Mistress of mistresses (55 page)

Lessingham
,
being by the Duke confirmed now in his office of Captain-General, departed next
day out of Argyanna about taking order, against the trysting-time set for
Mornagay, for yet more forces and muniments of
business was he now for weeks
journeying without delays or respite through Rerek
and the Marches and Outer Meszria, cementing alliances, pacifying squabbles.
The High Admiral was rode back to take the water again at Kessarey and so move
to Kaima; Zapheles and Melates fared south into Meszria; the Lord Horius Parry
home to Laimak. Barrian the Duke sent in embassage to those Princes Ercles and
Aramond, to salve their wounds with estates and signiories in the north there,
carved out of that great slice which had by the peace of Argyanna been trimmed
off from the vicariate. The Duke himself, with the Chancellor, and with Lessingham's
thousand horse, lay yet in Argyanna, meaning in time to move north in great
strength; and command was that all with their armies should come together the
twentieth of July at Mornagay, thence to march north to the Wold, whence
tidings now began to be had of

But
the Vicar, soon as he was come again to Laimak, retired himself to his private
chamber; took from the iron chest, where he kept such matters, the new
concordat; sat thinking with himself an hour or two; then sent for Gabriel
Flores. 'Come hither, good pug, let's closely to our business. You must north
again, "to Megra," as we'll call it: "to Arcastus," we'll
say.'

Gabriel
waited obedient.

‘I’ll
set down nought in writing, no more than I would before. This,' the Vicar
flicked the edge of the parchment with a finger, ' 'gins smell too much of the
inkhorn already. Get yonder ragman's-roll by rote ere you go: tell it him word
by word. Then tell him this pointeth north to his destruction ere he shall be ready
to come conquering down hitherward: that, the Queen being dead by some
misfortune—how, I know not: miss not that,—and the royal line of Fingiswold
come so to an end, this Zayana entirely hath now the love of all nobles,
princes, and all other in the realm save mine only, to back his usurpation;
and mine but in show and policy. Speak to him so: show him what stark folly
'twere in him to enterprise to seize kingdom here without some bolsterer or
comforter in his deed: and for such, he may take me, whose help is worth ten
armies; and so on. Speak earnestly, even till his teeth run a water. Let him
understand by all means that you are sent to practise my good and his. Then let
him -know my easy condition: letters patent under his royal hand and seal
confirming me in perpetuity, as for him and his heirs and successors, his Vicar
for all Meszria and all Rerek; 'pon receipt of which by your hand, I will, in
token of faith and as his loyal obedienciary, shortly send him the heads or
other proofs of the taking off of the persons here most disaffected, and these
the principal: Barganax, Beroald, Jeronimy. Which I shall find good opportunity
to perform ere it be well onward in summer, having lulled 'em into so lethargic
a sleep with this,' and he flicked the parchment again, 'and preparing me an
occasion.'

'Your
highness hath forgot to name one name,' said Gabriel, 'will, for the king's
jealous hate and spleen, weigh with him 'gainst these as gold against
feathers.'

'And
whose is that, my pigsnye?'

'Your
highness will not wish I should name it.'

The
Vicar's eyes narrowed upon him. 'No, or may be I'd tear your tongue out.' With
such a sudden fury he hurled the inkpot, that Gabriel was barely in time to save
his teeth, or may be an eye, by swift raising of his arm.

'Meddle
not beyond your commission,' said the Vicar, while Gabriel mopped the
ink-splashes with his handkercher and looked to his bruised arm. 'Sit down.
Study your part. I'll hear it over ere you go.'

Gabriel
was ready to set forth that evening. The rather not to be remarked, he made
himself like a peddling chapman; took a spare horse and some huckstering
wares, put on coarse blue country-garb, trimmed his hair shorter, and dyed that
and his beard and eyebrows with henna. Ere he took horse, he was sent for again
to the Vicar's chamber. 'Well, scab, are you busked and ready?'

'So
please your highness.'

