The Game Of Kings Part 18

Johnnie Bulb, judging his moment, stopped when the room was quite dark. There was a heavy silence. Then Janet Beaton said reIlectively, "Lapis philosophorum. The basic idea is simple enough. In man, perfect proportion of the elements means health; in metals, it means gold. Equate the two~ produce a system capable of creating such an elemental fusion and you have a means on the one hand of creating health-long life, power, vigour-and on the other, of creating-~.

"Gold," said the gypsy softly. He watched their faces: Mariotta's afraid and fascinated, Lady Buccleuch's intent and practical, the Dowager's vividly interested. "I have the secret. But I need the means of practising it..

"And having made the Stone?" said Sybilla.

"I can trans.m.u.te plain ore into gold, in any quant.i.ty you may want." Lady Buceleuch said practically, "We should, of course, have to reach a proper commercial agreement about that," and Mariotta exclaimed, a shade wildly, "Dragon's Blood!.

"It's just a name for the residue, dear," said Sybilla thoughtfully. She looked up with decision. "Gla.s.sware-I can get that: Janet, you'll advise me. Ore . . . What sort? Lead? I can send to Edinburgh. Furnace . . . We'd have to rebuild one of the disused bake-house ovens at the back of the courtyard. . . . Yes. Master Bulb," said the Dowager, "I understand if we supply all this equipment, you're willing to work here on creating the Stone, and to give us the benefit of it when it's done?.

"If you do that," said Johnnie sincerely, "you'll be making an unique contribution to the great science of alchemy and the sum total of human wisdom. . .

Much later, when he had gone, Christian and Agnes Herries joined them and heard the tale.

The Baroness's eyes were wide as platters. "The Philosopher's Stone! We'll all live to be ninety, and have everything gold!.

"Remember Midas, dear," said Sybilla mildly. "Did you enjoy visiting Boghall?" And while the unsparing account unfolded itself, found and absently flourished a letter. "It came for you while you were away.~~Agnes stopped dead. Letters in this expensive and empty young life were rare birds: her mother never wrote; her grandfather seldom. She seized and bore it away without a word.

A moment later, she was back. "Can anyone," asked Agnes in a voice oddly muted, "can anyone besides Christian translate Spanish?.

The Dowager glanced over. "You seem to have a remarkably erudite correspondent, surely? But tell Christian if you want to. We shan't listen.~~Agnes said, after a moment, "It doesn't matter. It's a poem..

"A poem!" exclaimed Lady Buccleuch. "That girl's got a love letter, or you can call me Ananias..

The Dowager's voice was gently amused. "I think you'd better put us out of our misery, Agnes. Who is it from?" And the Baroness, ina voice in which surprise, pride and a kind of simple grat.i.tude could be heard, answered, "The Master of Maxwell..

She read the letter aloud, in the end, with no persuasion at all.

I fear to write. The great Pan is dead: there is no magic to bring you the likeness of my heart. My physical likeness you can have; but that will show you only a camelopard-no hero of romance; no prince of myths and sagas. My face will never do duty for my heart:my voice can never scale the barriers of your youth, your wealth, your hand promised-they say-to another.

But birds of paradise feed on dew and rare vapours and men on Pytan live by the smell of wild apples: so perhaps may the sound of words nourish us both. From here where all is night, I see a foolish-fire, and stretch my hands toward it and hope for miracles.

I cannot come to your nectary. I can only boom like a bittern on my marshes and say, Have pity now, O bright, blissful G.o.ddess. Once, I wished to marry you. Now you are betrothed and I must not wish it . . . but in writing these words I have attained all my object; I have achieved what, with your help, has been all I desired.

Read and remember sometimes the writer. You may see here no more than Mercury's finger, but its office is no less sincereAnd it ended in Spanish:Rosa das rosas, et fror das froresDona das donas, sennor das sennoresA whole verse of it followed; then the signature: JOHN MAXWELL.

There was a stunned silence. Christian, staring where she knew Mariotta to be, scowled like a heathen, daring her to laugh. Lady Buccleuch, greatly taken, said, "Well, for thirteen years old I call that a prodigious compliment: hardly a word under four syllables..

The Dowager was reflective. "Mercury's finger. How odd. The Spanish, Christian-is it difficult to translate?" She had to repeat herself.

"The Spanish?" said the blind girl. "Oh, I know it. In fact I recently- It's very well known," she ended rather lamely.

