The Game of Kings (27 page)

“All right,” said Lymond. “We have the piper, and you have the women; and here’s the proposal. If you’ve a wrestler among you able to throw Matthew here or myself, he gets free access to Tammas and the pipes. If we throw one of you, we earn the kitty that’s with you. Shoulders once to the floor mean a throw, and no bodily harm to come to the piper. How’s that for a wager?”

The man in green fustian, who appeared to be spokesman for the crowd, grinned and looked around. “I’m for it: fair enough. What about it, dormice? Are you ready to fight for your rights, or d’you like being miscalled by a towheaded daisy with a private banshee?”

There was a roar of response. Scott, watching through the vague fumes of alcohol, saw that the faces were mostly good-humoured: the fancy had fired loose imaginations and the guests, now fully awake, appeared ready for anything. The man in green turned back; above the variations to
Spaidsearachd Cloinn Mhic Rath
he shouted, “It’s a match. You and your friend to wrestle any of us, turn about for a single fall. If either of you is thrown, the winner gets to silence the piper. If any of us is thrown, we give up any lass we have with us. We’ll play it on the floor, and I’ll stand guarantee for all of us down here.”

Lymond waved assent. The party flowed back down and into the common room in tumult and laughter and a filling of tankards, while a centre space was cleared for the fighters. Lymond held the hilt of his sword to Scott. “Your job is to guard the stairs for the winner.”

Scott eyed the blade. “Up here?”

“Up here. God, I thought you were musical?” Scott closed his eyes and took the sword. Tammas, reaching the third wall, turned and paced steadily back, and Will shuddered and leaned to look over the balustrade.

The transformation was memorable. Lit like a stage, with a tester of candlelight, the improvised wrestling ground was ringed by the audience, hotly vociferous, the girls squealing in flattered excitement. In the centre, white shirts rebuffing the light, Lymond and the tall spokesman stalked each other, arms hanging, on soft stockinged feet. Green-fustian leapt; the two figures hurtled, rolled, separated, joined and clasped. There was a gasping cry, a crash, and Lymond, laughing, stood over a prone figure.

The throw was agreed a fair one. Sally, giggling, wiped her leman’s scratched face, saw him escorted off, shaking his head, and ran upstairs to hang over the gallery with Will. Beside them Tammas, turning smartly, took a deep breath and started, with a nice appreciation, on
Cath fuathasach, Pheairt
.

Mat took on a stout blacksmith with thews like tubers and threw him in five minutes. Joan came upstairs.

Lymond threw for the fun of it a young clerk and a Dutch pioneer, neither of which had a girl to give up, and retired for Mat who, in conquering a shoemaker from Chester with an agile wrist, inadvertently broke his arm and, all solicitude, splinted and bound it and shared a pot of ale with the victim before the play was resumed.

He found it a little difficult after that to find a challenger, the more so as the audience by now was making more noise than the piper; but he heaved a lawyer through a window, and the Master followed up by winning Elizabeth from a lithe packman, who put up a cracking fight for twelve minutes. This he topped by two easy successes, each of which was greeted by storms of applause.

There was a brief caesura.

Molly herself brought fresh wine to Lymond and he took it, grinning, in one hand while blotting the sweat from his eyes with the other. “Drink, you wildcat: did I ask for this? I must have been mad. Give
over, now, before the whole house is in shivers and shards. Stop that damned piper and let’s have some music.”

Lymond raised his eyebrows. “You’ll have to throw me first.”

“That I will!” said Molly purposefully.

Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted themselves on his chest. “A throw!” said Molly, and Lymond, half buried, gave a choked whoop of laughter and raised a defeated hand in signal to Tammas.

Silence, like a supernatural thunderbolt, burst upon the Ostrich.

It lasted perhaps two seconds. Then a shout of responsive laughter hit the roof, the guitars and fiddles of the gypsies started up, and life flowed across the common room. Lymond, released, flung his head back and, viewing his winnings, gave them solemn dispensation to descend for the space of the dance. He asked for and obtained some chalk, and set to marking his and Mat’s property where the cross was most obvious and the whim most appreciated. Then he swept Molly off her feet and into the dance, and the room rocked with beating feet and whirling bodies, while the candle flames bent like comets in the wind of passing skirts.