'Come,
you shall drink some malmsey for stirrup-cup:' he poured it out, gave it him
with his own hand. He put, when Gabriel set down the cup, a great arm about his
neck, drawing him to him, and so looked down into the weasel eyes of him: 'I
did wrong to strike at you. There,' he said, holding him off at arm's length:
'when, until now, said I ever to you or any man that I was sorry for aught I'd
done? But truth is, you were right in reason, my pug. And truth is, I cannot
well digest reason in this particular, for truly I cannot root out of me the
liking I have for the man; having both already made my profit by him and
wishing still so to do; and yet, little commodity I see in't, as things sort.
And yet,' he said, 'I have a kind of love for the man.'

Gabriel
stood awkward, listening to these words, that seemed as the rumour of some
fight conduced in the very soul of his great master.

'Fare
you well, then,' said the Vicar.

‘Highness,
farewell,' said Gabriel. 'And as for loving,'

he
said, as upon a sudden bursting of the doors of speech, 'be certain of this:
your highness cannot now afford to bear love or liking to any: no, not even to
me.'

It
was now upon mid July. The Vicar, with some thousand heavy-armed troops of
Rerek, was come up to Mornagay. Here Gabriel, back from his mission, was two
days closeted with his lord. None knew, nor none guessed nor sought to know,
what might be there a-hatching between them; for in all things, in peace as in
war, it was the Vicar's custom so to deal closely with this man or with
Lessingham if he were at hand, but with others seldom or never.

Upon
the thirteenth, Gabriel rode north again, now in a new disguise and with beard
and mustachios shaved clean off. That same day, as the Gods would have it, came
Lessingham riding post from Bardardale. He took day-meal; would not tarry,
spite of the Vicar's wish to stay him, but saddle up again and on northward;
being by appointment to meet with Barrian and Prince Ercles beyond Swaleback,
for concerting of certain movements against next week's beginning of the great
march north. This the pretext: but the true necessity was upon word from
Barrian that this should do great good now, if Lessingham might but with the
sunbeams of his countenance be finally his own peacemaker for all
back-reckonings those princes yet held noted against him, as for plunder of
Bagort that spring and the bad entreaty Ercles had had at Leveringay.

Lessingham
rode with but five-and-twenty and Amaury. About the fifteenth mile, midway on
from Leveringay to Eldir, they happed upon Gabriel, pricking fast, two or three
hundred paces ahead. He, when he saw them, turned out of the road and made down
towards that boggy bottom where a bridle-path, going among fields and then
among woods, cuts off a large loop of the main north road. That, if the waters
had not been up, had been the best way: but not so now. All saw him, but
through that disguise Lessingham only knew him. Lessingham said
apart to Amaury, 'This jackal hath seen us: it is
plain he would be glad to avoid me. I like not that.' He bade the others wait
while he alone galloped after Gabriel. Gabriel, when he saw he was followed and
could not escape, drew rein and waited.

'If
I could know you under these mumming weeds, and beardless as a pig,' Lessingham
said, 'you sure knew me? Why run away then? what hath so uncivil'd you?'

'Nay,
by the Gods I knew not your worship.'

Lessingham's
glance seemed like that winter wind that will go clean through a man, clothes
and body and all. 'So you begin with a lie, my Gabriel? We'll talk further,
then: see wherefore truth's so coy to-day.' At first Gabriel's answers came
pert and pat: then he began to trip amid the threads of his own invention: at
last, tied up in a knot of plain contradictions, could no more, but stood
ridiculous with all the tangle of his lies made manifest. Then, to cap ill with
worse, he upon a swift chance struck spurs into his horse to flee. In a moment
Lessingham had ridden him down: caught him by the collar. 'I smell a pad in the
straw: come, we'll search you.' Gabriel, while this went forward, by a swift
sleight crammed a crumpled paper in his mouth. Lessingham forced open his
mouth: made him spit it out like a dog: took him such a cuff across the head as
knocked him half-stunned from the saddle: sprang to earth, secured the paper,
spread it and read it. Gabriel, standing up quakingly and gathering his senses,
shrank under Lessingham's look; for there was in the countenance of Lessingham
as he laid up the half-chewed paper like some jewel in his bosom, that blazing
of eyes, that same deathly white paleness of terrible anger, which Gabriel had
once before beheld; and that was when Lessingham, chained and under the
strength of six men's hands, had been, in that helplessness, shamefully by the
Vicar stricken across the face with the Concordat of Ilkis.

