{"product_id":"the-game-of-kings-isbn-9780525565246","title":"The Game of Kings","description":"Combining all the political intrigue of \u003ci\u003eGame of Thrones\u003c\/i\u003e with the sweeping romanticism of \u003ci\u003eOutlander\u003c\/i\u003e, Dorothy Dunnett’s legendary Lymond Chronicles have enthralled readers for decades and amassed legions of devoted fans. The first book in the series introduces Dunnett’s unforgettable antihero as he returns to Scotland with a wild plan to redeem his reputation and save his home.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The year is 1547. Scotland is clinging to independence after a humiliating English invasion. Paradoxically, the country’s freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapegrace nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, with a scholar’s erudition and a wicked tongue. Clawing his way back into a country that has outlawed him, and to a family that has turned its back on him, Lymond will prove that he has both the will and the cunning to clear his name and defend his people—no matter the cost.“[Lymond] is arguably the perfect romantic hero.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Vivid, engaging, densely plotted. . . . Dunnett is a master of suspense and misdirection.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A masterpiece of historical fiction.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “First-rate . . . suspenseful. . . . Her hero, in his rococo fashion, is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas . . . breathlessly exciting.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Cleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Ingenious and exceptional . . . its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Boston Herald\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sunday Times (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “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.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Times Literary Supplement (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness . . . and turbulent intensity of one of Europe’s greatest eras.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Raleigh News and Observer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eDOROTHY DUNNETT was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries; \u003ci\u003eKing Hereafter\u003c\/i\u003e, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text of \u003ci\u003eThe Scottish Highlands\u003c\/i\u003e, a book of photographs by David Paterson, on which she collaborated with her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett. In 1992 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature. Lady Dunnett died in 2001.\"Lymond is   back.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was. known soon after the Sea-Catte reached Scotland from Campvere   with an illicit cargo and a man she should not have carried.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Lymond is in   Scotland.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was said by busy men preparing for war against England, with   contempt, with disgust; with a side-slipping look at one of their number. \"I   hear the Lord Culter's young brother is back.\" Only sometimes a woman's voice   would say it with a different note, and then laugh a little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Lymond's own men had   known he was coming. Waiting for him in Edinburgh they wondered briefly, without   concern, how he proposed to penetrate a walled city to reach them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When the Sea-Catte   came in, Mungo Tennant, citizen and smuggler of Edinburgh, knew nothing of these   things or of its passenger. He made his regular private adjustment from douce gentility   to illegal trading; and soon a boatload of taxless weapons, bales of velvet and Bordeaux   wine was being rowed on a warm August night over the Nor' Loch which guarded the   north flank of Edinburgh, and toward the double cellar beneath Mungo's house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Among   the reeds of the Nor' Loch, where the snipe and the woodcock lay close and the baillies'   swans raised their grey necks, a man quietly stripped to silk shirt and hose and   stood listening, before slidding softly into the water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Across four hundred feet   of black lake, friezelike on their ridge, towered the houses of Edinburgh. Tonight   the Castle on its pinnacle was fully lit, laying constellations on the water; for   within, the Governor of Scotland the Earl of Arran was listening to report after   report of the gathering English army about to invade him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Below the Castle, the   house of the Queen Mother also showed lights. The late King's French widow, Mary   of Guise, was sleepless too over the feared attack, for the redheaded baby Queen   for whom Arran governed was her daughter. And England's purpose was to force a betrothal   between the child Queen Mary and the boy King Edward, aged nine, and to abduct the   four-year-old fianc?e if chance offered. The burned thatch, the ruined stonework,   the blackened face of Holyrood Palace showed where already, in other years, invading   armies from England had made their point, but not their capture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Few civic cares   troubled Mungo Tennant, awaiting his cargo, except that the ceaseless renewal of   war against England made a watch at the gates much too stringent; and the total defeat   by England thirty-four years since at Flodden had caused high walls to be flung around   Edinburgh which were damnably inopportune for a smuggler. And for Crawford of Lymond,   now parting the flat waters of the Nor' Loch like an oriflamme in the wake of the   boat. For where a smuggler's load could pierce a city's defences, so could an outlawed   rebel, whose life would be forfeit if caught.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ahead, the boat scraped on mud and   was lifted silently shoreward. The rowers unloaded. Burdened feet trod on grass,   crossed a garden, encompassed an obstacle, and were silent within the underground   shaft leading to the cellar below the cellar in Mungo's house. The swimmer, collared   with duckweed, grounded, shook himself, and unseen followed gently into, and out   of the same house. Crawford of Lymond was in Edinburgh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once there, it was simple.   In a small room in the High Street he changed fast into sober, smothering clothes   and was fed two months' news, in voracious detail, by those serving him. \".   . . And so the Governor's expecting the English in three weeks and is fair flittering   about like a hen with its throat cut. . . . You're gey wet,\" said the spokesman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I,\" said Lymond, in the voice unmistakably his which honeyed his most   lethal thoughts, \"I am a narwhal looking for my virgin. I have sucked up the   sea like Charybdis and failing other entertainment will spew it three times daily,   for a fee. Tell me again, precisely, what you have just said about Mungo Tennant.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They told him, and received their orders, and then he left, pausing on the threshold   to pin the dark cloak about his chin. \"Shy,\" said Lymond with simplicity,   \"as a dogtooth violet.\" And he was gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In his tall house in Gosford   Close with the boar's head in chief over the lintel, Mungo Tennant, wealthy and respectable   burgher, had invited a neighbour and his friend to call. They sat on carved chairs,   with their feet on a Kurdistan carpet, ate their way through capon and quails, chickens,   pigeons and strawberries, cherries, apples and warden pears, and noticed none of   these things, nor even the hour, being at grips with a noble and irresistible argument.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At ten o'clock, the rest of the household went to bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At ten-thirty, Mungo's steward   answered a rasp at the door and found Hob Hewat, the water carrier.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The steward   asked Hob, in the vernacular, digressing every second or third word, what he wanted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hob said he had been told to bring water for the sow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The steward denied it. Hob   insisted. The steward described what instead he might do with the water and Hob described   in detail how he had ruined his spine raising the steward's undistinguished water   from the well. Mungo, above, thumped on the floor to stop the racket and the steward,   cursing, gave in. He led the way to the apartment beneath the stairs where lived   Mungo's great sow, the badge of his house, the pet and idiotic pig's apple of his   eye, and waited while Hob Hewat filled its water trough. He then sat down suddenly   under an annihilating tap on the head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hob, who had done all he had been paid to   do, disappeared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The steward slipped to the floor, and stayed there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sow approached   her water dish, sniffed it with increasing favour, and inserted both her nose and   her front trotters therein.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Crawford of Lymond tied up the steward, left the stye,   and climbed the stairs to Mungo Tennant's apartments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the gratified presence   of their host, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch and Tom Erskine were still hard at it.   Buccleuch, beaked like a macaw, was a baroque and mighty Scots Lowlander with a tough   mind, a voice like Saint Columba's, and one of the biggest estates on the Scottish   Border. Erskine, much the younger, pink, stocky and vehement, was a son of Lord Erskine,   who was head of one of the families nearest the throne, and captain of the Queen's   fortress of Stirling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Just wait,\" Buccleuch was roaring. \"Just wait,   man. Protector Somerset will get his damned English rabble together and march into   Scotland up the east coast. And he'll tell off his commander, Lord Wharton, to get   his Cumberland English together and invade us at the same time up the west coast.   And half the west coast landowners are pensioners of the English already and won't   resist 'em. And all the rest of us'll be over here at Edinburgh fighting Ned Somerset-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Not all of us,\" said Erskine neatly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Buccleuch's whiskers promenaded.   \"Who'll stay in the west that's worth a docken?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Andrew Hunter of   Ballaggan?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Christ. Andrew's a nice, gentlemanly lad, but his estate's   been bled dry; and as for the ill-armed crew he calls followers- Man, they'd lay   on a battlefield like dandruff.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The third Baron Culter?\" suggested   Tom Erskine, and Buccleuch got the derisive note and turned red at the wattle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I   know fine the cheeky clack of the court,\" shouted Buccleuch. \"They say   Culter's not to be trusted.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tom Erskine lifted the broad, brocade shoulders.   \"They say his younger brother's not to be trusted.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Lymond! We know   all about Lymond. Rieving and ruttery and all manner of vice-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"And treason.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"And treason. But treason's not Lord Culter's dish. There are those that want   to take time and men to hunt down Lymond and his band of murderers; and those that   demand that Culter should lead them as proof of his loyalty. But if Richard Crawford   of Culter won't interfere; says he has better business to attend to and refuses flatly   to hound down his brother baying like the Wild Jagd, that still doesn't make him   a traitor.\" And inflating the great chasms of his cheeks, Buccleuch added, \"Anyway,   Culter's just got married. D'ye blame him for keeping his shield on the hook and   his family blunders all tied up at the back of the armory?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Damn it,\"   said Tom Erskine, annoyed, \"I don't blame him for anything. It isn't my fault.   And if it's that black Irish beauty he married, I don't expect he'd notice if the   Protector knocked on the front gate at Midculter and asked for a drink of water.   But-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The large red face had calmed down. \"You're dead right, of course,\"   said Buccleuch cordially. \"In fact you've given me a wee notion or two I can   use to the fellow himself. If Culter's going to be in credit at court at all, he'll   need to bring himself to capture that honey-faced de'il.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mungo Tennant, the   silent and flattered host, was able to make respectful comment at last. \"Crawford   of Lymond, Sir Wat?\" he said. \"Now, he's not in this country, as I heard.   He's in the Low Countries, I believe. And when he'll be back, if ever, God knows.   . . . Bless us, what's that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was only a sneeze; but a sneeze outside the   door of their chamber, which dislimned every shade of their privacy. Tom Erskine   got there first, the other two at his heels. The room beyond was empty, but the door   of Mungo's bedroom was ajar. Taking a candle like a banner in his fist, Erskine rushed   in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His hair soft as a nestling's, his eyes graceless with malice, Lymond was watching   him in a silver mirror. Before Erskine could call, Buccleuch and Mungo Tennant had   piled in beside him and Lymond had taken two steps to the far door, there to linger,   hand on latch and the blade of his sword held twinkling at breast level as they jumped,   weaponless, to face him, and then fell back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"As my lady of Suffolk saith,\"   said Lymond gently, \"God is a marvellous man.\" Eyes of cornflower blue   rested thoughtfully on Sir Wat. \"I had fallen behind with the gossip. . . .   Nouvelle amour, nouvelle affection; nouvelles fleurs parmi l'herbe nouvelle. Tell   Richard his bride has yet to meet her brother-in-law, her Sea-Catte, her Sea-Scorpion,   beautiful in the breeding season. What a pity you didn't wear your swords.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rage mottled Buccleuch's face. \"Ye murdering cur. . . . You'll end this night-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I know. Flensed, basted and flayed, and off to hang on a six-shilling gibbet-keep   your distance-but not tonight. The city is not full great, but it hath good baths   within him. And tonight the frogs and mice fight, eh, Mungo?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Man's mad,\"   said Buccleuch positively. He had managed to pick up a firedog.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Mungo doesn't   think so,\" said Lymond. \"His mind is on fleshly lusts and his treasure.\"   And certainly, the jennet fur at his neck warped with sweat, Mungo Tennant was gaping   at the intruder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Lymond smiled back. \"Be careful,\" he said. \"Pits   are yawning publicly at your feet. O mea cella, vale, you know . . .\" And suddenly,   it came to Mungo what he was threatening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't linger, I pray you, cuckoo,   while you run away,\" said the sage. Mungo Tennant said nothing. He rushed toward   Lymond, collided with Tom Erskine on the way, and falling, sat on the candle. There   was a moment's indescribable hubbub while the three men and the firedog blundered   cursing into each other in the dark; then they got to the far door and wrenched it   open. The corridor as far as the stairhead was quite empty, and the light feet running   downward were already some distance away. They hurled themselves after him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They   were three floors above the ground, and the staircase was spiral. The spilth of Buccleuch's   bellow rattled the pewter in the kitchens; Tom Erskine shouted and Mungo piped like   a hen-whistle. The servants on their pallets heard and started up; tallows flared   and a patter of bare feet began on the rushes below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mungo's sow heard it too. Drunk   as a bishop, she hurtled stairward as the first of the servants arrived. Great blanket   ears flapping and rump arched like a Druid at sunrise, she hurled herself at them   as Lymond and his pursuers fled down. She bounced once off the newel post, scrabbled   once on the flags, trotters smoking, then shot Mungo Tennant backward, squealing   thickly in a liberated passion of ham-handed adoration. Mungo sat down, Buccleuch   fell on top of him and Tom Erskine swooped headfirst over them both, landing on the   pack of unkempt heads jamming the stair foot like stooks at a threshing. Winnowing   through them, utterly unremarked in the uproar, was Lymond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Screaming, squealing   and grunting, the impacted cluster swayed on the stairs, torn and surging like rack   where the pig unseen hooked the bare feet from under them. Buccleuch was the first   to get free, grey whiskers overhanging the swarm like a Chinese kite at a carnival.   \"Lymond!\" he shrieked. \"Where's he got to?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They scoured the   house in the end without a trace of him, although they found Mungo's steward mute   and bound in the pighouse. \"Damn it!\" said Buccleuch furiously. \"The   windows were barred and the door lockit-he must be here. Where's your cellar?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mungo's face was spotty under the pig-spit. \"I've looked there. It's empty.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Well, let's look again,\" snapped Buccleuch, and, was there before Tennant   could stop him. \"What's that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was, undoubtedly, a trap door. In bitterest   necessity, Mungo Tennant held them up for ten minutes protesting: he claimed it was   sealed; it was ornamental; it was locked and unused. In the end Buccleuch stopped   listening and went for a crowbar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It opened with a hissing, fairly oiled ease.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mungo need not have worried. The lower cellar, the cavern and the long underground   tunnel to the Nor' Loch contained no contraband at all. But, because tuns of Bordeaux   wine make hard rowing, all the wells of Edinburgh ran with claret next day; and on   this, the eve of the English invasion, the commonality of the High Street were for   an hour or two as blithe as the Gosford Close sow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Late, the laminated sheet of   the Nor' Loch held a faint chord of laughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"There was a lady lov'd a hogge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Honey, quoth she\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Won't thou lie with me tonight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hoogh, quoth he.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And, long   since ashore with his men and his booty, Crawford of Lymond, man of wit and crooked   felicities, bred to luxury and heir to a fortune, rode off serenely to Midculter   to break into his new sister-in-law's castle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Won't thou lie with me tonight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hoogh, quoth he.\"","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302109532389,"sku":"NP9780525565246","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525565246.jpg?v=1767739466","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-game-of-kings-isbn-9780525565246","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}