Mistress of mistresses (53 page)

'Are
you come with a treaty in your wallet?' said the Vicar when the waiting-men had
set all in order and, upon his command, left them to dine private.

Lessingham
smiled. 'No more treaties, cousin, of my making. I have somewhat here: but you
shall sign for yourself, if it like you; and no room for cavil afterward.'

'It
will keep till after dinner.'

'Yes.
It will keep so long: not much longer.'

The
Vicar looked swiftly up. Lessingham's face, careless and with eyes averted,
was not to be read. 'You're come none too soon,' said the Vicar then, and took
in a great mouthful. 'Rations left for seven days. Starving men make best
fighters; but 'tis not a discipline fit to hold 'em to too long: though it be
good to savage 'em, yet in this other 'tis as bad, that drawn out beyond a day
or two it sloweth and feebleth the animal spirits. And so ninth day from this
had I set for the grand carousal, warm meat and blood puddings i' the field
below there, and the leavings for the crows to pick on.'

'Rant
it not to me as if I were a woman,' said Lessingham. 'You have not sufficiency
to withstand their forces: not one hour, in the open.'

'Well:
end so, then.' He watched Lessingham through half-shut lids. 'Better so than
swallow another treaty like the last you crammed down my throat, cousin.'

'Your
highness is a great soldier,' said Lessingham; *but politician, not so good.
How should you now look for so good a treaty as that? which was just and equal,
but you did break every article and published your every breach too from the house-tops.
Be thankful if I have saved you your life, and some few false beams of your
supposed honour.' 'So!'

For
a long while, eyeing each other, they ate and drank in silence. The Vicar's
neck swelled like a puff-adder's. At length, 'You've been a weary while,' he
said, 'dallying on the door-step: more than a fortnight. Talking with those
devils (the sweat and swink they've cost me!) Might a talked to me ere this,
I'd have thought?'

Lessingham
said nothing, only with a delicate air raised his cup and drank, regarding his
cousin the while with level and thoughtful eyes. The Vicar took a gobbet of
bacon-rind out of his mouth: leaned sideways to give it to Pyewacket. The play
of the light revealed, as might some great master's brush, the singularity that
belonged, but seldom so lively seen as now, to his strangely-sorted
countenance: heavy eyelids, wide-winged jutting nose, lean lips like a snake's,
delicate ears, ruffianly reddish-be-bristled jowl, serene smooth forehead,
small swift-darting eyes: a singularity of brutish violence joined with some
nobler element in a marriage wherein neither was ever all subdued to other, nor
yet ever all distinct; so that divorce must needs have crippled a little both,
as well the good as the bad. And upon Lessingham, while he so watched this
renewing of a pageant he knew well, a mantle seemed to fall, enduing limb and
sinew and poise of neck and head with a grander and yet more pantherine grace.
And the Grecian lineaments of Lessingham, and the eyes of him thus savouring his
cousin, seemed not so much to be informed now with a swift beast's majesty or
an eagle's, but rather as if strength and mastery should. take to itself the
airy loveliness of a humming-bird, and so hang hovering on viewless wings, as
the bird quivers bodiless upon air beside a flower, uncertain into which
honeyed fold amid petals it shall aim its long and slender beak.

'You
were ever at your best,' he said after a little,

‘back
to the wall. Trouble is, set you at your ease, you fall athinking. And that is
bad for you.'

'I
know not, cousin, what you account good for a man. My belt's half a foot the
shorter since Yule-tide.'

'What
dispossessed your wits,' Lessingham said, 'soon as my back was turned, treat
this Duke as you would some poor-spirited slow boy? And did I not tell you what
he is? and could you not use him accordingly?'

'That
which is, is,' said the Vicar, and drank and spat 'That which was, was. That
which shall be, 'tis that con-cerneth me and you. This new turn in Rialmar,'
fleet as a viper's his eyebeam flashed upon Lessingham's face and away,' 'hath
upsyversied all, ha? Or how think you on't? Look you,' he said, after a
silence, and leaned forward, elbows on the table: 'I will tell you a thought of
mine: may be good, may be naught, howsome'er hath come me oft in mind since
Kutarmish set all afire here. That Derxis. Could a been used, ha? matter of
marriage, had't been nicely handled:' he paused, studying through red eyelashes
Lessingham's face, inscrutable and set now as a God's likeness done in marble.
'And so, using Akkama to put down Zayana, afterward—, well, there be ways and
means.'

