The Game of Kings Read online

  On the same day, quite near Annan, a man rode a broad-faced pony into a farmyard and stopped, a pike at his chest. Sitting still, he hissed through his teeth, brown eyes judicial over inquisitive nose. “Colin, Colin! You’re not doing yourself justice! It’s as smart, ye ken, to let Lymond’s friends in as his unfriends out.” And as the pikeman answered him with a bleat—“Johnnie Bullo! I didna ken ye, man!”—the rider clicked his teeth and the pony moved on.

  It carried him gently through a rubble arch and up a long alley to a yard crowded with men. Saddlebags, rugs, weapons, tenting and food sacks lay piled against the house wall; and the reek of a boiling pot over an open fire fought weakly with the odours of sweat, leather and horse dung. Johnnie Bullo entered the yard through a gate, and dismounting, addressed the air.

  “Turkey in?”

  A man passing with a bonnetful of eggs jerked his head across the open yard and grinned, showing two sets of bereaved gums. “Over yonder, Johnnie.”

  Turkey Mat, professional soldier and veteran of Mohacs, Rhodes and Belgrade, sat against an upturned barrel, hauling off his boots and bellowing orders. Forty and liverish, he had done nothing for his looks by growing a curled black beard in the Assyrian style. The men in the yard admired Turkey.

  Johnnie Bullo approached gently. “Man, you’ve a fire there you could lead the Children of Israel with.”

  Turkey Mat was emptying river sand from one boot. “Hey, Johnnie! No harm in a lowe with the farm bodies at home.” And as Bullo wordlessly turned to survey the planks nailed over doors and windows: “That’s the farmer, not us. He’s got six lassies and says he pays us for protection, no’ for stud fees.… We’re moving on tomorrow anyway; and I hope to God it’s to the Tower: my stomach’s declared war on my elbow. Have you brought the dose?”

  The gypsy brooded. “What d’you suppose? I’ve had it a fortnight. It’s begun to grow whiskers like your own. What you want is a cross between an apothecary and a bloodhound.”

  Flinging down the other boot, Turkey swore. “There’s been a war! Do they no’ tell you anything in these parts?”

  Johnnie grinned, dropping to the ground beside him. “I thought you went east?”

  “So we did. I never saw so many weel-kent faces all in the one place; the most of them chowed off and in no state to give the sort of snash you get from half of them when they’re upright. It was better,” said Matthew, “than a front seat at the Widdy-Hill the day after the Assizes.”

  “And profitable?”

  “Oh, aye.” A smile winked in Turkey Mat’s beard. “There was Arran, biting his nails to the elbows at Musselburgh, wanting men and food and powder and intelligence (and wanting the last more than most); and Protector Somerset coming north hung over with booty and Wee gifts from the Lothian lairds, with a trail of tumble-down castles behind him … man, the moneybags were fleeing here and yon like cockroaches on a biscuit. Mind, that was last week,” he added with belated caution, watching Bullo bounce a small leather bag in one hand.

  “Twelve crowns,” said Johnnie agreeably.

  “Twelve crowns! Twelve crowns for a teazle o’ Tay sand and chopped henbane and a week’s rakings from the doocote! It’s robbery!”

  Nevertheless the transaction was completed, the gypsy derisive. “What’s money to Lymond’s men? I hear Governor Arran’s thinking of calling him in to finance the next expedition.” He waited a moment, then added lightly, “And I hear you got yourselves a new prize up-by into the bargain?”

  Turkey registered surprise. “Not us. We fell in with an English messenger with a dispatch from the Protector to his commander at Annan; but Lymond wouldn’t touch him.”

  Bullo raised an eyebrow. “So the Master’s money is on England, is it? Now that, Matthew, is interesting.”

  The other shrugged and bawled an order across the yard. “God knows; but he sent Jess’s Joe after to make sure the message reached Annan safely. Did you want him? He’ll be back directly. He turned off with Dandy-puff for a minute just before we came in.”

  Bullo showed his teeth. “And in drink, maybe? It would be nice to have him civil, for once.”

  There was no chance to comment. As he spoke, three riders passed through the gate and drew rein: two were the Master of Culter and the man Dandy-puff, while the third was a stranger, a young man, tied to his horse and wild about it. Johnnie Bullo’s smile widened. “Hell’s hell again: the de’il’s back.”

  Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter, was neat as a pin and stone sober. He dismounted, emitting a feu de joie of explicit orders: the prisoner was unhorsed and unbound, the animals led away, and the muddle in the yard cut up to shape instantly. “God!” said Matthew in simple admiration. “He’s got a tongue on him like a thorn tree.” And they watched him approach, the stranger trailing sulkily behind.

  As at the sack of his mother’s home, Lymond was lavishly dressed. The knowledgeable gypsy eyes scanned the dairy-maid skin, the gilded hair, the long hands, jewelled to display their beauty while the Master, serenely smiling, returned the compliment under relaxed lids.

  “Johnnie, my night-black familiar. Civility’s nearly as dull as sobriety and I cannot—will not—be labelled dull. I have peper and piones, and a pound of garlik; a ferthing-worth of fenel-seed for fasting dayes, but dullness have I none: nor am I overfond of being discussed, my Johnnie.”

  “You’ve quick ears, Lymond.”

  “But yours, like Midas whispering in the hole, are closer to the ground.… What do you think of our new recruit?”

  If the gypsy found the question surprising, or the reference offensive which it undoubtedly was, he showed nothing of it, but simply turned and bent an admiring glance on the tall young figure behind Lymond.

  “My, my. He’s a bonny blossom to be let away from his nurse.”

  The stranger flushed. He was a graceful creature, with fair skin and a thatch of carroty curls. His clothes, of a thoroughly expensive and unostentatious kind, were a credit to tailor and souter: his scabbard and accoutrements were inlaid and ornamented with a little more brio than the rule.

  “—And his fancy hat!” breathed Matthew in awe.

  The newcomer addressed Lymond with dignity. “I must confess to disappointment. Do you mete out this kind of treatment to every gentleman who offers you his sword?”

  “Big words, too!”

  Turkey Mat was silenced by the Master’s hand. Lymond, his back to the stone dike at one end of the yard, crossed his legs gently before him and instantly the yard, led by curiosity and its hope of a rough-house, deployed itself. Turkey and Bullo, grinning, ranged themselves on either side of the Master. The young man, stranded perforce in an open circle, stood his ground.

  “Oh, Marigold!” Lymond spoke plaintively. “A silken tongue, a heart of cruelty. Don’t berate us. We’re only poor scoundrels—vagabonds—scraps of society; unlettered and untaught. Besides, we didn’t believe you.”

  “Well, you can believe me now,” said the young man belligerently. “I didn’t ride all the way from—all this way to find you just to pass a dull Tuesday. I’m taken to be a fair fighting man. I’m prepared to join you; and I’d guess you need all the swords you can get. Unless you’re overnervous, of course.”

  “Terror,” said Lymond, “is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright. So you want to join us. Shall I take you? Mat, my friend, awful and stern, strong and corpulent—what do you say?”

  Turkey was in no doubt. “I’d want to know a good bit more about the laddie, sir, before I had him next me with a knife.”

  “Oh,” said Lymond, “would you? And what about you, Johnnie?”

  Johnnie Bullo regarded his fingers. “If I were yourself, I would perhaps give him his head. He looks a meek enough child.”

  “So did Heliogabalus at an early age,” said Lymond. “And Attila and Torquemada and Nero and the man who invented the boot. Th
e only thing they had in common was a cherubic adolescence. And red hair, of course, makes it worse.”

  He considered, while the boy watched him steadily; then said, “Infant, I can’t resist it. I’m going to put you to the proof; and if you impress us with your worth, then quicquid libet, licet; as was remarked on another, unsavoury occasion. Are you willing to be wooed, sweet Marigold?”

  Redhead was not charmed. “I’m willing to give you reasonable proof of my talents, of course.”

  “Proof of your talents! … Oh, little Peg-a-Ramsey, we are going to do well together. Come along then. Gif thou should sing well ever in thy life, here is in fay the time, and eke the space. Your name?”

  “You can call me Will.”

  “—Sir,” said Lymond affectionately. “Surname and parentage?”

