The Game Of Kings Part 8

The evening pa.s.sed. Most of the household went early to bed. Sir James and Angus had gone and silence lay on the three still sitting before the big fire. In his deep chair, Culter was motionless, his face lost in shadow. Andrew Hunter glanced at him, and Sir George Douglas, alert on the second, said, "He's asleep, I think. Did you wish to say something private?.

Sir Andrew smiled gratefully. "Not at all. But I did want to open up a small matter of business." He went on, with some hesitation.

"You may not know, but a cousin of mine, a great favourite ofMother's, was taken in '44, and has been in Carlisle ever since." He paused awkwardly. "I have a good little estate, you see, but not a very profitable one, and Jeff has no other relatives-.

"But of course," said Sir George with fine courtesy. "Not a word more. I shall be delighted. How much . . .

Hunter flushed a deep red. "No. I- It's true we can't pay what they ask. But if, for example, I could repay in kind . .

"An exchange of prisoners? Yes, I suppose that would be one way out..

"So I went to Annan. But I was unlucky," Hunter said, flus.h.i.+ng again. "And then I heard-.

"-That I have a prisoner," said Sir George. "Yes, I have. With a fearful stock of conversation-I've forgotten his name-Couch, or Crouch." He thought for a bit while Sir Andrew watched, his face a little anxious.

Then Douglas said pleasantly, "All right. I'll sell him to you for a hundred crowns. You needn't feel it's charity; and I expect it's a good deal less than they were asking for your cousin.

"Yes . . . I'm afraid it is charity," said Hunter rather ruefully. "You could probably sell him yourself for-.

"-Very little," said Sir George dryly, crossing a superb leg in blue silk. "Don't worry: he's yours. Will you send for him?.

"Right away!" Sir Andrew got up with rather touching enthusiasm. "I'll give you a bill for the money now, if I can find paper and ink. Excuse me, sir: and believe me, I'm most grateful." He betook himself off, shuffling over the rushes a little in his borrowed shoes.

The silence lengthened. Then Sir George Douglas said, "Why so silent, Lord Culter? Don't you approve of such transactions?.

Culter opened his eyes, and the faintest smile crossed his lips. "Sir, when two friends discuss money, the third friend should invariably be asleep..

Sir George laughed, and rising, clapped him on a brocade shoulder. "Poppyhead! Get to bed, man!.

* * *Lady Hermes, arranged in antique pose at the breakfast table, laid a large and languid hand on her chest. "Do you think," said Agnes, gazing hopefully at her troubadour, "do you think I ought to ride your horse today again?.

Lord Culter, who had just finished stuffing himself with baked crane and sack, said robustly, "Not if you want to get to Stirling this week. You'll be perfectly all right in your own saddle. Anyway, don't you want to be in time to see the papingo?.

Lady Hermes dropped a slice of bread, instantly lost to the dogs, and in ringing tones unsoftened by immersion, demanded data. "Is it a real parrot?.

"Quite real," said Sir Andrew solemnly. He put down his tankard. "Bright blue and yellow, with a beak like Buccleuch's..

She said with vigour, "My faith, I should like a papingo. I wonder how you feed them. What a waste to kill it! I suppose they'll hang it on a high pole?.

"They will. And my Lord Culter and a number of other gentlemen will shoot at it. And there'll be wrestling, and throwing, and tilting at the ring, and running, and prizes given; and then a fair all afternoon and half the night . .

Agnes snapped him up. "A fair!.

Remembering something, Hunter looked across her head. "By the way, Richard: I hope you won't be fool enough to . . . that is, your womenfolk are pretty anxious about Lymond." He broke off, daunted by Culter's continued silence. "Oh, well. None of my business. She'll tell you herself..

Culter stirred and raised his eyes. They fell on Agnes, looking at him with rather a silly expression. He smiled at her. "Child, relations are the devil. Think yourself lucky yours don't bother you. Will you come and see me shoot at this wretched bird?.

This was self-sacrifice with a vengeance. Sir Andrew threw his lords.h.i.+p a commiserating grin, and felt it stiffen on his lips at the look in the other man's eyes. Hot water under cold ice, then, he thought. He wasn't surprised.

