The Game Of Kings Part 30

For answer Sym drove his spurs again. "I started the trouble, and I'll get you out of it, if it's only to find a place for those papers . .

could ye get them leady, now?.

She couldn't. Samuel Harvey's statement-the paper she had denied to Margaret Douglas-was sewn very thoroughly in her saddlecloth. Nor were they likely, doubly burdened, to make enough ground to retrieve and hide it unseen. She said forcibly, "Simon: stop this horse and turn around. It's no good!.

He didn't answer her. Instead, above the thud and jangle and creak of the galloping horse there came an odd, rustling noise. It stopped suddenly with a b.u.mp, and Sym gave a little grunt. The arms about her slackened and the pressure at her back shifted. Christian cried once, "Simon!" and then with a clatter the whole body behind her shook itself loose and, rolling over the gelding's haunches, thudded on the heather.

The horse, already overexcited, entered a glory of self-induced fright and, the reins swaying against its knees, took the bit between its teeth.

The lifeless weight had nearly pulled the girl off too. But, barely realizing what had happened, Christian closed her knees instinctively and gripped the uncut mane with one hand, groping for the fallen reins. They eluded her: the horse was galloping wildly, shoulders and haunches lurching on the uneven ground; scrambling up slopes and down them, reaching higher and higher ground. Bushes clawed at her and once, a whipping branch stung her cheek.

She was holding now with both hands deep in the coa.r.s.e hair. What kind of country? Not the homely paths between Boghall and Culter, or Stirling, or Dumbarton, or the High Street in Edinburgh with Simon, or Tom, or Jenny fleming chatting placidly, describing the way to her.

A foreign land. Enemy country, where the earth existed to foster her rn-wishers, and trees to shelter them, and bushes to hide them. She who already carried in her eyes her own enemy.

Pursuit sounded now far distant. Ahead, the soft air of her pa.s.sing pressed freely against her and the sound of birdsong came from great distances, as if spread sparkling through the warm air: a singing dust. Singing sand. . . . Would she ever visit the islands again? Or be with the children? Or Sybilla. Or Wicket Wat. Or the man for whom she was now flying blind, on an uncontrolled horse through the small hills of Redesdale.

Behind, swooning on the air, rose a great shout. It rolled, remote and hollow, over the moor, and sank whispering among the flags.

Her pursuers saw, as she did not, the stalking, gem-cut line of the Wall ahead; the cl.u.s.tering gorse bushes and the debris of fifteen centuries which hid the brink of its twenty-foot ditch. Long before that warning cry faded, Christian's horse had taken those deceptive bushes in its stride; had hurtled into the fossa beyond, trundling, rolling and threshing its broken limbs in agony as the girl, a flash of white arms and dusty skirts and dark red hair, tumbled with him.

Margaret Douglas stood and watched Gideon's gentle, b.l.o.o.d.y hands lift Christian Stewart, the red hair drifting in his face. Then Lady Lennox stooped in turn by the dead horse and with nimble fingers and a sharp knife ripped open first the girl's pack, and then the trappings.

The cloth gave up its secret immediately. She pulled out a small bundle of papers, separated them, glanced on both sides, and made a curious sound, so close to a laugh that Gideon turned sharply on her. She was refolding the same papers and stuffing them back into the lining where they had been hidden. She did it quite carefully and then stood up, dusting her hands.

One of Gideon's own men had already helped him lift the quiet figure into the saddle in front of him: there was hardly any pulse. Margaret looked curiously at the unconscious face. "Is there a house nearby where you can take her?.

Kate wouldn't have recognized the look in Gideon's eyes. He said levelly, "My home isn't far away. She may as well die among friends..

The black eyes raged at him: Margaret also had had a shock. "It's hardly my fault if my bowman tries to stop a prisoner from escaping. That's what he's paid for." She kicked the saddle and its furniture. "You'd better take that, too. Her family might want it..

"Is that all you have to say?" said Gideon.

