Mistress of mistresses (22 page)

A
little before midnight Lessingham blew horn under Laimak.

The
Vicar received Lessingham by torchlight in the great main gate above the
gatehouse. He advanced three steps to meet Lessingham, and embraced and kissed
him on both cheeks. Lessingham said, 'Your highness is to thank me indeed. I
have set 'em all by the ears, and in that suspectuous squabbling insecurity
declared war upon them. It resteth now but to raise force and crush them ere
they run together again. I'll tell you all at large, but first I would bathe
and shift me; and indeed I have not eat these eight hours, since dinner-time at
Ketterby.'

'
'Tis provided,' said the Vicar. 'Let's hold more chat over the supper table.'

Half
an hour past midnight supper was set in the great banquet-hall which was shapen
like an L, the main member forty cubits in length and the shorter twenty-five.
Amaury and they of Lessingham's company had place at the far end of the long
table by the door at the end of the main body of the hall that opened on the
great court. The Vicar sat with Lessingham at a little round table at the
northern corner whence they might see everywhere in the hall both ways, left
and right, and be out of earshot of the rest and talk at ease. The hall was of
black obsidian-stone, with deep mullioned windows along its north-western wall.
Devilish heads, five cubits in bigness from brow to chin, were carven in high
relief along the five other walls: thirteen heads in all, very deformed and
uglisome, laying out their tongues; and on the end of each tongue was stood a
lamp brightly burning, and the eyes of the great faces were looking-glasses
nicely cut up with facets to throw back the rays of the lamps, so that the
whole banquet-room was lit with a brilliance of lamplight. It was mizzly
weather, very cold for the time of year; the Vicar bade light a fire of logs in
the great hearth that stood on the inner angle opposite their table.

Lessingham,
in a pleasant ease now after nigh five days' riding, sat eating of his supper,
a neat's tongue, some jellied quails, a sallet of endives lettuces and salsify,
with hippocras and a quince pie to end it, while the Vicar, leaning over the
table at his cousin's elbow and drinking chill wine, talked long and low in his
ear. Gabriel Flores, upon pretext of hospitable attentions, tarried by the
table. 'Care not for Gabriel, he is inward in my counsels,' said the Vicar.

'Not
in mine,' said Lessingham.

'Well,
pug, begone,' said the Vicar then; 'we have no love for you.'

'O
I do love my little Gabriel,' said Lessingham; 'yet sometimes he is dearest to
me in absence. And that humour's on me now; and so, Gabriel, good night.' Gabriel
gat him gone with an ill grace.

'Filth
and damnation of these free towns in the north there!' said the Vicar, reaching
out a broad and hairy hand for the leavings of the tongue, which he threw to a
great dog that, prick-eared and alert, watched their meal as a peri should
watch the things of Paradise. 'I trust ere long to wash my hands in the umbles
of the knaves; but all taketh time, and here's trouble upon trouble ever since
the old King died. And, like a fool, I laughed to think my hands were untied
then.'

'I
would you had not needed act so suddenly,' said Lessingham. 'These soldiers you
have packed off north I could a used to your great vantage in the south now.
Telia, Lailma, Veiling, and Abaraima, you told me, swapt up a roguish bargain
with Ercles; opened their gates to him; called him their captain?'

'Ay:
'stead of Mandricard, that held it in my interest these five years.'

'Mandricard',
said Lessingham, 'was never the man to serve your turn; I told you that five
years ago, cousin. Too irresolute, fawning on the tag-rag people for favour
to-day, putting 'em down with a bloody petulance tomorrow; such an uncertain
seat: such jaggings on the bit: spoil your best of horses.'

'Pah!
'twas not one man's insufficiency raised this smother,' said the Vicar. 'Hath
been brewing for years. I have had my finger on their pulses. I saw it afore
yesterday. And Veiring, worst of all. God's body! I tell you Prince Ercles'
self did say to my face (when there was less coolness 'twixt us than now-a-days
befalleth): said if they of Veiring did trouble him as they did me, he would
send his men with shovels and pickaxes and throw it into the sea.'

'You
have despatched Arcastus, you say, and a thousand men?'

