peal of laughter shivered the silence.
    “O wow! quo’ he, were I as free

As first when I saw this countrie …”
    The sound died away in the cold air, and there was silence again.
    Will Scott, in no mood for verse, shot a look at the silver-tongued, malignant animal beside him and blurted a question. “Why did you let me join you?”
    Lymond’s eyes were fixed on the burning town; his voice was entirely prosaic. “I need someone who can read and write.”
    “Oh.”
    “Further. I’m anxious to meet and talk with an Englishman of the name of Crouch. Jonathan Crouch. He may be in Annan. If he isn’t you shall help me find him and then, Aenobarbus, you shall have a diamond, a maiden and a couch reserved in the Turkish paradise. Meanwhile—”
    “Are they expecting you,” asked Scott, “at Annan?”
    The half-seen mouth curled. “If they are, I advise you to fly like a woodpecker, crying pleu, pleu, pleu. Lord Wharton has threatened to gut me publicly and the Earl of