"You recently translated it? Did you?" asked the Dowager.

"I was going to say, I recently heard someone sing it," said Christian truthfully. She gave them the gist, her mind elsewhere. I cannot come . . . In writing these words I have attained all my object .

I have achieved what, with your help, has been all 1 desired. The mischievous, overdecorated tongue was the tongue-surely-of hernameless prisoner of Boghall and Inchmahome and Stirling. The song was his. The artifice was his. But the letter was from the Master of Maxwell: the seal was authentic and the messenger had been from Threave. Finally, it was addressed to Agnes, and not to her.

But he had promised, odd as it had seemed, to write; and he knew that of the household, only she could speak Spanish, and would be shown such a letter. And in it, embedded in sly absurdities, was the news she wanted. Christian became aware that Agnes, in the same tentative voice, was saying, "Then you think I should answer?" and Sybilla was replying, "I think you certainly should. Of course, it's ridiculously sudden, and you can never tell a man from his letters, and I certainly shouldn't mention it in the hearing of a Hamilton; but a flirtation by correspondence never did anyone any harm..

Pause. Then said Agnes, "I can't write Spanish and I've forgotten all my Latin..

SybiDa answered the panic too, in her calm way. "Then perhaps Christian would help you, dear. Write it together, and see how you get on..

This was dangerously apt, and Christian felt herself go scarlet. Yet she could certainly help Agnes. And it might be possible-and could do no harm-to slip in some sort of ambiguity of her own. She got up. "Come on," she said. "We'll go to your room and compose an answer straight away..

* * *The letter had been finished, a meal had been served, and Richard had joined them when Wat Scott of Buccleuch arrived to collect his wife.

The Dowager, who had excellent control of her facial muscles, dispatched servants for food and wine, and drew Buccleuch in a cloud of disarming inquiry to the fire.

Sir Wat sat, throwing an uneasy glance at his host, who said politely, "Your illness taken a turn for the better, I see, Wat?.

Buccleuch s.h.i.+fted in his chair, casting an inimical look at his wife. "No, no. I'm not out of the wood yet, but Dod, I can hardly hold house all winter like a moulting hen. I'm taking a wee trip here and there betimes but incognito, you understand; without my pennants..

Richard, continuing with unruffled persistence, said, "What a pity. Then you won't be with us at the cattle raid?.

"This suggestion of Maxwell's? Now, there's a queer thing if youlike," said Buccleuch. "Here's a man who's been at Carlisle so often"-Or will you?" said Richard like the crack of a whip.

Sir Wat halted. He said, "Well, as to that . . ." and stopped again.

"Will you listen to this?" demanded Dame Janet of the ceiling. "The man's lost his tongue and found a cricket's hind legs. Wat Scott, will you say plain out what you mean?.

She turned to Lord Culter. "The Queen's agreed to Wat parleying with the English, provided he gives enough anonymous proof of his good intentions in other directions. So he'll have to go to the raid, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, if we have to put his head in a box to keep it quiet from those sharp-eyed ferrets at Carlisle..

An echo from Buccleuch's own words arrested the conversation. "A suggestion," demanded Agnes Herries, "of the Master of Maxwell?.

"That's right." Buccleuch, offered an escape route, was concerned only with disappearing along it. "The idea was John Maxwell's, though whether we can trust it is another story. But the man's offered to send us time and place for Wharton's next invasion across the Border, and at the very least to hold his own men from interfering. It sounds fair enough when you think of it: he's dead anxious to keep in with the Queen..

"The fellow's fairly running himself to a shadow," said his wife. "We've been busy at it all afternoon reading correspondence from the same Master of Maxwell. Tell Bucclcuch your news, Agnes..

Agnes conveyed, with a certain nonchalance, the gist of Maxwell's letter. The eyes of the two men met, this time in irresistible speculation. Buccleuch said thoughtfully, "I see. Well, it'll do no harm. She's to reply, Sybilla?.

"She has already," said the Dowager placidly. "I thought it might be best..

