The Game of Kings Read online

  “‘Sir George Douglas, the laird of Ormiston, and two of the Humes have been here, Douglas coming as a Borderer to serve the King.… I reminded him of his benefits from the late King, and threatened him if he revolted again, I should pursue him and his friends to the death. He answered he would advance the marriage, and promised to draw his brother and the rest clean from the Governor … and to do his utmost to put the Queen in our hands, if requited in England for his lands—which I have guaranteed with my own lands. I have resolved to prove him, and if he does not keep his promise, the very next day Coldingham shall down, and himself smart for it.… ’

  “Postscript—Oh,” said the stranger disingenuously, turning over the last page. “I remember. I left the postscript with my friends, although that was rather interesting too. What do you make of it all?”

  What Sir George thought was soon forthcoming. With undisturbed calm, he drew his gown about him, and seating himself negligently near the door, remarked, “I should guess this to be a somewhat naïve effort at blackmail. I assume that unless I pay you a large sum of money, and release you unharmed, your friends will send the original to the Scottish court.”

  “Well, at least you seem to know what it’s all about,” said the reader, refolding the papers. “The extract is, of course, copied from a dispatch from Lord Grey to the Protector, and I am sure you are about to take the wind from my sails by telling me that the Queen Dowager knows all about it.”

  If alarmed by this perspicacity, Sir George gave no sign. “She does, of course.”

  “Quite. But even if I believed that—which I don’t—I still think you might be interested in seeing that postscript. It does exist, you know. So does the copy. I’m King of the Fidlers and swear ’tis a truth. You can have them all for a nominal price.”

  “And the nominal price?”

  “You have an English prisoner called Jonathan Crouch,” remarked the blackmailer, affably, and was interrupted by Sir George himself, showing the first signs of animation.

  “Dear me!” he said. “You seem to be a remarkably subterranean young man. I took such a prisoner, yes; although it is not generally known.”

  “Let me see him and you may have the report.”

  There was a short pause. The offer was nicely put. No one, however reinforced by his sovereign’s complicity, could be expected to resist the lure of a postscript devoted to his own affairs in an English dispatch. That the postscript existed he felt sure: the fellow was too damnably pat with the rest. Ergo, by falling in with the suggestion, he was admitting to no more than natural curiosity: a subtle and far from fortuitous point.

  There was a further consideration. He did not particularly care that this dispatch should reach the Queen. And there might be others which he would care about even less. At this point in his meditations Sir George cleared his throat. “You appear to take monumental measures for a very simple end. A man of your resource would prefer, I should have thought, to use his powers of … interception for a more rewarding cause.” He slipped the cabuchon ruby off his thumb and tossed it on the table between them.

  “Fools make news, and wise men carry it. You could become a rich man.”

  “I am a rich man,” said his visitor. He fixed a cool eye on the Douglas, disregarding the ring. “As you, I am sure, are a busy one. If therefore our bargain is concluded, perhaps Mr. Crouch might be brought here.”

  There was nothing else for it. Sir George said regretfully, “I am afraid I cannot keep my side of the bargain. A matter of some disappointment to me. The gentleman you mention was sold to a friend of mine some time ago.” He added kindly, “If it will serve, I can direct you to him and even enable you to enter the house, if you wish.”

  A pause developed, and prolonged itself to uncomfortable lengths. Then, unexpectedly, the other laughed. “Oh Douglas, oh Douglas, Tender and true … I am moved to respect. Very well. The bargain stands. Tell me the name of your friend, and you shall have your documents.”

  Sir George rose, crossed to his desk, and tossed a paper from it into the other’s hands. On the one side was a signed note from Sir Andrew Hunter, promising payment of one hundred crowns for the person of Mr. Jonathan Crouch; on the other was a scrawled note in Hunter’s handwriting. It said, For our friendship, send me word if there is an attempt to trace Crouch. I would not lose him to enemies before I can exchange him for my cousin.

  His visitor read both sides and smiled. “You weigh your scales generously. Thank you.”

