The Game of Kings (13 page)

Thus Richard, escorting Lady Herries north to stay with his mother at Stirling.

It was a miserable day. Saturday’s golden autumn had given way to a wet and sullen Sabbath; the rain dripped from the small feathers in Culter’s cap, and showers of drops from Agnes’s hood shook onto her nose.

Lest this should be misconstrued, she blew into a sodden handkerchief for the twentieth time and rode stiffly on.

Lady Herries had her own resources. Bodily, she might be damp, cold and in Lanarkshire: in spirit she was with troubadour and minnesinger in the fields of romance. There, in passages of chivalry and courtship, the heroine—thirteen, lovely and highborn—was immutable. The hero, true to legend, was apt to reassemble under pressure into different shapes. The Baroness’s eyes at present were fixed on Lord Culter’s prosaic back: her lips moved slightly as she rode.

“Daphne! Vision! Shining she-lamb!” Bowing, the prince removed his cap, the little feathers wet with rain. Crying, he said—

“Devil take the rain; there’s someone coming. Anyone recognize the standard?” said Richard sharply. His lordship, looking slit-eyed through the downpour, was insensitive to ruined fantasy at his heels. “Frank! Job!” The two riders in front increased speed for a bit, then wheeled. “It’s Sir Andrew Hunter, sir, and some of the Ballaggan boys.”

In a moment the two parties met. “Dandy! Echoes from civilization at last. What’s happening up north?”

Sir Andrew greeted him smiling, shoulders hunched. “Worse than the time old Scott’s patent water system broke down. I’ve just left your wife and mother—flourishing both—everyone’s safe so far.… Look,” said Hunter. “We’ll drown if we exchange news here. Come with me to Ballaggan—you could do with something hot inside you anyway. Who’s the lassie?”

Lord Culter explained and introduced, and the two parties struck off in company for Hunter’s house. The rain ran interminably down Agnes’s nose. Covertly, she studied Sir Andrew.

Slimmer, and with better hands than Lord Culter. Lord Culter never joked. She liked dark men with a twinkle in the eye.

The prince, a slender dark man …

But again, they had halted. The Nith, which lay between themselves and Ballaggan, ran unusually fast and high at their feet, and
an outrider who drove his horse in at the ford thudded out again, wet to the stirrups.

Culter was studying the river with some misgiving. “I doubt the women oughtn’t to try.”

For answer, Hunter dropped down the bank and himself rode into midstream. The horse staggered a little with the force, foam gathering at its hocks, but after a moment mastered its footing and stood firm. He called, “They can’t get wetter than they are already. Put a line of horse upstream to break the current. I’ll come back and lead you over.”

He splashed back, and giving decorous permission, Agnes was lifted up into Lord Culter’s saddle where he held her firmly, left-handed, the reins in his right. The prince, repigmented instantly from black to brown, pressed his horse into motion while the she-lamb, cheek to chest, approved the even beats of his heart. The impartial grip redoubled; the horse entered the water, and the heiress closed her eyes.

Discomfort claimed her. The saddle poked and prodded; the powerful feet threw up snatches of spray, and she was rubbed, pricked and jagged by Culter’s unaccommodating attire. He began moreover to talk to the horse. Mild resentment overtook her.

When they were halfway over, there was a sickening lurch. Culter exclaimed sharply; the pommel drove sharply into the girl’s side and briefly the sky was made, blackly, of a shaking, arched mane. Then horse, rider and heiress fell, stirrups free, and in a bruising splash of colliding bodies, Agnes Herries hit the water. Wrenched from periastral dreams she became Lady Herries, just thirteen years old, and screamed and screamed with choking, soundless hysteria as the current spun her in rough fingers and shot her, buoyed up by petticoats, straight down the Nith.

Intense cold, and a weight pulling her down. Waterlogged hair, like a curtain of weed on her face, filtering air bubbles through a throat choked with water. A seething clamour in the head and a bubbling voice—her own.

A gasping voice—someone else’s. Then a hand, shuddering with effort, in her armpit, and another hand ripping the cloak from her throat, wringing her hair off, exposing her face. An agony of air; an interval of bumping and pressure that hurt, and then of retching that hurt worse, her cheek pressing on mud. And then, at last, she heard
a voice clearly. “My God, we need practice at that. Shall we do it again?” said Lord Culter.

They put her to bed, wrapped in woollens, and she slept, weak and full of hot milk, until the daylight had gone.

Below, in the overornate hall, Lord Culter lay in a lugged chair, displaying collected impassivity once more, bathed and with his cuts dressed, and wearing a loose gown borrowed from Sir James Douglas, their host.

