The Game of Kings (26 page)

Will said, “She’s a great admirer of yours.”

“She likes my money,” said Lymond, and catching the look in Scott’s eye, grinned nastily. “Which ring did she show you? The diamond or the seed pearl?”

Resentment on Molly’s behalf faltered. “She showed me a diamond ring,” said Scott defensively.

Lymond grinned again. “If you’re fool enough to wear a valuable stone in your bonnet, you must expect to be sized up accordingly.” He laughed outright. “Never mind, my innocence: everyone falls in love with Molly. But not, of course, uniquely with Molly.” The pensive blue gaze continued to travel. “The dark wench by the other fire is Sal; the redhead by the kitchen door is Elizabeth, and the one at the next table Joan.”

Will looked at Joan. She was pink and brown; her eyes sparkled like tourmalines and she had sharp ankles and red-heeled shoes. “I’ve seen worse,” he remarked, and raised his tankard with an air. Lymond refilled it, and his own; and when Scott had finished his, filled it again. “Multa bibens …” Then he looked around, signalled, and returned the gentle, appraising stare to Will’s face. “And now,” said the Master, “suppose we fulfill our glad destiny?”

A cloud of musk approached and Molly in it, a cherub in its nest. “You’re ready, dear?”

“We are. And the room?” asked Lymond.

“Waiting for you. Number four, dear.” A key changed hands. “You remember the stairs?”

She laughed, and Lymond said, “They haven’t left any great impression, but I recall they exist. We’ll find them. Come, Marigold.”

Where there is no custom of reticence in childhood, there is no vice of which a well-brought-up young man need be ignorant—even a young man who three months before has cherished the purest ideals. When Will Scott got to his feet, his heartbeats were behaving oddly, but he was not slow in following the Master across the jammed, leg-strewn room, up a dark stairway leading from arcade to gallery, and
along a long, stifling passage railed off on one side from the room they had just left. Wooden doors on the other side of the corridor were numbered. Lymond unlocked the fourth and went in, with Scott at his heels. The Master turned, and kicked the door shut.

The room held an uncurtained bed, a mirror, an armory, a table, two candlesticks and a youngish man, sitting on a low, cushioned bench. As Scott approached, the man jumped to his feet, frowning. He was tall, with long, fine hair and pale, opalesque eyes set shallowly in a triangular face. He said, “I am expecting a gentleman. Are you … ?”

“I am Lymond.” The Master moved into the candlelight, and recognition and relief showed in the other’s eyes. “And this is my lieutenant, Mr. Scott. Will—the Master of Maxwell.”

Three months of Lymond’s company had taught Will Scott presence of mind. He bowed, and out of the wreckage of his emotions salvaged the necessary recollection: of the Master staging a rescue on the Carlisle road on a dark, October night, and of his voice saying afterward, “The Master of Maxwell is an important personage almost entirely surrounded by English.… Consider this an opening for smothered mate.” Scott, directing a private grimace at Lymond’s unresponsive back, seated himself fatalistically on the edge of the bed; the Master of Maxwell was also reseated. Lymond, bringing a jug and cups from the armory, said, “You’re making for Carlisle, Mr. Maxwell?”

“If it’s any affair of yours, I am, sir.” Yellow tiercel eyes notched with black stared at the Master; Lymond, impervious, poured wine. Scott, his interest suddenly commanded, thought, A show of muscle, by God! Have we found one gentleman who hasn’t yet succumbed to the legend?

In silence, Lymond offered Maxwell wine; in silence, he took it. Then the Master hitched himself smoothly on the edge of the table, glanced at Scott, who had buried his nose in a cup, and said, “I chose the Ostrich as our rendezvous, Mr. Maxwell, because of its uncommon properties. This is the sounding board of the North. No whisper is too low for the Ostrich. No movement too faint for its eyes. Consider, for example, who passed north recently. Ireland, for one—your brother’s priest from London. He’ll be waiting for you at Threave, anxious to have your views on Lord Maxwell’s offer to surrender Lochmaben to the English. Who else? A surveyor from
Calais, on his way to Wharton. The Scots garrisons at Crawford and Langholm are worrying his lordship: Mr. Petit is to advise on the best ways of fortifying Dumfries, and Kirkcudbright, and Lochwood, and Milk, and Cockpool Tower, and Lochmaben—when they have it.