  Sir George said, retrieving the paper, “Of course, I cannot as a gentleman ignore the note. I propose to send one of my secretaries to Ballaggan, with a fairly large escort, to warn Sir Andrew that a stranger has indeed inquired about Crouch. Hunter keeps a well-guarded house, but it is not always possible to make sure that, in the confusion of entering, a party such as mine might not become larger than it should be … a common risk, I fear, in these times.”

  “Yes. Oh, indeed, I am quite aware of the risk,” said the other, and a long, slow smile pleated the skin around his mouth.

  Sir George found himself for some reason smiling back. For an instant he was overcome with an extraordinary feeling of kinship for this odd sharp-witted person. Borne on the tide of this sensation, he said, “Then to seal our bargain, will you drink with me? I have a very fine claret to hand …”

  His visitor assented politely, adding, as Sir George crossed to the armory, “Although I trust you have nothing against beer?”

  “On the contrary,” said Sir George, pouring with an anticipatory hand.

  “Because—your health—” said the other, “I took the liberty of leaving a hogshead for you with your Chamberlain below. A little stirred up, I’m afraid; but it should settle.” And, understanding each other very well, the eyes of the two men met; Sir George’s alight with evocative delight.

  Left alone after bidding his anonymous friend goodbye, Douglas returned to the study and stood for a moment, playing absently with the ruby where it lay on the table. “Well, I shan’t make that mistake again.”

  He slipped it back on his finger and gazed at it for a moment. “But if he doesn’t fancy bullion, what sort of bait is he going to take, this wild cormorant, this acidulous osprey of ours? Something. There must be something he wants. And whatever it is, by God, I’ll find it and make a collar and chain of it with ‘Douglas’ in fine Gothic letters on the neck.”

  * * *

  The spirit of Ballaggan Keep, imperious, impervious, implacable, brooding over its fastness like a tribal mascot, was Dame Catherine, Sir Andrew’s mother.

  Catherine Hunter was rising seventy, and crippled in her lower limbs to a degree which condemned her to bed or chair for life. This, together with the loss of her husband at Flodden and the death shortly afterward of a brilliant older son, had turned the wines of her palmy days—already rather a variable commodity—into a corked and vinegary brew.

  The keep, tall, gauche and of no particular charm for the passer-by, was stuffed inside with the prizes of Lady Hunter’s epicurean eye. No rushes covered the floors: these were set with Spanish azulejos and covered with rugs from Turkey and the Levant. The beds were wrought and gilded, and hung with heavy taffetas; the chests and tables in marble and scented woods wore tapestry cloths and carried a pellicle of Aldine folios. Other specimens of her library shared bedside honours with her Maltese terrier Cavall.

  The accretion of all these aids to graceful living would have taxed a larger estate than Ballaggan. Lamentably aware that—even if gold mines sprang beneath his feet, like Olwen’s trefoils—his mother’s fancy would still outpace him, Sir Andrew was sometimes reduced to a state of nervous irritation very close to rebellion. That he invariably spared her either complaint or reproach labelled him a soft mark among his fellow knights and earned him a solid revenue of womanly sympathy.

  It also brought him the admiration of Mr. Jonathan Crouch, whose temporary career as a prisoner of war, or a sort of promissary note on two legs, had brought him finally to
lodge with Sir Andrew.

  With Mr. Crouch came his tongue, his teeth, his lips, his hard and soft palate, his maxillary muscles, larynx, epiglottis and lungs: all the apparatus which enabled him, ne plus ultra, to talk. Like the enchanted garden of Jannes, tenanted by daemons, the keep of Ballaggan encased the ceaseless drone of Mr. Crouch’s voice. He droned through September until it and his captors were exhausted; then pounced on October with undimmed vigour and worried the blameless days for a fortnight.

  By the middle Saturday of the month, atrophy had set in, reaching its nadir in the dead time between two and four, when Sir Andrew, whatever business was pressing, visited his mother’s room to sit with her. Lady Hunter, strutted upright with pillows, was brushing the terrier rhythmically as it lay cushioned across her knees. Her face, bewigged and topped by a hooped pearl cap, had the skin of an invalid and her mouth, lightly whiskered, was hatched, above and below, with the spidery wrinkles forced by powerful lips. Her black eyes were fixed unwinkingly on her son, who in turn was directing his aquiline profile, with an air of polite attention, toward Mr. Crouch.