"She was blind. It's too great a handicap. She's better out of it," said Margaret in a staccato voice, and mounted her horse.

"Was that her sin?" said Gideon, watching the cavalcade move off. "I had come to fancy it might be something quite different..

3. The Last Move

When Lymond set foot for the third time in Flaw Valleys, Gideon went downstairs to greet him slowly, and found his upturned faceabounding with an electric vigour which quite overlaid the marks of his journey.

"I'm sorry," he remarked ebulliently when his host was halfway down. "Adhesive as St. Anthony's pig. Qu'on lui ferme la porte au nez, il reviendra par les fen&res. Thank you for your messages: your name will fly tetragrammaton round the world, and this fair blind Fortune will be made immortal. I've asked your henchmen to lock up an indignant gentleman who was leading me to Lord Grey and here I am. Where is she? How can we free her?-and what, my G.o.d what, did she learn from Samuel Harvey?.

It was worse than Somerville expected: it was frankly d.a.m.nable. After just too long a s.p.a.ce, as Lymond's face already began to alter, Gideon said bluntly, "She's freed herself. There's nothing to do. I wish to G.o.d you'd never got my message." And added, regaining proper hold of his tongue, "There's been an accident..

As he expected, Lymond took the news undemonstratively, in answer to his training; however much the flesh might shrink and melt, the sarcophagus was decently void of temperament. "Where is she?.

"Kate is with her upstairs. She hasn't much time. I'll take you to her..

"Thank you." An automatic reply, and an automatic climbing of the stairs. As they went, Gideon told his story, shooting curious side glances at the youngcr man. The blond face was lightly sheened with perspiration, but it was a warm day; there was no tremor of sentiment in it.

The music room was filled with sunlight and the smells of warmed wood and fruity earth from Kate's pot plants. They pa.s.sed the lute and rebec and the fiddle and harpsichord sealed in silent jubilee, and crossed to the inner room.

Kate had also heard the story, attacking the situation with her mind and squashing emotion and surmise with a prompt if temporary thumb.

She did what was necessary out of the bounty which suffering naturally commanded, and out of a sharp reaction to the courage of the injured girl. Conjecture firmly dismissed, she sat down beside her own bed, when every service of comfort had been performed, and took quiet and efficient note of the quiet and efficient messages enumerated from the pillows.

Christian's mind was perfectly clear. Her chief anguish, clearly, was the death of the boy Simon. Beyond that she wasted no time on regrets or self-pity, except perhaps when she had said all that was vital to say, and after lying silent for a moment observed: "You know, life has so many ridiculous hazards when one is blind-and yet I never expected somehow to die so far from home, without anyone of my own." She smiled quite successfully and added, "I don't suppose it matters. We're all pretty solitary anyhow, aren't we? Is someone else coming in?.

Kate hadn't heard Lymond enter. Across the bed she saw him tweak a strand of dark red hair gently between finger and thumb, and then slip into a chair beside the pillow. "Don't be so superior. Someone of your own is here," he said.

The girl's control was weaker than his. Her brow creased and tears sprang into her opened eyes. She shut them and said shakily, "It's witchcraft. You are about to babble like magpies and herring gulls..

"But not about the ruin of charity: in Flaw Valleys it multiplies like rhubarb. . . . What in G.o.d's name must you think of me after all the drivel I had to talk at Threave?.

There was an undeniable smile on the white face. "That you expected to be hanged. And didn't want me to be pointed out solely as the girl with a strong attachment for her dependents. It was all right. I understood..

"It wasn't all right," said Lymond flatly. "It's been all of a piece. I've been a joyless jeweller up to the last, exquisite drop from the crucible..

"There aren't any dregs in my cup," said Christian. "You're the only person who could make me swallow them. I'd do what I did over again. I never cared for old age, or the idea of outliving my friends and being a chattel to my relatives. I mourned a little because n.o.body would ever point to a page of history and say, 'The stream turned there to the right, or to the left, because of Christian Stewart.' You could make that come true for me, if you think you owe me anything. And you could promise me not to retreat to a wine barrel and reduce what we've both done to a few artificial bubbles of regrets and self-blame. You prophesied yourself that I should have all I wanted from life, did you not? And I think I have," she said.