“Then Mr. Thomson, Lord Wharton’s deputy, came north. That was in order to meet your uncle, Drumlanrig. Sir James failed, I’m afraid, to persuade him that between men of integrity hostages are irrelevant. And, of course, a number of gentlemen from the West Marches passed through to Carlisle to sign the celebrated oath. To serve the King of England, renounce the Bishop of Rome, do all in their power to advance the King’s marriage with the Queen of Scotland; take part with all who serve him against their enemies, and obey the commands of the Lord Protector, lords lieutenant and wardens.… And most recently, one of Wharton’s men came south with an indiscreet letter from your brother-in-law the Earl of Angus to someone else, which is going to interest the English considerably.”

Even to Scott, most of this was news. If it were true—and Maxwell would certainly know—it was a show of strength that even he could not afford to ignore. John Maxwell stretched his long legs, put down his cup, and lay back, the yellow eyes fixed on Lymond. “Do you own the Ostrich? Or only a capacity for pleasing Molly?”

The blue eyes smiled. “A distinction without a difference.”

Maxwell said, “Mr. Crawford, there is no need to show me the hood. I respond quite well to the lure. Our last talk intrigued me a good deal.”

“Sufficiently?”

“Sufficiently for your purpose.” The luminous eyes, apparently satisfied with their diet, released their grip. Maxwell rose, refilled his cup and sat down, continuing in his dry, brisk voice. “I have the information you wanted. Samuel Harvey, who is a bachelor, lives in London and is there at present on duty and unlikely to come north. Gideon Somerville is a wealthy man, now retired from court, with a manor called Flaw Valleys on Tyneside near Hexham. He is married and has a ten-year-old daughter. I made these inquiries privately when last in Carlisle: there is nothing to connect them with your name.”

“I’m obliged for your care. As it turns out, it hardly matters.”

“You’ve no interest in these men?”

“I intend to meet them both. But one of your brothers-in-law is
aware of it, and either he or Grey will almost certainly prepare the ground for me. No matter. Of Cat, nor Fall, nor Trap, I haif nae Dreid.”

“Your self-confidence is incredible, sir,” said Maxwell dryly.

“Subject to intelligence,” said Lymond, “nothing is incalculable. Your marriage, for instance.”

Scott, fascinated, thought he saw John Maxwell’s eyes narrow. There was the briefest pause, then the tall man said, “I have considered your suggestion. On my present standing with the Queen Dowager, neither she nor the Governor would conceivably agree, even if the plan worked.”

“Your standing might be improved.”

“My brother, Lord Maxwell, is still a prisoner in London. And there are hostages at Carlisle for my good behaviour.”

“It might be improved without overt harm to your reputation in England. It’s now mid-November. In two or three weeks’ time, the Earl of Lennox is due at Carlisle, and if affairs are favourable, he’ll try another experimental march into southern Scotland.”

“And so … ?”

“And so, by pure chance and natural greed, Lennox’s men might bungle the raid. The real nature of the chance being known only to the Scottish Government, acting on your advice. Lennox blames his men for the failure: the Queen knows it is due to the Master of Maxwell.”

Silence. Maxwell moved. “Is this possible?”

“You shall hear. I’ll describe it to you now; and in greater detail later when we know Lennox’s exact movements. And the credit shall be yours.”

The Master of Maxwell said, “I am trying to persuade myself that all this is not a matter of great disadvantage to yourself?”

Lymond smiled gently. “The road Lennox will take passes the road to Hexham,” he said. “I told you there would be a trap. And the English will spring it for me.”

They rose at midnight, Maxwell lifting his cloak and hat, gloves and whip. He nodded to Scott and stooping, turned in the doorway to Lymond. “And curb your mad, antic mind, I beg you. I’ve no heart to spend myself sustaining what you are creating for me.”

“Have no qualms,” said Lymond gravely. “We are well matched.”

Maxwell, astonishingly, laughed and went out.

Lymond shut the door. “And that,” he said to Scott, “is how mulberry trees grow into silk shirts.”

“Yesh,” replied Will Scott.

Lymond tilted the wine jar toward him. Then, with a sardonic flash toward the faintly squinting Scott, he opened the door, crossed the passage and shouted over the gallery rail. “You keep a damned dry house, Molly.”

She was sitting under the blazing lights at a crooning, besotted table of guests: she raised two jewelled arms to Lymond. “Come down, my duck. We’re a poor, sleepy company down here.”

The Master grinned, surveying the spent and torpid room. Men snored; drinkers drooped and murmured about the slow fires; and snatches of wavering harmony smothered themselves in the reeking, smoke-hazed air. In a corner, the gypsies slept in a limp heap like gillyflowers. Mat had reappeared and lay stomach down on a bench, his bald head rosy in the firelight.

