The Game Of Kings Part 12

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 d.a.m.n 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 thebrushes, 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. Ciouch 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 b.u.t.tery.

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 coflected, 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 G.o.d 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, swimniily, to roll over and found himself pinned by a relentless matrix of bones. He heaved, unsuccessfully, felt his a.s.sailant 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 sobut 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.

Hunter was on top. He wanted to shout, but all the power of his lungs was occupied in driving his body: the sound of both men's breathing was like tearing cloth. Feeling the black eyes on him, Hunter set his teeth and grinned; then, listening to his muscles speaking, exerted all his force to flatten the other's body and approach the twisting throat with his thumbs. The masked figure writhed desperately; its arms threshed; it began to go limp. Sir Andrew, his fingers finding and burying themselves at last in the flesh over the great vessels, threw caution to the winds and, raising himself, exerted all his power in pressing on the neck below him. He had an instant's vision of eyes screwed, not in pain, but a kind of barbarous hilarity, and then booted feet curled themselves neatly and smashed into his unguarded and exposed groin; one of the searching hands, now armed with iron from the hearth, cracked open his face and beat him back as he knelt, retching; then Black-mask, rising, threw away his andiron and bent over him.

Hunter, racked with the torments of the d.a.m.ned, heard him say through the throbbing in his brain, "Come along, Dandy . . . observe the modus operandi . . . How can thou float . . . without feather or fin." He was gripped by wanton arms, balanced a moment, helplessly convulsed, and then with a sickening wrench sent hurtling across the room. Chairs, candlesticks, books, fell. The world vanished in a b.l.o.o.d.y mist, reappeared insp.i.s.sate with pain, disappeared. Playful, inhuman fingers rested on his collar, hooked below it, and methodically began to flay his head against the high gloss of the tiles.

The voice said, erratically, "Who . . . falls upon rushes, falls soft; beware of . . . vain pride in terrestrial treasure, Sir Andrew. Anddoused lights . . and fireirons . . . and wrestling in slippers." He was released, and lay, three parts unconscious, looking up at his tormentor.

"And of tempting me further," said Black-mask, smiling. "I have come to see your little English friend, Sir Andrew; but I'll break you a limb in the Turkish style as often as you like. . .

Hunter, drowning in tides of nausea, closed his eyes, and shut out the mask, and the black, unwinking eyes in the bed.

A Variety of Mating RepliesFor suth ye Rok in to his first moving . . . mHe may nocht pa.s.s, nor of his steid to steire,Quhill knycht or p.a.w.ne is standand hi so nere,And in mydfield, gif he be stedit still,To four poyntis he pa.s.sis at his willTwo rokis may a king allone put downe,And him depryve of his lyf and his crowne.

1. Play with a Rook Proves Dangerous

THE shop of Patey Liddell, goldsmith, was on the south side of the Middle Raw in Stirling, handy for the Burgh Yett, and only a short walk from St. John Street. It was a tall thin building, with a coloured timber arcade, and outside steps to the first floor where Patey stored his stock, and Lady Culter was sitting having her miniature painted.

From time to time Patey peered down, Cyclops-fashion, to the shop proper through a neat hole in the floor boards, partly to watch for customers, and partly to howl threats at his apprentices, known caustically as the Seven Little Masters, who dwelt among mystic coloured, fires at the back of the shop.

Mr. Liddell was lively as a frog, his small face niellated with gold dust, and his white hair trained over his ears, which were missing. Patey readily explained how this happened, and the numerous versions, in toto, lent substance to Sybilla's private belief that the manwas a rogue. He was also a brilliant goldsmith; and the source to Lady Culter of much simple entertainment.

Why she had made this appointment for today, the morning of the Wapenshaw, was beyond her to recall. Why indeed the plans for the Wapenshaw had been allowed to stand so soon after Pinkie was another matter, but the Dowager could guess. She thought, with unusual depression, that it was probably just as well, under the circ.u.mstances, to have a count of arms: that had begun in the morning and would be over by now. And if the Queen thought that outdoor exercise would keep the lieges from one another's throats until the meeting was safely convened, she was probably, in a French way, right. This brought her mind on to her son.

"Patey!" said the Dowager at the top of her voice. "It isn't a tapestry! Haven't you done yet?.

Patey Liddell raised a denunciatory finger. "You moved!.