For they were in a Douglas household, instead of Hunter’s elegant, exhausted estate of Ballaggan. Alone and without help, Richard had brought Agnes Herries ashore: his own men were upstream and Andrew Hunter, far ahead, had been deaf to his shouts. But afterward, warned by the commotion, he had raced to their aid, wrapped the girl in his own cloak and carried both swimmers to Drumlanrig, the cavalcade following. Ballaggan was nearly an hour’s journey away and could wait. These two could not.

The house of Drumlanrig was full of Douglases, and whether sincere or not, their welcome was a suitable blend of shock and cordiality. From Lord Culter they heard simply that his horse had put his near hind in a pothole; but listening to Hunter they were left in no doubt that Richard had saved the girl’s life.

Downstairs the owner of Drumlanrig had demanded the whole tale yet again for his wife’s two brothers, the Earl of Angus and Sir George Douglas. Sly and splendid as a half-tamed leopard, Sir George had smiled; and the Earl, lissom Royal lover of thirty years ago lost in alcoholic fat and sparse beard, had been free if trite with his compliments.

The evening passed. Most of the household went early to bed. Sir James and Angus had gone and silence lay on the three still sitting before the big fire. In his deep chair, Culter was motionless, his face lost in shadow. Andrew Hunter glanced at him, and Sir George Douglas, alert on the second, said, “He’s asleep, I think. Did you wish to say something private?”

Sir Andrew smiled gratefully. “Not at all. But I did want to open up a small matter of business.” He went on, with some hesitation.

“You may not know, but a cousin of mine, a great favourite of
Mother’s, was taken in ’44, and has been in Carlisle ever since.” He paused awkwardly. “I have a good little estate, you see, but not a very profitable one, and Jeff has no other relatives—”

“But of course,” said Sir George with fine courtesy. “Not a word more. I shall be delighted. How much … ?”

Hunter flushed a deep red. “No. I—It’s true we can’t pay what they ask. But if, for example, I could repay in kind …”

“An exchange of prisoners? Yes, I suppose that would be one way out.”

“So I went to Annan. But I was unlucky,” Hunter said, flushing again. “And then I heard—”

“—That I have a prisoner,” said Sir George. “Yes, I have. With a fearful stock of conversation—I’ve forgotten his name—Couch, or Crouch.” He thought for a bit while Sir Andrew watched, his face a little anxious.

Then Douglas said pleasantly, “All right. I’ll sell him to you for a hundred crowns. You needn’t feel it’s charity; and I expect it’s a good deal less than they were asking for your cousin.”

“Yes … I’m afraid it
is
charity,” said Hunter rather ruefully. “You could probably sell him yourself for—”

“—Very little,” said Sir George dryly, crossing a superb leg in blue silk. “Don’t worry: he’s yours. Will you send for him?”

“Right away!” Sir Andrew got up with rather touching enthusiasm. “I’ll give you a bill for the money now, if I can find paper and ink. Excuse me, sir: and believe me, I’m most grateful.” He betook himself off, shuffling over the rushes a little in his borrowed shoes.

The silence lengthened. Then Sir George Douglas said, “Why so silent, Lord Culter? Don’t you approve of such transactions?”

Culter opened his eyes, and the faintest smile crossed his lips. “Sir, when two friends discuss money, the third friend should invariably be asleep.”

Sir George laughed, and rising, clapped him on a brocade shoulder. “Poppyhead! Get to bed, man!”

*  *  *

Lady Herries, arranged in antique pose at the breakfast table, laid a large and languid hand on her chest. “Do you think,” said Agnes, gazing hopefully at her troubadour, “do you think I ought to ride your horse today again?”

Lord Culter, who had just finished stuffing himself with baked crane and sack, said robustly, “Not if you want to get to Stirling this week. You’ll be perfectly all right in your own saddle. Anyway, don’t you want to be in time to see the papingo?”

Lady Herries dropped a slice of bread, instantly lost to the dogs, and in ringing tones unsoftened by immersion, demanded data. “Is it a real parrot?”

“Quite real,” said Sir Andrew solemnly. He put down his tankard. “Bright blue and yellow, with a beak like Buccleuch’s.”

She said with vigour, “My faith, I should like a papingo. I wonder how you feed them. What a waste to kill it! I suppose they’ll hang it on a high pole?”

“They will. And my Lord Culter and a number of other gentlemen will shoot at it. And there’ll be wrestling, and throwing, and tilting at the ring, and running, and prizes given; and then a fair all afternoon and half the night …”

Agnes snapped him up. “A fair!”

