Mistress of mistresses (46 page)

The
Queen, in a dress netted and laced with gold upon a groundwork of silk, sombre
orange-scarlet of bog-asphodel in seeding time, and in her hair a high comb of
tortoise-shell edged with balls of yellow sapphire, and about her throat a delicate
cream-white ruff with setting-sticks of silver, sat in the high-seat:
Lessingham upon her right as representing the Lord Protector and upon her left
the old knight marshal. Beyond Lessingham the Princess Zenianthe had place, and
beyond Bodenay the Countess of Tasmar: these and a few more only in place of
honour upon the cross-bench and the rest of the company at the long tables,
facing inwards with their backs to the walls. All the space between tables was
kept clear for service of the banquet.

Two
weeks' time or three, then, Captain-General,' said the Queen, 'and you mean to
fare south?'

'Two
weeks come to-morrow, with your serene highness' leave,' answered Lessingham.
'My Lord Bodenay and I,' he said, leaning a little forward to include the
knight marshal and speaking low, not to reach the general ear, 'have baked so
well as we shall ask you, madam, summon a meeting to-morrow of your inner
council upon the whole matter to condescend.'

'And
what within the pie, then, when we shall cut it?'

'A
journey for me south and then, say in a three months' time, north again, upon
your highness's business.' He glanced carelessly about him to make sure of no
eavesdropping. 'In a word, madam, we shall advise you that he whose insolencies
you so wittily and wisely bore
with last summer is rope-ripe:
so—'                                           
~~~

'O
if little cur-dogs must be whipped,' said the Queen, I whipped him last
September.'

Bodenay
shook his head. 'Ah, madam, not the boy only, but that land and folk he standeth
for. There is danger thence. And my Lord Lessingham will tell your serenity
'tis a maxim of great captains and men of charge: best defence is strike
first.'

'We
will take your highness' pleasure to-morrow,' said Lessingham. ‘I hope you will
let the thing go forward. A people that have so soon forgot their lesson, and
of an old enmity towards us, kinged by a scorpion, unquiet as locusts: 'tis but
plain prudence, outwar and subdue them this summer and lay them to your
dominion. And my mission now to raise and bring you great armies from the
south, and the Lord Protector's self (that were good if I can compass it) to
command them.'

"That
giveth you your date, Myrilla,' said the Countess Heterasmene, holding out her
fingers above a golden bowl for a waiting-man to pour over them water of roses.
'If my Lord Lessingham will take his lieutenant into Rerek, you will have even
just ten days to become weary of your new-wedded lord.'

'Yes,
and you see in this, madam,' said Amaury, 'how well the fates have devised for
my good. For indeed I have kept me in with a lady ere this for a month may be;
and, as modest as I am, I dare think I shall not be out with my Lady Myrilla
within ten days, albeit a week longer might strain things.'

'I'll
stop your mouth: no, not as you'd have it, but thus,' said Myrilla, sitting
next him, and made a dab at it with a piece of marchpane. They laughed, and
Lessingham said apart to the Queen: 'Your highness was well advised to make
this marriage up. The Admiral is a man of safe anchorage. Ties of affinity
'twixt him and Amaury will do much to settle friendships.'

'Lieutenant,'
said the Queen, 'we will set forward your wedding a day or two: see if two days
more may do it.'.

Amaury,
a little outmatched and put to silence with so many eyes upon him, laughed as
for courtesy sake, turned red, and stroked his mustachios. From this abashment
he was delivered by a beck from Lessingham: stood up with a by-your-leave to
his lady, and went to him. The Queen's sergeant of arms was behind Lessingham's
chair: '
—wMteth
without, and craveth instant speech with your
excellence to deliver it.' 'What's the fool's secret news?' said Lessingham:
'well, if it will not wait, go to him, Amaury. Be eye, ear, conscience, for me:
bid him confide in you.'

In
a few minutes Amaury came back. 'My lord, the key fits not. Will say nought to
me save that 'tis matter of fieriest urgency, and but for your particular ear.
Hath letters too, as I suppose from the Vicar, but these too only to be given
up into your very hand.'

'From
Laimak?' said the Queen. 'But shall we not make room for him?'

'With
respect no,' Lessingham said. 'I know the man: a domestic of my noble cousin's
much used by him upon matters of weight and exact import: one Gabriel Flores.
If it please your serenity he be given supper in the buttery, I'll despatch his