'This
is private,' said Lessingham, ' 'twixt your lord and me. No living soul else
shall know on't. So much for your ease of mind.' So saying, he caught him by
the throat: shook him thrice and again until the eyes of Gabriel began to bulge
from his blood-boiled choking face, then threw him cruelly on the ground. 'When
I break my rod,' he said, 'it shall be on a bigger back than yours.' Gabriel,
may be as conceiving it safest to feign death, did not move till Lessingham was
mounted again.

Lessingham
rode but a score of paces to have sight again of his folk, where they waited
some quarter of a mile away: made sign to Amaury he should come alone; then
leisurely returned to where Gabriel stood afeared. Amaury galloped up to them:
halted, looked obedient at Lessingham, then fierce at Gabriel. 'Tell them,
Amaury, this was but a messenger sent to seek me and had missed us in the way,
so luckily overtaken, with word from my lord Chancellor upon which I must
myself return for a night. You and the rest, ride forward; bring my excuses to
Prince Ercles. Expect me in two days at most in Memmering.' Amaury read notice,
in his lord's mask of careless ease, of some great matter toward: read notice,
too, not but at his peril to be called in question, that in this thing his part
should be but to hear exactly and exactly to obey. Lessingham with a light word
farewelled him, and turned south again at a walking-pace alone. When they were
out of sight, he touched rein, whispered Maddalena: she carried him south like
the wind.

In
the long meadow-close below the northerner of the out-farms of Mornagay, as
Lessingham rode in, were Rossilion, Thrasiline, and others, casting at the mark
with javelins for their sport. 'Why, 'tis like a masque,' said Rossilion: 'one
fresh pageant after another. First, but an hour since, message to say the Duke
and all his great army, seven days afore the day appointed, is come up now and
shall be before sunset here in Mornagay; and now, back cometh the
Captain-General.'

'The
eagles gather,' said Thrasiline. 'Sure, now shall be do somewhat.'

The
Vicar came by as Lessingham dismounted before the hostelry. In Lessingham's
look he might read no danger, nor (knowing of old these sudden swift turns and
changes of settled order) need he marvel if, set forth but three hours since
for the north upon urgency and in company, Lessingham were now in great haste
come south again. 'Cousin, there is a business I must utter to you. Will your
highness give me private audience?' The Vicar consenting with a shrug, they
retired themselves to that same upper room where, more than a year ago,
Lessingham and Amaury had supped that night when news came of King Styllis
dead, and all the balance of affairs tipped above new deeps of peradventure: a
room of beginnings and of memories.

Three
of the Vicar's great dogs lay there in the rushes. There was wine upon the
table, and drinking-cups: on the settle, the Vicar's armour: goose-feather
pens, ink, papers, parchments, all Gabriel's writing-tackle, in a hodge-podge
upon the sideboard. Lessingham said, 'Who will write you your so many letters,
cousin, whiles your secretary maketh up secret treaties betwixt you and
Derxis?'

There
was not a tremor in the Vicar's great hand, reaching the wine-jug, pouring a
cupful. 'Nimble and quicksilvered brains such as yours need this to settle
'em: quid-dling upon such moonshine.'

Lessingham
struck the cup from his hand. 'Did you not hear something cry thump?' he said
upon the crash, as the Vicar, eyes aflame, leapt to his feet. 'Come, I'll read it
you: here 'tis, under your hand and seal:' he watched the Vicar, at the pulling
out of the paper, change colour: 'ay, spittly and slimy too from the beast's
mouth I plucked it out on. But legible.'

'Go,
you are a fool. Counterfeit letters. My fine device to draw him out.'