The Ringed Castle: Fifth in the Legendary Lymond Chronicles Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR

  Dorothy Dunnett’s

  LYMOND CHRONICLES

  “Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas … breathlessly exciting.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer. It combines the accuracy of exhaustive historical research with a gripping story to give the reader a visceral as well as cerebral understanding of an epoch.”

  —Christian Science Monitor

  “Dorothy Dunnett is a storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about suspense, pace and invention.”

  —The New York Times

  “Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality … an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit.”

  —Sunday Times (London)

  “A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia.… He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring.”

  —Times Literary Supplement (London)

  “First-rate … suspenseful.… Her hero, in his rococo fashion, is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A masterpiece of historical fiction, a pyrotechnic blend of passionate scholarship and high-speed storytelling soaked with the scents and colors and sounds and combustible emotions of 16th-century feudal Scotland.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Splendidly colored scenes … always exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Detailed research, baroque imagination, staggering dramatic twists, multilingual literary allusion and scenes that can be very funny.”

  —The Times (London)

  “Ingenious and exceptional … its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”

  —Boston Herald

  FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 1997

  Copyright © 1971 by Dorothy Dunnett

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, in 1971. First published in hardcover in the United States by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, in 1972.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dunnett, Dorothy.

  The ringed castle / Dorothy Dunnett.

  p. cm.

  Sequel to Pawn in frankincense.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76239-9

  1. Crawford, Francis (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. 3. Russia—History—1533-1584—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6054.U56R56 1997

  823’.914—dc21 97-6674

  Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/

  v3.1_r1

  With love, for

  Dorothy Eveline Millard Halliday

  to whom both Francis Crawford and the author

  owe their present delightful existence

  THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

  FOREWORD BY Dorothy Dunnett

  When, a generation ago, I sat down before an old Olivetti typewriter, ran through a sheet of paper, and typed a title, The Game of Kings, I had no notion of changing the course of my life. I wished to explore, within several books, the nature and experiences of a classical hero: a gifted leader whose star-crossed career, disturbing, hilarious, dangerous, I could follow in finest detail for ten years. And I wished to set him in the age of the Renaissance.

  Francis Crawford of Lymond in reality did not exist, and his family, his enemies and his lovers are merely fictitious. The countries in which he practices his arts, and for whom he fights, are, however, real enough. In pursuit of a personal quest, he finds his way—or is driven—across the known world, from the palaces of the Tudor kings and queens of England to the brilliant court of Henry II and Catherine de Medici in France.

  His home, however, is Scotland, where Mary Queen of Scots is a vulnerable child in a country ruled by her mother. It becomes apparent in the course of the story that Lymond, the most articulate and charismatic of men, is vulnerable too, not least because of his feeling for Scotland, and for his estranged family.

  The Game of Kings was my first novel. As Lymond developed in wisdom, so did I. We introduced one another to the world of sixteenth-century Europe, and while he cannot change history, the wars and events which embroil him are real. After the last book of the six had been published, it was hard to accept that nothing more about Francis Crawford could be written, without disturbing the shape and theme of his story. But there was, as it happened, something that could be done: a little manicuring to repair the defects of the original edition as it was rushed out on both sides of the Atlantic. And so here is Lymond returned, in a freshened text which presents him as I first envisaged him, to a different world.

  Author’s Note

  No one could write of the remarkable events leading up to the visit of Osep Nepeja without mentioning a profound debt to the published studies of Professor T. S. Willan of the University of Manchester.

  Apart from Lymond himself, his family and his immediate associates, all the characters in this novel are historical, as are all the principal events.

  The verses of the Song of Baida have been translated from the Ukrainian for this book by Yaroslav Baran.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Map

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART THREE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Reader’s Guide

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.

  The most prosaic schoolgirl in England, Philippa Somerville arrived home from Stamboul in the summer, having travelled stoically through Volos, Malta and Venice where she received, with mild distaste, the unexpected bequest of a fortune. From Venice, she crossed Europe to Calais, and at Calais she took ship for Tynemouth, whence she set off for her home in Flaw Valleys.

  With her rode her henchman, guide and protector, a Scotsman called Abernethy. And on Archie Aber
nethy’s stout arm, complaining, was a two-year-old boy named Kuzúm.

