Mistress of mistresses (51 page)

The
lord Admiral, seeing this overthrow, and thinking scorn to flee when the day
was lost, abode quietly in his place with sword drawn and a few about him who
were of the mind to die first ere he should. Lessingham, when the flying rout
began, stayed not for so much as to bind up his hurts but galloped across with
his bodyguard to the Admiral to bid him peace. The Admiral, when he understood,
rode down to meet Lessingham and in a noble silence offered his sword hilt
foremost.

'What
night-dog howled you this bad counsel, my lord Admiral,' said Lessingham, 'to a
come and held side with her grace's enemies? Or hath God closed up the eyes of
you, that you knew not the banner of the Queen's most excellent highness of
Fingiswold, your lady and mistress? Upon whose commands when I fared south now,
intending from Rialmar to Laimak, I looked not to find your lordship here to
bar my way with an army; for in truth I was yet to learn you were a
truce-breaker and a reneguer of your written word.'

The
Admiral reddened and said, 'You do foully, my Lord Lessingham, to abraid me
with either. And I will answer you in a manner thus: that I do use to look
lower than banners, which be things outward and extern, but I will pry more
inward. And against the Queen's highness (whom pray Gods tender and preserve) I
ne'er drew sword; nor ne'er broke I word, much less broke solemn indenture.
Only against your lordship's usurping cousin, that minister of mischief and
sergeant of Sathanas, nuzzled in all evil, against him, 'cause of a hundred
forepast proofs, I drew that sword; and against you, 'cause you sustain and aid
him. And so will I do again, liability and means presented. Wherefore, if my
life must answer for this, so be it. For indeed I was bred up young in King
Mezentius' house and his royal father's before him (upon whom be peace), and I
am over old, in a manner, to learn new tricks.'

Lessingham
beheld him in silence for a while, then answered and said, 'Of the Concordat of
Ilkis have not I taken upon me to be warranty for his highness's performance?
Thus far, I one of all other, party to that concordat, have not failed of my
undertaking. By God, I think I have cause against your excellency, to a sought
to foin me in the belly when I go my ways south for to right things.'

Jeronimy,
facing
him
with unwavering gaze, made no reply.

'Take
back your sword, my good lord Admiral,' said Lessingham suddenly then, giving
it again hilt foremost. 'HI it is if, within the Queen's highness's dominions
in these slippery times, her faithful servants cannot agree. I pray go with me
not as prisoner, but upon this only bond between us of word of honour.
Bezardes, stay the pursuit: spread it abroad there's peace given and taken
'twixt me and the lord High Admiral. For the army, lie to-night at Rivershaws.
And as for particulars,' he said to Jeronimy, *we'll talk on 'em to-night.'

'Your
excellency is very pale,' said the Admiral, as they took hands.

'Pah,
a little too much blood-letting. I had forgot. Some, go send a leech,'
Lessingham swayed in the saddle: 'nay, 'tis but a fleshing: 'twill mend.' He
steadied himself and would not dismount. Two or three galloped away: the
Admiral, from a flask at his saddle-bow, poured out cordial drink. 'Too much
haste,' he said. Lessingham, quaffing it down while they unbuckled his gorget
and stopped the blood, might read in the Admiral's dog-like eyes matter that
can be profoundlier discovered by such eyes as those than by noblest tongues
with their traffic of words.

Lessingham
made his quarters for that Wednesday night of the twenty-third of May in the
old moated grange of Rivershaws, a league or more eastwards of Ridinghead in
the water-meadows of the Fithery. Weary they were after that battle. Lessingham
and Jeronimy supped private in an upper room in the south-western corner of the
house, and after supper talked, as well as they could to speak or to be heard
for the great noise of the wind which awoke now to strange fury after that
rain-soaked day. Lessingham, in buff leather doublet and with Meszrian brocaded
slippers to ease his feet, lay at his length on a settle drawn up near the
table to the right of the fire. The Admiral sat yet at his wine, at the table,
facing the fire and Lessingham.