Scott, laying down his sword and with Joan’s hand in his, ran downstairs and into the rollicking hall and danced blisters into his shoes; he drank; he danced; he had something else to eat, and he danced again. Then, as muscles and musicians tired, the trestles and benches were drawn to the fires and song after song went around until the choruses became rounds, and the rounds trios, and the trios duets, and finally one solitary, happy, wavering voice made itself heard.

Scott’s eyes closed. Joan and the other woman had disappeared, and Lymond was missing. Thick murmurs vying with the snores finally ceded to them. His head, brighter than the fire, jerked, drooped, and laid itself at last on the table. The Ostrich slept.

At five o’clock Lymond, dressed again in his riding clothes, came to Scott and took the alepot out of his lax hand. “Dronken, dronken, y-dronken. A wilted and forfoughten Marigold,” he said caustically. “Upright, sluggard. The fog’s lifted, and I propose to be gone before daylight.”

Will didn’t remember getting up. From nowhere, it seemed, a sweet, blowing air touched the sweat on his face, and he saw that he
was in the courtyard of the Ostrich, in the flinching light from the broken window; that his horse was beside him, ready saddled; and that Matthew, mounted, was waiting at the gate. Lymond threw him up, then mounted himself and raised his head.

Under a pale, fresh moon, trees and bracken sighed and gentle cloud washed over the sky.

“Th’erratic starres heark’ning harmony. Look up,” said the Master. “And see them. The teaching stars, beyond worship and commonplace tongues. The infinite eyes of innocence.”

But Scott was too drunk to look up.

Lord Grey of Wilton, general of the northern parts for His Majesty King Edward of England, had swallowed a sour autumn and was encompassing an acid winter since the unlucky affair at Hume Castle.

On the Eastern Marches the River Tweed, with Berwick at its mouth, divided England and Scotland. Like the ancient pike Sir George Douglas had once called him, Lord Grey bitterly patrolled his forces on this boundary throughout October and November. On a slipstream of orders, reports, demands, inquiries, case papers, he stalked from fortress to fortress on its brawling banks and now, on the last Tuesday in November, swam back to Norham with the complaints and entreaties of Luttrell, Dudley and Bullmer pursuing him like hagfish. To the keep of Norham Castle, he summoned Gideon Somerville.

The court office which had crowned the painstaking career of Jonathan Crouch had led Gideon Somerville to the inner chambers of the Palace, the favour of King Henry, and the friendship of any with that commodity still to spare. On Henry’s death, Gideon had brought his wealth and his young family north to Hexham, had settled there, and was little seen unless for summons of war.

Or but for the importunities of Lord Grey. Gideon was sufficiently well-born to please the Lord Lieutenant, and good-humoured enough to suffer him. So he waited now in a room at Norham, listening to his lordship—not a young man, except in resilience and a certain honest hardihood of mind: a man with clear eyes and a pink skin, and hair thickly grey like a badger’s.

“I suppose,” said Lord Grey, coming at last to the point, “I suppose you’ve heard of the occurrence at Hume?”

Gideon, a compassionate man, shook his head.

“Oh. Well. That fellow Sir George Douglas has offered to give me access to one of the Scotts—Buccleuch’s heir, in fact. He’s roving the Borders in bad company, and one of his associates has a vendetta with someone in London. Douglas suggests we trap young Scott through this man.”

“Someone in London … ?” sought Gideon.

“Samuel Harvey’s the man this bandit—whoever he is—wants, but the bandit himself doesn’t know it yet,” said Grey. “He thinks it might be you.”

“I assure you, I haven’t a vendetta with anyone,” said Somerville. “Particularly a Scottish desperado. I didn’t know Sam Harvey had, either.”

“Well, I haven’t communicated with Harvey, so I don’t know what it’s about,” said Grey impatiently. “But that doesn’t matter. The point is, this associate of Scott’s is going to try and get in touch with one of you, and as Flaw Valleys’ near the Border, it’s likely to be you first.”

