The Game of Kings Page 6

  “And how,” pursued the Master suavely, “is the Pearl of Pearls?”

  He was talking about the Countess of Lennox, and this time the allusion was unmistakable. Scott saw in Lord Wharton’s face, for an instant, the same kind of shocked surprise that he felt himself; then Lennox’s sword came hissing from its scabbard and Wharton, with a curse, sprang to put a hand on his arm. “Put up, my lord!”

  The Earl of Lennox didn’t even look at him. He said through his teeth, “I’ll suffer insult and insolence for no man’s brat!”

  “Then you have me to reckon with as well, my Lord Lennox,” said Wharton furiously. “Put up!”

  There was a long pause. The knife glittered in Lymond’s hand, over young Harry’s spine; Wharton’s fingers dug into the earl’s arm. Lennox swore, and rammed home the blade with fingers that shook.

  Wharton removed his hand. He said quietly, “I remember this scum. There is no need to play his game for him.” To Lymond he continued, “I understand you are bargaining with my son’s life. Naturally, it is worth a price to me, but don’t expect me to pay too much. What do you want?” Then, natural feeling breaking through for a moment, he said bluntly, “State your business, and get you gone. The very air you breathe makes me retch.”

  “Courtesy,” said Lymond, “will get you nowhere.” He fitted his shoulders comfortably into the panelled wall. “I must say you appear to be taking your martial duties very lightly. Don’t you want to know what the Protector’s dispatch said? I read it, you know, before sending it on. There’s been another stupendous victory at Linlithgow, and the Protector thinks you should meet him in Stirling right away to talk it over. Doesn’t that excite you? Scotland conquered at last! Duke Wharton on the Privy Council; King Matthew on the throne!”

  Lennox had to know. His eyes searched Lymond’s face; he said, almost against his own will, “A victory on the Stirling road … is that true?”

  Lymond stared back. “Why not, your Majesty? The Scottish Queen’s sickly; the English King’s a bastard—or so the Catholics say, don’t they, Matthew?—Arran’s an idiot and his son a fool … lo! my lords, a crown!”

  Half mesmerized, four pairs of eyes watched as swiftly he leaned to the fire, seized the hearth tongs and stepped back. High above his head, gripped in the metal, flamed his own helmet, red-hot from the blazing peats, bits of burning stuff falling smoking to the floor.

  “A crown!” said Lymond exaltedly. “Who will wear it? Harry, perhaps?”

  This was leading the field with a vengeance. The rigor which seized them lasted less than thirty seconds. Then Lennox said, loudly and rather wildly, “The man’s mad!” and Wharton, his face rigid, reseated himself at the desk. “Money?”

  “Of course!”

  “In the chest.” Wharton indicated a small coffer against one wall. “Get it.”

  All the men in the small room, wounded, bound and free, waited, in a tension which knit them together, as five leather bags were placed on the desk, and taken away by Scott.

  The Master opened one of them. “O beautiful bagchecks. Bonnets bellissimi; ecus; ryals—Dear me, the assured ones of Dumfriesshire are going to be much the poorer for this. Wrap ’em up, my Pyrrha!”

  He ripped off Harry’s cloak and flung it to Scott, who made a rough bundle of the gold, and laid his hand on the door.

  “And so,” said Lymond gravely, “we see the final end of our travail. Farewell, my masters!”

  But the final paraph, the flourish which in time Scott was to recognize as habitual, was still to come. As he moved from Harry, and both Wharton and Lennox started forward, Lymond let drop his arm. The helmet, dull now with black heat, fell accurately on young Wharton’s brow, and the boy, his eyes staring, gave, behind the gag, an unpleasant choked scream.

  “That will perhaps remind you,” said Lymond, “not to speak to strange gentlemen in dark streets”—and in the ensuing confusion, transported himself and Scott outside the door and locked it.

  Scott stumbled down the dark stairs with his bundle. He was aware of a noisy conversation going on at the bottom between Lymond and the guards, of riding gently back down the pend, fighting to keep his spurs still, and recalling with a short prayer of gratitude the thickness of that parlour door. The gate. A sharp passage, with the edge on Lymond’s voice, and the sullen and abashed look on the faces of the gatemen. The creak as the timbers were drawn, miraculously, to let them through.