He answered her like the lash of a whip. "There seems no doubt I've been reserved for great things-"Jo son lana da Dio, sua merce, taleI am the chosen of G.o.d. He will seeThat your suffering does me no harmThat the flames of this fire never touch me..

The impact of the words was almost physical. Kate flinched and the girl in the bed cried out, "No!.

He broke off of his own accord. "No," he agreed after a moment. "G.o.d knows why you think it's worth it, but I wouldn't have the puny effrontery to waste what you've done. When I think of my brilliant pose of anonymityA smile twitched her lips again. "I knew you'd be much too high-minded to come back if you suspected I knew. That's why I stopped you at Inchmahome..

Lymond's face was as white as the girl he was talking to, but his voice hardly varied.

"I am grovelling. I also owe you one or two stinging innuendoes for those letters. If Agnes Herries ever stumbles on a glossa interlinearis there -will be civil war..

"Erskine made her burn them. . . . Is that your hand? It's colder than mine. I told you not to worry..

Christian blinked suddenly and roused herself. "My mind's wandering. Listen: I have something for you. It's sewn in my saddlecloth. Mr. Somerville will show you. Hurry!" Her face, framed in the strewn hair, was as matronly as a nurse commanding a treat for a child.

For the first time, Lymond's eyes met Kate's. He rose slowly and walked to the door. Kate heard her husband speak in the corridor, and then both men's footsteps receding. After no more than a few minutes, Lymond returned.

This time, his eyes never left the girl in the bed. Sitting beside her, he raised her hand and put under it a crumpled fold of small papers bloodstained-as Kate saw-in one corner.

Christian's face was alight. "You've read them? They're all there?.

"I've read them. But how . . . ?" Lymond was saying in a kind of lunatic daze. "How the devil-how the devil could you do it? To have it in black and white at the eleventh hour . . . Did you threaten him? Cut off his ears and souse them in vinegar? Propose to confine him in a locked room with Lord Grey for six months?.

The girl gave the ghost of a laugh. "It was on his conscience.

He dictated the whole story and signed it. The priest was there too- that's the second signature. Is it what you'd hoped?.

There was the fraction of a pause. Then Lymond picked up Christian's hand and carried it to his lips, holding it afterward folded in both his own. "More than I ever dreamed of," he said-and like the serpent she had once called him, snarled voicelessly into Kate's eyes as she looked up, horror-struck, from what the girl's lifted band had left revealed.

For the sheets of creased paper which Christian had brought with such pains from Haddington, which Margaret had found not worth her attention, and which Lymond had at last received, were quite blank.

Kate gave nothing away. Christian, it appeared, wanted her company. Since she couldn't go, she was forced to sit and watch, listening to the murmur of their voices. They were talking of things and people Kate knew nothing about, but she knew contentment when she saw it, and didn't interrupt even when the girl's voice began to lapse and the air to falter at last in her lungs.

Christian did what was necessary herself, turning her head painfully toward Kate. "I was never much good at waiting," she said. "It's a sign of immaturity, or something. I wonder if maybe music would be soothing? If someone would play . . . Not you," she added quickly, as Kate rose. "If you don't mind. It's comforting to have you sitting so close..

"Of course I'll stay," said Kate, her mind racing. "Would you like Mr. Crawford to play for you? The music room is only through a door by your bed..

She had, obviously, guessed right. The smile this time was one of relief. "He still has to finish a song he played for me once. Do you remember?.

"The unfortunate frog. Of course," said Lymond, straightening. Kate met his eyes and nodded: she thought he looked almost at the end of his endurance,, but he could be relied on to make no mistakes. He bent quickly and taking both Christian's hands, kissed her on th'~ brow. "The frog was a pretty poor creature. This time you shall have music to sound in a high tower-.