'No,'
Lessingham said between the gusts: 'he must first renounce the crown: no
treating till then. That done, let my head redeem the promise but I will secure
him all that should be his by the Concordat, and payment too for all misdone
against his rights there: Sail Aninma and so forth. But to-day he standeth
plain usurper, and as such I'll not treat with him save at length of weapon.'

‘I
doubt your lordship will persuade my lord Chancellor so far,' said the
Admiral, 'e'en and- though I should' second you. Many will say, mischief is
that here be two usurpers, and choosing Barganax we but choose the less
hurtful.'

'They
that will say so,' replied Lessingham, 'would spend their eyes to find hair
upon an egg. 'Twixt the Vicar and him there's no such likeness; and were it so
indeed, you shall see I shall shortly amend it.'

'It
was a pity,' the Admiral said, 'that your lordship abode not here to see to it,
'stead of go north to Rialmar.'

The
wind roared in the chimney, and sent with a down-blow a great smother of smoke
into the room. Lessingham smiled, lifting his goblet against the lamplight.
'You think so?' he said, and drank slowly, as tasting some private memory. But
the wine was red. And no bubbles quickened its inward parts.

He
stood up and went to the western window behind his seat and, with hands for
blinkers to shut out the reflections and the lamplight, peered through the
glass into the darkness. The wind came in gusts that lasted two or three
minutes at a time, striking the house till the solid masonry quivered: clatter
of casements, squealing under the eaves and behind the wainscots, lifting of
the arras, lampflames ducking and upflaring; without, trees bent and grass laid
flat: a shaking, a leaping, a stamping over the hillside: then sudden silence
and calm.

Lessingham,
in this din, had not heard the door open behind him; and now, turning from the
window, he saw stand in the threshold a man of his guard that said, upon the
salute, 'Lord, there attendeth your commands one that nameth himself the Lord
Romyrus out of Fingiswold, new ridden from the north, and prays you admit him.
And bade me say, 'tis evil tidings, as he were liever not be bearer of unto
your lordship.'

Lessingham
bade admit him: 'Nay, go not, my lord Admiral. This is our late cashiered
Constable: whatso he will say, can say it as well to both of us. I trust him
but little, nor his news neither.'

'I
like not tidings that come upon a storm,' said Jeronimy.

Lessingham
stroked his beard and smiled. 'Omens were ever right, my lord. Let but the
event answer the bodement, we say, Behold it was foretold us! If not, say, Such
omens work by contraries.' The windows rattled, and the door in a loud gust of
wind blew open. Lessingham, standing with folded arms and unruffled brow and in
a posture of idle elegance with his shoulders against the pillar of the
fire-place, waited at ease, stirring not at all when Romyrus entered, save for
a gracious word and movement of the head to bid him welcome.

Romyrus
came in: behind him the door shut to: they regarded one another in silence a
minute, Jeronimy, Lessingham, and he.

Romyrus
was all spattered with mud from spurs to chest. He was like a man that has gone
many nights without closing eyelid. There was ten days' growth of beard on his
cheek: his face had a yellowed withered look, like a corpse's dug out of some
recent grave; and he had the fear in his eyes like a hunted fox's. Lessingham
took him by the hand, made him sit, poured out a great bumper of wine, and made
him drink it down. 'Whence come you?'

He
answered, 'From Rialmar.'

'How
then? Did her highness send you?'

He
shook his head. His eyes, ringed round like an owl's, seemed now like a dead
fish's eyes, goggling and charged with blood, as they looked into Lessingham's.
'What then?'

Without,
the wind went whining down Fitherywater like a wounded beast.

'Speak,
man,' said Lessingham.

Romyrus
said, 'Derxis holds Rialmar.' With a kind of moan he pitched forward on the table,
his face buried in his hands.

The
silence congealed like blood. Out of it Lessingham said, 'What of the Queen?'

