The Game of Kings (55 page)

“In prison,” said Christian prosaically. “I suppose he’s the same. He talks a great deal.”

“In prison!” echoed Margaret, her voice sharpening just too much.

“In Scotland? But that means he’ll hang! Is that true?”

“I believe so.”

Lady Lennox said agitatedly, “But can’t something be done? Is anyone helping him?”

“Who could help him?”

Margaret said, “You’re his friend. I’m sure you are. If you were free, couldn’t you do something?”

If she were free.…

A crease appeared between the large, direct eyes. “I don’t see what. I’ve done him a small service—I got him the home address of a man he wanted to see for some reason. But that won’t be any good to him now, naturally.”

So simple an explanation. Margaret, comforted, gave a sigh. “So sad. All that talent—but people, I suppose, make their own ruin, however much their friends try to help. Now,” said the Countess cheerfully, “Is there anything I can bring that you would like?”

After she had gone, Christian sat alone for a long time in her own black world, conquering a rage which would have alarmed her visitor. Then, dismissing the incident with an effort, she spared a moment to thank the well-intentioned spirit of Gideon Somerville before resuming the furious pacing of her prison.

Gideon’s errand for Grey took him to Norham, and he was forced to stay overnight. Making casual inquiries on his return, he found that the prisoners taken at Dalkeith had been dispatched that day to the Archbishop of York; and that, before she left, the blind girl had asked once or twice after himself.

He might, left to himself, have pursued the party; but Lord Grey had other ideas. With his best men scattered like caraway seed over the countryside from Roxburgh to Broughty, he needed an able officer at his side.

Gideon tolerated it, his desire to return home tempered by the discovery that Margaret Lennox was still at Berwick, and meant to stay there until the man Harvey was well enough to return. If the Countess could play a waiting game, then so could he, thought Gideon, and caught himself with a surprised grimace. One would think it was his affair.

The following Monday, he was ordered to Newcastle to discuss finance with the Treasurer. “By the time that’s over, I shall probably be in Newcastle myself,” said Lord Grey. “Probably see you there. You ought to be off, anyway, by the morning. Oh—you were interested in Sam Harvey?”

“Yes!” said Gideon, suddenly alert.

“That Stewart girl said he was slightly injured. Well, he isn’t. He’s got a ball in the thigh and it’s damned dangerous. They’re not sure if he’ll live.”

Gideon said quickly, “When did you hear?”

“Just now. Bad luck on the fellow. I feel a shade guilty,” said Lord Grey peevishly. “I shouldn’t have brought him up at all if I’d known that Lymond fellow was out of action.”

“Yes. Bad luck,” said Gideon. “Willie—d’you mind if I leave now instead of tomorrow? I could call in on Kate on my way.”

“On your way?” said Grey indulgently. “Twenty miles out of it, I should have thought. But never mind. That’s husbands for you: I’ve done the same myself. All right. Give her my love.”

“Yes, I will,” said Gideon, and slipped out, calling for his man. He was on the road in less than an hour; and by next day, Tuesday, the nineteenth of June, he was home at Flaw Valleys.

L
YMOND recovered from his wound with characteristic rapidity; from the beginning, in fact, he acted as if it did not exist, and Kate was perfectly willing to do the same.

A frangible and archaic courtesy reigned at Flaw Valleys. Katherine forbade none of its offices to her guest: he was under permanent escort, but free to wander where he chose. At her request, he shared her table and occasionally her parlour. His unspoken resistance to the situation delighted her, as did the way he dealt with it.

He set the tenor for their encounters the first morning after the incident with Charles. He unlocked his door, made some necessary apologies and conformed to the reigning atmosphere of frigid politeness.

Kate, however, was only choosing her weapons. By suppertime on Friday, and after four days of shrewd observation, she opened fire.
“I notice,” she said, passing the salt, “that you were outside today. Did you meet Philippa?”

Lymond accepted the condiment, but not the challenge. “We had a few words,” he said. “She is a—striking young person already.”