business anon.'

'See
to it,' said she. And the banquet proceeded.

When
it was now mid-part done, and cups began to be borne round of Rian wine, and
upon golden dishes macaroons, sallets of violet petals, and the conserve that
is made of the flowers of marigolds confectioned with curious cookery,
Lessingham upon leave given him by the Queen went from table and forth into a
certain upper room, having sent word before to Gabriel to attend him there if
he desired his conference. 'Marked you that strange trick of the lights,
cousin?' said the Queen, 'how, as the Captain-General walked 'twixt table and
wall, the things upon the wall seemed to wave their paws as he passed, and grin
as they would have eat him?'

'It
is a trick of the lights,' answered that hamadryad Princess; 'and your highness
has seen it before.'

The
Queen turned now, in merry talk as before, to the old knight marshal upon her
left, and to Tyarchus and Heterasmene and old Madam Tasmar.

'In
what estate left you his highness?' said Lessingham, taking from Gabriel the
despatch and sitting in a great oak chair with a lamp beside it while he undid
the seal. Gabriel stood before him with an anxious pinched look upon his face.
'I pray you read first,' he said.

Lessingham
read it swiftly, then turned again to the beginning and read it again, slowly,
as if to confer and weigh each word; then with a delicate deliberation folded
it again: with a sudden movement tossed it to lie beside him on the table, and
so sat motionless for a minute, leaning forward, right hand on hip, left elbow
on knee, his finger-nails drumming a marching lilt on his front teeth. In the
side-shining of the lamp across Lessingham's face Gabriel could see the eyes of
him in that stillness: unrevealing eyes, as if the mind behind them had sounded
deep to meditate with itself. Then suddenly in those speckled grey eyes of
Lessingham there danced something as if in a round of dancing girls should be
glittered -forth in advance some triumph.

He
sat up, erect. In all his presence there dwelt that sense of abidingness, which
is in the steady glitter and conflict, shining still stones and shining ever-churning
ever-fleeting waves and eddies, of some watersmeet where two rivers run between
green shades of oak and ash and alder, and the banks of water-worn boulders and
pebbly granite shingle lie white about that murmur under the power of the sun.
'Well, good pug,' said he, *you are acquainted with all this?'

'It
is took down from his highness' mouth, and in my own character which I think is
known to your lordship.'

'How
comes it I am told nought of this before? Despatches two a month, good as
clock-work, as if all's well, sailing fair with wind and tide: then sudden this
turn: the whole boat upset; Meszria lost us and the March too: says great men
hath late assembled from all the land over, offering 'pon some lying rumour of
her highness' death (pray Gods forfend the omen!) the throne to her brother
Barganax: Laimak close invested, and like to be smoked out of it as boys take a
wasps' nest. Who heard the like? And screameth now for me to pick him out of
this pot of treacle the Devil only and he know why a hath fallen in't. By my
soul, I am well minded let him stay there.'

"Tis
his great pride, said Gabriel. 'Would not ask your help till need drove him to
it. Fed you, it is true, with figments and fittons and leasings to keep you
here in Fingiswold. You will belie your greatness if now in his sore need you
will upon such pretexts refuse him.'

'Flatter
not yourself, and your master, to suppose,' said Lessingham, 'that I am a
child, with no more means of intelligence but such advertisements as he shall
think good to send me. It is true, my news is three weeks, or may be a month,
behind yours: I much fear a messenger hath miscarried this last journey,
fallen into Prince Ercles' claws, like enough, under Eldir. Howe'er it be, I am
six weeks away, so tell me. And forget not this, my pug,' said he, as Gabriel
cast a sheep's eye at him, 'if I shall take you lying to me or hiding aught,
not you alone will smart for it.'

'Well,
this your excellence knows, as I judge,' said Gabriel: 'the bloody inrush into
Kutarmish of the accursed bastard—'

'When
you speak to me of great men,' said Lessingham, 'speak with respect, be it
friend or unfriend, and with just titles of honour. I'll have you flogged
else.'

'The
bloody inrush of his grace of Zayana,' Gabriel said with a snarling look, the
teeth gabbing out of his mouth. 'And sweet doings there. Lord Roder ta'en and
strapped in a big chair, open in the market-place, and a lad with a sword
