Mistress of mistresses (49 page)

'Because
it is your way, I like it,' he said. ‘I love you,' he said, 'beyond time and
circumstance.'

She
put out an arm, and with that about his neck drew his face down to hers, warm
with sleep, upon the pillow.

XIX

Lightning
Out of Fingiswold

the first flash
 
quelling of the free towns
 
lessingham
between pincers
 
battle before leveringay
 
march of the lord jeronimy
 
battle of ridinghead
 
peace given to the
admiral
 
storm and tempest at rivershaws
 
the second flash
 
eclipse and darkness.

Lessingham
came
south over the Wold by great journeys and on the fifth day of April passed by
the land-march into Rerek. He had with him barely a thousand horse, but not a
man of them that was not proven in war, headstrong, bloody, and violent, and of
long custom bound to his obedience, not as water-spaniels but as the hand is
stirred to obey the mind: of his own following, the most of them, six and seven
years gone, when the great King warred down Akkama. Of like temper were his
captains of troops: Brandremart, Gayllard, Hortensius, Bezardes: all, like as
the Captain-General's self, in the lusty flower of their youth, and such as
would set no more by the life of a man, nor have no more pity thereof, than of
the lives of partridges or quails which be taken in season to eat. Amaury he
left in Rialmar, to be eye, ear, and hand for him in those northern parts.
Gabriel Flores had set forth alone (supposed for Laimak) in advance, the very
morrow of that banquet. So
now
Lessingham halted in the fortress of Megra, and held counsel of war.

And
first because the free towns in these outlaid parts should learn to fear him,
nor trust too securely in the princes of the north, Ercles and Aramond, that
still cloaked them underneath their wings, and because he would secure his rear
and left flank a little ere adventure far south with an army that was all head
and very little body, he rode in a sudden foray south to Abaraima. Here had
Ercles last summer put down the captal and other great men that held the city
in the Vicar's interest, and in their rooms placed other his own creatures. But
the more part of the townsfolk, who passed nothing on Prince Ercles and much
less passed they on the Vicar, but desired nothing better than be let live at
ease with their pleasant houses and gardens and fishponds and wives and
children and delicate dogs and beasts tamed to the hand which they have
in deliciis,
beholding this army suddenly at their gates, and
knowing their defences weak, and hearing now the word of Lessingham that if
they were taken by force they should all die and the town burnt and spoiled
without mercy, upon that present terror threw open their gates to him.
Lessingham, that was well served by intelligencers here as otherwhere these
many months past, and judged, both from these and from his own seeing and
hearing, the temper and inclination of the people, sternly withheld his
soldiers from all cruelty against them so as not a man should suffer harm
whether of body or goods. Only some few towers he flatted to the ground, and
seized those principal persons, unquiet, busy, and high-climbing spirits, who
had sided themselves and sworn to Ercles. These, to the number of seven, he
caused to be brought before him in the great paven square before the
courthouse, where he, armed from heel to throat in black armour and with all
his soldiers arrayed under weapons about him, sat in state. Whereupon, after
proclamation at large of their fault, these seven were by his command thrown
down and unheaded with axes and so hanged along the wall in that place, for a
warning to who would be warned. Which being done, and a baily and officers
brought in and sworn in name of the Lord Horius Parry to the Queen's
allegiance, Lessingham wore no more these dreadful looks but showed himself so
cheerfully that' within a few days' time every man in that city was joyful to
behold him. Well nigh a hundred horse were added to him now, gathered of their
own free will from Abaraima and the townships thereabout.

But
barely seven days tarried Lessingham in Abaraima: then, for a knock of the iron
gauntlet upon Aramond's door to let him know the Queen's Captain-General was
afoot now and to be reckoned withal, he turned upon the sudden eastwards and in
a day's hard riding came through the hills of the Mortelf down upon the rich
open city of Bagort. This is the quiet heart of Aramond's country: a
mediterrane or inland secret valley where not in twenty years till that day had
an enemy's foot trodden; so that they listened secure to all rumours of unpeace
without; and here had Prince Aramond his delicate lodge beside the salt lakes
of Methmarsk. And here, in his unprepared idleness and with but a very small
force at hand, the prince had but time to take boat and escape down the lake
ere Lessingham's black riders were in the city. Lessingham took great store of
minted money and precious stones and costly treasure besides, and took away too
all weapons and armour he might come by, but theNown he spared, and seeing they
made no defence against hirrr- there was no man lost his life there. In Bagort
he stayed three nights and refreshed his army, and upon Wednesday the
eighteenth of April departed again by the same way west to Abaraima.

Upon
Saturday night he stood with his army before Veiring gates. Here was Roquez nigh
a twelvemonth set in power by Ercles after much strife and blood-letting: his
wife a Meszrian, cousin german to the Lord Melates she was a cruel lady, and
had of late so wrought with Roquez and, through him, with them of the prince's
party as that they were in purpose shortly to do somewhat against such as they
loved not, that the streets should run again with blood. Lessingham sent in a
herald under safe conduct to speak with them at the barriers, straitly
enjoining them, on pain of their lives and goods and to be reputed enemies of
the Queen's highness, that they should deliver up the town to him as
Captain-General, and that within the space of one hour after the morrow's
sunrise. Which Roquez denying, and speaking great words against him, there beean
to be a tumult in the town all ni^ht. and they of the Vicar's upholding rose up
and made head against Roquez; in so much that a little before sunrise, while
the issue stood yet in doubt, some suddenly surprising a gatehouse opened the
gates to Lessingham. But when Lessingham and his were come in to help them,
then almost nothing held against them. In that battle fell Roquez, and when
they of his following knew this, in despair of speed they gave back till they
were come to the keep and there shut themselves in and shot from the walls and
loop-holes. Lessingham let fetch wood and firing to burn them up; so, when the
fire began to take and they saw there was nought to do but surrender
themselves, they came down and surrendered to his discretion.