Lessingham
toyed with his wine-cup. 'Ways and means!' He tossed off the wine, sprang up,
walked to the window, and there stood looking down on him as in a high
displeasure. 'Pray talk to me of your soldiering, for there I can but admire,
and even love you. But these twisting policies, I can but laugh at 'em.'

'Nay,
but hangeth together. My wardship's lost: so. Well, shift weight to the
well-lodged foot then.' He paused, sat back in his chair. Their eyes met. 'I
know not what this paper may say which you have in your purse, cousin; but
would you'd a talked to me first ere talk to Zayana. You had not thought on
this other way, ha? and yet opened fair before you: to use Derxis, I mean, as
our instrument? And not too late now, neither, if rightly handled.'

'What
are you,' said Lessingham, 'but a bloody fool? Have I not told you long ago
there's no way but the straight cut? the Mezentian way, not these viperine
crawl-ings: weld all fast under Barganax now, and -crush this vermin, this of
Akkama. Sweet Gods in heaven, cousin, is't not your own kith and kin? (in a
distant way, I grant). And as for use Derxis, I'd as soon the putrid skull of
some invenomed serpent, and use't for my wine-cup.'

'Go,'
said the Vicar, and there was the look in his eyes as of one that weigheth
pro
and
contra
as he gazed on Lessingham: 'here's a talker.'

Lessingham
took two parchments from his doublet: tossed them before the Vicar among the
dishes. 'Take it or no, 'tis you to choose, cousin: but if yes, to-day's the
last day: sign it or say good-bye. You may thank the kind Gods and me, that
have hooked you out of this quagmire you have by your own curst mulish
obstinacy rushed and stuck fast in. May be, since indeed I think you're mad
now, you'll liefer choose your feast of tripes in Laimak home-mead a week
hence; or t'other choice: that the Duke will give you, and please him best.
Three livelong days I wrought for you, and little thanks I see for it, ere I
won him to offer you this good bargain, 'stead as he would a had it: and that
was, get you dead or alive, as in a month's time or less no power on earth
could a letted it: head you and side you, and nail the meat up so for crows to
eat on Laimak walls.'

But
the Vicar had snatched the parchment and was by now half-way through it, his
great stubbed finger following the words as he read. When he came to the end,
he read all again, this time the duplicate copy: then, without word spoken,
reached pen and ink from the sideboard and signed and sealed. He then stood up:
came to Lessingham beside the window, took him by both hands. 'Think not I
forget it, cousin, that this is by the great wit and prowess that is in you,
the which I mind me well hath stood me in good stead many a time and yet shall
do again.'

'Good,
then we're friends,' said Lessingham. 'You have ta'en it well, cousin, as a
wise prince should do. And the sixth day from to-day, as there writ down, your
highness will come to him in Areyanna, enact that ceremony? your allegiance
full and perfect?' 'Ay, as a cat laps milk.'

'You
do well, cousin.' He took up one copy of the concordat, scanning the hands and
seals: the Duke's, Beroald's, Jeronimy's, and now the Vicar's. 'This raiseth
the siege to-day. I'll begone with it, and we meet 'pon Wednesday in Argyanna.
But remember, cousin,' he said upon departing: 'I look for deeds from you upon
this: no more false closes designed to shun a final end.'

'Go,
you have read me a fair lecture,' answered he. 'Think not I'll stumble at a
straw now that I've leapt over a block. Fare you well.'

The
twentieth day of June was appointed a great festival and holiday for ratifying
of this peace whereby, Barganax being now in both Rerek and Meszria taken for
King, the lords of those countries should in his service fare shortly with
great armies north across the Wold, win back Rialmar, and so carrying the war
through Akkama ravish and ruinate all the cities and people thereof and lay
them under subjection, seizing above all King Derxis whom they meant to punish
and kill not as befits a noble person.