Lady Buccleuch said, "What about it, Wat? Is he safe to deal with?" Buccleuch took a deep breath. "He might be. The Protector's got him by the short hairs, of course; his brother's in London, and Maxwell himself was due to report to Wharton just about now. Add to that the fact that all his lands are two hours out of Carlisle and the Earl of Angus is married to his only sister, and you've got the pattern of a hara.s.sed man. Hara.s.sed, but not stupid," added Buccleuch. "It's just possible he may be capable of juggling them all: we'll have to wait and see.~~When, finally, the Branxholm party rose to go, Dame Janet dropped behind with Lord Culter. "I'm remembering what we spoke of at Branxholm, Richard. Wat's heard nothing from the boy up to now..

Culter said briefly, "You know what I think about that..

"Well, you heard him," said Janet. "He's not likely to change. It's for you to decide how badly you want Lymond..

He offered no reply and, looking at him, she spoke under her breath. "And if you'd a different look on your face, my dear, I'd give you some d.a.m.ned good advice about your wife as well..

2. An Exchange of p.a.w.ns Is Suggested

For the gentlemen, officers and heads on the west parts of Scotland entered to the King's service said the notice. Read aloud by a staid, cultivated voice, it proceeded to expect the English gentlemen thus addressed to muster their hors.e.m.e.n at Dumfries on the following Sunday night, when the Earl of Lennox and Lord Wharton's son Henry would command them in an attack on the Scots.

"Goodness me," said Kate Somerville, peering at and then watering a rather dilapidated flower in a pot. "What it is to be on holiday when the rest of the school's at work. How would you spend your vacation, Philippa, if' you were Father?.

Philippa, a serious ten-year-old with long straight hair, thought. "Go hunting?.

"In this weather? No, darling. Father doesn't like wearing his tarry s.h.i.+rt unless he has to..

"Play backgammon?.

"Father disapproves of gambling with people who play better than he does..

"Make us a new song?.

"Now that," said Kate, "is a harmless, genteel and civilized occupation for an unemployed gentleman. Certainly, he might make us a song.''Gideon Somerville laid down Wharton's notice and gazed at his wife and daughter. "I may be old and unemployed, but I am not yet reduced to being administered totally from above, like a worthy but derelict sundial. Not yet. I am not going to compose a song for you. Or if I am, the idea will strike me of its own accord..

"Today," said his wife, "Father is in a tetchy mood. Give himfood, listen to what he has to say, but ask no questions, even intelligent ones." And she grinned at her husband.

Kate Somerville in her twenties was a neat brown creature with melting brown eyes and the temperament of a mature and witty old lady. All her life, and not least by Gideon, Kate had heard herself summed up as "sensible"; and no one, not even Gideon, guessed how she disliked it. An unusual blind spot, for Somerville was of all thing perceptive: in his wife's present smile he saw at once the reflection of his own uneasiness, and got tragically to his feet.

"All right. I know my place. To the music room!" he observed, and had the satisfaction of seeing his wife and daughter laugh and make with one accord for the door. Soon Lord Wharton's summons and the importunities of the Lord Lieutenant alike had vanished from his head, and as the winter rain fell on Flaw Valleys and its gardens and yards, on the stout, skeletal barrier trees and the Tyne, distantly hissing, and on the brown, patched hills and moors beyond, the Somervilles wrote and read and made music like bells in a campanile, and ignored the summons to Lord Wharton's attack.

But no English family within striking distance of the Scots Border ever sold its ears completely to pleasure. Kate, listening to the concert from her adjoining bedroom, heard voices outside, and against the sound of Gideon's voice warbling happily ("Sir, what say ye? Sing on, let us see") she distinguished one of his men below, calling. ("Now will it be, This or another day?") She nodded encouragingly, shut the window, and returning to the next room, interrupted Gideon ruthlessly.

"Come on, Chanticleer. There's a crisis in the farmyard..

He followed her down.

An agitated crowd of men broke the news. "It's the horses, sir! Someone's got into the stables and taken the lot. There's not a beast in sight, sir!.

Gideon questioned them sharply. They had seen no one. The groom in charge had been felled from behind and could tell nothing. They had heard the drumming of hoofs and had run after, to see a pack of scared horses sweeping down on the gatehouse. There, the guards had rashly run out and had been engulfed; in spite of them the gates were opened and the herd disappeared down the road.

"And what about-" began Gideon, and stopped. "You-and you-and you!" he said sharply. "Shouldn't you be elsewhere?.

As he spoke, a tumbling figure appeared, calling. Kate, standingquietly in the background, clicked her tongue. "I thought so. Your sly old nags have been decoys for your cattle, Gideon. Someone's emptied the byres while all our sleuthhounds were sniffing after hoofprints..