In
those days was Veiring a strong town as for walls, being by nature well
postured too in a bend of the river, whereby it is from three sides hard to
come at. But in length and breadth within the walls and in number of folk that
dwell therein it is but as a platter to a table-top as beside Telia or
Abaraima. Lessingham made but short work, after the taking of the keep, of
quieting the town. With the late ruling party he had little trouble: ready
enough were they to go each to his own house and fare with hidden head, not to
draw eyes which might single him out for retribution. But they that had been
for the Vicar, seeing good harvest now beyond hope or dreams, ^and the readier
because of that to make haste to cut it down and in it, began like jack sauces
to jet the Streets, quick to beat or kill any that should displease them or
withsay anything that they would do. Even in the eye of the Captain-General's
self or his own men-at-arms, as at great dogs little tykes should snar, would
these flaunt their roynish fashions, their bawdry, and their insolences. To end
it, Lessingham proclaimed upon trumpets through and about the town that whoso,
save only soldiers of his, should after the third hour before noon be found in
the streets with weapon upon him, were it but a hand-dagger, that should be his
death. By noon had a score been hanged in the streets for this offence: 'twixt
noon and mid-even, two more. That ended it. Of general turmoil indeed, there
was none later than breakfast-time, when there gathered a band together before
Roquez's house supposing to have had out his lady, who with some of her
household there sought safety, and quite her for those things they thought she
had devised against them. But Lessingham, riding to and about with a troop of
horse, so that while yet any spark smouldered of disorder he might with his own
eye see it to tread it out, came thither, as God would have it, in the nick of
time when they had beat in the door and were upon dragging her forth. He, upon
sight of such a beastish act against a lady, was as if taken in berserk-gang:
with bloody rage suddenly surprised them as he had been a wolf or a lion, and
in such good coin paid them, that seven men shortly lay dead or bleeding under
his feet as with one arm he bore off that lady, harmless but swooning, while in
his other hand the reddened sword boded ill to any man that would nigh him
near. Next morning Lessingham sent her with a conduct over land to Megra, for
safety until means should offer for her faring south to Meszria to her kith and
kin. He set Meron in Roquez's stead, captain of Veiring, and, because of the
fury of their factions there, left him fifty horse to his bodyguard and to cow
them. Three-and-thirty citizens of Ercles' faction Lessingham condemned to
exile perpetual with loss of all their belongings: two hundred more to like
banishment, but with leave to carry away their goods and chattels. Five he sent
to be hewn of their heads in the public market-place; two of whom suffered that
punishment not as traitors to the Vicar, but for divers outrages and cruelties
acted by them out of private malice upon Lessingham's entry into Veiring and
under cover of their espousing of his cause. It was the talk of men that
Lessingham had shown by his dealings in Veiring that he was a lord both just
and fearless, and wise besides and merciful, and terrible besides in season.
And now was good settled peace in Veiling as had not been for many a year.

It
being now near the fourth week ended since he came down from the Wold, and news
of these doings flown before him about the countryside, he made haste to
depart out of Veiring by the highway southward. The second of May he came to
Lailma which opened gates to him: and here came word to him that Ercles himself
was come down from Eldir and held the Swaleback passage by the shore of
Arrowfirth. Next day Lessingham moved south, going gingerly with espials before
him to feel the way, and pitched for the night a little beside Memmering, where
steep and stony hills, covered all with thick-grown trackless forest, begin to
close in westwards toward the sea shore. Here in the morning he had sure
tidings that the prince was fallen back southwards. But while he waited to
satisfy himself of this, came Daiman, ridden in huge haste from Telia upon word
brought thither of Lessingham's march south, with this news now: that the lord
Admiral was come round about by sea from Kessarey up to Kaima and was there
disembarked the week before with a great army of as some said three thousand,
others four thousand, men. Lessingham upon these tidings resolved, now that
the passages of Swaleback were opened to
h
i
m
, swiftly and at all
hazards to come through; seeing that if with so great forces they should once be
closed against him he were as good pack home again to Rialmar. Upon which
resolution, he struck camp and came, without sight or rumour of an enemy,
through the highway past the head of the firth and pitched in strong ground
rising amid open fields apt to the use of horse-soldiers some five miles west
of Eldir.

JHe
stood now in this case. Ercles, not with a handful of horse, as had at first
been bruited, but with an army more than two thousand strong, was retired not
to his hill fortress of Eldir but to Leveringay, seven leagues or more to the
south, where, astride of the main high road southwards, he awaited Lessingham,
and in the mean time burned and harried that countryside where folk yet held
firm for the Vicar. Upon the other part, west-away, the Admiral was reported
moving leisurely up the wide lowland vales of Fitheryside. Between these
forces, each by much outnumbering his own, was Lessingham now in danger to be
taken as the nut in the crackers; or if, eluding Ercles, he should escape away
southwards, then to be shut in betwixt their united power and the Chancellor's
that maintained siege before Laimak. All weighed, he chose to fight both; and
Ercles first, the rather for two respects: the one, for that Ercles lay the
nigher at hand, the other, because they that dwelt about Leveringay and
Mornagay were of a tried loyalty, and, a victory once had there, they were like
to take heart and flock to the Queen's banner. But now, going about to fight
Ercles, he was resolved that the time and ground and manner of their fighting
should be not Ercles's but his.