Betimes
that morning was the main army of the Chancellor, come down on purpose from
Hornmere side and Ristby and those parts, besides the Duke's two thousand that
he how held in Argyanna and thereabouts, marched under banners and with singing
of war-songs and music of trumpets and drums three times round the bluff
without the moat. The Duke, with fifty red-bearded men of his bodyguard bearing
their great two-handed swords, had place of honour before the drawbridge. He
rode upon a fierce white stallion with sweeping mane and tail and with harness
all black and trappings and saddlecloth of black sendaline. Of like sad hue
were the Duke's cloak and bonnet with black estridge-feathers and all his
armour: black gloves upon his hands: the very ruff about his throat black, that
should have been white: all this in formal sign of mourning and lamentation.
The
Lords Beroald and
Jeronimy wore plumes of
mournings
in their hats and black mourning cloaks: the like
tokens wore every one, high or low, man or woman, soldiers,
townsfolk, that day; but the Duke alone, both for
his royal estate and near kinship, that extremity of blackness.

And
now, well upon the hour appointed, marching from the north down the
granite-paven causeway that in a ten-mile span, laid on a foundation of
thousands upon thousands of strong oaken piles, bridges the quaking-bogs in
the midst of which is Argyanna, came the Vicar and his following. Twenty
trumpeters on horseback headed the march: great was the flashing of their helms
and trumpets, all of silver: their kirtles and hose were dyed with saffron:
they had black mourning saddle-cloths and black cloaks: at every twenty paces
they sounded upon their trumpets the owl-call of the house of Parry. Behind
them, guarded by two score of Lessingham's black riders, went the royal banner
of Fingiswold, by him brought victorious from the northland through many
deadly chances and the bloody battles at Ridinghead and Leveringay. The owl of
Laimak, sable, armed and beake'd gules upon a field or, followed after: its
motto,
Noctu noxiis noceo,
'Nightly I prey upon vermin.' There went a company
of veteran spearmen of Rerek four by four behind it, helmed and byrnied and
with great oblong shields. The Vicar himself rode with Lessingham a score of
paces behind these footsoldiery, and a score of paces before the rest of their
following: Amaury, Brandremart, Bezardes, Thrasiline, Daiman, and so horse and
foot to the number of five hundred or more bringing up the rear.

Now
when they were come close under Argyanna before the gates and the drawbridge,
the Count Rossilion bearing the Vicar's Jpanner rode forth with two trumpeters
that blew a fanfare. And Rossilion, doffing cap to the Duke and reading from a
writing in his hand, cried out with a loud voice that all might hear: 'For
behalf of his most excellent lordship Horius Parry I do salute the Lord
Barganax, Duke of Zayana, and do receive and acknowledge him the said Duke to
be great King of Fingiswold and of all states and dominions appertaining
thereto, and in particular of all Meszria and the Marches and of all this
territory or land of Rerek and places situate therewithin, being especially the
fortresses or strong holds of Laimak, Kessarey, Megra, Kaima, and Argyanna,
and of this March of Ulba. And thus saith the Lord Horius Parry: I hereby give,
O
King, into the hands
of your princely highness all those estates and powers whatsoever which, whether
as private-vassal and subject, whether as Vicar of the Queen, whether as Lord
Protector, I herebefore have held under kingdom of Queen Antiope of glorious
memory (upon whom be peace), hoping that your serenity may adjudge them to have
been truly and diligently by me administrated and used, in the behoof of the
weal public and the great glory of the crown of the three kingdoms. Humbled on
my knee I now kiss your grace's hand, tendering my love and service true and
perfect, and fearfully expecting your royal commands.'

The
Vicar meanwhile, being dismounted from his horse, and standing ten paces or so
behind Rossilion, looked on and listened with no outward sign save the great
puffing out and great redness of his neck. He was all armed, with a byrny of
polished iron edged at throat and wrists and skirt with links of gold;
thigh-pieces and greaves and toe-pieces and golden spurs. No weapon he bore,
only in his right hand his staff vicarial. Two boys, dressed in the russet and
purple livery of his bodyguard, bare up behind him the train of his great
black cloak.