05 The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett

Author:Dorothy Dunnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The foreign party slept late the next morning. The last thing Chancellor had heard, before sleep entirely claimed him, was a subdued bustle of some sort in the next room, and the resumption of the deep voice he had heard earlier: the Samoyèdes were taking time, it appeared, over their argument. The voice rose and fell, changed and modulated almost like music: it was extraordinarily soothing. Chancellor thought, vaguely, that he must learn the language and then, even more vaguely, that it must be simple, to need no interpreter.

He wished the Voevoda well from the monologue and there entered his mind, like a foul taste, the thought of Aleksandre, and what at this moment was happening to him. Then the thick, undulating voice claimed his thoughts, and led him soon wholly to slumber.

When he finally stumbled into the outer room half-way through the next morning, Lymond was sitting fully dressed in clean clothes on his mattress with pen, ink and a litter of papers spread all around him. He looked, as Richard Grey looked, like cheese lightly set in the chissel. A linen pad showed discreetly above one rim of his high stiffened collar, and there was another dressing in the thick of his hair. Chancellor said, ‘We may find it difficult to explain the quality of the ale in Lampozhnya.’

The look he received was wide, pure and cool as the ice. ‘I am in no discomfort at all,’ Lymond said, ‘and so do not qualify, I fear, for the olive branch. Konstantin has just reported that the captain Aleksandre unfortunately failed to recover from questioning.’

Chancellor’s bearded cheek jumped as his teeth came together. He said, ‘So the next captain is Konstantin.’

‘It was the inherent danger in the arrangement,’ Lymond said with a trace of regret. ‘I come to thee, little water-mother, with head bowed and repentant. So such exquisite knowledge of the hellish squadrons of Lennox is denied us.’ He paused. ‘On another matter. You have heard of the Stroganovs?’

Richard Chancellor stared back at him and felt suddenly quite exhausted.

He had heard of the Stroganovs. On the journey north, the meeting between Lymond and Yakob Stroganov, whose father Onyka had established the forty-year-old saltworks at Solvychegodsk, had not escaped Chancellor. He knew, from hearsay, that the family traded with the Samoyèdes, far beyond the River Ob. He even knew that his brother, Gregory Anikiev Stroganov, had established some kind of trading-post on the River Kama in Permia, where dogs carried bales and drew sledges, and men ground roots for their bread, and the white rind of fir trees. He had not expected, in the short span of time now left him, to be able to meet them and question them.

Not until now, when he heard Lymond calmly arranging a meeting for their last day in Lampozhnya. And even then, he disbelieved it until next day he came in with Grey from their huckstering, and entering Lymond’s room, saw the burly, grey-haired man in fine furs sitting at ease there, and was introduced to Gregory Stroganov.

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