  Mr. Crouch, wittily obese like a middle-aged titmouse, sat enthroned on his stomach, giving tongue. Incidents of his boyhood surged to cataclysmic peaks of pointlessness. Episodes from his career in the Princess Mary’s household explored tedium to its petrified core.

  “Never,” said Mr. Crouch, pulling himself out of a frenzy of adjectives, “never shall I weary of describing it, if I live to be a hundred. That I won’t.”

  Something like a strong shudder passed over his host. Almost involuntarily Sir Andrew said, “By the way, are you married, Crouch?”

  If the titmouse was surprised, it was also pleased. It beamed. “Why, yes sir, I am; and what’s more, God and my Ellen have blessed me with six lovely children; every one a girl, but the Lord will provide. I’ve had my share of adversity, sir; but as I always say, the way I met my Ellen goes to show that Providence is on our side; as you’ll agree when you hear the full story which, since you so kindly ask, I shall have great pleasure in relating to you in due course.” There was a brief pause, during which Sir Andrew shut his eyes; then Mr. Crouch—his intention duly filed and registered—picked up the limp threads of his monologue. “And then—”

  “Andrew!”

  “Yes, Mother?” said Sir Andrew. He shot an apologetic look at the soloist, who broke off politely but providently took a fresh breath.

  “The people with whom you have contracted to buy fish have been cheating you for five weeks,” said Lady Hunter, brushing steadily at the terrier’s coat. “The fish served to me while you were away on whatever business you discovered was not only bad, but often putrid. Putrid!” she repeated, with horrid inflection. “Yet it seems a relatively simple matter to arrange.”

  Mr. Crouch, a kindhearted person, shut his mouth and fiddled with his points. Sir Andrew said, “Mother, you should have mentioned it before. I’d no idea, of course. I’ll have it put right.”

  “You were hardly visible long enough to listen,” remarked Lady Hunter, brushing. “You must forgive me for imagining you were much too busy. The wool coming in for spinning, incidentally, has not improved in quality. Whatever steps you took about that seem to have been baulked by another agency. You must tell me if you are finding things a little difficult, Andrew,” pursued the lady. “After all, no mother expects both her sons to be alike. Dear Andrew,” she said, fixing her black stare on Crouch and brushing still, “is going to be a great help to me in my old age.”

  “I’m sure, Mistress,” said the titmouse, glancing uncomfortably at his host’s submissive head. And from his good-natured soul he added, “And he did you honour in the fighting last month, I’ll be bound.”

  The black eyes travelled slowly over Sir Andrew’s body, and rose to his face. “My son is always remarkably fortunate in battle,” she said. “He has never yet received a mark of any kind.”

  “And damn it,” Mr. Crouch was to say much later to his wife, his face reddening again at the thought, “the old sow said it as if she’d have liked him better mincemeat.”

  As it was, the occasion was awkward enough to make Hunter flush and force a change of subject. Shortly afterward he set Biblical phrases buzzing in Mr. Crouch’s head, by producing from his purse a small wrapped bundle which he laid on his mother’s bed. “I thought this might interest you: I came across it the other day.”

  The paralyzed woman looked neither at him nor at the packet; she allowed it to lie until she finished grooming the lapdog, replaced the brushes, and with a sudden ill-tempered smack sent the stertorous creature bundling to the floor. Then she smoothed the counterpane, pulled away a long, tawny hair caught in one of her rings, and opened the parcel.

  A vast, hexagonal brooch set in ebony and diamonds shouted into the sunshine in a cacophony of light.

  The thing was enormous. Crouch, sitting within yards of the bed, could see the centrepiece was a heart set with pointed diamonds: around the heart and attached to it by foliated gilt wire were crystal plaques, each bearing an angel’s head, bewinged and carved in onyx: the plaque below the point of the heart was joined to it by a scroll, and on the scroll in diamonds were the initial letters H and D, entwined.

  It was the most expensive-looking jewel Mr. Crouch had ever seen in his life. He looked, suffused with pleasurable excitement, at Sir Andrew. Hunter, his expression at once eager, deprecating and defensive, watched his mother.

