The Game of Kings Read Free Page B

exhibitionist by temperament, Lady Culter gathered her skirts, darkly glowing, and just missed a simper. “Can I help you, sir?”
    Norman fairness recognizing Celtic darkness howled like a cluricane. “I’ve got the servants’ stair again. This place was built by mouldiewarps for mouldiewarps, and to the devil with lords and gentlemen. Jennie, m’joy, where is thy master? The traces d’amour? The path to a Culter? Any Culter: old Lady Culter, young Lady Culter, or his middle-aged lordship … ?”
    If she thought the mistake genuine, it was only for a moment. Then: “A rather primitive sense of humour, surely?” she said pleasantly. “My husband has not yet arrived, but his mother the Dowager is upstairs. I shall take you to her, if you like.”
    A crow of delighted laughter answered her. “A Culter, and bad-tempered, and black. Come dance with me in Ireland.”
    “I,” said Mariotta firmly, “am Lady Culter. I take you to be a friend of my husband’s.”
    He came to rest two steps below her. “Take what you like. Yellow doesn’t suit you, and neither does angling for compliments.”
    “I—really!” said Mariotta, roused. “There is no excuse for rank bad manners.”
    “Richard doesn’t like me either,” said the fair one sorrowfully. “But that’s unmannerly rank for you. Do you like Richard?”
    “I’m married to him!”
    “That’s why I asked. You don’t believe in polyandry by any chance?” He rested a shoulder and elbow against the newel post,staring at her cheerfully. “It’s difficult, isn’t it? I might be a distant cousin with a quaint sense of humour, in which case you’ll look silly if you scream. I might be a well-known cretin to be kept from your guests at all costs. Or I might be—oh no, my angel!”
    Quick fingers, closing on her wrist, wrenched her up from a headlong plunge to the lower floor, to the servants and her husband.
    “—Or I might be annoyed. Don’t be a fool, my dear,” he said. “These were my men you heard entering below. You are not being badgered; you are being invaded.”
    Held close to him as she was, she found his eyes unavoidable. They were blue, of the deep and identical cornflower of the Dowager’s. And at that, the impact of knowledge stiffened her face and seized her pulses. “I know who you are! You are Lymond!”
    Applauding, he released her. “I take back the more personal insults if you will take back your arm without putting it to impious uses. There. Now, sister-in-law mine, let us mount like Jacob to the matriarchal cherubim above. Personally,” he said critically, “I should dress you in red.”
    So this was Richard’s brother. Every line of him spoke, palimpsest-wise, with two voices. The clothes, black and rich, were vaguely slovenly; the skin sun-glazed and cracked; the fine eyes slackly lidded; the mouth insolent and self-indulgent. He returned the scrutiny without rancour.
    “What had you expected? A viper, or a devil, or a ravening idiot; Milo with the ox on his shoulders, Angra-Mainyo prepared to do battle with Zoroaster, or the Golden Ass? Or didn’t you know the family colouring? Richard hasn’t got it. Poor Richard is merely Brown and fit to break bread with …”
    “The poem I know at least,” exclaimed Mariotta, chafing her wrist. “Red wise; Brown trusty; Pale envious—”
    “And Black lusty. What a quantity of traps you’ve dropped into today.… If you wish, you may run ahead screaming. It makes no difference now, although five minutes ago we were in something of a hurry … the servants to be tied up … the silver to collect … Richard’s personal hoard to recover from its usual cache. A man of iron habit, Richard.”
    He had wandered absently past her and ahead up the stair when Mariotta, fully alert and aghast, started after him. “What do you want?”
    He considered. “Amusement, principally. Don’t you think it’s timemy family shared in my misfortunes, as Christians should? Then, vice is so