  Outside, in the cool, flickering darkness, the free night lay waiting, and swallowed them.

  * * *

  It seemed to Scott, riotously crossing the moors with Lymond, that he had done pretty well. He had prevented the fellow Drummond from giving the alarm. He had successfully comported himself in the presence of English military dignitaries of the most imposing sort. If the thought of the flaming helmet stuck unpleasantly on his mind, he dismissed it. What did it matter about cross-examinations! This was man’s work.

  It was then that two horses appeared wraithlike in the gloom ahead, and Lymond said sharply, “Joe! What are you doing here?” and rode forward.

  Words drifted to Scott. “Bannister, sir … taken by a strong party of Scots … yes, sir, I did.… Turkey took all the men and went after him … to look out for you and tell you … yes …”

  By the long-distance cramps across his shoulder blades and the worn patches inside his thighs Scott was reminded that he had been in the saddle all day; and with no great joy he felt Lymond return to his side suffused with fresh, delicate energy. “Now, don’t lose interest, my Pyrrha,” said the light voice. “I bring, lover, I bring the newis glad. Friend Bannister has got himself ambushed and now, my frivol Fortune, the ambushers are walking into the net. I’ll trip upon trenchers; I’ll dance upon dishes—it is now perfect day.”

  And led by Jess’s Joe, Lymond rode quickly onward over the dark Annandale moor, Will Scott following.

  3. Capture of a King’s Pawn

  “Lymond must wait,” said Lord Culter; and he and Buccleuch, and the Erskines, and Andrew Hunter and Lord Fleming and every man with a horse under him and a sword in his hand had ridden to Pinkie.

  Among the ten thousand dead of that day were Lord Fleming of Boghall and Tom Erskine’s older brother.

  Among the living, the hungry and battle-weary, with lined faces caulked with dust, were Lymond’s brother Lord Culter and Tom Erskine himself, far from slight, irritating adventures with a drunken sow. With the rags of their following the two men left the battlefield together and, knowing their families to be safe with Queen Mother, baby Queen and Court in the fortress town of Stirling, they crossed Scotland from the River Forth to the River Annan in an attempt to put a block—not enough men; not enough ordnance; not enough food—between the advancing army under Lord Wharton and the treasure at Stirling.

  So while the spirits of my lords Wharton and Lennox were being mortified in Annan, two parties of Scottish troops lay still in the darkness to the north: so still that Charlie Bannister, the Protector’s ill-fated messenger to Wharton, walked straight into one of them. He had the presence of mind to destroy his dispatches before they caught him; but catch him they did, and took him to Lord Culter.

  The man Bannister might have been weak in geography, and uncertain in his grasp of minor essentials such as avoiding the attention of large bodies of cavalry. But in one thing he excelled: he could keep his mouth shut.

  Agonizingly aware of the danger to Stirling, excoriated by the need to know the Protector’s and Wharton’s plans, they tried every method of persuasion; for the messenger knew the gist of his message: incautious to the end, he had let that out himself.

  With failure confronting them, Culter took his captain aside. The dilemma was plain. If the English Protector, now at Edinburgh, was ready to move on to attack the Queen and the Governor, he would order Wharton north to support him. Were these the orders Charlie Bannister carried? And when they didn’t come, would Wharton stay a while in Annan? Long enough, for example, to let Lord Culter and T
om Erskine with their men, however few, ride back to the defence of Stirling, their two Queens, their womenfolk?

  “But if you’re wrong, sir,” said Lord Culter’s captain, “you unstop this hole by moving away.”

  There was a short silence; then Culter took his decision. “Get your horse and bring Erskine and the other party to me. If it is as I think, we abandon Annan and march north.”

  The captain left, and still Bannister held out. Lord Culter, watching the assault, lips compressed, saw the decision he did not want to make striding toward him.

  He waited unmoving as time passed. Erskine had not yet had time to join him; dawn was still a long way off. To the south, a dull red haze challenged. He watched it mechanically, then chopped a hand on the torchbearer’s shoulder. “Lights out!”

  In the sudden darkness, a lookout confirmed what he had seen. “Body of troops coming up from the south, sir!” It was Erskine, of course. He gave orders quickly. Going through the motions for defence, the same certainty lay reassuringly on the men. It was Erskine, of course.