* * *"And there they go, poor dears," said Sir George. He watched the two parties ride down the long, wet avenue and then leave the Drumlanrig policies-Hunter to the northwest; Culter and the girl for the Dalveen road.

The Earl of Angus, who hadn't bothered to get up, grunted from the fire. "Pity the river wasn't a lot higher. That whelp Culter's done a lot of harm in the south..

"Don't be crude." Sir George admonished his brother, moving away from the window. "All the same, I wish that d.a.m.n fellow Lyniond would get on with it. Can't we induce him to be a little more persevering?.

Sir James said, "We can't contact him: you know that. No one can..

"Well, one man could," pointed out Angus. "That brat Will Scott apparently met him in broad daylight, as plain as a fishwife on Friday..

"Proving only that Lymond wanted to be met," said Sir George. "I wish to G.o.d the man would stick to one side. What I couldn't do with his intelligence system! The Protector told me-he lifted all of Wharton's campaign gold at Annan, and left your precious son-in-law Lennox black in the face..

He looked curiously at his brother. "What went on between Lymond and Lennox anyway? If Margaret was involved, you'd do well to hush it up..

The Earl of Angus brushed this aside. "No one's going to clap Margaret Douglas in the Tower these days-cousin of Edward of England; a daughter of an ex-Queen of Scotland; the wife of the Earl of Lennox, with a claim to the throne every bit as good as Arran?.

"But not as good as young Queen Mary's..

Angus was contemptuous. "G.o.d's Ma.s.s, George: there's biggergame than governers.h.i.+ps and pensions. Edward's sickly. Look at him.

And our Queen's four years old: well, they die like flies at that age.

Arran's a fool. So's Lennox; but he's married to Margaret. AndMargaret's heir to-.

"Heir to nothing," said Sir George wearily. "You know perfectly well Henry of England disinherited her from the succession in the midst of his uxorial fluctuations. And on top of that, she had a cracking row with him the week before he died, and he cut her out of his will. Edward, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth and then the Suffolk infants. Not a word of his own niece..

"Yes. Well. She's highly strung..

"Highly strung! G.o.d, Archie, that wasn't what you called her mother..

"Oh, be quiet, George," said the head of the Douglases. "What do you want, anyway? The trouble with you is, you keep letting the Protector push you too far. One of these days, the Scottish Queen Dowager will see what you're up to, and then bang goes Douglas andDrumlanrig, Dalkeith, Coldingham, Tantallon and your fine neck into the bargain..

"On the other hand," said Sir George painstakingly, "if the Protector feels we are insufficiently helpful, he sends in a raiding party, and bang they all go just the same." He studied his brother's heavy, once-handsome face. He had never in his life had to worry about searching questions from Archie, and he was thankful now that it was the same old ground.

His sister's brother, Sir James, said a little petulantly, "You're talking as if the invasion was over for good. Is the Protector really going south?.

"Oh, yes." Sir George smiled. "He'd only food for a month, and he didn't get the local support he'd expected-notably from the Douglases, Archie: now d'you wonder that I've been so forthcoming with him? Then a really nasty political mess flared up in London:be thankful, dear, that you have a prudent brother. The Protector's young twig of fraternity is graithing himself a nice sharp axe for Tower Green..

He tilted the ruby on his finger, and a beam of sunlight ran over a sardonic cheekbone.

"Andrew Dudley's stuck with an English garrison at Broughty; Luttrell at St. Colme's Inch; and that senile idiot Lady Hume persuaded to glve up Hume Castle. He'll fortify Roxburgh, most likely, on his way south, and supply 'em all through the winter from Berwick and Wark." He grinned. "An entertaining prospect, isn't it?.

Angus and Sir James looked gloomy. "And what then?" asked his brother.

"Oh, well." Sir George kicked a log into place in the fire. "The Queen Dowager here, of course, will try to get some money and troops out of France. Meantime, the Protector can't do much: bad roads, difficult supply lines, winter weather and all that. He'll probably hang out until spring, and then fling in his full strength before the French come, using all these garrisons as jumping-off points..

He looked consideringly at the Earl. "If I were you, Archie, I should wait until the really bad weather, and then suggest that your precious Lennox comes north with a raiding party. They'll never do it, but it'll a.s.sure the English of your good will. And then come the spring, why not ask them to send Margaret too? A joint commandthat would stiffen Lennox's back for him!.

