“Moving forward quietly to Jerott’s side, Adam Blacklock had heard. ‘Don’t you understand? The authorities are afraid of them both,’ he said gently. ‘Why do you supose this cordon is here, which only an unarmed girl was allowed to pass through? Lymond, loyal to Scotland, might be a threat to French power greater than even Gabriel, one of these days—Philippa!’ And a wordless shout, like a cry at a cockfight, rose among the stone pillars and sank muffled into the old, dusty banners above the choir roof. For Philippa Somerville, who believed in action when words were not enough, had leaned over and snatched the knife from Lymond’s left hand.”

“There was a silence. Then: ‘What you are saying,’ said Philippa slowly, ‘is that the child Khaireddin would be better unfound?’ The Dame de Doubtance said nothing. ‘Or are you saying,’ pursued Philippa, inimical from the reedy brown crown of her head to her mud-caked cloth stockings, ‘that you and I and Lymond and Lymond’s mother and Lymond’s brother and Graham Malett would be better off if he weren’t discovered?’ ‘Now that,’ said the Dame de Doubtance with satisfaction, ‘is precisely what I was saying.’ ‘How can I find him?’ said Philippa.”

“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.”

“So: ‘Why did you laugh?’ demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott’s hand off her arm. ‘Oh, that?’ said Lymond. ‘But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking the souks of the Levant for one of his bastards, with an unchaperoned North Country schoolgirl aged—what? twelve? thirteen?—to help change its napkins when the happy meeting takes place.… A gallant thought, Philippa,’ said Lymond kindly, sitting down at the table. ‘And a touching faith in mankind. But truly, all the grown-up ladies and gentlemen would laugh themselves into bloody fluxes over the spectacle. Have some whatever-it-is.”

“Philippa Somerville was annoyed. To her friends the Nixons, who owned Liddel Keep, and with whom Kate had deposited her for one night, she had given an accurate description of Sir William Scott of Kincurd, his height, his skill, his status, and his general suitability as an escort for Philippa Somerville from Liddesdale to Midculter Castle. And the said William Scott had not turned up. She fumed all the morning of that fine first day of May, and by afternoon was driven to revealing her general dissatisfaction with Scotland, the boring nature of Joleta, her extreme dislike of one of the Crawfords and the variable and unreliable nature of the said William Scott. She agreed that the Dowager Lady Culter was adorable, and Mariotta nice, and that she liked the baby.”

“Then Lymond’s voice, the chill gone, said, ‘Don’t be an ass, Jerott? You know I can’t do without you.’ It was an obvious answer. But it was also something Jerott had never had from Lymond before: an apology and an appeal both at once.”