The Game of Kings (33 page)

Jamie was not one to stand on ceremony. He no sooner set foot on the cobbles, walking smartly by Richard’s stirrups, than he flung back his wet head and roared, “Faither!”

Propelled by curiosity, the windows of the court shot up. After a pause, Malcolm Waugh’s front window glimmered with an approaching taper; the casement opened, and the erratic parent looked out. “Jamie!”

“Aye: Jamie. I want in to the shop, Faither.”

The bristled jowl quivered. Mr. Waugh, senior, leaned farther out of the window. “Jamie! Are ye sober, lad?”

The glover, who was getting a little tired of the continuing stress on his condition, frowned. He said tartly, “A damned sight too sober to stomach the sicht o’ the wagglin’ chops on ye muckle longer. Will ye come down?”

But Faither only hung farther out. “Jamie! Tell me! Ye havena had an encoonter with a sleekit-spoken chiel …”

Richard, leaning on his pommel, looked up.

“Oh, it’s yourself!” said the old man hurriedly. A yellow grin, hastily summoned, jerked into place. “Man, you’re a great case. From the Mull tae Dunnet Heid there isna another body could have brought Jamie Waugh to his faither as stone-sober and ill-tempered as the day
he was weaned.” He ducked smartly as a stone, flung by his impatient son, cracked on the woodwork. “Just wait; wait now. I’ll be down.”

He let them in and watched as Jamie, having lit a candle, opened his ledger and conned it. Richard, looking around the perfumed and flickering gloom, saw something wink on a table, and strolling across, picked up his dagger. Slipping it back in his belt, he grinned into a lugubrious bloodshot eye. “I’ll excuse you the gloves I’ve won, Mr. Waugh. It’s been worth the experience to know you.”

The loose mouth wobbled. “Man, I can just say the same: there’s many an alehouse would keep you in drink for life for a loan o’ your talents.” He melted unobtrusively into the gloom as his son came forward slowly, the big book spread in his hands. There was a pause, then the man Jamie gave an exclamation, laid down the book and held the glove over to the light. “The deil!” he said. “He’s used it as a shooting glove!”

With some grimness Richard replied. “He certainly has.”

“Well, it’s no meant for a shooting glove!” said Jamie Waugh in righteous indignation. “It’s a fancy glove that—one of a pair, and far too much decoration on it for shooting with. I mind it fine, and the chap that bought it.”

Richard found a seat and dropped very gently into it. “Do you? Tell me what happened.”

“Well; in comes this fellow ordering gloves, and as fussy as a flea in a bathtub over the pattern, and that Patey has to do the gold, and—”

“What did he look like?”

The glover thought. “Kind of fancy-looking—no offence, sir, if he’s any relation. Yellow hair, and an awful tongue in his head.”

“In aurum coruscante et crispante capillo,” said Richard unexpectedly, and gave a kind of a smile as Waugh stared at him. “Have you ever seen him before, Mr. Waugh?”

“Never. Nor since. He’s not a native of these parts.”

“No. Go on.”

“Well, when it comes to the bit, he hasn’t the price of a full pair on him, and we had a bit of an argument. However—as you’ll understand, sir—he’s not the sort of person it’s just easy to cross. He paid a bit—just some silver, and left his address, and said he’d accommodate me by taking one glove and collecting the other when he sent the money. I knew it was a tale,” said Mr. Waugh with some reminiscent anger, “but he had such a manner on him—”

“I know,” said Richard. “And has he ever sent the money?”

Jamie Waugh went and rummaged in a cupboard, returning with the twin of the embroidered glove. “No. There it is. No one’s come for it.”

“Would you permit a man of mine to watch at the back of your shop till this man arrives? I’ll pay you, of course.”

Surprise showed on Jamie’s face. He hesitated, then shrugged. “Just as you like, sir,” and was about to shut the book when Richard stopped him. “Just a moment. What address did your yellow-haired man give?”

Waugh peered along the crabbed entry. “It’ll be a false one, belike … Address … Address—oh. Here we are. Aye, it’s false, I’m afraid. ‘Castle of Midculter, County of Lanark,’ it says.”