"-So merrily that it was a joy fo~ to hear, and no man should see the craft thereof. . . . You give me such pleasure," said Christian.

A moment later the music began, and Kate shrank beneath the onslaught of its message: the fury of hope and joy that towered in the notes, outburning the sunlight and outpouring the volumes of the sea. All that was bold and n.o.ble and happy in created sound burst from the metempirical quills, and it was a blasphemy not to rejoice.

Christian died in its midst, purposeful and successful; the last struggle unseen by anyone but Kate, and laying no bridle on the living. Kate drew the bright curtains around the bed.

Jouissance vous donnerayMon amy, et vous menerayL~ oi~ pr~tendVotre esp~ranceVivante ne vous laisserayEncores quand morte serayL'esprit en aura souvenance.

Her eyes were closed with tears: strangers-foreigners--what were they to her? The man was playing still, his eyes resting on the windows as they had done all along. Through the gla.s.s she saw that a column of mounted men had come over the moor and up to her lodge gates: like squirrels their faces were p.r.i.c.ked at her windows; like Ulysses perhaps their ears were tingling with the music of the sirens. She dried her cheeks and walked forward a little, and Lymond, seeing her reflection in the panes, raised his hands.

The horseman in the lead was bending down, addressing someone very young or very small. Kate saw the white flash of a face, and one bare arm waving toward the house. She was infinitely more afraid of the immobile man at the keyboard. She rested her hands, as in prayer, on the instrument. "It happened peacefully..

"Did it?" said Lymond.

The entire file had moved forward to the gatehouse. There seemed to be a moment of confusion, then the doors opened and the hors.e.m.e.n came through, rather fast.

"I believe she meant what she said," said Kate. "About being contented..

She wasn't sure if he heard her. After a moment he stirred, and lifting a hand to the keys again, picked out some slow chords. "It was the Frogge on the wall, Humble-dum; humble-dum..

"You didn't finish it for her, after all," said Kate.

The house was alive with noise. He said nothing and did nothing; and at length even Kate's resolution gave way. "Who are they? What do they want? Who is it?.

He had watched the long file of hors.e.m.e.n sweep over the moor:while he loosed his fierce elegies he had watched them sense the music on the wind and point to him like hounds. He had promised Christian music for her minion and outrider, and he kept his promise.

"What is it?" cried Kate, and Lymond turned with grim finality from the keys. "What is it? The end of the song. Where d.i.c.kie our Drake, Mrs. Somerville, takes the Frog..

And on the last word, the stark and pitiful peace of his~ anthems had gone. With a crash of bruised post and split panels and an a.s.sault which sent gut and sounding board screaming, the door of the music room opened.

"-Richard, my brother," ended Lymond.

It was Culter, his search over.

Broad, powerful, shivering within the frame of smashed wood, he was a primitive figure, of pantheistic and dreadful force. Standing still, all his mind and his pa.s.sions embraced the two silent people by the window, allowing the texture, the luxury, the exquisite savour of the prize to drive him to ecstasy. A little sound, involuntary and wordless, broke from him.

For a moment, she thought it was going to strike an answer from Lymond. Another person might have screamed at him, or at the intruders; but Kate did neither: she literally held her breath, watching pressures she could only guess at being licked by this vengeful fire. She obeyed an instinct to keep quiet, and by lending Lymond the support of her calmness, to avert the thing that would destroy them all.

He succeeded. In the teeth of unleashed hatred and on the heels of tragedy he shackled human reaction and, rising smoothly and quickly, addressed his brother as men poured into the room.

"I know. Aha, Oho, and every other b.l.o.o.d.y e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. Let's take it as read. You're delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can't wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and your presence blasphemous, thus concluding the exchange of civilities and letting us get out of here. If there's anything novel or extra you want to add, you can think of it on the way home..

The words struck and fell dead to the ground. Richard made not the slightest movement, his grey eyes wetly shining; the fat veinsvisible on his temple and neck. "He's in a hurry, isn't he? It's a love nest, as I live. Who's the wench?.