  It was not Erskine. The horses were at the edge of the wood, and the leaves shivering before they knew it; and then a growing, sphincteral circle of sound told them they were surrounded by a force much bigger. In ten minutes it was over. Pulsing inward, the incomers squeezed the Scots in a knot below the scarred trees, and held them there.

  By the relit torches, the vanquished, on foot, stared at the mounted ring of their victors. The horsemen wore no emblems, and no banners were shown: the conspicuous red cross of England on the white background was nowhere to be seen. Lord Culter, weaponless and fine-drawn, stepped forward and addressed them. “Who is your leader?”

  No one offered the civility of a reply. Instead, a bald, black-bearded giant who had been fidgeting about the radius of the circle, suddenly bent from his horse. “So there ye are, ye hell-tarnished gomerel!”

  Forgotten in the bracken, the bound figure of Bannister stirred hopefully.

  “It’s a wae job keeping some folk out of trouble,” remarked the big man with some sourness. “We told ye the right road, didn’t we?”

  Charlie Bannister, tried nearly beyond mortal man’s endurance, released a heartbreaking groan. Bending over his mare’s neck, the big man flicked off the ropes with his sword edge.

  “On your plat feet, ye glaikit Mercury. There’s a horse here ye can have, and a guide to take ye as far as Annan. I suppose you handed your papers to the bold laddies here?”

  Bannister got shakily to his feet. “I tore them up. How was I to know you directed me right?”

  The big man invoked his Maker, spoiling the effect with an alarming hiccough. “What else would we need to do to prove it: wrap you and your dispatch in a clean sark and lay you on his lordship’s bed?”—with heavy sarcasm. “Get off with you, man, before we get glutted with the fair sight o’ you.”

  “Wait!” said Lord Culter. He defeated his own purpose. Bannister instantly discovered the use of his legs and, helped impolitely with the flat of the big man’s sword, went stumbling through the bushes. Culter’s instinctive move to follow was checked by the same sword.

  Blackbeard grinned and swept him a bow. “My lord Culter. Good e’en to you,” he said ceremonially. “Now, gif you’ll excuse us …”

  “I doubt there’s a decent man in Scotland will do that,” said Culter. Was it possible that they were to escape with their lives? “Scots in English pay, I take it?”

  “Maybe.” The big man was not forthcoming. More, he seemed miraculously to regard his business as complete. Having collected their weapons and cut loose Culter’s horses, he bowed again and took rein.

  At that precise moment, the dark rustling spaces behind him expelled more horsemen.

  “But how magnificent!” said Lord Culter’s younger brother, and rode forward with unrestrained cordiality. “Look, children: it’s Richard!”

  Watching curiously, Scott and all the others saw Lord Culter’s face alter. Then he took a step backward, to narrow the angle between himself and the horseman, and spoke with deliberate and soul-hacking contempt. “This rabble is yours?”

  “Not rabble, Richard.” The blue gaze sorrowed. “There’s no merit in being outwitted by a rabble. Don’t let your sense of superiority get the better of you. After all, I’m on the horse, like the frog in the story, and while I can stare you down, it’s a little difficult for you to stare me up. You’ve put on weight, haven’t you? And cautious! Even Nero watched, Richard, while the family became encaramelled. I hardly thought you would resist the desire to be present as well.”

  Among Culter’s men there was a rustle of anger, but Richard himself said nothing at all. For an infinitesimal space, the blue eyes were forced down by the grey. Then the slack lids were drawn back farther than Scott had ever seen them, and the full malice of Lymond’s cornflower eyes bent on his brother.

  “Talk to me, Richard. It isn’t difficult. Move the teeth and agitate the tongue. Tell me news of the family. Am I superseded yet? Oh, Richard, a blush!”

  “No.” Culter’s voice was perfectly level. “No. You are not superseded. You are quite safe to kill me.” And added stiffly, forcing the time to pass: “Your services are at present with Wharton, I take it?”

  Lymond’s voice was absent. “Well, he’s certainly paying me. Once our friend Bannister reaches Annan, the road north is going to be a little crowded, what’s more.”

