The Game of Kings (38 page)

“Christian, listen. We’ve seen a lot of each other in the last six months …”

His voice died away, but Christian’s face betrayed only sympathetic amusement. “Dear Tom, there isn’t a verb in the dictionary that wouldn’t float like a benison on your innocent breath; but I’ve a devil of a lot to pack. If you’re intent on launching a review of your winter relationships …”

He was not put off, but simply accelerated. Without finesse, Tom Erskine shot forward and seized one idle hand. “Christian! Do you like me? Could you put up with me? … Will you marry me, Chris?”

To keep the normal, comforting directness in her voice, she squandered all her training. “To have your love is a wonderful thing, Tom, but you’re wasting it on an obstinate woman.”

In his eagerness he mistook her meaning. “There’s no one to cross you in Stirling, my dear; and by God, I’d like to see anyone try elsewhere.”

In spite of herself she smiled. “Build a hedge around the cuckoo?
I don’t think perpetual summer would be very good for me, somehow. In the same way—in the same way that I don’t think marriage would be good.”

His bewilderment reached her, even though she couldn’t see. Releasing her hand he said slowly, “You’re afraid of marriage? Or is it of me?”

Christian said quickly, “Not afraid: no. My reservations are of another kind. And not any dislike of you: of course not.”

“Then there’s someone else?” he said.

It had not occurred to her that he might think that. With an effort, she applied her mind. “Under the circumstances, that’s rather flattering of you. But no—there’s no one else. It’s simply that—”

That what? It was not simple at all. Love was no prerequisite, whatever Agnes Herries might think. He must indeed be wondering why she hesitated; wondering perhaps if she was after bigger game than himself. She had money and her birth was higher than his own. She had no need to be diffident about her handicap, but it was the only excuse she had. So she went on. “It’s just that, my dear, a blind wife is no asset to a future Lord Erskine.”

“Rubbish!” It was a mistake: the boisterous relief in his voice told her that. “My dear lass, I’m the best judge of that. D’you imagine I’d give two thoughts to it? Are you afraid of leaving the places you know? We’ll build us a house in Stirling, and I’ll teach you every timber and brick of it as it rises so that each one is a friend to you. I’ll give you a family of eyes: more eyes than Argus; in all Stirling there’ll be no woman with younger or purer sight than you shall have. I shall—”

“Tom!” She cried out, desperate to stop him. “Tom, if it were that alone, I shouldn’t hesitate. Or if there were any single good reason, I’d tell you at once. The trouble is I have a hundred reasons, none of them good. The war; Lord Fleming’s death; the need to set Boghall in order; my own liking for freedom and my friends and the old days—a mixen of wretched, feminine evasions.”

His silence lasted so long that she bit her lip, raging at her lack of sight; but he was only thinking over, very seriously, what she had said. At length he spoke. “Yes, I see, Christian. I think I understand. You mightn’t want to marry me now. But later, perhaps? When the invasion is over, and the Queen is better, and Lady Jenny is free … ?”

He didn’t say, as he might have done, “And if I come back.” She had to be merciful, but how?

In the end, she took the easier way. “I can offer nothing, Tom; and it would be unfair to let you think I might. But if you still feel as you do, sometime in the future—”

“When? Next month?”

Christian, who had been thinking weakly in terms of six months or a year, suddenly decided. She said, “Next month if you like, Tom: a month from today, on one condition, if you’ll allow me the presumption of making it. That you abide by my answer then, whatever it is.”

He said rather pathetically, “Do you think by then … ?” but she groped for his hand, found and tucked her own firmly into it and walked him to the door. “I haven’t the faintest idea, but I can say this, my dear. If I were going to marry anyone—anyone at all—it would be Tom Erskine.”

*  *  *

Three miles away at Midculter, Sybilla was also preparing to leave for Dumbarton. Richard, looking for her before setting off south with his troops, found her coming out of the courtyard, her manner a little distrait and an unaccountable smell of sulphur lingering in her hair.

