Mistress of mistresses (8 page)

When
he was passed by, Zapheles' spake again, he that had spoken second:
'Perfidiousness is a common waiter in most princes' courts.-And so, in your
ear, were't not for loyal obligement to a better man, I'd call it time to
serve, though late, our own interest: call in him you wot of: do him obedience,
'stead of these plaguish stewards and palace-scullions that, contrary to good
cupping-glasses, must affect and suck none but the best blood.'

Melates
looked warily round, ‘I taught you that, my lord: 'tis a fine toy, but in sober
sadness I am not capable of it. Nor you neither, I think.'

Zapheles
said, "Twill yet bear thinking on. You have here your natural sovereign
lord (o' the wrong side of the blanket may be; no matter, that's nor here nor
there); you yield him service and upholding: well. You look for quiet,
therefore, and to be lord of your own, being suffered to enjoy these borders
whereof you have right and particular dominion. Good: then behold your payment.
He is practised upon most devilishly; even ladies will shortly scoff and
prattle of it, that he is grown as tractable to't as stock-fish. You'll say
that's his concernment; in the midst of idleness and deliciousness, fanned with
the soft gales of his own flatterers' lips, he sitteth content. Good. But must
we take cold too, 'cause he hath given his cloak away? Must I smile and sit mum
(and here's a right instance hot upon me like new cakes) when that
Beroald taketh up a man I ne'er saw
nor heard on, took in his lordship's own private walks with a great poisoned
dagger in his breeches; a pretty thing it was, and meant beyond question for my
lord Chancellor; they hanged him where he stood, on a mulberry-tree; and,
'cause the vile murderer said with a lie that this was by County Zapheles his
setting on, I am at short warning cited before the justiciars to answer this;
and the Duke, when I appeal to him under ancient right of signiory to have the
proceedings quashed under plea of
ne
obstes
and carried before
him in person (which should but have upheld his authority, too much abridged
and bridled by these hireling office-nobility), counsels me kindly waive the
point of jurisdiction. And why? but that he will not be teased with these
matters; which yet ensueth neither the realm's good nor his.'

'To
amend which,' said Barrian, 'you and Melates would in plain treason give over
all to the Vicar?'

'Would
if we were wise,' replied Melates; 'but for fond loyalty sake, will not. May be,
too, he is loyal, and would not have us.'

Zapheles
laughed.

Barrian
said: 'Your own men would not follow you in such a bad
enterprise.'      

"Tis
very true,' said Zapheles. 'And indeed, were't otherwise, they should deserve
to be hanged.'

'And
you and I too,' said Melates.

'And
you and I too. Yet in the Parry you may behold a man that knoweth at least the
right trick to govern: do't through lords of land, like as we be, bounded to's
allegiance, not parchment lords of's own making.'

'Were
the Duke but stiffened to't!' said Melates. *You are his near friend, Barrian:
speak to him privately.'

'Ay,'
said Zapheles. 'Nay, I mock not: choose but the happy occasion. Say to him,
"You are Meszria: our centre whereto all lines come, all things look. Who
depriveth this merchandise of reverence, defaceth all lustre of it. To it,
then: out with Beroald, out with Roder and Jeronimy: throw the fowl to the
Devil that hatched it."'

'Great
and thumping words,' said Barrian. 'But 'tis mere truth a hath not the main
strength to do it and he would. But hist, here's the Chancellor.'

The
company by the door made way right and left with many courtesies and loutings,
which the Lord Beroald acknowledged with a cold and stately smile. His gait was
direct and soldierly, he carried his head like a mettled horse, and on his lean
countenance, flat in the cheekbones, wide between the eyes, clean cut about the
jaw, close shaven save for the bristly brown mustachios, sat that look which,
as lichens grow on rock-faces, comes but with years of constant lordship over
men and their long customed obedience. 'See how the spongy sycophants do hang
on his steps,' said Zapheles. 'You'd swear they feared he should have 'em
called in question for simple being here in Acrozayana. And the Duke will not put
down his foot, it shall soon come to this indeed; a main crime to do him this
empty courtesy, attend the weekly presences, without leave asked of this great
devil and his fellows. See how he and Jeronimy do draw to a point of secret
mischief as the lode-stone draweth iron.'