  Culter moved involuntarily. “Is the Protector then in Stirling?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Lymond readily. “Take care: you asked me a question; it’s the thin edge of the wedge. What’s so interesting about the Protector being in Stirling? … Oh, Richard!” he said with an air of sudden discovery. “You haven’t packed the ladies off to Stirling for safety, have you?”

  Lord Culter, guarding his eyes, was speaking mechanically. “You should be delighted.”

  “Well, it opens up a number of interesting possibilities, doesn’t it?” said Lymond. “I wonder if the Protector insists on merchetis, and his princely free access to the bedchamber, or anything novel like that. I used to know a number of women who would be all the better for a fate plus mal que morte. Which brings me rather to the point: Changeons propos, c’est trop chanté d’amours.…” And he laid a gentle hand on his sword.

  With an uneasy twist of relief, Scott recognized the climax, and drew a fortifying breath. At the same instant, Lymond said suddenly, “Richard, my child, have you by any chance more brains than I gave you credit for?”

  The words were hardly out when the rumour of noise, the furtive boot on the heather and the laboured breath resolved themselves into a torrent of crumbling sound as Erskine’s incoming Scottish force flooded the wood.

  In the last flare of the torches, Scott saw Lord Culter, his face alight, snatch a bow and raise it. Passion lent to the silent tongue the drama once derided by his brother. “Your turn now, Lymond! And by God, before I let you take over my shield and my bed, I’ll give you one night to remember the head of your family by!”

  And as he swung his horse frantically and went crashing and bumping outward through the confusion, Scott also heard Lymond’s reply.

  “All right: a challenge, Richard! I’ll meet you at the Popinjay in the next Stirling Wapenshaw, and we’ll try then who’s Master!”

  He laughed, and the excitement in the laugh was the last thing Scott remembered.

  II

  Blindfold Play

  And hit is not fittynge ne convenable thynge

  for a woman to goo to bataylle for the

  fragilitie and feblenes of her. And therefore

  holdeth she not the waye in her draught as the

  Knyghtes doon.

  IN THE long grass by the water’s edge a man lay half buried, with small life moving past his head and a tarnishing damp spread into his clothing. Behind him, four miles of bog rolled and steamed in the morning sun. Ahead, the turgid waters of the moat sucked and plopped in a leisurely way against the graz
ing meadows and scrub which lay behind Boghall Castle. The sun moved.

  At the castle, from which Richard, Lord Culter, had once watched the smoke of his mother’s burning house, the watch changed with weary abuse on both sides. “If one more old body,” said Hugh the Warden to his junior, “asks me to send a horseman to Pinkie to inquire after her great-nephew Jacob, I’ll skin her alive. Old quarry-faced Wharton on the road north, and ten men and twenty-two women to hold this castle and look after all of Biggar …”

  But breakfast and a pint of beer must have modified his temper, because he was patient with the next anxious inquirer. “Don’t fret. The boys’ll be back all right.”

  He was reminded as he spoke that some were already back: the barber-surgeon with his knives and ointments had already made the double journey twice between the castle and the thatched houses of Biggar. Hugh thought of that: he thought of his master, the dead Lord Fleming; he swore loudly and shot up to the watchtower, there to gaze earnestly and hopefully at the unstirring south.

  “Oh, God! Let them come!” said he, addressing the hills. “Oh, God! Let them come, and me and Dod Young’ll make collops of them!”

  The morning dragged on. At noon Simon Bogle, bodyguard, got his lady’s permission to fish for one hour, and left by the back postern. A dark, angular child, Sym was Stirling bred, and had for three years served the household with fierce attachment. At present, however, his mind was on fish. He passed through the bushes, untied the skiff, and shipped himself and his rod to the other side of the water. He thereupon walked twenty yards, stumbled, walked another yard, and went back to look.

  A man’s foot, lying in his path, proved to be attached to a body, and the body to an English cloak. He bent, gripped and rolled it over. Among a wealth of impressive detail there appeared a young man’s profile, splendidly unconscious. “Whoops, cock and the devil!” said Simon Bogle breathlessly and pounced, like divine Calypso, on his prey.

  He reached the postern with his burden, dispensing pulses of excitement and bog smells as his mistress opened it from the inside; and as he explained, Christian Stewart knelt beside their captive in her garden, her dark red hair fallen forward, her blind eyes resigned.