  “H for Henri, D for Diane de Poitiers!” cried Mr. Crouch. “My dear sir, seldom if ever have I seen such an exquisite piece. A tour de force. A veritable masterpiece. I am surprised,” said Mr. Crouch, taking thought, “I must own, that the French King’s—er—lady should have allowed it out of her hands. A piece of—”

  For the second time he was interrupted by his hostess. She raised her black eyes from the gift to her son, and the expression in them deepened at the expectancy in his face. She threw the covering back across the jewel.

  “A remarkable piece of vulgarity,” she said. “I fear, Andrew, that a stronger woman might have been able to do more than I to educate your taste a little. It is a great grief to me that I cannot help you more. However, there is no need for you to waste your purchase. I am sure there is some good burgess’s daughter whom you have a kindness for, who would be perfectly satisfied with it. I believe,” she continued without a pause, “that I saw some new arrivals cross the courtyard a few moments ago. I don’t wish to appear to remind you continually, Andrew; but as master here you really must not appear discourteous. I am sure Mr. Crouch will excuse you.”

  Mr. Crouch hastily did. Sir Andrew, with an apology, left the room, and Lady Hunter tossed the rejected gift on to her bedside table. Mr. Crouch ventured a remark.

  “That’ll likely have cost Sir Andrew a small fortune, now,” he said. “Nor it won’t be easy to resell, I wager.”

  The crippled woman directed her unwinking stare at him. He wriggled. “The price of aesthetic education, Mr. Crouch,” she said, “is never small.”

  Mr. Crouch (for once) did not feel competent to answer.

  Belowstairs, even among the crowded majolica ware, the air was freer, and the need to welcome visitors a blessed distraction. Sir Andrew knew and liked Sym Penango, Sir George Douglas’s secretary: he made him welcome and received his message over a cup of wine, while his men were accommodated in the buttery.

  An inquiry about Mr. Crouch? Oh. Did Sir George say from whom?

  But Penango had no further information, and supposed Sir George had none either. Presently he excused himself: he and his men were expected at Douglas. In due course the stragglers were collected, wiping mouths on padded sleeves, and the troop rode off into the dusk.

  Sir Andrew went thoughtfully upstairs, stopping to relight a torch which had gone out on the landing. Inside his mother’s room it was becoming dark. In the failing light from the windows he could see her, upright in bed, her head turned toward him.

  Something struck him vaguely as
odd, then he placed it: the miraculous silence. Crouch wasn’t talking.

  A closer look showed the prohibition to be quite involuntary. Mr. Crouch was sitting on the floor beside his chair, tied and gagged.

  As Sir Andrew took this in, the door behind him banged, locked, and a knee like the hammer of God took him, hard, in the kidneys and hurled him to the floor. His chin hit the blue tiles like a pharmacist’s pestle; he tried, swimmily, to roll over and found himself pinned by a relentless matrix of bones. He heaved, unsuccessfully, felt his assailant groping for purchase to wrench back his arms, resisted, and finally did manage to roll over.

  For a moment, the two men breathed the same sweating air. Hunter saw a pitiless mouth, two intent eyes behind a black mask, and a head covered with some sort of woollen cap. The mouth twisted; so did the deadly trained body, and pain leapt from a lock on his knee. Black-mask gave a sudden, triumphant laugh. “The Common Thick-knee,” he said breathlessly, “is a bird … capable of running at great speed.” He increased his leverage, grinning. “Now here, Dandy mine, we have a specimen of the Uncommon—”

  How he broke the lock, Hunter never knew, but he afterward wondered if the strength which surged up in him would have done so but for anger at the stupid jibe. He jerked, broke the hold on his legs and threw the other man half on his side, driving off at the same time the predatory fingers feeling for his throat. Then he flung himself on his opponent. The clenched figures rolled over completely, then again; a fine stool splintered, its prowling leopards bifurcated, and a row of medicine bottles fell from the bedside table with a tympanitic crash. Catherine Hunter, her eyes like charcoal above her bound mouth, stared without expression at her son. Crouch, pink with emotion, watched, squirming in his bonds.