For
the Chancellor, ending now his progress up. the hall, was stood with the Lord
Jeronimy on the great carpet before the throne. To them, as presenting in
their high commission, along with Earl Roder, the King's very person and authority
in Meszria, was accorded these many years the freedom of the carpet; and that
was accorded to none other in all the land who was not of the Duke's own
household or of the ducal line of Memison.

'I
am glad to see you here, my lord Admiral,' said Beroald; 'and indeed it is a
joy I scarcely looked for: thrice in three weeks, and you were not formerly
given to great observance of this ceremony.'

The
Admiral looked at him with his dog-like eyes, smiled slowly, and said, 'I am
here to keep the peace.'

'And
I on the same errand,' said Beroald: 'and to please my lady sister. I would
have you look a little more starved, as I myself do study to do. It is nought
useful to remind him how we made new wood when the young King pruned away his
appanage.'

There's
that needs no reminding on,' said Jeronimy.

'Will
your lordship walk a little?' said Beroald, taking him by the arm, and, as they
paced slowly to and fro, cheek by cheek for convenience of private conference:
'I still do hear it opinioned that it was not without some note or touch of
malice these things were brought about; and you are named in that particular,
to have set the King's mind against him.'

Jeronimy
blew out his cheeks and shook his head. 'May be I was to blame; but 'twas in
the King's clear interest. I'd do it, were't to do again to-morrow.'

'This
country party love us the worse for it,' said Beroald.

'A
good housewife', answered Jeronimy, 'was ever held in bad report with moths and
spiders.'

'We
can show our teeth, and use them, if it were come to that,' said Beroald. 'But
that were questionable policy. Too many scales stand in too uncertain balance.
Roder's long tarrying in Rerek: I like it not, ha?'

'As
if the King should think he needed men there.'

'You
have no fresh despatches?'

'Not
since that I showed you, a-Thursday sennight.'

'That
was not so bad, methought. My lord Admiral, I have a question I would move to
you. Are we strong enough, think you, to hold off the Vicar if need were?'

Jeronimy
looked straight before him awhile; then, 'Yes,' he said: 'with the Duke of our
side.'

'You
have taken me?' said Beroald. 'Supposition is, things fall out worst
imaginable: war with him in Rerek, and the King's forces overthrown. You are
confident then?'

'With
the Duke of our side, and with right of our side, I should hope to do it.'

'I
too,' said the Chancellor, 'am of your opinion.'

'Well,
what's the matter?' The Lord Jeronimy came to a stop in his slow deliberate
pacing. A gentleman of his household waited below the carpet: he seemed short
of breath, as one that hath run a course: with a low leg he made obeisance,
drawing a packet from his doublet. Jeronimy came to him, took it, and looked
carefully at the seal with the gold-mounted perspective-glass that hung by a
fine chain about his neck. Men marked how his sallow face turned sallower.
'Just,' he said: 'it hath all the points in it.' He undid the seal and read the
letter, then handed it to Beroald; then, scowling upon the messenger: 'How
hapt, ninny-hammer, that you delivered this no sooner?'

'Lord,'
answered he, 'his lordship, all muddied from hard riding, did write it in your
own house; and upon his sudden injunction strung with threats and filthy
speeches innumerable, I did fly a-horseback and upon admittance at the
fortress gate did with such leaps flee up the stairs as I was in point to have
been laid hands on for
a
madman, so had all my charge miscarried.'