"The wench is a lady, and mistress of this house," said Lymond in the same controlled and insulting voice. "Erskine: take him downstairs. Something's happened..

Lord Culter grinned lecherously. "I'm sure it has..

"Later, Richard. You can have all the sport you want. Erskine-" Tom Erskine said, "Come on, Richard. We've got him: there's no point in wasting time..

Lord Culter ignored him. He was wandering around the room, touching things and still smiling. Kate moving quickly before him shut the door to her bedroom and returned to Lymond's side. "There has been-.

"Be quiet," said Richard pleasantly. "And you, little brother. How would five years of this sort of thing appeal to you, Tom? Where's the bed, I wonder? Behind the door they're not looking at? With another wench in it, maybe?.

He had an unbooked-for agility. He reached the bedroom door a second before Lymond and got it open. The Master's hard shoulder crashed into him and he hurtled back with the shuddering wood, but already half-braced and with a purchase on his brother's arm which brought Lymond stumbling with him. Then there was a rush to help, and the Master went down under six others.

They pulled him to his feet as Richard, rising, was confronted by the young woman who had first shut the door. "Get out of this room and listen to me, you uncivilized lout!" said Kate.

Richard struck her to her knees with the hardened flat of his hand, the first blow he had ever aimed at a woman, and wrenched back the yellow silk curtains.

Over their tawdrinesses grieved the benign detachment of death. At Richard's blanched rigidity, Lymond fell silent, unstruggling, by the door; Kate rose and found her way obstinately to a chair, one hand to her face; and Tom Erskine, struck by the silence, moved from the doorway. Lymond's long fingers shot out and halted him.

"There's bad news. We tried to tell you. It's Christian." Erskine broke from his grasp without a sound.

Presently, Lord Culter moved from the bedside, leaving Tom where he knelt. Back in the music room where his men waited, silent and uneasy, he picked out one with a glance. "Send for the man- Somerville, is it? I want him here." Then he turned to his brother,his face as hard as the bones of the earth. "I'd neither foul a cage by capturing you nor offend justice by taking you to Court. Covet the sunshine: you are dying..

"No!" exclaimed Kate Somerville from the doorway. She had dropped her hand from her bruised face. "No, you're wrong. The girl met with her accident while travelling in English company to Hexham. When Mr. Crawford arrived she was already dying. He did all he could for her..

"Concluding with jigs and hornpipes over her deathbed. I know. My G.o.d, we heard him!.

"What my wife says is true." Gideon had arrived in the doorway. Richard didn't turn his head. "Exposing her to public obloquy at Threave-that's another fact. Cheating her about his ident.i.ty. Making this blind girl an accomplice traitor, an accomplice murderer, adulterer .

Lymond's voice cut sharply across. "We've all had as much as we can stand, Culter. You know perfectly well you can't kill me here unless I resist capture: it needs one busybody to pipe up in Parliament and you'll be arrested yourself. Let the fools argue it out in Edinburgh: I'll go quietly. Come along. Half the English army's at Hexham. I don't want to meet Grey, even if you do. And for G.o.d's sake get Erskine out of that room for a start..

Lord Culter paid not the slightest attention. He was issuing quiet, concise orders to his men, and to Somerville, who listened tight-lipped. When he had quite finished, he turned back to Lymond.

"I don't murder anybody. I'm offering you a proper trial-trial by combat. Observing all the rules. You may even think you have a chance of killing me. If you do, you are free, of course..

Gideon's eyes met his wife's. He said quietly, "Take him to Edinburgh as he asks. He's quite right-Grey and Wharton are at Hexham. If anyone calls, you haven't a chance. And," added Gideon with some bluntness, "you haven't seen his swordplay..

A heretical insolence had found its way back to Lymond. "Why worry, children? I'm not going to fight..

"I thought we'd have that," said Richard calmly. Somerville, after hesitating, left, pushed by two soldiers. "You'd prefer to be skewered like a sheep?.