'Twelve,
no, fifteen hundred: not as upon serious action: only to cow 'em with a show
of strength: stop other sheep from following of those through the same gate.
But harkee, I have yet one good cogging die ready upon the cast,' and his voice
fell to a growling whisper: 'a likely lad with a good point to his knife and a
well shut mouth and a good habit of miching round by unseen ways: tickled his
belly with two hundred gold pieces, and five hundred more upon performance: if
he but wriggle his way into Eldir,—' the Vicar drank. 'Gabriel procured him,
and that at some third remove. My hand's not seen in't. If aught miscarry,
should slander blow hitherward I can securely 'gainst all contradictions disown
him.'

Lessingham
leaned back in his chair and stretched. He regarded his cousin with a look of
profound enjoyment which, when the adder eyes met his, livened to the shadow of
a smile. ‘I do sadly fear, cousin, this most taking simple-heartedness of
yours,' he said. 'Consider: 'tis barely two months since the Chancellor took up
one of your instruments in his garden in Zayana and hanged him there. I know
'twas given out 'twas Zapheles worked that poppet's strings, not to make too
much pother of it; but in all their private counsels there was no question made
but you did do it. And now Ercles: that old dog-fox is not to be caught with
your springes, cousin. I would you had been in Zayana; you should a seen the
labour I had untying of those bands of alliance your known ways had knit them
together withal; and but for that, httle enough of trust or friendship amongst
'em. My work had been easy else.'

The
Vicar turned upon him eyes of stone. 'You have your ways,' he said. ‘I mine.'

'What
strength have you in Owldale?' asked Lessingham, as a falcon leaves playing
with her mate in the upper air to stoop at her proper prey. 'Four thousand
men?'

'Just,
if you'll drink drunk and see each man double,' answered he.

'Two
thousand? and my own riders, eight hundred more.'

'Nay,
I reckoned them in,' said the Vicar.

‘I
must have more,' said Lessingham, and sprang up. 'We must come down upon them
like a thunderbolt ere they have time to consider too much and stick together
again, else is all this work wasted.'

'Softly,
softly,' said the Vicar. ' 'Tis but boys and women count to go through
presently their designments a royal point; my policy runneth deeper. I'll
'clear my rear in the north first. Besides, I've thought on a business for you
north-away; but that must wait again. For this present matter, I will first
make sure of Ercles and Aramond.'

Lessingham
paced a dozen times to and again from the table to the fire. 'Cousin,' he said
then, coming to a stop before the table, 'you have taken my rede ere now, and
have you ever fallen down by it?' The Vicar shrugged his shoulders.
Lessingham's eyes were a-sparkle. 'Seeing I have begun,' said he, ‘I will
stoutly go through. You can hold Laimak and Anguring with as many men as
chesnuts you could carry in two fists. Give me the rest, and your warrant to
raise what more I may. Ere a month be past I'll grab you Outer Meszria in the
hollow of my hand.'

'You've
a sweet vein in speech,' the Vicar said; 'but you know as well as I we cannot
now lay hand on above two thousand five hundred men, and there's four or five
thousand needed for such an enterprise.'

'Yet
shall you see me undertake it,' said Lessingham. Things least feared are least
defended and observed. And remember, one great stroke i' the southlands, and
these factions that vex you i' the north there shall fizzle like a lamp when
the oil is out Time enough then to sort them, put 'em to rights.'

The
Vicar's great spreading nostrils widened and the red blood flushed his face, as
if set a-boiling with the heat of the imperious eager and resolute imaginings
that burned in Lessingham's speech and bearing. He stood up now heavily, and
for a minute faced Lessingham in silence. Then, clapping a heavy hand upon
either shoulder of Lessingham, 'We'll sleep on't,' he said. 'The more spacious
that the tennis-court is, the more large is the hazard. And if you think,
cousin, to thrust all this down my pudding-house at a gob, well, the Devil eat
your soul for me then, for you are sadly mistook.'

