Mistress of mistresses (42 page)

The
Chancellor, when he had read it, stood yet for a minute looking down on it, his
brow a little clouded, the proud lineaments of his face a little colder drawn
than of custom, with a tightening now and again about the lips especially and
the wings of his nostrils. The Admiral smiled: a mirthless smile: then blew out
his cheeks. 'This is bull tread panther, in a manner. Are we too late?'

'His
grace,' answered Barrian, 'hath in this bay borne himself beyond example—not
nobly: when was he less than noble?—but beyond example calm. And not for lack
of egging on, neither; for I and his most friends think it better that men envy
him than that he should stand at reward of their pity. But was in a most happy
and merry vein when this news found him; and, the first rage over and past,
sent thus to you, and to you, my lord Chancellor, to call upon you both in
person now to mediate his peace with the Vicar; who if he give not back from
this last proud mock, the whole realm must shortly squelter with bloody wars;
for this thing his grace will not swallow but thrust it down the Vicar's throat
again.'

The
Admiral said, 'Pray him for all sakes use yet a little this noble patience.
Tell him I'll come to him.'

'He
bade me offer you this: a meeting-place halfway, in Peraz.'

'Five
days from to-morrow,' replied the Admiral, 'that's on Wednesday, expect me in
Peraz, there to confer with his grace upon best means to use.'

'Can
I assure him', asked Barrian, 'of your friendship? You will easily suppose, my
lords, upon what an edge is all now poised in Zayana, and how much lieth on
what I must report. "Tell them," he bade me (last words at parting),
"tell them I'll play fair: but tell them, by the Gods in heaven, I'll not
be played with."'

Jeronimy's
eye waited on the Chancellor. The Chancellor said, 'The thing is flatly
against the Concordat of Ilkis. I stand upon the law, upon that Concordat. Tell
the Duke so, my lord, from me.'

The
Admiral said, 'And the like from me, Lord Barrian.'

'Your
excellences are to-be thanked, then. But, being thus agreed, were't not fittest
act? A little slacking may all our purposes let. Sudden, and we may end it.'

The
Chancellor smiled. 'We offer him first the law,' he said; 'and not till that
fail use open violence.'

'Ay.
I have fallen down, ere this,' said the Admiral, 'in these civil broils; and
that was always upon unripe heady action.' In the dog-like open honesty of his
regard there came a twinkle as it rested on Barrian. 'And say to him, too, if
he with his high-horsed frenzies o'erset the pot before we be met in Peraz,
then am I free of my bond, to do as shall seem me fit.'

Barrian,
a little damped, looked from one to the other, then gripped them by the hand in
turn. 'I will begone back this very hour. Sleep in Ulba, thence by the Salimat:
I can be in Zayana by Sunday evening. I pray you, my lord Admiral, fail not
tryst.'

He
being gone, 'When mean you to set forth for Peraz?' asked the Lord Beroald.

'Why,
to-morrow, and leisurely by land, not to hazard delays in this rageous wind.
Will not you come too? For 'twill need seamanship, in a manner, to handle him
safely, under full sail as he is and with such young hare-brained counsellors
as this, to blow him on the rocks.'

The
Chancellor drew up his lips and smiled. 'If, with my own flesh and blood, my
word could weigh as much as for my years it should,' said he, 'I'd instead
through to Zayana. For there will she bewitch him with her beauty and dainty
seductive talk till he is as wrought up as if to storm heaven, let pass Laimak,
with the whirlwind inside him and flinging fiend of hell.'

xvii

The Ride
to Kutarmish

PERAZ,
AND FAIR SUNSHINING
 
A BLOODY ENCOUNTER
 
THE ROSE-LEAF GALLERY IN ZAYANA
 
MEDOR AND VANDERMAST
 
HER LADYSHIP SITS
 
FIRE-SHADOWS FROM AN UNSEEN MOUTH
 
MEMISON MIDNIGHTS
 
'WHEN SUCH A MUTUAL PAIR'
o
PAPHIAN
STILLNESS
 
OUR LADY OF SAKES
 
BIS DAT QUAE TARDE
 
THE DUKE, ANVIL NO MORE
 
THE VICAR WITHOUT AN ALLY.

