The Game of Kings Read online

  The night, moonless and unsympathetic, stretched around them, and visibility at thirty yards granted them a view of a quantity of stunted thorns.

  The bullocks puffed gently, and a mare snickered. She was answered by one of the other horses.

  Above the wheel-rumbling, someone cursed. “Hold her nose! We don’t want the whole God-damn percussion band.” But as he said it, one of the cart horses threw back its head and presented the night with a splitting neigh.

  “Wait a minute!” They listened; while the speaker laid hands on the ox harness and the procession rolled to a halt.

  There was silence—broken by a dim beat far out in the night. Then the first tap was begetting others and the pattern was recognizable. Horses, in a solid body, were sweeping in on them from the moor.

  A crackle of orders arose; hurried movements and sudden, heavy breathing: bows, pikes and lances readied, they made for the shelter of the carts. They barely got there before, out of the night, dim forms came flying, heaving, nudging, bouncing and kicking in a cacophony of horse language. Lost in the flailing morass, with their own mounts rearing and threshing, the supply men had a confused impression of barrel ribs, rolling eyes and merciful, saddleless backs.

  “Blood an’ bones!” They were hoarse with anger and relief. “It’s a damned great herd of wild ponies. Get away with you! Off! Off!” And they rose out of shelter, cursing and whipcracking at the steaming bare backs and flying manes. Hoofs sparked on the stones; horses neighed, nosed, bumped and reared.

  The hill pony is a stout and independent citizen: bold, uncatchable, inquisitive and gregarious. The herd went seriously to work, exploring all these and fresh talents. The mares were going silly and even the oxen were beginning to plunge.

  “Hell an’ thunder!” said someone, taking a moment’s breathing space to have a good look. “That’s funny!”

  “What the hell’s funny about it?” snapped someone else, bucketting past with heels flapping like windmills.

  “Well, for instance,” said the first speaker, gasping, “every one of these brutes is a stallion.”

  But nobody heeded him, for just then the leading wain rolled in bovine panic off the road and sank two wheels up to the axle in mud.

  They were attempting to drag it out, to calm the bullocks, to chase off the ponies and to control their mounts when Lymond’s men descended like moths; and even then they lost seconds in realizing that these horses had riders. The infiltration was neat and unspectacular, involving close-quarter cudgel work and little injury: there were simply fewer and fewer vertical English and finally none at all. It took them longer to round up the ponies again than it had taken to capture the train.

  It was a first-class haul. Matthew supervising, flour, biscuits, oats, meat, and leather powder bags with serpentine and corn powder were unloaded and put up in creels ready strapped to their own horses. One cart with hackbuts, bills, bows and arrow sheaves was unstrapped from the oxen and harnessed to a team of ponies. The rest of the ponies, without exception, carried beer.

  A wooden box, heavily padlocked, yielded to maltreatment and proved, satisfyingly, to hold the end of the month’s wages. It was tied to Matthew’s saddlebow.

  Lymond watched, moving everywhere. To Scott, roping prostrate bodies together, he intoned: “Sawest not you my oxen, you little, pretty boy? With hemp, with howe, with hemp.… Any familiar faces?—No, of course: you wouldn’t know.”

  He looked over the silent row of gagged figures. “Unfortunate. A Spanish captain, and not worth his own weight in olive stones. Take ’em all to Melrose, and the rest of the wagons too. How many do you want for escort?”

  Scott said quickly, “I have ten men: that’ll do.”

  “All right, Barbarossa. Allez-vous-en, allez, allez. You’ve a job to do before dawn.”

  Scott nodded earnestly, and rode back to load up the leading cart with his prisoners.

  * * *

  The English lookout at Hume Castle, slumped in the empty fire pan on the roof, was doing sums gloomily in his head. Below, night hid the great sweep of the Tweed valley and the Merse. Slabbed with fortifications, packed with soldiers, and stuck on a precipice with a six-foot curtain, the place was as safe as Durham Cathedral … and he was bored.

  If the old man sent up the pay from Berwick, he was due two pounds for the month. Then he owed twelve shillings for food. That left …

  He groaned, working it out. It was a relief when he heard the wagons approaching, and caught glimpses of activity at the gatehouse, and familiar riding dress. He made for the bell rope. “Supply train from Berwick, ho! There’s the beer, Davie-boy!” sang the lookout.