They conferred briefly, discussing the guarding of the castle and the safety of Mariotta, who was to stay; and had almost parted when Sybilla remembered something. “Oh, Richard. Dandy Hunter brought one of his mother’s appalling herbal concoctions under oath to make you take it on your next campaign, but I haven’t the heart to inflict it on you. I gather it would save you from Podagra and the Protector and every evil in Grimoire. You don’t want it, do you?”

Richard smiled faintly. “Not really. But I’ll take it if it’ll please her.”

“Oh, my dear, Catherine has made enough martyrs without adding more. I shall tell Dandy you drained every drop and left in a condition of enteric rapture: only remember to fib when you see him.” And she smiled and nodded, and disappeared again.

He had now only to take leave of Mariotta. He went to her room quickly, kissed her, and gave her a brief recital of his plans. Sitting before her mirror, she listened with perfect composure, arranging a lace scarf carefully about her shoulders. Still listening, she picked up and clasped the scarf with a magnificent brooch: a diamond-set heart surrounded by angels’ heads.

Recently Mariotta had been very quiet. Richard had said nothing to her of his encounter with Buccleuch at Crumhaugh, and was not to know that she had heard it in detail from Sir Wat and Sybilla. Now she waited until he had finished, and then said soberly, “Richard … The country districts are in a fairly bad way. How many of these raids can they stand? Assuming you repel this one, that is?”

There was a little pause: he was evidently surprised and rather relieved. He said, readily enough, “It’s all a matter of who tires first. We may damage the English so much this time they can’t afford to try again.”

“With all their resources? With all their mercenaries from Spain and Germany?”

“They cost money, you know.” He smoothed a corner of crumpled lace on her shoulder, the fine threads catching on the roughness of his fingers. “And meantime we shall be getting troops of our own from France.”

“For nothing?” said Mariotta. She was watching him in the mirror. “But isn’t it sometimes more expensive to accept favours than it is to buy them?”

He smiled. “You’re in a very inquiring frame of mind today, surely?”

“Yes, I am,” said Mariotta briefly. “Don’t people who dispense favours quite often expect a return for their trouble? Such as an alliance, or a marriage? Or special favours in trading? And if so, might there not be very little difference between an alliance with England and an alliance with France? And wouldn’t a truce with England now have the advantage of saving thousands of lives before spring?”

She was ready for the first sign of ridicule: all the more ready because the ideas were less her own than the Dowager’s.

But he was still patient. “France, of course, is the ancient ally, tied to us by history and temperament and blood and religion. But there’s sense as well as sentiment in it. By supporting us with troops, France forces England to divert men and money from Europe. Besides, France has never tried to conquer us by force as England has. Three English kings have claimed to own Scotland, and have done their best to hack their names on the door.… What sort of a people would we be if we tolerated that?”

“You would rather have France as your master?”

“There is no question of either,” said Richard quietly. “Whatever
price we have to pay to France, you may be sure we shall keep our sovereignty.”

“Which is more,” said Mariotta, “than one can count on at home.” And her eyes met his in the mirror.

She might have meant anything; but his face emptied of expression. After a moment, she went on.

“You talked of disliking overlordship, and I suppose all it implies—an indifferent superior, a denial of free choice and policy and the rest.” She had rested her elbows on the table, covering her face with her fingers so that nothing but her tired voice could betray her. “I hate it, too. I don’t know if I can go on with it, Richard.”

So there it was. He found a chair and sat heavily. “Mariotta … I’m no good at this sort of thing. You know you can spend what you want—order what you want—go where you please—”

She was determined not to be childish. She was determined not to refer to the child, to his pride in his livestock, to any of the hurtful things that ran daily through her mind. She said instead, “I can go where I please. To the Three Estates?”

“No, of course. Women aren’t—”

“To state conferences at Boghall?”

“You can’t expect—”

“To any gathering, meeting or convention that is going to shape the whole course and fabric of my life, and even possibly the manner of my death? No. Yet Arran, whom I’ve heard called a weakling and an idiot, not only goes but directs our policy. Lennox went, and proved a self-seeker and a traitor.…”

Richard said gently, “Men have no absolute monopoly of foolishness, Mariotta. The burdens of land, home, children and service to one’s country are heavy enough for two people without asking both to do the same job.”