Duly upon
the
set day was that meeting held in Peraz, of the Duke, the Admiral, and the
Chancellor. There all was accorded as among sworn brethren; and so next day, farewell
and they parted, the Duke riding home by easy stages, the long way, by Memison;
Medor with him and a dozen of his gentlemen. In a gay security he rode, all
doubts removed now, seeing they had sided in his behalf, Jeronimy and Beroald
both, in face of this last highblown overweening of the Vicar, in giving, thus
wrongfully and within the Duke's dominions, of land and licence to Count
Mandricard.

The
second day, about three of the afternoon, coming by the highway round the slack
of a hill where the road drops to the ford a little beside the out-fields and
muir-ground of Alzulma, they saw where men on horseback came up from the
river, and a big man in red in the midst of them. Barganax drew rein. They were
not near
enough to see faces.
'Were this Mandricard', he said, 'come to take delivery, that were a jest.'

'Let
us ride round', said Medor, 'by the upper road. Your grace will not wish at
this time to bandy words with them.'

'They
are more than we,' the Duke replied. 'Whoever they be, I desire no speech of
them, but by God, I will not turn out of the road for them.'

'This
upper road is better going,' said Medor.

'You
should a thought on that a minute sooner. If we turn now, and if here be
Mandricard indeed, they will say we were afeared to meet with them.'

As
they rode down, Medor said, 'I pray you yet remember but my lord Chancellor's
words at parting, that your grace should wait well that you take not the law
into your own hand: that, that provided, all should in a few weeks be carried
to a conclusion conducible unto your most contentment and honour.'

The
Duke laughed. 'Very well: 'tis commanded, no biting of thumbs. Untie your
swords, but 'pon pain of outlawry, no man speak till I speak. We will let them
go by and they will.'

So
now they began to ride down to the ford; which when those others beheld, as
though having seen it was the Duke and being willing to avoid a meeting, they
turned out of the road and bare away northwards at a walking-pace towards
Alzulma. But Barganax, knowing now the man in red for Mandricard, must needs,
against all protestations, send a gentleman to ride after them and pray the
Count turn back that they might have speech together apart from their folk.
They waited now, watching the messenger overtake the other party, doff hat to
Mandricard; then their talking, pointing, Mandricard as if refusing, the
other pressing, Mandricard at length consenting, seeming to give command,
turning his horse's head, and now riding with Barganax's man and a man of his
own back towards the road. 'This is to tempt the fates,' said Medor. The Duke
said, as merry as a magpie, ' 'Tis the most fortunate good hap: a heaven-sent
chance to show him I know he is here within my borders, nosing about Alzulma:
that I know he hath no right to be here: that I am so good and sober a prince
as will, even being dared with such an insolency as this, proceed all by law
and in nought by violence. Last, to show him I count him not worth a pease,
neither him nor his master.'

'Stand
ready, gentlemen,' said Medor, as the Duke rode away. 'When his heart is set
thus upon a merry pin, no staying him. But stand ready, see what they will do.'

The
Duke when they were met bade him good morrow. 'I had not heard your lordship
was doing us this honour to be our guest in the south here.'

Mandricard
answered and said, 'This meeting, my lord Duke, may save us both some pains.
His highness, I am informed, hath acquainted you of his intentions as touching
me. I have here,' and he drew out a parchment, 'licence to have and hold this
manor of Alzulma by grand sergeanty. See it, and you like: "letters of
legitimation made to the said Mandricard": 'tis sure and no question.
Brief, I am here to overlook the place, and 'tis for you to give order the keys
be now made over to me.'

