The Game of Kings (40 page)

“Unless you fail to send me back.”

“Unless I keep you both.” He was irradiated with a soft cheerfulness. “But I hardly ever indulge in acts of retribution: they’re usually bad for trade. I propose to offer the child for sale to the Scottish Government, whether alive (which they might find awkward) or dead, which might be more convenient, diplomatically speaking. As a Catholic, you see, his existence threatens the Scottish throne rather more than the English one. I do hope you are
not
putting all your simple faith in the Protector, because I think that would be most unwise.”

The dulcet voice floated out to Scott, sitting wrathfully in hiding. So that was the scheme. And if Margaret Douglas was sent back to England, who was Lymond proposing to offer to Grey in exchange for Harvey? He felt a surge of sympathy for the Countess of Lennox.

She was saying in a numb kind of voice, “I’ll pay as much as … I’ll pay more than the Scottish Government to save the boy,” and the Master promptly agreed.

“I could get the money that way, of course; but without quite the same moral effect. It would be rather refreshing to upset the Earl of Lennox and enter the good offices of the Earl of Arran at the same stroke. Frankly, I doubt if I could resist it.”

There was a short, tortured silence.

Lady Lennox made a limp gesture with her hands, and suddenly the tears were there, blurring her picture of him before the fire, his hands loose at his sides, his head a little bent. “These things we’ve heard about you—how can this have happened in five years?”

“Cinders dressed up are still cinders. Like Petroneus, perhaps, I take pleasure in committing suicide at leisure.”

She shook her head, the tears streaking her cheek. “When you know the art of living, you don’t look for death, or half-death; you don’t hide in a hole like a chub. One accident; one reverse! You had
only to force your way through it, and what mightn’t you have been?”

He shrugged, one arm along the mantelpiece. “Who can tell? One enjoys being the most debauched chub in the kingdom.”

Loosened by the headshake, her thick woven hair was falling loose across her shoulders; she had forgotten both it and her shift, glancing white through the blue cloak. Stung by his tone she said, “You blame me. You blame me for what happened.”

“Why should I? I’ve escaped the grand mal and the petit mal and even the Duke of Exeter’s daughter …”

Her hands were gripping each other hard. “We had to send you to France for your own security. You must remember. Your friends would have killed you. We had to get you away from London. I didn’t even know you were being taken—it was the King who—”

“Who arranged my convalescence in the English fortress at Calais whence, by stupefying bad luck, I fell into French hands. And none of it would have happened but for that very ill-timed dispatch.”

Margaret bit her lip. “I heard about it. The one the Scots found, that our man left by mistake. After the convent was destroyed.”

The blue eyes, unveiled, were directly on hers. “By mistake?”

“But—yes! The destroying party took your letter to follow your instructions, and when the leader was killed it was found by his body.… What else could have happened? What else did you think? There was no double-dealing on our part, I would swear to it.”

“Could you swear to your uncle’s share?”

“The King?” She looked startled. “Surely not. He could be violent, but not—”

“But not what? Was there anything he was not?” said Lymond. “Henry of England had all the virtues and all the faults, and solved the contradiction by making scapegoats and sin-eaters of half his entourage. If it suited him to discredit me between breakfast and dinner he would, like a shot from Buxted.”

He stopped as she laid impulsive hands on his arms, crushing the thick silk. “How can we know what happened, so long afterward? We can’t drag young tragedies forever through our Uves, or carry our years like enemies, as you are doing.”

Extravagantly, the fair brows lifted. “Alas, my sweet nonage. But five years of these vigorous times would remove the bloom from Lord Lennox himself.”

“And bitterness is a new thing.”

“Not at all. My natural habit, like the squirting cucumber. Any further traces of rot?”

Her gaze holding his, she let her fingers slip down his arms until, touching his hands, she felt and turned them palm upward. They lay lax in her own. Then Margaret Lennox looked down.

Scott did not hear the sound she made as, clenching her fists over the two curled hands, she carried them to her breast. “The galleys? The galleys, Francis? Your beautiful hands!”

“And my beautiful back!” he said caustically, and she released him instantly and turned away.

“You’re right, of course. Whatever you’re going to do, you have every right. We let you fall into the hands of the French—we betrayed your loyalty even if we did it by accident—”

“And if it wasn’t an accident?” said Lymond mildly.

