The Game of Kings (31 page)

To separate truth from sophistry was almost beyond Scott’s tired brain. He flung off the wraps and got to his feet. With his back to Lymond, fidgetting among the leaves, he said, “I can’t understand how
you could do it,” and the voice was the voice of an upset boy.

Lymond also rose, suddenly. “You can’t understand how I could do it? By God, what pit of feminine logic have we tumbled across now? What are we discussing, a test case in casuistry or my personal complexity of habits? If you have a saint in your soul, I’m willing to bait him for you, but I’m damned if I’m going to meet you stumbling about with a candle inside my
pia mater
. For one thing, you would find it harsh on the nerves.” Lymond stretched out an arm, and digging in long fingers, twirled Will painfully to face him. “Don’t you believe me? I can prove it. If you were truly conducting an analysis, my dear one, you would want to have this as evidence.”

Will Scott took the paper Lymond held out to him, noting the broken seal. The familiar knot twisted his stomach again. The letter was headed simply,
To the Master
, and went on:

The letter was signed,
GEORGE DOUGLAS
.

Scott felt as if he were being suffocated. He knew his face was white, and his eyes were almost too heavy to keep open. He pulled himself together and said, with a trace of his original irony, “I see. Have I been sitting another test? It hasn’t escaped me, of course, that Grey wants me because of Hume. And that it was you who arranged for me to be prominent at Hume.”

“Partly,” said the Master. “You did some of it yourself …” And struck, perhaps, by the confusion in Scott’s face, Lymond suddenly began to laugh. For a moment, so amused and so tired was he, the laughter was less than controlled and Scott, shocked, recognized in
the other for the first time since he had known him, the outward signs of extreme fatigue.

Then Lymond said, “And now where are we? It’s difficult, isn’t it, to know whom to trust? Fide et diffide, in fact: and that is the moral of this little story. Be mistrustful, and you will live happy and die hated and be much more useful to me in between.

“Sit down,” said Lymond, and waited while Scott dropped again to his blankets. He took the letter from the boy’s hand and straightened. “I showed you this, my would-be catharist, because I don’t need you as a barter. I’ve got something George Douglas wants much more—information. And if that fails, I have a feeling I can acquire a hostage of my own worth two—forgive me—of Buccleuch’s expanding nursery. In that, indeed as in all else,” he added with exaggerated courtesy, “I shall want your help.”

Scott lay back on his rugs. He said cravenly, “I understand. If that’s so … I’ll help all I can.” Sleep swam in his head, his lids closing with it.

“Of course,” said the Master politely, and tossed a blanket over the boy. “For my boy Willie.…

I
N THE two weeks after the cattle raid, several moves followed each other in apparently random sequence. Christian Stewart, adroitly missing an encounter with Tom Erskine, left Lanarkshire and went north to Stirling to await the coming of the Culters and Lady Herries to spend Christmas at Bogle House. Shortly after, Buccleuch and Janet left also for the Scott house in Stirling, moving slowly to accommodate Walter, David, Grisel, Janet and seven ninths (as Buccleuch crudely put it) of Margaret.

The Culters stayed at home until the third Sunday in December; then, leaving Richard to his inevitable business, the Dowager seized a break in the weather to transport herself, Mariotta and Agnes to visit Sir Andrew Hunter’s mother.

Before the gates of Ballaggan, and after they had crossed the Nith safely and dry-shod on its upper reaches, the Dowager rallied her party. “Hear me, children,” said Sybilla. “This is a naughty old woman, but she’s too old to change, and too feeble to be lectured. So speak up, keep your tempers, and remember you’ll be naughty old
women yourselves, one of these days.” So they went in and, Sir Andrew being temporarily absent, were taken straight upstairs.

Lady Hunter’s room was as warm as a byre and as forbidding as a lying-in-state. Cocked on her pillows, the paraplegic greeted and seated the three visitors. Then the puckered mouth, fiercely active, said: “Mariotta. Come and let me see you.”