"I can't help moving," said Sybilla, in a nicely controlled shriek. "Your wretched cushion's come adrift from the stool: it's like trying to steer hurley-hackit. Are you going to be long?.

The old man beamed, nodding vaguely. "A wee thing to the right." Lady Culter turned obediently. "Are-you-going-to-be-muchlonger?.

Patey worked away, his tongue silently tracking the strokes of his brush. "As to that," he said piously, "the gude Lord alone kens. You've changed your hair, tae..

"I've washed it," said Lady Culter tartly. "If you think I'm going to remain unchanged and unwashed for sixteen months while you immortalize me, you're wrong. If you could pin up the sun permanently in the top left corner of your ceiling, you would..

"Ah, the bonny lad," said Patey, working phonetically through the last sentence. "Only the other day I said to him, says I: wi' the separations o' war, says I, whitna better than a bonny picter o' the wee la.s.sie tae carry neist the heart..

"What did he say?" shouted Sybilla with interest.

"He said," said Patey, a shade reluctantly, "that he'd think about it when he kent whit I was charging for this yin. Acourse, I told him, it's all in the frame. Says I, gin ye choose gold now, that'd be a wee thing costlier than your dear mother's: on the other hand, tin's dirt cheap, and if the la.s.sie puts up wi' the insult, who'm I tae-" He raised an astonished eye from the floor. "'S breid! There's a customer!" And before Sybilla could murmur, he skipped to the stairs and vanished.

The Dowager instantly got off her seat and picked up the miniature. The likeness was, she thought, fairly good. Appraising her face at one remove, she was glad to find that sixty hara.s.sing years had left it, on the whole, quite presentable. The eyes and bones, of course, had always been good.

"But I must have it today!" A familiar voice, laboriously distinct, rose through the peephole, and the Dowager, entranced, prepared to listen.

Patey's voice said, "Well, it's no done yet, Sir Andra..

"Then when will it be ready?" Hunter sounded impatient, and Sybilla sympathized. There was another exchange, then silence as Patey disappeared to the back of the shop. Then a new voice:"Hullo, Sir Andrew! Man, what's happened to your face?.

The Dowager had no special interest in Sir George Douglas, but her wandering attention was jerked by Sir Andrew's reply.

"My face?" said Sir Andrew, and laughed ruefully. "G.o.d; like the beggar, I'm all face. It was that d.a.m.ned Crouch man, the prisoner of war..

"Good Lord!" Sir George sounded startled. "I must say, he'd none of the air of a man-eater..

"Dammit, it wasn't Crouch that did the damage," said Hunter. "It was some murderous brute with a black mask who smashed the house open, tied up Mother like a boiling fowl and thumped me-I must confess-to a pulp. It wasn't too funny at the time..

"No, of course not. . . . What about Crouch?.

"Departed, protesting, with the rescuer. G.o.d knows what the man wanted; my impression is he hardly knew himself. All I got out of it were a couple of English names they bandied about; if I had any contacts over the Border I'd follow them up for the devil of it, to see if I couldn't track down my agile friend. I don't suppose they mean ,anything at all to you? Gideon Somerville and Samuel Harvey?.

Sir George admitted they didn't, and his commiserations were halted by the arrival of Patey, grousing, with Sir Andrew's finished brooch. Sybilla had seen it being altered. She admired it again, listening still; but the conversation had drifted to less interesting channels.

And what duplicity!" said the Dowager much later, describing all this over pheasant at Bogle House to Christian Stewart and herson Richard. "After telling the rest of us the bruises came from a fall from his horse. But of course Dandy is shrinkingly sensitive about money; heaven knows how he manages to shower his mother with diamonds. It must have been someone he was hoping to ransom, poor man..

"No," said Richard. "He was going to exchange him for a cousin of his own held prisoner in England..

The Dowager eyed her son with such gentle surprise that he explained. "Overheard him discuss it at Drumlanrig. He bought the fellow from George Douglas there..

"Well, I never heard that he had a cousin in England," said Sybilla; "and even if he has, I don't see why poor Dandy should have to redeem him. What that man wants is to marry an heiress, although heaven knows I shouldn't ask Medusa to share her castle with Catherine..

Richard, she thought, was looking tired. The weeks she and Mariotta had pa.s.sed at Menteith had been spent by him in hara.s.sing activity. He had visited them once at Inchtalla: that apart, it occurred to the Dowager, he had hardly spent a complete day in his wife's company since the battle.