ground to a good edge: swash and away, head him like a pig, and all the
sight-gazers to see it; and justly rewarded so, or why did a not hold better
watch on the gates and all the treasure and goods his highness lost there? and
himself too might a miscarried, intending for Kutarmish,—'

'Leave
particularities. I know all this.'

'And
the Admiral gone over, heard you that? (mid January, that was), hand and glove
to the Duke's allegiance?'

'That
I knew not till I read this letter,' said Lessingham. 'Nor, till then, of the
Chancellor: last news was he yet wavered.'

'Your
lordship's intelligence was eight weeks stale 'pon the one, and three weeks
'pon t'other. As for my lord Chancellor, seemeth that when a had lodged himself
safe in Argyanna, a sent for his learned books out of Zayana, whistled to him
from all the three kingdoms a dozen doctorable men, legists, sophisters,
whate'er to call 'em, and set 'em down to ferret him out colourable reasons for
what, you may make no doubt, if you know a fox by's furred tail, a was all the
time resolved to do. You may wager their reasons had taken water: rotten ere
they might come to shore. Howso, found him the thing he asked for. Cometh out
then, smooth-tongued as a dancing-madam, with item this, item that, as pretty
as you could wish: conclusion, Barganax rightly called King as in male descent,
and—to make all sure, if this false report of the Queen's decease, hatched up,
as 'tis thought, by that Barganax'—('Have I not warned you?' said Lessingham)
—'by that Duke, to give colour to his usurping: to make all sure, if this
report be shown without contradiction false—some reputed law dug up out o' the
dust-heaps of two centuries past to say females shall not hold kingdom in
Fingiswold: thus even so securing him in's usurpation, and prefer his bastard
blood before her birth noble.'

Lessingham
rose from his chair: took a turn or two about the room, stroking his beard.
Gabriel with little swinish eyes watched him eagerly. ‘I was hard put to it to
a come through to your excellence,' he said after a while: Vhat with their
armies set down before Laimak, and then those princes in the north that this
Duke feed-eth with his gold to countermand his highness' will and check his
friends: do gather a power of men too.

Arcastus
durst not trust his nose outside Megra walls. I know not, my lord, if you have
such force as that you can keep such curs in awe, to come through them?'

Lessingham
stopped by the table, took up the Vicar's letter, perused it again, laid it by,
then stood looking down upon Gabriel with a disturbing smile. 'Your chickens,
my little Gabriel, are not yet hatched. And for my intents in this pass your
lord hath brought himself unto, you might more easily guess their drift if the
ability were given you to look men in the eye.'

'Nay,'
said he looking and looking away: *your worship hath an eye to shine down basilisks.
I can't abear it.'

Lessingham
laughed. It was as if from a waiting-place above the watersmeet a sea-eagle had
stooped: feinted: resumed his waiting.

Gabriel
thrust out his chin and came a step nearer, looking down and tracing with one
finger, while he spoke, rings and crosses on the corner of the table. ‘I would
your noble excellence could a seen what I have seen,' he said: 'these six
weeks. No more o' this lukewarmth then, I dare wager my head. Great men 'gainst
great odds in my day have I seen, but never as this. The undutiful and
traitorous affection borne against him by these lords, the more it drew men
from him, made shrink his armies, disappoint his designs, the more would he
give 'em still lill for loll. It is a world to see him. With but a thousand
men, made a great stroke in the western Marches and then, when that Chancellor
thought to a closed him in between Fiveways and the Zenner, marched sudden
round his flank, then north-about by night, catched Melates 'pon a foray into
Rerek, made him eat lamb-pie. And later, shut up in Laimak with the leavings of
his army, and six times his numbers barking like midden tykes at's doors but
e'en so durst not come at grips: scarce a day but out he cometh with a sally,
ever himself i' the front to lead it: does 'em some hurt, fetch in provisions,
slay some men, what not' He ceased, his finger still fiddling on the table's
corner. Suddenly he looked up, met Lessingham's eye, avoided it: with a gowked
movement grabbed at Lessingham's hand and kissed it. Lessingham, as if
strangely touched and ill at ease with such a homage from such a suppliant,
took away his hand. 'You shall have your answer to-morrow,' he said; and so
dismissing him returned to the banquet-chamber.