She studied the girl. Mariotta, hanging grimly to her temper, gazed back. “I have good news of you,” remarked Lady Hunter. “You haven’t the bones for it, but that can’t be helped. None of the Crawfords would make more than a hen-sparrow. When will it be?”

Mariotta’s face was pink with controlled emotion. She said politely, “In the spring.”

“Hum. Richard pleased?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“He will be. Hah! Sybilla. That’s two lives between Lymond and the money. You’ll be happy now, I dare say.”

Mariotta, supposing herself dismissed, returned to her seat with an expressive glance at the Dowager who said mildly, “We were all perfectly merry before, so far as I know. I can’t say I ever considered the matter in a racial light, but it will be nice to have babies about again. You ought to prod Dandy a little: it’s high time he got married. It would do you good to nurse something other than that smelly terrier of yours.”

Lady Hunter’s brittle fingers played with her rings. “In these days of opportunism, Andrew has little to commend him to an heiress, either in fortune or appearance. Unlike his brother.”

Forgetful, Mariotta contradicted. “Oh, surely not? He has everything to recommend him.… There must be pretty girls by the score who’d give the nails off their fingers for him.”

“Oh, yes. Plenty of those. Ballaggan can’t afford that kind, however,” said Lady Hunter. “Pretty girls with no dowry are for the hedgerow, not the altar. We are not all as fortunate as Richard.”

“Dear Catherine: yes,” said the Dowager. “How lucky that we are all rich
and
beautiful. Otherwise we should be so affronted. Do you drink everything in those bottles?” And the conversation was safely transferred to physics, and from there to herbs, on which the old lady was expert and, in her own acid way, entertaining.

Mariotta listened, more interested than she had hoped to be; Agnes, within reach of a lethargic Cavall, amused herself by parting its fur idly with her slippers; and neither did more than give fair ballast to
the conversation until the Dowager, gauging swiftly the amount of time to be filled before Sir Andrew might come, got to her feet saying something bantering about vaults.

The bite returned to Lady Hunter’s voice. “If you were bedridden as I am, Sybilla, you wouldn’t care for all the affairs of the household to lie about for servants to read. As I’ve told you before, these recipes are worth money: there is no call to be careless with them. The keys are behind you.”

The Dowager disappeared, and after a sizable interval returned in time to disentangle Mariotta from an appalling inquisition into the state of the linen at Midculter. With her she brought the promised book of recipes, which lasted safely until Sir Andrew came in.

Mariotta, watching him, found her defences rising on his behalf. She knew him already as a kind and ready confidant. No one, looking at the fine hands and good carriage, could say he was uncomely; no one listening to the warmth of his voice could find him displeasing.… Poor Dandy.

The evening passed and then, as the invalid slept early, they went their separate ways. But not before Mariotta contrived to have a word with Dandy alone.

In his private study, he installed her gently in front of the fire. “Two minutes; and then I’m going to pack you off to bed. So you finally broke the news to Richard?”

“About the baby? Yes, Dandy. With magnificent results. For a week now, no air is pure enough and no whim too foolish for the mother of a Culter.”

“And the presents are still coming?”

Mariotta nodded, and touched a small and very fine string of pearls around her neck. “They just appear in my room.” A nervous giggle overtook her. “Lymond can’t know yet about the baby. What am I supposed to do? I’ve no way of returning them.”

Sir Andrew got up and, crossing to the fire, kicked the logs with his boot. “Mariotta, my heartfelt advice is to tell Richard about it. I’m willing to help all I can, but you must know how he’d feel if he thought you felt driven to confide in someone outside the family, no matter how well-intentioned we both are. And this business of Lymond is serious.” He turned and said soberly, “Tell him, my dear. It need cost you nothing: you have, surely, all the jewels that you want and you, of all people, have had a chance of judging exactly what the Master is.”