Sir James, in painful doubt as to whether this was meant to behumorous or not, said feebly, "And who'll command from Berwick, I wonder?.

"Who d'you think?" said Sir George. He laughed. "Old Grey of Wilton, recovered from swallowing a bilihook, and talking, I'm told, like a featherbed with a leak in it. Do you know Lord Grey, Archie?.

Angus shook his head.

"He's been in France for years: a clammy, stiff-backed old pike. The billhook, I'll bargain, came out lichened over." He laughed again. "The first encounter between the old lad and Lord Wharton I shall see or die. They'll be heaving each other's guts out of the window..

"Well," said the Earl of Angus crossly, "what's so funny about that? . . . You're a weird sort of devil, George," said his brother with the flatness of long usage.

Castling

The rybauldes. players of dyce And the messangers and corrours ought to be sette tofore the rook.

For hit apperteyneth to the rook . . to have men convenable for to renne here and there fortenquyre and espie the place and cyties thatmyght be contraryc to the kynge.

1. Capture of Some Advancing Pieces

WILL SCOTT of Kincurd was stringing his bow and singing.

Le douxiem' mois de l'anQue donner a ma mie.

Life at the moment was not unbearable. He was well-fed and warm. He had that morning shot a buck at a hundred and seventy yards and been congratulated by Matthew. He had a new ambition: in this penumbral region to cast a shadow bigger, grander and more devastating than Lymond's.

Douz' bons larronsOnze bons jambonsDix bons dindonsIt had not, he conceded, been easy to progress greatly toward this goal in a month, allowing as well for the hiatus which followed theAnnan affair. His own state of superficial injury he shared, he had discovered, with half the troop. Dead men there were none; a telling enough point in a retreat which had been hard-fought and narrowly won.

For Lymond had genius. When building his force, he had taken sixty heterogeneous ruffians and cut and bulled them like diamonds, each rootless creature made an artist in his own small field. Some of their stories he had already from Matthew.

Dandy-puff, of the bog-cotton hair, was their farrier, and at the horn over a small matter of a cousin's sudden death which had unluckily brought to light a series of other unexplained mishaps.

Oyster Charlie, the cook, who bore young Scott no ill will ("It's not your fault, lad: the Master's an unchancy b.a.s.t.a.r.d to cross.") had been dentally denuded by an infuriated husband who was also a barber and now, untimely, with Abraham.

Jess's Joe (scout) was the ex-leader of a profitable band of dock thieves; the Lang Cleg (armourer) had been racked twice, but reinained an unrepentant and unskilful pickpocket. Skinner, an expriest, was their barber-surgeon and, at need, their confessor; Cuckoospit, a magician with horses, had forgotten polite usage for rheum, if he ever knew it, in five draughty years in the TolboothNeal boels cornusHuit moutons tondusSept chiens courantsSix Ii~vres aux champsThese figures, he knew, were the grotesques in the bestiary. There were also unmarked, homeless men who for some reason had lost their farms and families, or had left them; individualists and misfits; and mercenaries like Turkey Mat, who had sold their swords over half Europe before one day falling in with Lymond and being brought here by him.

"Why is he back?" he had once asked Mat.

Matthew had grinned. "Just to be neighbourly. Besides, there're two or three folk he wanted to see..

"Jonathan Crouch?.

Turkey's gaze was direct. "That's one. How did you know?.

"He told me. . . . Mat, you've had three years of it. How d'ye thole him?.

Mat had chuckled gently. "Over there in Appin, a place you'venever heard of, there's a bien stone house with an honest pinch of soil to it, and a doocot and an orchard and some fine dry byres. It's mine for the taking, that house, and, man, when I've cooked my own fatted calf at the Master's fire, it's me for the white beach, groaning belly and all. I'll lie on it from morning to nightfall throwing dice against myself, and whiles winning. . . . I can thole him; I can thole him..

Cinq lapins trottant par terreQuatre canards volant en l'airHe had asked Mat about Bulb.