Remembering something, Hunter looked across her head. “By the way, Richard: I hope you won’t be fool enough to … that is, your womenfolk are pretty anxious about Lymond.” He broke off, daunted by Culter’s continued silence. “Oh, well. None of my business. She’ll tell you herself.”

Culter stirred and raised his eyes. They fell on Agnes, looking at him with rather a silly expression. He smiled at her. “Child, relations are the devil. Think yourself lucky yours don’t bother you. Will you come and see me shoot at this wretched bird?”

This was self-sacrifice with a vengeance. Sir Andrew threw his lordship a commiserating grin, and felt it stiffen on his lips at the look in the other man’s eyes. Hot water under cold ice, then, he thought. He wasn’t surprised.

*  *  *

“And there they go, poor dears,” said Sir George. He watched the two parties ride down the long, wet avenue and then leave the Drumlanrig policies—Hunter to the northwest; Culter and the girl for the Dalveen road.

The Earl of Angus, who hadn’t bothered to get up, grunted from the fire. “Pity the river wasn’t a lot higher. That whelp Culter’s done a lot of harm in the south.”

“Don’t be crude.” Sir George admonished his brother, moving away from the window. “All the same, I wish that damn fellow Lymond would get on with it. Can’t we induce him to be a little more persevering?”

Sir James said, “We can’t contact him: you know that. No one can.

“Well, one man could,” pointed out Angus. “That brat Will Scott apparently met him in broad daylight, as plain as a fishwife on Friday.”

“Proving only that Lymond wanted to be met,” said Sir George. “I wish to God the man would stick to one side. What I couldn’t do with his intelligence system! The Protector told me—he lifted all of Wharton’s campaign gold at Annan, and left your precious son-in-law Lennox black in the face.”

He looked curiously at his brother. “What went on between Lymond and Lennox anyway? If Margaret was involved, you’d do well to hush it up.”

The Earl of Angus brushed this aside. “No one’s going to clap Margaret Douglas in the Tower these days—cousin of Edward of England; a daughter of an ex-Queen of Scotland; the wife of the Earl of Lennox, with a claim to the throne every bit as good as Arran?”

“But not as good as young Queen Mary’s.”

Angus was contemptuous. “God’s Mass, George: there’s bigger game than governerships and pensions. Edward’s sickly. Look at him. And our Queen’s four years old: well, they die like flies at that age. Arran’s a fool. So’s Lennox; but he’s married to Margaret. And Margaret’s heir to—”

“Heir to nothing,” said Sir George wearily. “You know perfectly well Henry of England disinherited her from the succession in the midst of his uxorial fluctuations. And on top of that, she had a cracking row with him the week before he died, and he cut her out of his will. Edward, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth and then the Suffolk infants. Not a word of his own niece.”

“Yes. Well. She’s highly strung.”

“Highly strung! God, Archie, that wasn’t what you called her mother.”

“Oh, be quiet, George,” said the head of the Douglases. “What do you want, anyway? The trouble with you is, you keep letting the Protector push you too far. One of these days, the Scottish Queen Dowager will see what you’re up to, and then bang goes Douglas and
Drumlanrig, Dalkeith, Coldingham, Tantallon and your fine neck into the bargain.”

“On the other hand,” said Sir George painstakingly, “if the Protector feels we are insufficiently helpful, he sends in a raiding party, and bang they all go just the same.” He studied his brother’s heavy, once-handsome face. He had never in his life had to worry about searching questions from Archie, and he was thankful now that it was the same old ground.

His sister’s husband, Sir James, said a little petulantly, “You’re talking as if the invasion was over for good. Is the Protector really going south?”

“Oh, yes.” Sir George smiled. “He’d only food for a month, and he didn’t get the local support he’d expected—notably from the Douglases, Archie: now d’you wonder that I’ve been so forthcoming with him? Then a really nasty political mess flared up in London: be thankful, dear, that you have a prudent brother. The Protector’s young twig of fraternity is graithing himself a nice sharp axe for Tower Green.”

He tilted the ruby on his finger, and a beam of sunlight ran over a sardonic cheekbone.

“Andrew Dudley’s stuck with an English garrison at Broughty; Luttrell at St. Colme’s Inch; and that senile idiot Lady Hume persuaded to give up Hume Castle. He’ll fortify Roxburgh, most likely, on his way south, and supply ’em all through the winter from Berwick and Wark.” He grinned. “An entertaining prospect, isn’t it?”