She turned and faced him. “Then if the King was responsible, I am his niece. Take what revenge you want.”

Moving with exquisite care Lymond came close to Margaret Douglas for the first time of his own accord. With two pensive fingers, he released the clasp of her cloak, and it dropped, a slither of blue, to the ground. The white of her dress, lit by the fire, flowed like summer snow into the eyes. “And what about Matthew?” he said. “The very partial husband?”

Her eyes were wide. “What’s Matthew? One step to a double—perhaps a triple throne.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. All.”

She was as pale as the silk. Scott saw Lymond’s gaze rest on her, delicately practised, just before he moved. Then he touched her, and the woman’s eyes closed. Folded with infinite care on the sweet edge between agony and delight she suffered a kiss of an expert passion which made itself lord of all the senses, of thought, and the dead fields of time. The fire blazed on Lymond’s shoulder and arm and his bent head, and Scott saw something regal in the still, white and gold figures melted into one, pliant as a painting in honey and wax.

Then Lymond raised his head, releasing her mouth, and taking the woman’s hand, drew her to the long settle by the fire. Margaret slipped to his feet.

“Come away.” Words were choking her. “Come away with me.
Work for us again. The Protector will give you all you lost—your manor—your money—more than you can ever have here. This wandering exile is slow death for a man of your sort.… Come back with me!”

He drew a slow finger across her cheek. “With the game so nearly won? I’m heir to Midculter, Margaret. If things go well, my rooftree will be more impressive than any the Protector is likely to offer.”

“More impressive than Temple Newsam?” said Margaret; and the two pairs of eyes locked.

The fine, scarred fingers which had killed the papingo and set fire to his mother’s house played gently with the thick, beautiful hair. “You would take me to your home?” said Lymond softly. “But even Lennox—”

“—daren’t gainsay the Protector. And if you proved yourself valuable to Somerset, as you could—Francis, with your mind, your imagination, your leadership—”

“—And my savoury reputation. It’s hopeless, Margaret. If my character in Scotland were intact, I could make Somerset uncle to an emperor; as an outlaw, my practical value is nil. Unless a good name can be created for me. Or restored.”

He didn’t go on, and there was a silence. The woman had laid her cheek on his knee, her long hair fallen on the shining firelit swaths of her robe, spread about the hearth. A log dropped, turning the man’s hair a brighter gold. Without moving, Margaret repeated, “Restored?”

Lymond’s soft voice was reflective. “Mightn’t some story be concocted that the authorities would believe? Of forgery—strategic betrayal—something with witnesses, convincing enough to clear me?”

At bay before every weapon of his mind and body, Margaret answered him unwillingly. “It’s no use, Francis. It does no good to pretend. Nothing can restore the past: how could it? The man who left the dispatch is dead. I could teach speeches and confessions to any number in his place, but do you think they would withstand the boot or the rack? Arran would make very sure this time he was not being deceived again. You can’t remake a reputation out of nothing.”

“I can’t, perhaps; but you generally manage to get what you want. Even me, for a consideration. I’ve told you my price.”

This time, the pause was a long one. The woman gasped suddenly. “I make no conditions.”

“And I make only one,” said Lymond, and with smooth strength pulled her up momentarily, his mouth on hers. “Do you want me, Margaret … at Temple Newsam?”

“Yes.”

“Then will you pay my fee?”

“I’ll pay you … I’ll pay you anything,” she said, “if you’ll come away with me tonight.”

“Tonight?” asked Lymond, and thoughtfully lifted the hair from her neck. “What will you pay me?”

She kissed his roving hands. “I’ll find a man—someone to swear your dispatch was a forgery.”

“What man?”

“Anyone. A prisoner, perhaps. Or a condemned man. I could get him to do it for the price of his life, couldn’t I? I promise. I’ll make it convincing. Will you come? Oh! my love, will you come?”

Scott had the second’s warning Margaret lacked; saw the face above the felicitous hands; glimpsed the relentless eyes. Margaret Lennox said, “Oh! my love, will you come?” and Lymond slipped from her like a fish, leaving her kneeling, empty-handed, addressing half-mouthed endearments to an empty settle.

