The Ringed Castle Read Free

with us? And——’
    For the first time, with courtesy, her gaze dropped to the rug-wrapped pack in his arms. ‘… And this is Khaireddin?’
    Archie looked down, swore, and then apologized. ‘We had him allnice,’ he said. ‘But he wanted to play Turks hiding in ambush.
Kuzúm!
It’s your grannie!’
    The bundle heaved, and Archie snapped, ‘And you’ve made a right mess of your hair.’
    A feathering of silky fair hair shot up from the core of the rug, followed by a round vermilion face with a belligerent blue stare. ‘I want a short of Fippy’s horse,’ the object said.
    Archie said peremptorily, ‘You’re not having a shot on anything; we’ve stopped. You’re there. You’re at your grannie’s home in Midculter. Here she is, waiting.’ And his attention drawn for the first time from the child Archie looked, a little anxiously, at Lymond’s mother, who had said nothing at all.
    And as though she felt his gaze, Sybilla raised her eyes from the silvery hair and blue eyes and charming, overheated two-year-old face, and smiled at him, and then said to her grandson, ‘Hullo. Is your name Kuzúm?’
    Kuzúm, abandoning the Turks, stared at her critically. Then he said, ‘My rug’s all crumply. Lift down me to walk?’
    So Archie lowered him, and she received the solid weight and placed him on his two feet and then, kneeling, steadied him. ‘Not Khaireddin?’ she said to Archie.
    ‘Kuzúm’s his pet name. It means Lambkin.’ Dismounting, he held the child by the shoulders. ‘Mr Crawford’s all right, my lady. Ye’ll not expect him home yet: he’s not a man for mentioning plans. But the bairn will make you good company.’
    The bairn, tugging himself free, set off at a trot towards Philippa. Following slowly, ‘Where is Mr Crawford?’ Sybilla said.
    ‘God——That is, we’re no’ all that certain,’ said Archie. ‘We left him in Volos, Greece, a wee bit overcome by the weather. Then we heard he had gone.… You’ll see a change in the young lady?’
    ‘Yes,’ the Dowager said. They had reached the rest of her family. Holding out her hands to the new, self-contained Philippa she said, embracing her, ‘Although I don’t know how we are going to explain it.’
    ‘We met Sir Thomas Wharton,’ Philippa said deprecatingly.
    ‘So it will be all over Hexham,’ said Kate. ‘Since that man went to court he’s been worse than a midwife. You won’t be dull, Philippa mine. We shall have plenty of callers.’
    ‘Mostly male,’ Richard said, grinning.
    ‘Isn’t it queer?’ Philippa said. Standing at the top of the steps, she caught Archie’s eye and then removed her gaze from him, unfocused. ‘It didn’t occur to me that people might gossip. It was Mr Crawford who warned me.’
    ‘I’m glad he took the trouble,’ Sybilla said tartly. ‘To allow you to travel home on your own, after treating you, so far as I can see, likeone of his own underpaid mercenaries, must be the abominable highlight of a strictly egotistical career.’
    Kate, better acquainted with her daughter, said, ‘How did he warn you?’
    Philippa gazed again round the courtyard. The chests were being shouldered indoors. Archie, lifting Kuzúm, had carried him across to young Kevin and Lucy. The horses were being led away. Richard was looking at her: the 3rd Baron Crawford of Culter, more heavily built than he had been, but still level-headed and pleasant: running his home of Midculter, raising his children, sustaining, year after year, the blows which fell without warning, the traps which opened, the doors which shut in his face because of his brother Crawford of Lymond. Richard smiled.
    Philippa said, ‘He suggested I should get married.’
    Kate, whose hair was coming down in the wind, gave a groan. ‘A profound offering of typical masculine subtlety,’ said Philippa’s mother. ‘I might have known it. Come inside. I want to look at your earrings.’
    ‘So I did,’ Philippa said.
    There was a mind-cracking