Waiting, Sir Andrew of a sudden looked sharply at the girl’s face. Then she said, playing with the pearls, “He isn’t unattractive, Dandy. If he hadn’t been forced into outlawry by a single mistake, all those years ago …”

“A single mistake! Do you know how many died and how many were taken prisoner at the battle of Solway Moss?” exclaimed Hunter with sudden savagery. “Do you know how many years he had been spying for England before that? That when the secret leaked out they got him safely to London and Calais to save him from hanging? That when the French caught him and he was freed by Lennox he served Wharton and Lennox for years until they found he was cheating them too, and he had to turn mercenary abroad? Tell Richard, tell him quickly, and let him look after Lymond. All we both want is to see you safe and happy.”

For a moment Mariotta continued to twist the necklace. Then she got up, with a sudden impatience that made Hunter step back. “Surely there’s some way out of it other than setting them at each other’s throats? … Oh, never mind! But I doubt very much who’s going to be safer and happier if Richard finds out about all this …” said Mariotta.

A letter lay on the round, cypress table in the parlour at Bogle House.

Christian knew it was there. Passing and repassing, she was aware of it; it sat among her innocent and mundane thoughts like a tiger among peahens. In all Stirling, none was gladder or more relieved than Christian when at nightfall on the 23rd the yard exploded into life and Lord and Lady Culter, the Dowager, Agnes Herries and all their formidable train arrived.

Agnes pounced. “Another letter! From Jack?”

“Jack?” said the Dowager, turning.

“Jack Maxwell. I wrote him we’d be in Stirling for Christmas.” And she broke the seal and read it, standing. “Christian! he says will I answer him as usual, but he may be with me before I get a reply … he means to come to Stirling!”

“Does he say so in English?” inquired Christian warily.

“Yes, as plain as can be. Listen!” said Agnes.

Christian heard her read, thanking heaven for the child’s verse-infested mind which saw nothing strange in the outrageous metaphor in which her messages were wrapped. He had managed, she gathered, to eliminate one of the two men he must see, and was in train of seeing the other. A suitable moment, obviously, to break off the correspondence; to snap the whole tenuous link; for Johnnie Bullo, former ally and messenger, seemed now to avoid her.

So a curious, painful episode in one’s life bid fair to end. But she had to admit that, whatever it purpose, the dignities of happiness had transformed Lady Herries.

*  *  *

That night, snow fell on the Lowlands, and Stirling woke to its Christmas Eve bowered in white above grey river and eye-aching plain. Against tender blue the distant hills gave eye for candid eye with the sun, and above castle and Palace the griffins sat, capped and chaliced in snow.

Warmed by the snow and melted by the season, Mariotta sought early for her husband and found he had left the house, no one knew why. While sharing her bafflement with the Dowager, the thought struck Mariotta. She marched to Sybilla’s inlaid French cabinet and flung it open.

The top drawer was empty.

“It’s gone!” said Richard’s wife, spinning around, her violet eyes black. “The glove we found at the Papingo has gone. Richard’s taken it—on Christmas Eve, on his own, without a word to any of us—our fine, cold, brass-blooded hero has taken it to try and trace Lymond.”

*  *  *

Culter had indeed taken the glove, but had not carried it far.

The bullion with which it was decorated must have been supplied by a goldsmith; and since some time today he must call at Patey Liddell’s for the completed miniature of his mother, he took the glove with him to Patey’s, and left very early so as to be back before Mariotta missed him.

Patey was not yet up. After an interminable amount of banging, a moplike head thrust itself from a top-storey lattice and Patey’s voice
yapped, “Chap away: I’m as deif as a board—oh! It’s yourself, my lord. Wait you, and I’ll be down.”

Below in the shop, a purple robe over his nightgown, Patey handed over the miniature, not without an involved search, and after pocketing the outrageous cost of it, bent over the glove Richard produced. He held it at arm’s length and smirked at it.