“Have I to teach you your business?” asked Lymond.

“Give us excitement!” demanded Molly. “Come down! Have you lost your storms? Come and enliven us, Lucifer!”

Lymond withdrew an arm, found his tankard, and spun it accurately at Matthew, who awoke and fell off his bench with a crash.

“It’s a terrible thing,” said the Master, “to lose consciousness at the very start of a party. Molly has a hogshead of claret in her wine store, Matthew. Bring it out for her, and we shall part the Red Sea again. Then, Molly, my sweet honey-mountain, my day’s darling, we shall want both fires made up, and fresh candles and more of them, and music.”

“And you, my love,” said Molly. “But there’s devil a note of music in it. The players are as drunk as sows.”

The yellow-haired man straightened, and his laughter brought Scott wavering into the passage. “There are nine devilish notes not two yards away. Have you forgotten, my sweeting, who is in room number one?”

“Hell!” said Molly, and added a word which even the wives of innkeepers seldom pronounce. “Did I not shut the door?”

Lymond shook his head.

“No!” screamed Molly. She clapped her white hands over her ears and the rubies flared. “No!” A sleepy voice from a private room raised itself in complaint, and one or two somnolent drinkers, roused
by the shout, made querulous inquiry. “But yes!” said the Master, and disappeared.

The vast room, swimming in heat and hazy light, and heavy with dreaming murmurs and drunken croonings, sank into torpor. Will, propping his elbows on the rail, stared below and saw that Molly, her fists still over her ears, had doubled over the table in mild hysteria. Her eyes were tight shut.

Then several things happened at once.

A dim thunder outside the arcades heralded Matthew with the hogshead; the fires flared with fresh coal and peats, and a white dazzle searched the floor as candles were renewed.

A little silence fell; the silence, fateful and perspiring, of the imminent storm.

Then a desolate, mammoth, mourning Troll inflated its lungs and uttered. Through the shocked air tore a stern, snoring shriek followed by another. It became a united bray; the bray a wobble; the wobble a tune. High above the gallery balustrade swam a human head, inhumanly antennaed; the cheeks plimmed, the eyes closed, the fingers leaped, and all audible hell released itself. Tammas Ban Campbell, piper to Argyll, ransomed prisoner of Pinkie now travelling north and home, stalked around the three-sided gallery of the Ostrich and gave them
Baile loneraora
so that beam roared at beam and door at door; so that glasses smashed and windows rattled and hams vibrated and fell; so that sleepers snorted and leaped awake with their dirks in their fists, sots opened bloodshot, maddened eyes, and the sober dissolved according to temperament into shocked laughter or oaths.

There was a man in the corner who went down on his knees and prayed, but the rest of the Ostrich rose and roared, like a summer herd of caaing whales, to the foot of the stairs to the gallery.

Lymond met them at the top, sword in hand and his eyes like jewels. He had peeled off his doublet and had locked every door in the passage, as thunderous hammerings testified. Will, dazed but willing, hesitated behind him and Mat, summoned not an instant too soon, was at his side.

Faced with three sword blades in the narrow stair, the tidal wave stopped. Lymond looked down on the carpet of crimson, jostling faces and pitched his voice against the bellow of the pipes, which had switched to
Gillie Calum
. “What about it, my dormice! D’you mislike my lullaby?”

A tall well-built man in a green fustian coat screamed, “Listen, my
friend: put your walking mandrake on Ben Nevis and myself on the Cheviot, and it’s still too close for my liking. Do you stop him, or do we make the two of you digest the drones for your supper? There’s honest folk trying to sleep down here.”

A chorus of assent bore them two steps up; a flash of the sword drove them three down again. “Such nice, fine, miniken fingering,” said Lymond. “You should skip like Alexander. Where are your ears? The best piper in Scotland: eight warblers between the bars, and eleven if you give him whisky between the second and third variation. Sleep! Whoever slept at the Ostrich between midnight and five in the morning? You’re a trashy, glum company for men of music. Are you awake yet? Then bring the blood out of your feet and up to your fingers. My companion and I will give you a match.”

“Oh, God!” said Molly. “I knew it! I knew it! Stop it, you mad poet, will you?”

“A match?” repeated Green-fustian, out of continuing cries of rage and distress. “Give us the piper, that’s all we ask. Or the pipes. But unhabble the one from the other, for God’s sake. Blood! There’s not a drop of mine moved from one vein to the next since that belly-prophet of a Scotchman corked his mouth with the chanter.”