  “My own affair.” A rustle among the onlookers gave credit to this piece of bravura; Lymond was undisturbed. “Never fear. We’re all runts and bastards of one sort or another. Do you swim? Hunt? Wrestle? I see. Can you use a crossbow? Your longest shot? Can you count? Read and write? Ah, the sting of sarcasm—Have we a scholar here? Then produce us a specimen,” said Lymond. “What about some modest quatrains? Frae vulgar prose to flowand Latin. Deafen us, enchant us, educate us, boy.”

  There was a pause. The examinee, dazed by mental gymnastics at top speed, at first boggled. Then he had a pleasing idea. Lowering his lashes over a malicious sparkle he recited obligingly.

  “Volavit volucer sine plumis

  Sedit in arbore sine foliis

  Venit homo absque manibus …”

  Flat incomprehension informed every face. He halted.

  There was an uneasy and deferential pause. Then Lymond gave a short laugh and capped him in German:

  “… un freet den Vogel fedderlos

  Van den Boem blattlos …

  “You appear,” said the Master, “to have left your studies at a very tender age? Don’t trouble to explain: tell me this instead. What about Pharaoh’s chickens appealed to you? Why did you decide to join me?”

  “Why … ?” repeated Redhead, needing time to think.

  “Word of three letters,” said Lymond. “Come along, for God’s sake: no need to let me have it all my own way. What was it? Rape, incest, theft, treason, arson, wetting the bed at night …”

  “… Or burning my mother alive,” said the other sarcastically.

  “Oh, be original at least.” The Master was undisturbed. “Why are you here?”

  Silence. Then the boy said slowly, “Because I admire you.”

  An appreciative titter ran round the audience. “You shock me,” said Lymond. “Explain, please.”

  “All right,” said the boy. “You’ve chosen a life of vice, and have been consistent and reliable and thorough and successful in carrying it out.”

  Lymond considered this with every appearance of seriousness. “I see. Thus the baseness of my morals is redeemed by the stature of my manners? You admire consistency?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But prefer consistency in evil to consistency in good?”

  “The choice is hypothetical.”

  “Lord; is it? What an exciting past you must have.”

  “I despise mediocrity,” stated the young man firmly.

  “And you would also despise me if I practised evil but professed purity?”

  “Yes. I should.”

  “I see. What you are really saying, of course, is that you dislike hypocrisy, and people who can’t stand by their principles. I find it so helpful,” continued Lymond, “when some of my gentlemen have well-defined codes of conduct. It makes them more predictable. What security have I got for your loyalty?”

  Redhead chanced his arm, solemnly. “Your appraisal of me, sir.”

  “Touching; but I’d prefer your appraisal of yourself. Do your principles admit an oath of fealty?”

  “If you want it. I won’t betray you, any of you; you can have my word on that. And I’ll do anything you want, within reason. I don’t mind,” said Redhead recklessly, “what crimes I commit, as long as they’ve got a sensible purpose. Wanton injury and destruction, of course, are just juvenile.”

  “Of course,” said the Master, digesting this remarkable statement. “Then let us be adult at all costs. Do you have a mistress? A wife? No? All, all in vain, this flors de biauté? A little quietness, if you please. We are all ready to help, you see. What else … Do you use broadsword or rapier? A hackbut?”

  Smoothly spinning, the inexorable questions resumed, faster and faster. “What do you know about gunpowder? Not very much, is it? How old are you? Year of birth? If you must invent, stay awake afterwards.… What are you like with the longbow? There’s Mat’s quiver: hit that tree. Passable. Now the thorn. Good. Now,” said Lymond, “kill the man by the cooking-pot.”

  Exhausted, deflated and angry, the boy directed one haughty grimace at the Master, hauled on the bowstring and sent the shot of a lifetime buzzing for the mark.

  A great cheer, part shocked, part sardonic, arose. There was a blur of movement. Mat disappeared, and a swarm of curious bodies shut off the view of the target. Redhead knew, if he had never shot straight before, that he had put an arrow through blood and bone this time. He stood still.

  A gentle voice rebuked him.

  “Careful, careful! my slave of sin. These are Sordidi Dei. How nice,” said Lymond, “to have simple emotions. No trouble with principles; no independence of thought; no resistance to suggestion; no nonsense about adult behaviour when it comes to one’s own amour propre.”