He
answered, yet grinding his face against the table, 'She is dead.'

Jeronimy,
that had missed these words, saw Lessingham stagger where he stood against the
fire-place and turn ghastly. 'Your excellence's wound,' he said, starting up.
But Lessingham, seeming to gather himself like a serpent coiled, as the wind
again hit the house, caught out a dagger and leapt at Romyrus, shouting terribly,
'A lie! and here's your death for it!' The Admiral, swift as had been praised
in a man of half his years, sprang to Lessingham's armed hand, so turning the
stroke, which yet ripped from the man's shoulder down to the huckle-bone.
Lessingham threw him off and, dropping the dagger, sank upon the settle.
Romyrus slid from chair to floor with a blubbering noise. The Admiral went to
him, raised him, looked to the wound. Lessingham caught the bell-rope, gave it
a tang: soldiers ran in: bade them see to Romyrus, bear him out, call a
chirurgeon: so sank upon the couch again and there sat bolt upright, staring as
a man should stare into horror of darkness.

The
wind, in its alternating fits of raging and dying, came again: first a soughing
of it far off in the southwest and whistlings far away; then the return, as if
some troll or evil wight should run with intermittent bursts and pauses, nearer
and nearer, until with a howl of wind and huge flappings as of wings and the
lashing of rain, it once more smote the house, vaulting, leading the wild round
about and about as of violent waterquakes, riding the roof-tree till it was as
if the roof must founder: then, in a gasp, quiet again.

Late
that night Amaury, spent with long riding from the north and his horse near
foundered, rode in to Rivershaws.

All
night Lessingham lay upon his bed, open-eyed.

And
the darkness within said: I have consumed and eat up that which was within.
Forehead, indeed; but no mind inhabits behind it. Eyes, but there dwells no
more anything within that might receive their message. Outward ears, servants
of deafness. This throat, since I swallowed all below, is become but the
shudder only, above this pit that is me within you.

And
the darkness at his left hand said: Hands: fit for all noble uses. Ay, grip the
bedside: is that sweet? Hands entertained for your soul's liege ambassadors, so
often, into such courts: but now never again for ever.

And
the darkness at his right hand laughed like a skull and said: Noble uses, as
to-night! aim blade against him that ran to you, a wounded snipe to a stoat, to
bring you true tidings, but you lay bloody hands upon.

And
the darkness that was within said again: I strive. I will burst this shell that
was you. I, that am not, will swell up like a blue poisoned corpse and burst
and deflower all being.

And
the darkness that was above and beneath said: I am heavy: I am fallen: I draw
you: the weight and the woe for ever in your vitals of a misbegotten and never
to be delivered birth.

And
the darkness that was at his feet said: For then Amaury came (Lessingham looked
in the darkness towards the other bed where Amaury lay unsleeping): Amaury,
mat would have died a hundred deaths in Rial-mar to have saved her; but when
she had drunk the cup—

The
darkness within, and the darkness above, and the darkness beneath, sank, until
the drag-hooks became an agony beyond mortal agonies.

The
waning moon, in the grey latter hours, said: I wax and I wane: the sickle, the
plenilune, the folding darkness. I change, and I change not. You have said it:
Beyond time and circumstance. You have said: Upon no conditions.

And
as the waning moon to the full, so was now the radiance as of a lunar rainbow
that suffused that bedchamber upon memories, a year old that night, of Ambremefine:
Vandermast's, 'An old fool that is yet wise enough to serve your ladyship:'
Vandermast's, 'There is no other wisdom;' and again, 'No other power.' And that
lady's, 'Does that need wisdom?' as she looked at the moon.

xx

Thunder
Over Rerek

the baying to ragnarok
 
lesstngham forces peace
 
beroald's fore-judgement
 
the vicar will still play
machiavel
 
yet is seemingly persuaded
 
coming of the parry to
argyanna
 
homage done by him to barganax
 
the duke and his vicar
 
strange brotherhood
 
barganax to fiorinda.