'Away
then: to him again and say I had it, and my lord Chancellor too.' Then, walking
apart once more with Beroald: 'We were best act on this, albeit to see us
openly on a sudden go from the chamber may give occasion that the people may
buzz and talk of it. Yet these commends do directly say we are in peril here
until he speak with us.'

'Roder,'
said Beroald, 'is not a man to start at his own shadow. Go we while the way's
yet open.'

Those
two lords, presenting to curious eyes a studied show of untroubled and careless
ease, were but even come forth to the grand staircase, when the lofty doors
clanged to behind them, and in the throne-room trumpets sounded a sennet. And
now in great pomp and splendour, an hour and a half past the just time of
audience, the Duke opened the presence. There went before him, entering by a
door behind the throne, six blacks with silver trumpets, sounding to the sennet
as aforesaid, and thirty peacocks, walking two by two with their tails
displayed, who, after their progress forth and back before the throne, ranged
themselves fifteen on either hand beneath the black onyx pillars, making with
their tails a screen of shimmering green and blue and gold. Medor, Egan, and
Vandermast, and a dozen other of the Duke's household, took each his appointed
station beside the throne, Medor in his bronze byrny with gorget and shoulder-pieces
inlaid with silver and bearing as symbol of his office a long double-handed
two-edged sword; and now the trumpets, after
a
long baying blast that seemed to shake the
gossamer tracery of the roof, suddenly fell silent as Barganax appeared.

His
kirtle was of corded silk, rose-coloured, slashed with velvet of a darker hue,
and gathered about the waist with a belt of sea-horse hide lapped at the edge
with thread of gold and bossed with balas rubies and cat's-eye chrysoberyls; he
had thick-woven silken hose of the like rose-colour, and a long cloak of dark
grey brocaded silk lined with cloth of silver; the collar of the cloak was of
black cormorants' feathers cunningly sewn and fitted to make an even
smoothness, cross-striped at every span with lines of rubies and fastened with
golden clasps. Yet was all this but shadows in water beside the man himself.
For, alike in his lithe tall frame, and in his carriage noble and debonair and
of a cat-like elegance, this Duke was beautiful to look upon beyond the example
of men; his skin marvellous fair and smooth, his hair the colour of burnished
copper, short and curly, his nose clean cut and straight, his brow wide, his
eyebrows sleek and thick and with a scarcely to be seen upward slant, that cast
a quality of somewhat pensive and of somewhat faun-like across his face; his
shaven chin delicate but strong, his mouth a little large, firm-lipped under
daintily upcurled mustachios, sensitive, apt for sudden modulations of mood and
passion; his eyes brown, contemplative, and with profound obscurities of
pulsing fire. And as, with that easy simplicity of magnificence which seemed in
him nature bred clean beyond the range of art, he took his seat upon the
dream-stone, it was as if the richness of his jewelled apparel, the shadowing
of those wings, and all the sumptuous splendours of that hall were to him but
as the flower on the blackthorn or the rainbow across a mountain peak: graces
wedded to a substance worthy their own unsubstantial loveliness.

Now
when the ceremonial business of presentations, petitions, sealings of placets
and decrees was concluded, the Duke spake to them of his council that stood
beside him: 'Is't not some wonder there should be no legate nor envoy here to
represent the Vicar?'

'May
be', answered Medor, 'that he liked not your grace's sending away of Gabriel
Flores a month ago.'

Barganax
lifted an eyebrow: "Twas pure charity, and indeed a compliment, to let him
know I thought his honour too basely travestied by such a villain. Nor was it
fit I should accept as envoy but his master of the horse, one that is besides
but a patent hired intelligencer, and scarcely a gentleman by birth.'

'There's
one more cloud against the sun,' said Egan; 'so have I seen storms a-brewing.
Your grace was informed ere you did enter the presence-chamber how that the
Admiral and the Chancellor, that were here but a little before, were gone
forth in a flutter of seeming urgency upon word brought them from without. Be
advised: leave your custom, and go not to-day among the general throng below
the carpet.'