  Long before the portcullis was down, word had gone from the fire pan to the allure, and the allure to the keep, where sat Sir William Grey, thirteenth Baron Grey of Wilton, Field-marshal and Captain-general of the horse, Governor of Berwick, Warden of the East Marches and General of Northern Parts on behalf of His Majesty King Edward VI of England.

  Few commanders enjoy visiting outposts in enemy country: the risks of making a fool of oneself are relative to the distance from base.

  Through an unlucky incident at Pinkie, Lord Grey was, as it happened, in a fair way toward doing this in any case for a little, whether he liked it or not. Sitting at his temporary desk, sleek, pink and picturesque, hair and beard a silver perfection above splendid riding clothes, he was in as petulant a mood as a gentleman of quality can be.

  “I with to God,” said his lordship bitterly to his secretary, “I with to God I wath thtuck with the Crewth again. Even Boulogne and that damn rhymthter Thurrey wath plain thailing to thith.”

  Mr. Myles rigidly agreed.

  Lord Grey gave him a sharp look; then ruffled impatiently through the papers before him. He picked one out, and slapped it down again with the same gesture.

  “Fifteen labourerth dithappeared during the work at Roxthburgh: four Thpanith bombardierth and twelve pikemen climbed the wallth and gone home. If I could, I’d do it mythelf. No beer: not enough food. How can I thtaff garrithonth without gold and thupplieth? And how do they think they can get thupplieth to uth when winter thetth in? Hell and perdithion!” said Lord Grey, goaded to fury by the unfair stings of Fortune. “Ith there no word in the Englith language wanting an Eth?”

  Mr. Myles was saved by the entrance of Dudley, regular captain of the garrison, bringing the leader of the Berwick supply train to report.

  “Mr. Taylor, my lord,” said Dudley; and stood back.

  Mr. Taylor, a personable young man with red hair, was coolly received. “Taylor? I was ekthpecting one of my men from Berwick.”

  Taylor, in the more normal person of Will Scott, had anticipated this question. He said smartly, “I’ve just arrived at Berwick, sir. I had some of your men with me, but was asked to leave the more experienced ones at Roxburgh.”

  “I thee,” said Grey noncommittally. “Well, what have you brought with you?”

  He read the lists proffered without comment; handed them to Dudley with an air of private martyrdom, and turned again to Scott. “Your men being looked after?”

  “Yes, my lord.” He wasn’t afraid of that. They all wore clothes stripped off the real English, and the lists were authentic. “Ten men below, sir: I put two or three to guard the wagons until ordered to unload. Beer, my lord,” he added in explanation.

  “Good. Any meth—word from London?”

  Scott, standing at the door, said still briskly, “One verbal message for yourself, sir, from his Grace. I was to deliver it for your ear only.”

  Surprise registered briefly on all three faces, then the secretary, laying his papers deferentially on the edge of the desk, caught Grey’s eye and left the room. Dudley raised an eyebrow and stayed.

  Scott said, “I’m sorry, sir: my orders are …”

  Grey said, “Thir Edward remainth,” because to his mind a general should appear to keep no secrets from a cousin of the Earl of Warwick. He hoped the boy had some discretion.

&n
bsp; Scott, fulminating, wished his lordship had less.

  At this moment of impasse the window fell in.

  A second later, a crack like the Eildons parting fell on their ears, and a bouquet of flame bellied up from the courtyard.

  Grey strode to the window and Dudley had begun to follow when, under cover of chain detonation and shouting outside, Will Scott leaped. Dudley, overcome before he realized it, gave a muffled groan and rolled over, stunned by an efficient blow on the prominent jaw.

  The explosion had taken place in the middle of the newly arrived wagon train. The carts had already disappeared in smoke, and the nearest thatches were blazing merrily. Grey, staring out, saw the yard striped with shadows running haphazard about the well and courtyard. Then Woodward, Dudley’s lieutenant, appeared below, and some sort of order began to materialize.

