Mistress of mistresses (27 page)

'May
we not know, but largely,—?' Count Mandricard began to say. He was a big
bacon-faced side-lipped man with the carriage of a king and a voice like the
undertones of bronze, but his words withered on his lips as he met the eye of
the Vicar. 'Fare you well,' the Vicar said, after an instant's pause. And,
being that they, like Gabriel, were not without schooling, they obediently
departed.

'Well?'
said the Vicar. 'The sum?'

He
answered, 'Sum is, their whole power beat in pieces in a main battle beside the
Zenner, at Lorkan, a three leagues down from Kutarmish 'pon the Meszrian bank;
and yonder Duke laid at your highness' disposal, ready for treading like a frog
beneath your boot.'

The
Vicar, motionless in the saddle, head erect, gazing through half-closed eyelids
down the valley, took in a breath through his nostrils, and the leather doublet
creaked that encased his mighty chest. Under the freckons his face flamed like
sunrise before stormy weather. 'That was well done,' he said. He shook the rein
and turned at a walking pace east along a bridle-path that led to the mountain.
Gabriel mounted and followed at his elbow.

'The
Duke: ta'en, then? or how?'

Gabriel
answered, 'I would not have your highness fall to too sudden a conclusion. No,
not ta'en; nor not like to be now. Yet was in hand to be.'

'In
hand to be?' said the Vicar, looking round at him. Gabriel held his peace.
'When was this battle?' said the Vicar.

He
answered, 'Upon Saturday: five days gone.' And now as they rode he told of it
point by point, to the coming down of the Duke to Ilkis out of Rumala. 'By the
blood of Satan!' said the Vicar, 'had I been there, I doubt I should a made so
delicate fine-fingered a matter on't. This bastard line in Meszria springeth
too rank a crop of weeds for my liking. Go, I'd a been sore tempted to take his
head while God gave me opportunity; so by one gallon of blood save an ocean of
cares to come.'

They
rode on for a few minutes in silence. 'What's the end on't?' he said.
'Surrender without all conditions?'

'Scarcely
thus,' said Gabriel.

'What
then?' said the Vicar.

'Indeed,'
said Gabriel, and showed his teeth like a ferret, 'it were fittest your
highness should wait till my Lord Lessingham come home. He will resolve you of
all this, ne'er a doubt on't.'

Their
horse-hooves, clattering among the stones as they forded a beck, measured the
laden silence. Gabriel, with a sidelong glance, noted how the Vicar, bull-like
and erect in an inscrutability as of hewn granite, gazed steadily between his
horse's ears; only there was a duller red showed now under his fair skin
between the freckons. Gabriel hazarded no more glances. A bittern boomed in the
marshes far away.

'Fittest
I should wait?' said the Vicar in a slow purring quietness. Gabriel, biting his
Up near until the blood came, rose stiff in his stirrups with head drawn back
till his beard pointed skywards. The Vicar, regarding him snakishly, drew back
his thin lips in a smile. 'I have not taken hold of you yet, my friend,' he
said. His fingers like brazen clamps tightened their grip on Gabriel's elbow,
while the thumbnail with an erudite cruelty searched the tissues between bone
and bone, then at the one intolerable place bored in like a beak. Gabriel's
leather sleeve spared him effusion of blood but not the torment. He writhed
forward till his forehead hit the saddle-bow, then up again with a sudden
motion as of a puppet worked by springs. 'I cannot bear it,' he said, ‘I cannot
bear it.'

The
Vicar's hand relaxed but, like an iron gin, held him still. ‘I can wait?' he
said, still with that low purring; 'more patience than you, it seems, my little
pigsnye? But I'll none of your michery; you shall lay yourself open to me, my
pug, lest I open you indeed, see what colour your guts are of, as you've seen
me do to others ere now. Well then, is't restore his appanage?'

'Yes,'
said Gabriel, 'and without conditions: without suzerainty.'

'If
you gape upon me,' said the Vicar, ‘I’ll make dogs-meat of you. What's done,
'tis my doing, not for such vermin as you to question or pronounce upon.'

'Your
highness yet needs not to eat and devour up me, that had neither hand nor part
in't. For indeed there's worse to come too.'

'Make
haste with it,' said the Vicar. "Tis my doing, d'ye hear? Remember that,
if you would keep your belly unripped.'