“How pleasant,” said Somerville. He looked a little taken aback. “And who is this spadassin who is about to visit me, and what do I do with him when he comes?”

“He’s got to trace you, so it may be some time before you meet him. Who he is doesn’t matter—Douglas was vague about his identity and I haven’t inquired. All you have to do is act as messenger for us, Gideon. When the man comes, give him this letter from Douglas. It’s all in order—I saw it before it was sealed. Here’s a copy for you to see.”

Somerville read the letter in silence. At the end he said, “And the only way of reaching him is through me?”

“The only way we know.”

Gideon pushed back the paper and getting up, walked about the room. “You’re thinking of Kate,” said Grey. “But you needn’t worry. I’ll give you as many men as you want for extra guard. All I ask is that you let the man in when he comes, and hand him that letter.”

Somerville said, “Forgive the egotism, but I’m thinking of myself as well as of Kate. I can’t quite see myself convincing an irate mercenary that I am actually his best friend. In any case, may he not even bring the man you want—Scott, is it?—with him?”

“All the men I shall give you will be capable of recognizing Scott, if he comes,” said Lord Grey; and for some reason his skin darkened. “Scott and another man, a Spaniard I’m anxious to catch. Yes. If Scott comes, they’ll take him. And you can tear up the letter.”

“Hum. And what if I’m away from home? If I’m called to Carlisle for Wharton’s next sally—”

“You have leave to refuse in my name,” said Lord Grey, with a certain satisfaction. “This time you can serve the King better by staying at home.”

“I can see,” said Gideon, “I’m going to be popular everywhere. Willie, I’m a peaceable man with a happy family life trying to mind my own business. What on earth am I involving myself in this for?”

“Because,” said Lord Grey, “you’re a fair and loyal friend to your country.”

The clear eyes viewed him. “Have it your own way,” said Gideon Somerville resignedly. “As usual.”

I
F THE Richard Crawford who went to Branxholm was a troubled and reticent man, the Richard Crawford who returned was, as his wife ruefully put it, as sociable as a Trappist monk.

From this aspect, it was a pity his wounds were no worse. The tender bonds of love and service which Mariotta would cheerfully have wrapped about a helpless and stationary invalid were stretched instead, frayed and snapping, to the heels of an absent, overactive, uncompromising gentleman, up before he should have been out of bed and out before he should have been up.

Lady Buccleuch, approached by Mariotta, had proved an unhelpful confidante. “That’s his job,” she pointed out. “You don’t, I suppose, want to flit here and yon tied to the man’s collar like Agrippa’s dog with the devil.”

“But are you telling me the two circles never meet?” cried Mariotta
in exasperation. “Are we to spend the young days of our lives with never a shared doubt, or pleasure, or worry but what falls crash at our feet the one rare Sunday in five we’re together?”

“God,” had said Janet. “I’m not likely to buy doubts off Buccleuch. I’ve enough myself for the two of us, and I’ll fight to the death to keep Wat’s great blundering thumbs out of them.…”

That was at the start of November. Very soon afterward, the first parcel of jewellery arrived.

Mariotta found it, wrapped and anonymous, in her solar: discreet inquiry could not discover how it came there. Inside was a handsome ring-brooch, disingenuously inscribed
Nostre et toutdits a vostre desir
. There was nothing else to betray its origin, and from that fact, and the arrogance of the message, she thought she guessed the sender.

Lady Culter passed an uneasy afternoon, considering what to do. Tell Richard? She might be wrong. There might be a letter on its way with a perfectly innocent explanation. Or another less innocent. But Richard in his anger had already exposed himself too rashly to his brother: to repress further injury was something the Dowager, at least, would approve. She decided to wait.

No letter came, but a week later, a second packet. This was a bracelet, demanding boldly,
Is thy heart as my heart?
with an insolence which was almost its undoing. Mariotta roamed her room, arguing and counterarguing, dogged by a recollection of blue eyes and a blurred, inebriated voice.

It was monstrous, of course, even to compare the two men. A well-balanced, mature woman of nineteen would unpin the ring-brooch from inside her bodice and put it and the bracelet in Richard’s hands saying meekly, “Your brother is paying court to me. What do I do?”