She was right. Someone had not only emptied the byres, but stripped the farm of its livestock. Every sheep, every cow, every heifer on Flaw Valleys had gone.

The men of the household were seldom berated, but not because Gideon Somerville was incapable of straight talking when he felt like it. They listened, and then ran like hares under his voice to beg and borrow every horse his neighbours could muster and to collect food and weapons for the long chase that might be ahead.

Gideon turned to his wife. "I'm sorry, la.s.s. Employment for the unemployed gentleman after all..

"Oh, well. Everyone else has suave, cosmopolitan sheep: why not us? The Millers at Hepple have a ewe that's been to Kelso three times, and they've never been farther than Ford in their lives." Kate peered absently into the farm pond, and clucked again. "Thoughtless creatures. They've forgotten the fish..

"I'll come back as soon as I can," said Gideon, undeceived. "Those d.a.m.ned guards at least will be on their toes now..

"All right," said h~s wife philosophically. "Double the guard; put the fowling pieces under the bed and call in the chickens. If this is a trick, it'll have to be a good one to catch a Somerville sleeping, again..

Gideon bent and kissed her, and shortly afterward, armed and mounted on borrowed horseflesh, led his men out of the yard and north after the raiders.

* * *The raid on Flaw Valleys was the most easterly of a series of robberies which swept the south side of the Border that day and were guided and controlled by Crawford of Lymond.

While, like some fissured lodestone, Lord Wharton presided at Carlisle and drew toward him the reluctant hearties of c.u.mberland and Westmorland, the unmanned farms of both counties were neatly stripped also of their tenants on the hoof, and a stream of hide and wool toiled docilely to the Border, bleat and bellow mingling with soprano from the outraged hearths.

win Scott, working fast from herd to herd, showed the marks of his three months' apprentices.h.i.+p. Meeting him in the press, Johnnie Bulb grinned. "Man, for a minute I thought it was your chief, except it's a different sort of sneer."At Carlisle the Lord Warden, totally unaware, marshalled his force, conferred with his colleague the Earl of Lennox and consulted the sky, which told him that something unpleasant was probably on the way and made him very glad indeed, in the small and unkempt civilian corner of his soul, that the Earl of Lennox and not himself was going on this expedition.

In Scotland at the same time, the Queen's forces made somewhat confused rendezvous at Lamington, as directed by John Maxwell, and prepared to march south, Lord Culter and Wat Scott of Buccleuch among them.

By nightfall, the hail was already whipping down in gusts and the raids on livestock in Northern England were coming to a systematic close. Trickles of animals met and joined, tributary met tributary and river engulfed river. By the time the Earl of Lennox left Carlisle the united four-footed Sabaoth was already ahead of him and steering at a tangent for his line of march. Beyond them to the north the Scottish army was bedded down on their line of march, the ice making faint and Aeolian music about their steel helmets.

Between England and Scotland here lay river and marsh: on the west the smooth, treacherous skins of the Solway estuary; on the east the high, wild Roman hills. As the English army under Lennox marched through that night the lightly covered ground opened polyp mouths to their hoofs and made thick mud-slides of every bank. They foundered and staggered and trotted and cursed, and Lennox the commander spat with fury when his scouts reported out of the dark that there was a cattle blockage in the narrow road ahead.

There was nothing unusual in the wilder Border clans taking a dark night to steal some cattle on the Scottish side and drive them south. The Elliots in charge of the herd were apologetic about it and no doubt did their best to clear the road. But when Lennox and his men arrived they met nose to nose with what seemed like every beast in Scotland with four feet to it.

Lennox looked about. Deep, quaking marsh lay on his left and right; the road ahead of him was banked above it and exceedingly narrow. Fifty yards off on his right a small hill thrust up from the bog and overhung the road on its eastern edge. Between this escarpment and the western marsh the dim white of the causeway was hidden by packed and ponderous bodies. "What's the road like beyond that hill?" snapped tiw Earl of Lennox.

"Wide and flat, sir," said the Elliot. "You'll have no trouble there..

"You mean you'll have no trouble," said Lennox viciously. "We're going to turn your herd and drive it back through the defile, my man; and then I shall ride through them. If you think I'm staying here to be nudged into the marsh by a baron of beef, you're mistaken." And, rising in the saddle, Lennox's men with whoops and cracking of whips cantered down the road toward the hill; and the herd, after much eye-rolling and heavy breathing and ponderous caracole, heaved itself around and trotted back the way it had-supposedly--come. The citizens of c.u.mberland gambolled after it.