"Johnnie? Johnnie's King of Little Egypt, and a law to his sweet sleekit self. He rules his wee pack of gypsy stoats like the Grand Turk, and keeps them happy with silk s.h.i.+rts and buckles forbye. You should see him at work in a fair: it's a scholastic education. Johnnie," said Mat, not without rancour, "has all the old crafts..

Scott said, "I thought he worked for Lymond?" and Mat had shaken his head, rubbing rhythmically, whether of necessity or through a.s.sociation of ideas it was hard to tell.

"I suppose you would cry it a business partners.h.i.+p," said he solemnly. "But when their interests collide, I'm feart it's every man to his own dirk. Watch 'em together next time. Our John's sly as a snake, but he can't resist playing with Lymond, wit against wit. Man, he's welcome," had said Mat with emphasis.

Trois ramiers des boisDeux tourterellesUne pertriolleWill was ready for lapping. He picked up the waxed thread and glanced at the ruined Peel Tower, their present headquarters, which he controlled during Lymond's current absence. They moved about throughout the year, he knew: sometimes to farms; sometimes in the open or under canvas; sometimes to deserted buildings like this one.

They were extravagantly paid, all of them. In return, they suffered a grinding and despotic discipline. In Lymond's hands they were fas.h.i.+oned into a s.h.i.+ning and precise instrument for advanced theft, blackmail and espionage; and faults in the instrument were dealt with instantly ~nd with a horrid inventiveness.

For the thick-skinned, there was physical punishment. There was also a less respectable kind. Scott had seen, and would not forget, acourageous and rational man on his knees, weeping tears through his fingers as skin after skin of self-respect and human dignity peeled off him under Lymond's verbal lash.

He learned to recognize from the slurred walk and the gentle dishevelment when Lymond was no longer quite sober; and with the rest to walk softly at such times. He didn't mind. He had reached the point where he would notice nothing beyond the beauty and efficiency of superbly planned crime. One should always flee the impure. He was out of the muddle of truths and half-truths, and into the daylight. Only when-if-he were in Lymond's shoes, there were a few things he would change.

Scott finished the knots, smiling.

Une pertriolleQui vole et vole et voleUne pertriolleQui vole du bois au champ.

* * *The Master's party returned to the tower just before dawn, rampaging hungry and saddle-sore. They fell over and quarrelled with the litter of sleeping bodies, kicked up the cooks and battered one of the boys until he had got the tallow dips and fires going again.

Scott and Matthew, cursing, got them settled down after a bit, and when the horses had been seen to and food was on the board, Will climbed the stairs to Lymond's room.

The yellow-headed man had lit a candle, showing his hair and clothes full of dust, and was reading what seemed to be a letter. Scott said, "Nothing to report, sir. Did you have a good night?" with a professional woodenness, a little overdone.

Lymond hardly looked up. He finished reading, unbuckling his belt with one hand; then laid down the paper and threw scabbard and belt on the bed. "Excellent, Marigold. One generally does, at the Ostrich..

This was true. The Ostrich was an inn within first-posting stage on the c.u.mberland side of the London road, whose comforts were peculiarly comforting and whose clientele was select.

Scott said nothing. The Master, who seemed unusually happy, pulled off his boots, slung them across the room and slopped some ale from jug to cup.

"A splendid night," said Lymond, running on. "Of wyne and wax, of gamyn and gle. And profitable. Indeed, it's an instruction to see how human messengers-at-arms can be, when they set their minds to it, if it's minds I mean. Sic peril lies in paramours. Oh, well. And that, my Wally Gowdy, was only half the night's work..

Scott said obediently, "And the other half?.

"Concerned a distinguished n.o.bleman set upon by marauders on the high road to Scotland, until bravely rescued by myself . .

Scott gave up. "I didn't know you'd turned philanthropist..

Lymond produced the sweet-rancid smile. "I refer you to John Maxwell. He gave me to understand he was my eternal debtor for saving his life. And at that," he said, laying down the empty cup, "your colleagues fought each other like shrews. I thought at one time the Cleg was going to forget himself and spit me..

Scott understood. "This was Maxwell of Threave and Caerlaverock? You want him in your debt?.

"The Master of Maxwell," said Lymond, "is an important personage entirely surrounded by English. D'you play chess?.