  Sir Thomas Wharton and his company came across them all just outside Newcastle, and since there seemed to be a great many sumpter mules and a large number of hired soldiers guarding them, he gave himself the trouble of investigating. The sight of the Somerville child, returning after two years’ absence on unexplained orgies abroad, was the reward of exemplary vigilance. His companion, a fledgling nobleman from Northumberland, was inclined to be more sentimental, but Sir Thomas quite rightly ignored him. Sir Thomas halted Philippa dead in her tracks, and made her vivaciously welcome.

  It was a chaste encounter, conducted with grim efficiency by Archie Abernethy, with Philippa brazenly helping him. Yes, she remembered the Whartons, beside whom her late father had often fought. And yes, she remembered Austin Grey, Marquis of Allendale, although from a viewpoint four feet high, to a target not very much higher.

  The Allendale estates were not far from Flaw Valleys. At twelve, this boy had been packed off to Padua and was now returned, dark, engaging and fragile in a doublet clearly fashioned in London. Peering from under her hood, Philippa favoured Austin Grey with a generous smile and returned to the business of supporting the lies Archie Abernethy was telling.

  Yes, they had just come back from Malta. Yes, Mistress Somerville had been travelling abroad with a party, including her mother’s friend, Crawford of Lymond. And that—indicating the now sleeping Kuzúm—was Mr Crawford’s motherless son, being taken home to his grandmother in Scotland.

  They looked at Mr Crawford’s motherless son. ‘Who’s his mother?’ Sir Thomas said with blossoming interest. ‘Don’t tell me Lymond married before he left Scotland. Too busy with other men’s sisters.’

  Archie said, ‘No. He didna marry Kuzúm’s mother. She’s deid.’

  Which was true. With a charming artlessness, Philippa squashed Tom Wharton’s further inquiries and, prattling, prepared to detach herself. Austin Grey said, ‘You aren’t going home to Flaw Valleys?’

  For a moment, staring at him, she thought of disaster. Her home was burnt down and Kate dead? The Scots had come over the Border and levelled it? Kate had married again without telling her? Philippa said, ‘Yes. Why not?’

  And Austin Grey said quickly, ‘It’s all right. Your mother is quite all right. She isn’t there, that’s all. She’s gone to stay at Midculter Castle in Scotland.’

  Which was how, wheeling about, the small but resolute migration from Turkey abjured the delights of home and Flaw Valleys and turned up six days later in Scotland.

  Austin Grey, as it happened, reached Scotland before them. Voluntary and kind-hearted harbinger, he took his horse over the Border and traversing the hills of the Lowlands reached that part of Lanarkshire west where the castle of Midculter stood. There he called on Sybilla, the Dowager Lady Culter, and delivered to her certain papers at Philippa Somerville’s behest.

  Sybilla welcomed him in. White-haired, blue-eyed and urbane, she was quite capable of dealing with diffident young English noblemen and putting them instantly and disarmingly at their ease. Only after he had settled in front of her beautiful fireplace with a cup of her equally desirable wine in his hand did she glance at the packet he had given her and say, ‘But it is for Mistress Somerville of Flaw Valleys?’

  Austin Grey said, ‘Yes. I thought she was here?’

  For an elderly lady, the blue eyes confronting him were disconcertingly shrewd. ‘Yes, she is,’ Sybilla said. ‘May I know who this is from?’

  ‘I felt,’ said Austin Grey, ‘that you should break the news, Lady Culter. Mistress Somerville’s daughter is home. She is travelling north. She should be with you in two or three days. The letters are from Philippa to her mother.’

  Sybilla’s eyes had become very bright. Then, ‘You’ve seen her, Lord Allendale?’ she said gently.

  Austin said, ‘She is in good heart, and travelling well. Only slowly, because of the baby.’

  Lady Culter said nothing. She sat and looked at the young English messenger, with her lips parted and her eyes rather wide, so that the white skin of her brow was finely pleated. He hesitated and said, ‘Your son’s child. Mr Crawford’s small boy called Kuzúm.’

  ‘They found him,’ Sybilla said.

  He said, carefully, ‘I don’t know the story. But they have him quite safe, Lady Culter. If I may say so, he has just your colouring.’

  ‘And my son?’ Sybilla said finally.

  ‘I gather … Perhaps the letters will tell you,’ said Austin Grey. ‘I gather he is still overseas.’

  He left soon after that. But not before a light, brown-haired woman entered, whom he had seen all his youth about Hexham with her late husband Gideon Somerville, and her one small unkempt daughter Philippa. Kate Somerville came forward to greet him and was forestalled by her hostess the Dowager. ‘Kate, he has letters from Philippa. She’s safe, and on her way here with the child.’