“Shall I come?
God; no, darling. I like my sluts honest.”

There was a single sound, dragged on the intaken breath; then the woman sank on her heels and Scott saw the blood on her lip where her teeth had snapped shut on it. “Well?” said Lymond, grinning, from across the room, and she flung to her feet, spitting Tudor venom and Tudor fluency into the fair, insolent face.

“Conceited peasant! Gross, degenerate weakling, reeking of ditch philosophy and decay—Do you imagine I’d let you touch me if there was an alternative? I offered you freedom and security—”

“You put me in purgatory, and you are offering me hell,” exclaimed Lymond. “Poor Thomas Howard. Did you offer him life and liberty too?”

“Have you the effrontery to reproach me with lovers? What of your own?”

“Mine all have whole necks and go to bed with me for joy, not for lions on their quarterings and galloon on their underwear.”

“I would have you roasted alive.”

“You would repent it. Who else can give you this brand of excitement? Not our marrowless Matthew, anyway.”

“He doesn’t suffer from—from satyriasis, if that’s what you mean.”

“I can’t help that,” said Lymond brutally. “Take your petty claws out of the prey, my sweet. I want your infant, not you.”

There was silence. Tiger being revealed to tiger, the roaring died and was replaced by a brooding watchfulness. Then Margaret Douglas said, “You will never get my son.”

“I shall, you know.” Lymond was the image of despotic calm. “Unless you get the proofs I ask for. I admire ingenuity, but not quite so much of it. My capture by the French was no accident. King Henry’s decision to make a scapegoat of me was no accident.”

“Very well,” said Margaret. “It was no accident. And because of it, your beggarly deceits were made public property. What can I do about it? What false proofs and pseudo-confessions would convince when the world knows them to be extorted by threat? No, my dear Francis, you’ve closed that door yourself. Your life as a man ended five years ago: your life as a cur depends on how long you please your numerous masters—”

“Or mistresses.”

There were tears of rage in the black eyes. “Can I never forget?”

“No. Why should you? I think of it often, with a certain aged melancholy. Chargé d’ans et pleurant son antique prouesse … Must I send for the boy?”

Margaret Lennox stirred. Walking away from the fire, she lifted her cloak and threw it over her arm with a certain detached grace. “Your antique prouesse was a little better than this. Preserve me from naïveté.”

His eyes were guarded but his voice was blithe. “It’s the simple life. An atavistic return to primitive barter. An instinct to buy things and people with shells, like the French.”

She smiled. “I have no intention of giving you what you want. My son is quite safe.”

Lymond’s expression conveyed qualified warmth. “You want to stay here and mend my shirts. But as I’ve already said, the positions are all filled.”

“On the contrary. You will send me away yourself. Because,” said Lady Lennox, “we have your brother’s wife.”

For a long time, no one spoke. The silence stretched on until Scott’s whole listening body tingled with it; then at length Lymond’s
eyes dropped. The cord of his shirt had loosened, and with one hand, still looking down, he drew it together. “How do you know of this?”

“By letter.” Smiling, she produced from her cloak and held out a longish letter which Lymond read, one hand still arranging his shirt. She watched him. “Can you make out the writing? She was captured by young Wharton during the march north on Wednesday, and should be with my husband now at Annan. He wanted me to join him quickly and chaperone her. Then he was going to hold her to ransom.”

She relinquished the letter, still watching him cynically. “And that, my dear Francis, makes me an awkward possession. When Lennox hears I am missing, he has one simple remedy—to offer the life of the young Lady Culter in exchange for mine. And that means that the whole weight and power of your brother and his friends will be bent toward finding me.”

“I am distraught at the prospect.” Lymond spoke readily enough, though his hands were white at the knuckles. “He’s exceedingly unlikely to do so. And what makes you think that Mariotta’s future—or lack of it—has any interest for me?”

“My dear Francis,” said Margaret blandly. “Of course it interests you. Her death brings you one step nearer Midculter, doesn’t it?”

His unemotional face seemed to stir a curious animation in her. She went on swiftly. “Send me back to England and the Scots have lost their counterhostage. Send me back, and I promise to see that your sister-in-law lives for thirty years apart from her husband—and that her child fails to survive.”