She had been extremely cross to find him at Bogle House when she arrived there, late, Trom Patey's; to learn that he had been released from those activities she had circuitously arranged for him at the castle, and that Tom Erskine, arriving in his absence, had taken Mariotta and Agnes to the games, leaving (perforce) Christian, who insisted on waiting for herself.

She was considering the next move when fate forestalled her: a roaring separated itself from the excitements of the street, wound up the stairs in increasing volume, and debouched into the room at the tail of a disorganized servant.

"Hey!" said Buccleuch, hauling off his hat and nodding perfunctorily at the ladies. "I've been looking everywhere for you! You've missed the best of the wrestling!.

"Sir Wat!" said Lady Culter.

"And the jumping's over!" said Buccleuch, unheeding. "And the running! Where've you been? There's only tilting at the glove, and the ring, and then the Papingo. The b.u.t.t shooting's nearly finished, too, and these d.a.m.ned Kerrs are having it too much their own way." He made for the door. "Come on. Where's yqur bonnet?.

"In his room," said Sybilla, outstaring her son's sharp glance. "And there it stays. Wat Scott, I knew you had no manners out of your first two wives, but I thought Janet Beaton had taught you how to address a lady..

"But I'm not here to address a lady," Buccleuch pointed out unwisely. "I want Richard to-.

"But since you've called, and I'm hostess, I'm afraid you can't avoid it," explained Sybilla. She agitated her hand bell. "Malnisey or Canary?.

Buccleuch cast an agonized glance at Richard, got no help and tried Sybilla again. "We're going to miss the Popinjay," he pleaded.

"I'm not!" remarked the Dowager. "I never liked birds, and still less when they talk-Canary, please, John..

It all but succeeded; by the third cup Sir Wat was well launched on a detailed theory about hard snaffles and would have been there yet had not Hunter's face appeared around the door, anxiously addressing Buccleuch and Lord Culter, after a quick bow to the ladies.

"I've to bring you both quickly. They're getting to the Popinjay." The look which pa.s.sed between Sir Andrew and Buccleuch was the briefest possible, but Sir Wat jumped guiltily to his feet, his eye wandering agitatedly toward Lady Culter.

Sybilla sighed. "Don't say a word. I can guess. The news of Lymond's challenge is being shrieked from the chimney tops..

Sir Andrew had the grace to look uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Lady Culter. But the crowd have got to know that your sons are to compete-.

"Stuff and nonsense," said the Dowager irritably. "How can they, with one of them at the horn?.

'They know that," said Christian from the fireplace. "It's not a shooting match they're expecting. It's an a.s.sa.s.sination..

"It's no use, my dear," said Sybilla. "We are face to face, like poor Janet Beaton, with a severe case of Moral Philosophy, and there is nothing we can do about it..

Lord Culter crossed to the settle and bending down, kissed his mother on the hand and on the cheek. "It'll be over in an hour," he said. "Don't be afraid. I'll come back, if only to teach you the proper meaning of Moral Philosophy..

The door closed behind them all.

* * *"Well, I must say," said Lady Herries definitely, and loudly enough to turn several interested heads, "if I were married to Lady Culter, I shouldn't let her spend the whole afternoon at the games alone..

"Thank you very much," said Tom Erskine, grinning at Mariotta, who sat on his other side.

She smiled politely back, and Mr. Erskine's soul moaned within him. Reduced, singlehanded, to coping with so much potential gunpowder, he felt himself, like the bird which cleans crocodiles' teeth, a.s.sailed by hideous doubts.

Privately, he agreed with the brat. He couldn't blame the Dowager for taking her own measures to keep Richard away, but then, she didn't know how public the thing had become. Neither did the two girls beside him; and the Herries child, ignorant of the challenge as well, insisted on fretting at the subject like a b.i.t.c.h at the spit. Exiled from his own group of friends by his female company and unwilling, in any case, to listen to his neighbours sharpening their wits at Richard's expense, he wished heartily he were elsewhere. A Lindsay won the b.u.t.t shooting and his annoyance increased.

Had he but known it, Mariotta too was battling with an acid frustration. The girl was pretty, rich and wearing new clothes. Today, sitting under streaming banners, with peers and pageantry around her, the green gra.s.s in front and the castle soaring above, was her first public appearance in Stirling since her wedding. And it was Tom Erskine, not Richard, who sat beside her and supplied the endless introductions. It was all exactly as she had insisted and devastatingly flat.