Kate helped herself. “We think so. What did she say to you?”

“Her remarks were few and deflatory,” he said. This was an understatement, as Kate knew very well. She observed, “I’m afraid she’s being rather unresponsive. We’ve been trying to teach her to feel sorry for you. I do dislike personal hatreds in a child.”

This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. “Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better.”

Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye. “That would make her sorry for you?”

“It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don’t you think?”

“Snakes don’t,” said Katherine inconsequently. “I hate snakes.”

“And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves.”

“Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can’t have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves.”

“It does if you handle it by rattling back. I’ve no objection, you know to practising the social arts.”

Kate viewed him suspiciously. “I don’t see why I should abandon my entertainment because of your conscience.”

“It isn’t quite conscience so much as horrified admiration,” said Lymond. “From cuticle to corium in four days.”

“You have to be quick with them. They grow another skin. I thought it mightn’t be conscience,” said Kate, collecting platters.

He was gazing down at the table. “I really can’t go on apologizing. It would be too monotonous.”

Kate, taking a dish from the cupboard, halted beside him. “You don’t owe me anything, except a little amusement. Why not bite back?”

“Because,” said Lymond, lifting his eyes suddenly, “I’m a constant practitioner of the art and you are not.”

“I don’t mind,” said Kate wistfully. “Won’t you bite?”

“Like a shark. It’s a habit. And habits are hell’s own substitute for good intentions. Habits are the ruin of ambition, of initiative,
of imagination. They’re the curse of marriage and the after-bane of death.”

Katherine surveyed the indifferent face critically. “For an advocate of chaos, you’re quite convincing. There is such a thing, you know, as habitual disorder—as of course you know: few have had such a permanently unsettled regime as you have. Suppose you had a chance to lead a normal life?”

“Let’s leave my sordid affairs out of this, shall we?” he said. “You’ve missed a point. There’s a nice difference between rootless excitement and careful variety.”

“If I can’t be personal, I don’t want to argue,” said his hostess categorically. “I may be missing your points, but you’re much too busy dodging mine.”

“Yours aren’t points, they’re probangs. I don’t see why I should help.”

“I do. Because Gideon would help cook his father if the cannibal quoted poetry at him,” said Kate.

“And I have drunk of Castalia as well as bathed in it.”

“It was Charles who bathed in it, as I recall. I forgot,” said Kate sardonically. “You like your privacy. My apologies for scrabbling round the edges in an undignified way. Pay no attention. Grimalkin goes quavering back to the chimney piece.”

The long, slender fingers tightened about the salt cellar. “Leave it, can’t you?” said Lymond softly.

There was fiat challenge in Kate’s rigid spine. “Is there any reason why I should? I want—”

He interrupted her, pushing away the heavy silver vessel so that it slid precisely, like a curling stone, into the centre of the board between them.

“What you want is very clear. You want my confidence. If you can’t have that, you want to goad me into making admissions about myself. If you can’t have that, you use moral pressure. I’m quite conscious of my obligations and misdemeanours toward the members of your family. I disagree about the mode of compensation, that’s all.”

Her cheeks were scarlet. “Mr. Crawford, I really doubt if you’re in a position to agree or disagree about anything.”

The impatient, ruthless gaze lifted to hers. “Nor do I need to be reminded. You may expose me; you may baulk me. I’ve no remedy.”

“If you prize reticence more than your life,” said Kate dryly, “then you’re certainly beyond remedy.”

“Reticence? No,” he said. “But I prize freedom of the mind above freedom of the body. I claim the right to make my own mistakes and keep quiet about them. You have all the licence in the world to protect your husband. My life is at your disposal, but not my thoughts.”

“Dear me,” said Kate, rising. “I doubt if I could stomach your thoughts. It was just a few basic facts I was thinking of, such as whether you were one of these people who can eat goose eggs. The creatures keep laying them: an appalling habit, but we can’t break it.”