Who can tell by what signs, on a dark, stormy night far from home, a farmer can recognize his own? Lennox's army was just moving under the lee of the hill when the first shout rent the night. "Hey! Wait a bit! I could swear . . . G.o.d d.a.m.n it, there's three of my cattle over there!" It was joined by another. "Here-those are Gilsland sheep!" And an anguished recital began. "Hey! Wait! Stop! Turn them!.

Lennox, riding irritably in front, had his bridle seized by a sweaty hand. "There's been a mistake, sir. These aren't Scottish cattle, they're our own; and sheep and hacks too. We'll have to turn them." And the speaker, releasing himself, shot past him and was followed by half the army.

Lennox stood in his stirrups and shouted himself hoa.r.s.e, but no one replied. He was alone with a handful of men on the southern fringe of an inextricable mess of animals and men, and the latter were exclusively engaged in finding and rounding up their possessions. The Earl of Lennox sank back in the saddle, and at that moment, there was a hissing of wet, grey feathers and the arrows began.

They fell from the heights of the small hill to the east, and from the Scottish end of the road to the north, and as the English, abandoning their livestock, faced about-from the south as well, from over a small group of cattle which, appearing from nowhere, blocked the only way out.

Lennox's men, pulling out bow and quiver with numbed fingers among the nudging rumps and dripping muzzles, found themselves handicapped players in an unpleasant and one-sided game. They dismounted very quickly indeed, and dodging bent among the heavingflanks, began to make hopeless dashes like mice in a cornfield. The arrows fell faster.

On the slope overlooking the trap, Scott of Buccleuch was enjoying himself hugely. "One for Tam Scott, and one for Bob Scott, and one for Jocky Scott, and one for . . . Christ, they'll make off down that Carlisle road if we're not careful..

"It's all right." One of his own officers rea.s.sured him, peering through the dark. "Someone's driven a small herd across the south end of the road as well, and they're fighting across it..

"Dod, are they? Someone's got brains," said Sir Wat admiringly. "Well, come on then. Let's help him." And he swept over the hill, pa.s.sing the men fighting at the top-strangers and Maxwells, he supposed. At this point he also saw something else. A shadow. An easy, competent-looking shadow, with wide shoulders and an adroit way with a horse.

Buccleuch waved on the rest of his men and let them pa.s.s him, his eyes glued to the solitary horseman. Then the figure opened its mouth to give some advice to a heifer and Sir Wat roared "Will!" in a voice unmistakable over six counties. His son wheeled.

Against an infernal fresco of heaving cattle Scott saw his father's Red Jimmy beak and two sparks for his eyes; Buccleuch saw a hard elegance of outline and suspected an unaccustomed set to the mouth. He said, and had to clear his throat first, "Boy-will ye come back with me? Now? They won't miss you in the dark"-speaking fast because men were coming toward them.

He thought the boy jerked, but Will only said in a low voice, "No. It's too late . . . I must go," and gathered his reins. The others were nearly on them.

"Will . . . meet me then. Just to talk. I won't keep you, I swear, unless you want it. Send me word, and I'll come anywhere. Will you do it?.

They were Lamington men coming toward him; Buccleuch watched them in a ferment of fury. Then his son nodded. "Very well. I'll send word when I can come." The boy lingered a moment with a look odd, and almost avid; then he wheeled and drove his horse down the road.

After that, the rout was complete. Broken between panicking animals and remorseless archery, provisions lost, weapons lost, nerve shattered, Lennox's troops escaped into the moss and out of it as best they could, and a good many did not escape at all. The Scots hadbegun to withdraw when Lord Culter noticed that the group of cattle blocking the Carlisle end of the trap had disappeared. It was trotting instead across the faint, crooked path which led to the hills in the east with men all around it, driving it on. And at the head of the circle, knotting it tight and glittering in the sudden, faint moonlight, was a bright yellow head.

Lord Culter dismounted, running, and pulled the bow from his saddle as his horse pa.s.sed. He fitted an arrow and flung up his arm.

All his vision was filled by a broad, carapace back, leading a troop of men unerringly along the path of his bowshot. It was Buccleuch, bellowing as he went. "A Scott! A Scott!.