Gabriel
said, 'First there's the regency.'

The
Vicar reined in his horse: near threw him on his haunches. Gabriel paused,
meeting his lord's eye that had the wicked look of a bull's about to charge.
'God's blood! and might I not give him the regency and ne'er ask leave of
thee?' For the moment Gabriel's thoughts were so intent for his proper safety
that he forgot his cue to speak. 'Regent of what, fool?' said the Vicar. They
were bearing now down towards the road again. Gabriel answered, 'Great part of
Meszria: but upon your "highness' suzerainty.'

'Great
part? What's that? The main south of Zayana, south of thex neck? Memison? Doth
it bar Sestola and ports besides that should give him the key to the sea? 'Twas
a prime act of policy lodged the Admiral aforetime in Sestola to keep Zayana's
wings clipped. Speak, fool? What part, fool?'

'All
these,' said he, his flesh shrinking to feel the threat of that iron grip: 'all
south of the mountains from Ruyar to Salimat.'

'What
of the north?'

'Jeronimy
confirmed regent, 'pon homage done unto your highness.'

'Ha,
and was that well done, think you?'

"Twas
your highness' doing: not for me to question.'

'Damned
measled hog, answer to the matter, or we'll cut your tongue out: was it well
done to entrust my borders to this nannicock, for Zayana to make use of as the
monkey do the cat's foot?'

Gabriel
faced him with the boldness of a weasel driven into a corner. 'Must I answer?'

'You
must.'

'Then',
said Gabriel, 'I answer your highness. Yes: it was well done.'

'Why
so?' said the Vicar. 'Answer me, filth, you were best.'

Gabriel
said, 'Let go my arm then, and Fll answer.' The Vicar flung him off with so
rude a violence, Gabriel near lost his saddle. 'Because', said Gabriel then,
'sith your highness had given free peace and amnesty to Beroald and Roder
both, and commissioned my Lord Lessingham too to pledge you body and soul to
Barganax to yield up all, as if you, not he, had been the vanquished party: a
thing I would not swallow, and therefore left him,—'

"Tis
a lie,' said the Vicar. 'When! Pyewacket! Ill-mauger! Peck-i'-the-crown! Loo!
Loo! Hie on! Tear him! Tear him!'

Gabriel
was barely in time drawing of his hanger as the dogs charged. One he slew with
a down-cut, but the next in the next instant had caught his wrist of the hand
that gripped the hilt. His horse reared, fell backwards: Gabriel was fallen
clear, but before he was gotten upon his feet they had pulled him down and,
with a hideous din, set about worrying him like a fox. The Vicar leaped from
his saddle, calling them off, smiting left and right among them with his
riding-switch: in a moment they were in hand again, obedient, shamefaced,
waiting for his eye. All save Ill-mauger, that with that bite had tasted blood:
he, huge, yellow-heckled, wolfish, snarling and slavering at the lips, crouched
for another spring. The Vicar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung
him aside. He stood his ground, bristling, savage-eyed, ears laid back,
growling on a deep inward-taken breath. As the Vicar made a step towards him
with uplifted switch, he gathered himself and leapt at the Vicar's throat They
went down together, rolling over and over in an evil hugger-mugger as it had
been of wolf and bear. The Vicar for all his bigness scarce outwent the dog in
weight of bone and sinew, but it was swiftly seen that he was more deft and
agile than a wolf, in strength not overmatched, and in his present mood as
wolfish and as implacable. And now was an ill music of the Vicar's snarls and
pants and grunts and the clashing of the great beast's teeth as he snapped at
air; for the Vicar, now uppermost now under in their fight for the mastery, was
never shaken nor loosened from his grasp, of his right hand iron-fast upon the
throat. Little by little he tightened his grip to a better purchase, then
suddenly the music changed, as his left hand found its quarry, a crueller and
more ingenious hold. At length the stifled shrieks died down into a gurgling
and sodden quiet The Vicar, uppermost now, was grovelled face downwards on his
adversary, and now, as a whirlwind hushes upon the centre, the leaping medley
of limbs, part dog part man, began to be still. Gabriel marked how the great
muscles of the Vicar's neck worked under their low-growing cropped stubble of
red hair like the neck-muscles of a preying lion, and how his breath came and
went, in laboured snuffs and snorts through his nostrils. At length he raised
himself on his hands and knees. The dog was dead, bitten clean through the
weasand.