  Grey opened his mouth and turned, missing in that instant a descending stick, and found himself promptly pinned from behind, with an arm across his mouth.

  He bit, fruitlessly and painfully. He kicked, with better results; then, summoning his considerable reserves, embarked on a wrestling trick which most mercenaries would have recognized, but Scott did not. The boy held the older man as long as he was physically able, and then fell back for the fatal instant that was necessary for his lordship to shout, “Help! Guard! Athathinth!” having little time to choose his words; and that was long enough for the guard outside to burst in, and for Dudley to erupt onto his feet.

  In the brief and damaging interval which followed, the fighting was less preventative than justly punitive. By the time the interloper had been knocked to, on, and across the floor, the room was packed with avidly assisting soldiery, and the affair had taken on the look of a riot.

  Dudley, at a sign from Grey, cleared them all out and gave orders to lock up all the men who were with Taylor. Two pikemen were set against the door, and then Dudley, after a brief inquiry below, joined his lordship in studying his bedraggled captive.

  The ex-Mr. Taylor lay on a small carpet, bleeding copiously from the nose and with the beginnings of a glorious black eye. His shirt showed white through the tears in his jerkin, and his skin showed pink through the tears in his shirt; his red hair stood on end.

  Surprisingly, he was not an object of pity. His one good eye regarded the two men with a fair assumption of calm, and he even grinned a little, ruefully, at Grey.

  “The devil!” he said impertinently. “Now we’ve hardly one whole set of features between us.”

  Lord Grey seated himself fastidiously at his desk, first clearing a litter of papers which had whirled from desk to chair. He passed a hand over his thick, fine hair, pulled down his sleeves, and gave a jerk to the short skirt of his doublet.

  “Now,” he said, putting thirteen generations of ice into his voice, “let uth thee what we have here.” And he fixed Scott with the kind of look linked with Assizes.

  “You have not, of courthe, come from Roxthburgh?”

  “Find out!”

  “I propothe to thend to Roxthburgh to do jutht that.” He paused.

  “Do you know the penalty for arthon and attempted murder? … or wath it a kidnapping? In any cathe, you won’t dithpothe me to lenienthy thith way.”

  No reply.

  Grey tried again. “I prethume you are a Thcotthman?”

  His Lordship’s misfortune was Scott’s downfall as well. He couldn’t resist it.

  “Yeth!” said Scott, and got his mouth shut for him by the buckle of his own belt. He tasted blood.

  Dudley swung it again, warningly. “Keep a civil tongue, sir. What is your real name?”

  “Find out.”

  Again the belt. He supposed they questioned him for ten minutes, and still pumped full of excitement, he not only kept them guessing, but in a masochistic way, even enjoyed himself.

  Finally Grey swung around to the desk again. “We need to uthe thtronger perthuathion. The men below are obviouthly in colluthion too.”

  Dudley said, “They’ve lost their tongues as well,” and went on hurriedly. “Woodward tells me it looks as if most of the stores are missing, even allowing for what was burnt. The boneheaded fool at the gate let them in on the strength of their dress and the seals—they were authentic enough—and—of all things—because he recognized two of the horses. Of course, the train was dead on time, and he was desperate to get the beer in, into the bargain. Which reminds me—”

  Lord Grey for the first time looked really disturbed. “Not the beer?”

  Dudley said, “There’s not a barrel left. Nor any ordnance to speak of, apart from what blew up. And what’s more, no money.”

  “What!” The two men stared at one another. This affair was serious. Water was scarce and unsafe: men had to have ale; and the horses needed hard feed to enable them to foray and keep open their communications. The need for arms and food was equally pressing.

  Grey was silent for a long time, and then he got up and, walking over to the prone man, stirred him with one foot. This time, the voice was a general’s voice, and the lisp was not even remotely funny. “Where ith the retht of the train, and where are the men who thet out with it?”

  The exhilaration had worn off; extreme mortification was biting at the edges of his courage. But he fought hard to keep his eyes calmly on Grey, and if the effort was visible to the soldier’s practised eye, Scott didn’t know it. He said dreamily, “Far, far away! And farther every hour!”

  Dudley said sharply, “Ah, then you had others with you who didn’t come to Hume?”