  But since women’s tears, suppressed, made him uncomfortable, Austin Grey left as soon as possible after that.

  By the time Philippa arrived at Midculter her mother and Kuzúm’s grandmother between them knew the contents of the letters and diaries by heart and still could not reconcile them with the undersized fifteen-year-old who had left her uncle’s home in London two winters ago, to plant herself willy nilly in the unsuitable company of Lady Culter’s younger son Francis … Francis Crawford of Lymond, the hard-living leader of mercenaries whose by-blow Kuzúm had been snatched and used in a game by his enemies. Until he had caught up with and killed their leader, Graham Reid Malett.

  It was typical that, in the wild hunt through far lands which followed, the main concern of Crawford of Lymond had been to kill Malett, not necessarily to rescue the child. And typical that, suspecting it, Philippa Somerville had stuck grimly to him, and biding her time, had found the child and brought it back, too.

  It was at the first reading that Kate stopped and letting her hand fall, with the letter in it, said in tones of failing belief, ‘But she was in the harem!’

  Sybilla said calmly, ‘It doesn’t matter. If she says she was untouched, she was untouched. And no one else need know anything of it.’

  ‘In Flaw Valleys?’ Kate said. ‘They’ll ask her about the pattern on Suleiman’s nightshirt. And I cannot believe that Francis was not fully capable of extracting his own son without Philippa’s help. She was probably an unqualified nuisance.’

  Sybilla turned over one or two pages. ‘Certainly, she has remarkably little to say in his favour.’

  Kate said glumly, ‘I don’t suppose they were speaking to one another. All she did was saddle him with two children to look after instead of one. She says he sent her straight home from Volos, and I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘Well, at least she went,’ said Sybilla comfortably. ‘It says here he sent her straight home from Algiers as well, and she made Archie Abernethy turn back so that she could continue her hunt for the little one. I think we owe a great deal to your Philippa.’

  ‘Grey hairs,’ Philippa’s mother suggested.

  But it was Kate, daily tramping the battlements, who first saw the long line of dust which announced her young daughter’s arrival. By the time Philippa’s cortège arrived, they were all on the steps of Midculter: Kate, Sybilla and Richard, Sybilla’s other older, responsible son, with his wife and young children beside him.

  There seemed to be a great many mules. Straining her eyes as they turned in at the gates, Kate studied them vainly for Philippa. In the lead was a small bearded man bearing a bundle, and beside him a stylish person in a cloak and hood trimmed with lynx, at whom Kate cast a wistful glance, since she could not imagine her having much time for her bedraggled Philippa. Then, looking again at the smooth, polished face and the coils of intricately pleated shining brown hair, she saw that it was her bedraggled Philippa. She walked forward, slowly.

  Philippa reined in and looked down at her mother. Sitting like the Queen of Sheba, with her face green
with fright she said, ‘Did you get my letters from Austin?’

  Kate nodded. Clearing her throat, she said, ‘Kevin and Lucy were expecting a nose-veil and curly-toed slippers.’

  Her daughter’s youthful brown eyes, losing their starkness, became visibly pink round the edges. ‘They’re in my luggage,’ Philippa said. ‘With my prayer mat. I thought you would show me the door. Perhaps. That is, one shouldn’t think of other people’s babies before one’s own mother. I knew you would stop me.’

  ‘I can’t think how,’ Kate Somerville said. ‘Gunpowder? It was more than Mr Crawford evidently could do.’

  ‘There were a few unpleasantnesses,’ Philippa said guardedly. She stared at Kate, trying not to think of Mr Crawford’s unpleasantnesses. Her nose, also, was growing faintly pink.

  ‘There are times,’ Kate said conversationally, ‘when one wonders where that gentleman’s habits came from. Are you going to come indoors on the horse, or can I help you …?’

  At which, giggling, Philippa Somerville slid, with her eyes overflowing, into her mother’s damp and convulsive embrace.

  Presently, there was the other meeting, with Lord Culter and his wife on the steps. Presently, too, came her first encounter with Lord Culter’s mother Sybilla. But before that the Dowager, the soul of discretion, had wandered into the courtyard to speak to her old friend Archie Abernethy. ‘We are so glad to see you. David will look after your men. Won’t you give him your horse, and come inside 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 all nice,’ 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.