Untenable positions were not for Kate. His mouth relaxed, and he rose smoothly and opened the door for her, laughter lines gathering at the corners of the veiled eyes. “I thought the conversation was cutting an ovoid track. I wouldn’t for the world deprive you of the last bite.”

“Thank you,” said Kate. “If we’re referring to snakes. Not if you’re talking about fish.”

“Pythonissa,” retorted Lymond, and unexpectedly smiled.

*  *  *

She conceded him his victory.

In the days that followed, she did no more probing; partly because she now saw that these ferretings had no relation to the level on which his mind worked; and partly because his wits were too sharp. She could tire him; she could anger him. Four days had taught her that she could nearly shake his self-control and that he was himself shaken and dismayed by his weakening grip of himself. But she could never override him, and she stopped attempting it.

He had tried, she knew, to come to terms with Philippa, but without success. On the last occasion he had entered the music room, roving as he often did to the window; and after a moment, idly picked up Philippa’s lute which lay there.

He had forgotten, obviously, that Kate’s room opened from this one. She had been resting; and although during these last ten days she had found him civilized and undemanding company, she stayed where she was to avoid embarrassing them both. Thus she was able to hear the sweet, preoccupied roulades of the lute, and the crash
of Philippa’s eruption into the room. The child stopped just inside the door, as her mother, opening her own door a judicious half inch, was able to see.

“That’s mine!” said Philippa. “That’s my lute you’re playing!”

Lymond laid the instrument gently down, and sat himself before Gideon’s harpsichord. “Lute
and
harpsichord?” he said. “That’s pretty erudite of you.”

The child pushed back her long hair. It was uncombed, and the hem of her gown, Kate was sorry to see, was grey with dust. Philippa said belligerently, “I can play the rebec as well.”

“Oh?”

“And the recorder.”

Philippa! Philippa! said Kate to herself, grinning. Lymond turned to the harpsichord. “Then you’re the person I want to see. Which d’you like playing best?”

“The lute.” The voice of ownership.

“Then,” said Lymond, rousing the keyboard to delicate life, “tell me how this finishes. I never could find out.”

It was only
L’homme armé;
a tune Philippa had certainly heard in her cradle and was bound to know every note of. She sauntered across the room.

“It’s
L’homme armé.”

“I know. But how does it go on?”

She sidled past. “I don’t know.”

The harpsichord rang with jubilation. “Try.”

Kate could see the pull of the music in her daughter’s eyes; she could imagine the fascination of those magic fingers. Philippa’s arm shot out. She trapped the lute like an insect-eater trapping a fly, and flew to the door, panting.

“That’s my father’s instrument,” she shouted. “You’re not to touch it! Leave my father and my mother alone. Nobody wants you here!”

Kate was afraid for her. Her hand tightened on the door, but the music didn’t stop, although it fell to a murmur. Lymond’s voice said quietly, “Don’t you want me to play?” There sall be mirth, said the harpsichord. There sall be mirth at our meeting.

Philippa looked at him with her mother’s eyes. “No!” she cried. “I hate you!” And clutching her lute, she did indeed run from the room.

The music stopped, and there was a long silence. After a time, Kate slipped through the door.

He was still there, looking unseeing downward, his head on one hand. Then, politely rueful, he saw her. “You see! I’m out of practice, I know; but the effect must be worse than I thought.”

She sat down, her eyes on him. “Who taught you?”

“My mother, first. My father thought that not only did music make men mad, but that only madmen indulged in it in the first place.”

“Then you inherit your military talents from him, perhaps?” said Kate idly. “Not many musicians contrive to be the toast of the Wapenshaws as well.”

“Some do: witness Jamie’s drummer who whipped the English off the butts. I never achieved anything spectacular of that sort; I never cared for it.” He ran one hand down the keyboard. “My brother is the athlete.”

“He’s an archer?”

“Sword or bow. He excels at both.”

So there was a brother. “There is such a thing as a born eye for athletics,” observed Kate. “Two of a kind in one family would be a bit trying. It’s probably just as well for the sake of peace that you were differently gifted.”