  They would be halfway home by now, and surprised that he hadn’t joined them. Then they would find the carts had never been driven to Melrose. And tomorrow, wait in vain for himself and his party. And then, somehow, Lymond would find out: against orders, he had got into Hume … but hadn’t the brains or the guts to get out. Scott braced himself.

  “Naturally,” he said. “I hope they keep some beer for me.”

  This time he had no trouble in meeting their eyes. After a moment Grey swung to the desk and began writing. “Two men to Berwick for replathementth, two to Roxthburgh, to look out for thignth of ambuth, and dithcover the latht point the train got to.” He finished writing and handed both papers to Dudley. “Right away.”

  Then he stood up and came over again to Scott.

  “I am thorry you’ve thet thuch a thmall prithe on your life. I cannot afford to feed you and your men with what food we have left. Tomorrow you can ekthpect to meet a thpy’th death. We have a prietht. If you Want your relativeth to know, you had better give him your true name.”

  Scott said, “My men are mercenaries. If you pay them, they will fight for you as well as your Germans and Spanish do.”

  “Pay them?” said Grey. “With what, prithee?”

  Scott was silent, in the bitter awareness that his exercise in self-expression had murdered ten men. Grey addressed the pikemen.

  “Lock him up. But away from hith men … they might take advantage of him.”

  In the revolting hole they took him to, he had only one comfort. He hadn’t said who he was. If they knew he was heir to Buccleuch, he thought cynically, they wouldn’t let him so much as catch cold. They’d take him to Berwick and use him as a tool to make his father do as they wanted.

  For all his airy words to Lymond, he didn’t think for a moment his father would stand by in public and watch him murdered. No. He’d do what the English asked him to do—again. And this time, ironically, he would be the cause of it. If he told them who he was.

  He thought, lying bruised on the cold flags: This time tomorrow I shall be out of the whole damned mess. It didn’t help very much.

  * * *

  Nor did the news that Grey’s small search party had found and brought back the two remaining carts and the original English members of the supply train, found tied up and frozen where he had left them, just off the causeway.

  They arrived, packed shivering among the crates, and jumped down from the wagons, shirt-tails flying, to
cheer after cheer. There wasn’t a man among them with a pair of hose, breeches or a jerkin on him: their teeth chattered and their feet were blue. Even the masons repairing the explosion breech dropped tools and poured over to watch as the unlucky travellers hopped into the castle. Comment was rife and on well-marked lines.

  When the last of the men had gone indoors, Dudley examined the two carts and set a strong guard on them before reporting in high spirits to Grey.

  “We’ve got some of the beer after all; and most of the heavy ordnance … culverin and stoneshot—”

  What else he was going to say was never known.

  The door burst open, the tapestries flapped, and a human tornado, enveloped in a whorl of depot-stamped canvas and trailed by protesting soldiers, erupted into the room.

  The visitor brushed off his escorts, slamming the door in their faces, and strode headlong to Grey’s desk.

  “Madre Dios! Caballeros, su ayuda … su venganza! Ladrónes!” Hissing, the newcomer fixed his lordship with a burning eye, and even Lord Grey had to admit the magnificence of his rage.

  “He sido mortificado, insultado—hombre—me hecho hazmerreír!—Mirame!” screamed the insulted one, and peeled off the canvas.

  Mr. Secretary Myles, tried beyond endurance, gave a soul-destroying quack. Dudley and Grey, pinned to the petrified edge of diplomacy, gazed at the sorry remains of a ruffled shirt, pleated and trimmed with shredded bullion; hair, once black, oiled and curled, swooning from a coarse woollen cap, askew; and below, bare thighs, blue with cold, and tarred and feathered from toe to knee as a duck goes to market. A single destitute earring winked next to the highbred nose and smooth olive skin.

  Lord Grey, recovering an aplomb he had hardly known for a month, rendered sympathy, concern and indignation in a mollifying buzz. By a combined effort he and Dudley got the still-detonating visitor into a chair, rewrapped in Dudley’s cloak, and his feet in a pewter basin of hot water to melt off the tar. He was brought a pot of mulled wine and invited, at last, to address himself to Mr. Myles, who spoke Spanish.