‘It is infamy that you do. I cannot go. I am alone here.’
‘Women, clothing, all, shall follow with good speed, madam. But we must be speedier.’
‘If I refuse you—if I command——?’
‘I cannot consider with your Majesty the effect of that.’
‘Do you take me, Lindsay—you alone? No, but I will die here sooner.’
Lord Sempill spoke. ‘I offer myself to your Majesty, with the consent of the Lords.’
She rose up then. ‘I thank you, Lord Sempill: I will go with you.’
She gave him her hand, which, having kissed, he held. He would have taken her away then and there, but that she pulled against him. ‘I leave my servant dead here. He loved me well, and I him. Let me pray a while; then I will go.’
Des-Essars turned and rose to his arm’s length from the ground. He could not move his legs. ‘I am a prisoner also—take me.’
‘You, my man?’ says Lindsay: ‘unlikely.’