The
Vicar stood up. He spat wiped his mouth upon his sleeve, gave a hitch to his kirtle,
walked to where his horse was, and climbed leisurely into the saddle. Then,
gathering the reins, he with a look bade Gabriel mount too and come with him.
They turned now at a walking pace toward Laimak. For a full mile they rode on
without word spoken. Then, 'You, my pretty pigsnye,' the Vicar said: 'study to
be quiet and to meddle with your own business, not with matters too high for
you. And remember, or I'll kill you, all these things were by my prescription
and commandment to the least tittle. D'ye hear?'

'I
both hear, highness, and obey,' said he.

'And
carry that hand of yours to the leech when we come home,' said the Vicar:
'loadstone is available against dog-bites and invenoming.'

So,
without further word spoken, they came at length, and the Vicar's great dogs
beside him, through the meadows home to Laimak.

It
was now afternoon, the third day after these things aforesaid. Lessingham and
Amaury came to a halt below the Stringway. Amaury said, 'I would give all I
have would you but turn back now.'

Lessingham
laughed.

'Had
we but half the horse, your own tried men to follow you, that were security:'
but go alone with a bare dozen men, 'tis tempting of the Gods, stark folly: put
your neck in the bear's mouth.'

'What's
new in that, sweet nurse-mother? Have I not lodged in my cousin's house fifty
times ere now as cousins should, not as an armed enemy?'

'He
had not the cause he now hath.'

'
'Las, is it not a fair peace I bring him home then?'

'Too
fair for him that's foul.'

'
'Tis a peace I'll justify', said Lessingham, ' 'gainst all skilled advocates in
the world.'

'He'll
say you have been open-handed at his expense. And remember, the fox his
secretary ran to him first with the tale: will a put the worst face upon it.'

Lessingham
said, 'I'd a been as open-handed with my own. And for foxes, I deal not with
'em, neither regard 'em.' He touched the rein, and Maddalena stepped daintily
upon the Stringway.

For
a half-hour beyond Anguring the road was through beech-woods mixed with
chestnut and oak and sycamore, a pleasant green shade: Owlswater ran between
rocky banks on their left below them as they rode. Then the woods thinned away,
and the river wound gleaming through water-meadows, where in scattered droves
black cows grazed or lay, smaller and smaller in the distance, and fields
bounded with dry walls stretched on either hand, with here and there a white
farmstead, to the rough hill-pastures and the open fell. Here and there men
made hay. Smoke went up blue and still in the air where no breeze moved. All
the skirts of the mountains were spotted with browsing sheep. On the right, the
upper ridges of the Forn, shadowless in the afternoon sunlight, were of a delicate
peach-like colour against the blue. Lessingham rode with Amaury a hundred paces
or more ahead of his company. Lessingham was in his byrny of black iron,
ringed with gold links about the neck and wrists. He wore a low honey-coloured
ruff. He went bare-headed for pleasure of the air, and carried his helm at the
saddle-bow. The folk in the fields stood up to salute him as he rode by.

They
came riding now round the curve of a hill to the last house. It was built
beside the road on their right. Upon the left, three sycamore-trees, old and
bare of branches below, made an overarching shade before the house, so that, as
they rode up, the road went as through a gateway between those trees and the
house, and over the brow fell away out of sight. And through that arched way,
as in a picture framed, they might see now Laimak couchant upon its rock, bare and
unkind of aspect, pallid in the sunshine and with cold blue shadows; beholding
which, Amaury shivered in the warm sun and, angry with himself for that, cursed
aloud. And now, beyond this last farmstead, the road became but a bridleway,
and there were fields no more, but moorish grounds and marsh and rank pasture
with sometimes stretches of lush grass and sometimes sedges and peaty pools:
the sharp squawk of a water hen, the sudden flight of wild-duck, or a heron
heavily taking the air, borne swiftly on her slow flapping wings. Three black
crows rose from a grassy patch on the right a hundred paces ahead and departed
on furtive wing. Amaury kept his eye on the place. 'Carrion,' he said, as they
came nearer. 'One of his cursed dogs; and that's an omen,' as they came
alongside.