  The skin around the boy’s mouth was taut. “I’m not immune to trickery. And the Sordid Gods in this case are yours, I think; not mine.”

  “Ah, no: not mine; I am godless,” said Lymond. “Not for me to solve the enigma.

  “When a hatter

  Will go smatter

  In philosophy

  Or a pedlar

  Wax a medlar

  In theology …

  “There is the waste of purpose. Whereas I always have a purpose—you were wiser than you knew, and less successful than you feared. Oyster Charlie has been giving me a little trouble. But if his wits are moribund, his hearing is sensational—a matter of compensation, I suppose. Well, Mat?”

  Turkey Mat shook himself free of the crowd, grinning. “Just a shower of blisters,” he said. “He dodged behind the pot and got a spray of chicken bree for his pains. He’s laying low now, is Oyster. He kens as well as you what that was for.”

  “Excellent. The warning cock and the Devil’s bath,” said Lymond, amused. “Symbolism is coming cheap today.”

  “You mean I didn’t kill him?”

  “No. Thus even your remorse of conscience is rooted in hallucination. Oyster is not dead; merely lightly boiled in the shell. I hope you will both perceive the point of the experiment.”

  Lymond surveyed the grinning audience with an air of gentle discovery. “Is there no work to be done? Or perhaps it’s a holiday?”

  In a moment, the spectators had vanished. Left facing the three men, the boy stood straight and with some natural dignity, although silent. Indeed, there seemed little to say. The Master evidently thought the same. He smiled warmly. “A pleasant entertainment. Thank you. Have you thought of doing it for money? No? You should. It would go down very well on fair days in Hawick.… Take the young gentleman’s boots off, Mat, and loose him on the hills somewhere. Preferably not within ten miles of me.”

  The young gentleman turned scarlet. Of course. Having made the bear dance, turn it to the dogs. And to that, youth and hurt pride had only one answer. “You’re welcome to try,” said Redhead, and lunged.

  Lymond got hold of the upraised arm halfway to his face. He shifted his grip, twisted, and holding the limb on the edge of agony, smiled.

  “Softly, softly! Remember your superior upbringing, and your Caxton. How gentlemen shall be known from Churls. Don’t be a Churl, Marigold. Full of sloth in his wars, full of boast in his manhood, full o
f cowardice to his enemy, full of lechery to his body, full of drinking and drunkenness. Revoking his own challenge; slaying his prisoner with his own hands; riding from his sovereign’s banner in the field; telling his sovereign false tales …”

  “You have it pat.” The boy, suddenly released, rubbed his arm.

  “Naturally. My rule of thumb. We all have our religion. With Johnnie, it’s Paracelsus. Mat here follows Lydgate; and your father and Ascham fit very well together. If he thunder, they quake; if he chide they fear; if he complain—”

  Shocked into interrupting, Mat spoke, a broad finger directed at the redheaded boy. “His father? He was nameless.”

  “Allow me to introduce you.” Lymond, speaking mildly, was watching Bullo. “Will Scott of Kincurd, Buccleuch’s oldest son.”

  The gypsy smiled back boldly. “A prize indeed.”

  Understanding and contempt filled the boy’s face. “Of course. Your diffidence is explained. But I assure you, you needn’t be afraid of Buccleuch. He’ll neither hound you for taking me nor pay you for ransoming me. In fact, he knows I’ve left to join some such as you.”

  “Some such,” repeated Lymond idly. “And didn’t try to stop you?”

  The young man laughed. “He didn’t much fancy seeing his son and heir exposed in the gutter. He tried. But there are two other boys in the family. He’ll get used to it.”

  Lymond shook his head sadly. “There goes your day’s work, Johnnie.”

  Johnnie Bullo slid noiselessly to his feet, an ecstasy of white teeth. He stretched lazily, sketched an elaborate bow to Lymond, nodded to Mat, and made for his pony. On the way, he stopped and prodded the boy with a long, dirty finger. “Home for you, laddie: home!” said he. “You need a longer spoon than the cutlers make to sup with this one.”

  “Well?” said Lymond. And Will Scott, to his secret astonishment, read an invitation in the tone.