'We
are indeed well met,' said the Duke; 'and I can save your pains. The thing you
hold in your hand, my lord, you may tear up: it is not worth the parchment 'tis
writ upon. The manor is mine, fiefed in the tail, and I'm sorry I have no mind
to give it you.'

'That
will help never a dell,' replied he. 'The Vicar gave it me, and bade me take it
up too.' He spat on the ground and glowered in a dull insolency at Barganax.

'I
am nowise bounden', said Barganax coldly, 'to reason with his highness' servants
on things that concern but me and him, well agreed as we are together, and our
agreement resteth upon law. Yet, to end the matter, know that, in refusing of
Alzulma to your lordship, I stand upon the law, and as read by my lord High
Chancellor.'

Mandricard
gave him a sour look and sat there spitting and spawling. 'Well, fare you
well,' said the Duke. 'And since your lordship is not a particular friend of
mine and hath besides no business here, save which is alleged by us not
loisible by the treaty, I will desire you to begone north again as soon as may
be.'

'May
be I shall find a mean to stay i' the south here.'

'You
stay then at your peril. Bethink you that you are now in Meszria: trust not
here in the shadow of Laimak.'

'I
know my liripoop without coming here to learn it,' said Mandricard as the Duke
began to move off.

Barganax
turned in his saddle and drew rein. 'And learn', he said, 'to do after another
fashion than to be thus malapertly cocking and billing with me that am your
better.'

Mandricard
gave him a buggish word. Barganax's sword leapt from the scabbard, his face
dark as blood. 'Fief in the tail?' said Mandricard as he drew. 'That's bungerly
law, damn me else: to the bastard of Zayana!'

'Dismount
and to it,' said the Duke. 'You are renowned to me as profoundly seen in all
arts of sword-play, else would I scorn to measure swords with such a buzzardly
beast.'

They
dismounted and went to it,
stoccata,
mandritta, imbroccata.
The
Duke's foot, sliding upon a stone, let Mandricard through his guard: a
flesh-wound in the muscles of his sword-arm above the elbow. They stopped to
bind it and stay the bleeding. His gentlemen prayed him give over now, but, as
if the hurt did but exasperate his wildness and fierceness, the Duke stood
forth again, his sword in his left hand.

'Have,
here it is then,' said Mandricard, feeling his enemy's mettle in his sword as
the blades engaged, controlled one another, ground together: 'it were alms you
were dead. I'll spitchcock you.' At the third venue Barganax with his unforeseen
sudden deadly
montanto
ended the passage, sending his sword through
Mandricard's throat-bole.

Upon
a Thursday of mid December, five weeks after these things, Count Medor, with
letters in his hand, waited in the long gallery under the west tower of
Acrozayana, expecting in a hot impatience audience with the Duke. The southern
sealand Meszrian air, that even at Yule-time has not laid by all its summer
burden, came and went through deep-mullioned sashed windows, twelve upon either
hand, the length of that gallery. Rosalura, in a window-seat midway down the
western side, reading her book, laid it again in her lap at whiles to look out
upon the prospect: bare tree-tops of the gardens below, and beyond these Zayana
lake, its face altering always between glassy expanse and patches where the
wind flawed it, and beyond it the woods and ridges folded about Memison. All
was white in that gallery, walls and floor and ceiling and marble frieze. Under
the western windows the sun began to make patterns on the floor; through the
eastern windows all was of a cold grey quietness, of the storeyed pillars of
the inner court, stone balconies, and long roof-line level against the sky.
'And yet best of all in summer,' she said, touching hands with Medor as he
paused beside her seat: 'when we have rose-leaves scattered in drifts over the
floor, and cool airs to stir them even in sultriest weather.'

To
and fro from door to door, Doctor Vandermast walked under the windows, passing
at every third footpace from sun to shadow and so to sun again. 'Four
o'clock?' said Medor; 'and it is now but two?'

'It
was upon strictest command.'