It was flat when the procession of contestants wound down the hill, flags and livery mincing in the sun, musicians playing apoplectically against the wind. When the Queen and the Governor had made a brief appearance among the royal benches. When the tilting was at its best, with deal splinters flying among the spectators; when one of the wrestlers broke an arm.

Then they were pulling arrows out of straw and targets, and clearing the way for a vociferous, red and white centipede, which turned out to be the 120-foot pole and its rigging for the last of the contests: the Papingo Shoot.

"Come along," said Tom, getting to his feet. "This is where we move back..

"Why?" said Agnes. "Oh no, Mr. Erskine: we must see the Papingo first..

Back," said Tom firmly. "Unless you want a hatful of arrows. Sixty yards' clearance for spectators: that's the rule. Look! There's the parrot in a wicker cage: see it? They'll take it out and tie it to a crossbar on top of the pole before they hoist it..

At this precise moment, to Tom Erskine's heartfelt delight, reinforcing troops arrived in the person of Sir Andrew Hunter, looking not unlike an uncommonly ruffled parrot himself after a stormy pa.s.sage through the crowd.

He exchanged greetings. "Papingo shoots! If you haven't the slashed style to begin with, you're certainly wearing it by the end, and be d.a.m.ned to the Continental rules-I thought you might want to compete," he explained to Erskine. "I don't-no bow with me, anyway. Oh"-in good-humoured answer to Lady Herries-"I can manage all right at the b.u.t.ts, but I'm a fool at perch shooting. Tom knows..

"Tom certainly does," said Erskine, grinning. "The Kilwinning baillies used to hand down their suits of armour like chains of office for when Dandy was perch shooting at the steeple..

Sir Andrew aimed a friendly cuff at him. "Watch your own step. The old man won't be pleased if you break one of his windows..

Since the Keeper's quarters were not only several hundred feet up the castle rock but invisible, this seemed unlikely. However, Tom replied, "You're safe, as it happens-I'm not competing either. But if you'd do squire for me, Dandy, I'd be grateful. There's something I must do in town..

He received Hunter's cheerful acquiescence, took leave of the ladies, and burrowed away, to a chorus of exasperated groans.

The field, having encouraged the perilous rearing of the perch, settled down into its new stance. Well back from the danger area there was an air of comfortable expectancy.

Looking around, in the bright, sparkling air, Mariotta found that, like tesserae in a mosaic, her warring emotions had merged, peaceably, into untrammelled pleasure. She was sorry for the papingo, winking blue and yellow in the sun on his high pole; but admired the sunlit castle rock behind him, the wide gra.s.s arena, with its elderly, occupied officials which spread on its three exposed sides; and even found something to please her in the crowd, of which she was one, which impinged on three sides of the gra.s.s behind the barriers, filling all the s.p.a.ce between the arena and the bright rows of pavilions behind.

Protocol, having much the same separatist requirements as a good, fancy jelly, produced much the same results. The layer of peers, in wind-blown furs and large flat hats, was naturally in the best position, next the barrier; then came the clergy, almost indistinguishable except for their plainer headgear; then the merchants and their wives, obviously full of good dinners and dressed at cost, in much better cloth on the whole than the n.o.bles; then the less prominent burgesses and the more reserved professionals, nonclerical lawyers and teachers and Household and other people with minor positions at Court; then all the people one saw in the street, whom one's steward dealt with, and, occasionally, one visited. The fleshers and brewers and smiths and weavers and skinners and saddlers and salters and cappers and masons and cutlers and fletchers and plasterers and armourers and porters and water carriers, and the one-eyed man who had called at Bogle House selling fumigating pans. And country people on holiday, and beggars, and pickpockets (no doubt) and somers and the wandering unemployed.

The sun shone. Trumpets blared; and drew every nose to the field as one of the heralds, his tabard looking a trifle end-of-season and tarnished, made an announcement, inaudible. More trumpets. Then a temporary barrier was removed and the compet.i.tors, fifty n.o.blemen and fifty commoners, filed self-consciously onto the field and around its margin.

One recognized one's friends at once from the banners. The pages were obviously enjoying the parade much more than their masters, who were smiling in a resolute sort of way at their friends in the crowd, indicating that they only did this kind of thing to entertain the tenants. One looked for the warmth and hilarity which halfway through, by unexplained custom, would suddenly enliven and vulgarize the proceedings.