That
was the twenty-seventh of May. Upon the twenty-ninth Duke Barganax, his scheme
well laid now, moved north with his bodyguard of five hundred picked
men-at-arms to Rumala, there to wait Barrian and Melates with the levies of
Krestenaya and Memison ere he should descend into Outer Meszria and the
marches. Here was good hopes, soon as the ducal banner should be shown north of
the Zenner and the Vicar's garrison shut up by siege in Argyanna, that the
whole March of Ulba should rise to resume their old affinities and fling off
the yoke of Rerek. So upon the fifth day from Zayana, being now the second of
June, came the Duke to Rumala. Upon that same day at evening the lord Admiral
weighed anchor and put out from Sestola with sixteen fighting ships all manned
and six ships of burden, a great and redoubtable power of men: two thousand five
hundred of his own sailors, men inured to war by land as well as by sea,
besides two thousand footmen of the royal garrison in Meszria and the Earl
Roder himself on board with the Admiral. Roder's chosen riders, three hundred
strong, veterans all of ten years' service, fared by land for lack of room
a-shipboard. The like was Egan to do, with four hundred Meszrian horse. The
Salimat was set for their meeting-place, of the power that went by sea, and the
horse, and the Chancellor with nigh two thousand more old levies of Fingiswold.
These tarried in Zayana yet a day or two for Zapheles, who was raising of
forces south in Armash and Daish. All these were appointed to meet on Wednesday
the seventh of June upon the Salimat, where the highway from Zayana to Ulba crosses
Nephory ' Edge at its lowest; and that is the best vantage ground for an army
to stand against an enemy faring from the north, for it gives a clear wide
prospect west and north and east over the low-lying marchlands of Outer Meszria
and Ulba, and the lie of the land is good for falling upon him if he will
attack up the pass, and it is a strong place too to hold upon defence if need
be, and a place well apt by nature for hidden ambushes and espial of any army
that should fare by that road whether south or north.

The
High Admiral put out upon the flood-tide from Sestola and dropped down the
firth with a favouring wind. But at nightfall the wind had freshened so that it
was dangerous sailing among the islands. The fleet lay up till dawn in
sheltered water behind Lashoda; by then was a, high sea running, and when they
were come out into the open they must beat up northwards all day against a head
wind and at night were glad to run for shelter in to Spruna mouth. With these
delays and adverse winds it was not until the evening of the third day that
they made Peraz Firth and anchored about supper-time at the head of the firth
over against the town. Here were sumpter horses and mules and bullock carts to
meet them, and the next day they landed the army and the stuff, and, leaving a
thousand of Jeronimy's men to mind the ships, came on the morrow in a day's
march up through the flowering valley of Biulmar and camped the same evening in
the Salimat. Roder's three hundred horse, punctual to the day appointed, came
in before night. The Meszrian horse with Egan were late: nought known of them
since these had set forth without them from Zayana, after six hours' vain
waiting. Roder cursed them. Of Beroald, with his two thousand, there was no
sign, nor no word.

Morning
rose abated with cloud and mist. A blanket of vapour rolling down the smooth
rock hummocks east of the pass lay damp about the tents. The Admiral sent a man
of trust east through the hills to Rumala to advertise the Duke that the
Salimat was held and all well, and another to find out the Chancellor.
Intelligencers had gone well a week before into Outer Meszria and the
borderlands. An hour before noon came in tidings by one of these, that upon
Sunday Lessingham had crossed the Zenner with no great strength of men and
appeared before Fiveways: that the accursed people of that town had, against
expectation, opened their gates to him: that there he lay as late as Tuesday,
and there men drew to him, by twos and threes, here a score and there a score;
mainly, 'twas thought, from the March, but some few, 'twas spoken, from the
Meszrian border upon pretext he did owe their allegiance, bearing the Queen's
warrant and upholding her right. An hour later came in others with more fresh
advertisement, how but yesterday, upon their own observation, Lessingham was
marched out of Five-ways, in strength some fifteen hundred foot and a thousand
horse: that 'twas said seven hundred of the footmen were veterans of the
Parry's, the rest raw levies: the horse mainly Lessingham's own: that with
these he was turned north-east along the road by the river, as if his intents
were aimed for Kutarmish. Upon which tidings, Roder took Jeronimy by the sleeve
and walked out of earshot of their officers.