“For reliable information, apply to a lawyer, a barber or prostitute. My informant hasn’t found out so far who paid the captain.’ ‘But she will,’ said Margaret, her face grave. ‘I hope so,’ he said with equal gravity,”

“His leaf-gold tresses on end, his eyes in baskets from the long night without sleep, Phelim O’LiamRoe smacked his two fists together and cursed. The Queen Dowager, hardly aware of him, had turned her erect body to the window, followed by Margaret Erskine’s wide eyes. But Michel Hérisson, who had arrived so unexpectedly on the Irishman’s heels, ran his hacked and gouty hands through the wild white hair and said through his teeth, ‘Liam aboo, son, Liam aboo! My Gaelic’s all out in holes, the way my arse is ridden out through my breeches; but if you are saying what I hope you are saying, Liam aboo, my son, Liam aboo!”

“Philippa drew a deep breath, and found relief in expelling it. ‘Do you think,’ she said carefully, ‘that someone is going to be goaded into doing something soon?’ There was a long pause. ‘I think,’ said Jerott at length, equally carefully, ‘that someone is going to the court of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and someone else is going to Flaw Valleys, England, to Mother.’ Which summed it up, Philippa supposed, with regret.”

“They’re talking about Marthe, Maître Gaultier’s assistant. What’s she like? Pretty?’ ‘She’s pretty,’ said the man. Philippa studied the taciturn face. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Mr Blyth wants her all to himself?’ For a moment, she thought it hadn’t worked. Then the man gave a snort. ‘Mr Blyth want her? He held us up at Avignon for two days refusing to go on until she was sent back home, but Gaultier wouldn’t do it, and he had to give in. Mr Blyth and Gaultier haven’t spoken since. Aye,’ said Jerott’s man morosely. ‘It’s going to be a grand, sociable trip.”

“Jerott?’ said Lymond. ‘What are you not saying?’ His eyes, as the orderly cavalcade paced through the muddy streets, had not left that forceful aquiline face since they met. And Jerott, Philippa saw with disbelief, flushed. For a moment longer, the strict blue eyes studied him; and then Lymond laughed. ‘She’s an eighteen-year-old blonde of doubtful virginity? Or more frightful still, an eighteen-year-old blonde of unstained innocence? I shall control my impulses, Jerott, I promise you. I’m only going to throw her out if she looks like a troublemaker, or else so bloody helpless that we’ll lose lives looking after her. Not everyone,’ he said, in a wheeling turn which caught Philippa straining cravenly to hear, ‘is one of Nature’s Marco Polos like the Somerville offspring.”

“Will Scott grinned. Grizel Beaton had slapped his face four times, and apart from these four small misjudgements, they had never touched on a topic more personal than which of Buccleuch’s bastards to invite to the wedding. But he liked her fine; and she was good and broad where it would matter to future Buccleuchs, which summed up all his mind so far on the subject.”

“It wasna a man,’ said Andrew Kerr broadly. ‘T’was my aunty. I tellt ye. I’m no risking cauld steel in ma wame for a pittance, unless all that’s mine is well lookit after—’ ‘An old lady,’ said Lord Grey with forbearance, ‘in curling papers and a palatial absence of teeth?’ ‘My aunt Lizzie!’ said Andrew Kerr. ‘She has just,’ said Lord Grey austerely, ‘seriously injured one of my men.’ ‘How?’ The old savage looked interested. ‘From an upper window. The castle was burning, and he was climbing a ladder to offer the lady her freedom. She cracked his head with a chamberpot,’ said Lord Grey distastefully, ‘and retired crying that she would have no need of a jurden in Heaven, as the good Lord had no doubt thought of more convenient methods after the seventh day, when He had had a good rest.”