Mariotta dropped her hands. “I’m not, heaven forbid, suggesting I should take my sewing to Parliament any more than I’m belittling the importance of your children. But I could fill a fifteen-year-old as full of moral precepts as a sponge, and I doubt if he’d keep them long in the sort of world you’ve made for him. Shouldn’t I have some say in that, through you? Shouldn’t you have something to tell your children, through me? Our work mayn’t overlap; but shouldn’t your job and mine at least touch?”

Her voice died away. Richard, bringing his clasped hands up to his face, tried to think clearly through the millrace of pressing business
in his brain. “I don’t know how to satisfy you—I’m going to be at home of course so little. But if it would help, I could ask Gilbert to let you know each week what happens in Council. Would that do?”

Three unfortunate words. That his wife was begging him to think differently about his whole relationship with her; that she might wish to share his personal life and his personal decisions—to shoot at the Wapenshaw—to ride alone to Perth—to interfere at Crumhaugh—to deal with his brother—never entered his head.

Mariotta said in quite a different voice, “It might, except that I don’t recollect marrying Gilbert. And while securing your fabulous, much-hacked front door you might have remembered, my dear, the wicket gate at the back.” She got up suddenly and faced him, gripping the edge of the table. “The unlatched postern, Richard. You’ve convinced yourself that the killing of one man is more important than your marriage, and it’s taken you into strange country. Which has its own irony. You should have looked nearer home.”

She had never before watched the blood drain from a man’s face. The flat planes of Culter’s skin became glistening pale and his eyes, shrewd and grey, turned disconcertingly blank. He rose to his feet and she was frightened: nervous enough to back to the window and stand there, watching him move uncertainly toward her. He stopped and said, “Say it again. What are you saying? Tell me.”

Her anger, and her courage, came back. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “Only that I like to be entertained. And Lymond is more perceptive than you are.”

The effort of self-control was so great that he was literally shaking on his feet: one hand shot up and gripped the wall to one side of her; the other, following more slowly, held the other side, locking her in the deep embrasure. “Lymond has been here?” He didn’t touch her.

With the remembered warmth of his nearness, her temper flared again. “The man has been paying court to me for months. You might admire his enterprise, at least.” Beneath her anger was a rising excitement. Where was the stolid face now? At last—at last she was laying him bare; he was speaking to her direct, without a hedge of competitive thoughts, and listening to her—straining to hear her words.

He said blindly, “Paying court to you? My brother? While I was away … for
months?”
The blank eyes rested on Mariotta, not seeing her, but seeing, she thought, a gallery of grotesque pictures filled with
laughter and a dallying, gilded head. His voice, when he spoke, was extremely queer. “Lymond is your lover?”

His right arm shook suddenly as his wife brushed under it and into the room. He did not follow her but waited, looking at the dark glass of the window where her figure was reflected, pulling things out of a drawer. He saw an emerald necklace; then pearls, some rings, brooches and collars, buttons and combs followed until the table shivered and sparkled in front of her. Lastly, she pulled off the splendid brooch at her breast and flung it on the heap. The violet eyes, turned full on him, were as bright as the jewels. “No!” said Mariotta with contempt. “But he might have been.”

She had meant to hurt him, and she had meant to force him outside his defences. Even yet, she did not recognize what she had actually done. In the long silence that followed, he put on a stiffer armour than she had ever been allowed to see.

Without looking at her, he picked up a piece, read the inscription on it, and flung it back on the heap. “How long has this been going on?”

“For three months. They come anonymously to the house.”

“Bidding appears to have been commendably brisk. It’s friendly of you,” said Richard, “to allow me to compete. What would you like next?”

If she had never been able to shake him when he chose to be wooden, she was paralyzed by this behaviour. She said, shocked into stammering, “I’ve t-told you the truth because he was making such a f—because people are drawing comparisons. I’ve never made any move to meet him—”

“I’m sorry,” said Richard. “But on the whole I’d rather appear a fool than a cuckold. As a result of your efforts I now seem to be both. I should have looked less ridiculous, perhaps, if you had chosen to tell me about this when it first began?”