Richard got up suddenly. “And the name?”

“Well, now. He didn’t give his own name, just the name of the man he was to send to pay for the gloves. Devil, where is it? Oh, here. ‘Richard Crawford, third Baron Culter.’ How’s that for impudence? A lord, no less. Man, you can’t trust a soul nowadays. When did you say your man would be here?”

Whatever bitter self-mockery lay behind the impassive face, Lord Culter showed none of it. He said coolly, “I shan’t require now to send anyone … I have made the mistake of underrating my friend,” and, laying a gold piece on the table, added, “No one will come for the gloves now. Keep them both, and look on the sale as discharged. Now: there was some talk of ham … ?”

But with all that, the man was only human. He didn’t return to Stirling that night, but buried anger and disappointment in the Skinnergate, under rashers and eggs and ale and good company; and Jock Merton said, sotto voce, that gentleman or no, he was damned if the fellow wasn’t good value at a party and could hold his liquor like a fisherman: a statement that Mariotta, and perhaps even the Dowager, would have been astonished to hear.

It was late when he left. They were loth to let him go, and he might have been overpersuaded to stay but for Jamie, who had spent the evening making up for lost ground and achieved the full cycle, as Culter mounted his horse, by descending the stairs in one airborne step. Richard waited only to make sure the glover was unhurt, then waved and set off.

He had no notion of arriving at any of the houses known to him at Perth with a thick head in the middle of Christmas. After a little
thought, he directed the mare to the Castle, where he could command a bed for a few hours and set out for Stirling at the crack of dawn next day.

It was no fault of his that the English army at Broughty Fort also set out that night, with malicious intent, on a punishing raid of the neighbourhood. He was wakened at five in the morning by the crash of emergency and, driven by duty, set out to pass the day not at Stirling but by the side of the Provost and Constable of Perth at Balmerino.

He rode to the fighting in no cheerful mood. “I thought,” said Richard wearily, “there was only one man playing hell with my life. But by God! Ruthven, it’s become a national pastime.”

*  *  *

At midday—and with still no sign of Richard—Sybilla exercised her native wit and, putting on furs and boots and refusing escort, plodded down the street to Patey Liddell’s.

“Well, now—your ladyship’s all wet—This is a pleasure, but—Come away over to the furnace—You know Lord Culter went off with the picture—That’s a comfortable chair, now: sit you down … He’s not here,” said Patey, who under the forcible blue eye seemed a little upset.

“I guessed that,” said Sybilla. “Where did he take the glove, Patey?”

The goldsmith eyed her and decided evidently that only truth would serve. “To Perth,” he said simply.

“Oh,
Richard!”
exclaimed Sybilla in extreme exasperation. She turned the blue eyes on Patey again. “Is that where the glove was made?”

He nodded, hesitated, then volunteered, “No one’ll lay a finger on him, your ladyship: I warrant you that. Jamie Waugh’s a terrible man, but there’s not a drop of harm in him, and he’ll treat his lordship as kind as a maid with her rich new joe.… You’ll take some spirits?” added Patey, at a speed suggesting a desire to efface his own conjecture.

“No, I must go back.” Rising, Lady Culter bent to look at a small nugget lying on the smith’s bench in a drift of sparkling dust. She lifted it to examine it more closely. “It was a pretty glove. That pale yellow gold is from Crawfordmuir, isn’t it? You use a lot of it, Patey.”

“What?” said Liddell. He grinned vaguely. “It’s a bonny wee nugget, that. Gold.”

“I wasn’t talking about the nugget,” said Sybilla, “particularly. What’s the tax on Scottish-mined gold these days, Patey? Fairly high? And isn’t it all supposed to go straight to the Mint?”

“Scottish gold?” said the smith, and shook his white head. “It’s well enough; well enough; but a wee thing soft, and there’s them that prefers a good brosy yellow to yon pale stuff. No: Whatever it is you’re wanting, you come to me and I’ll show you gold that’d make crowns for angels.”

“Well, that’d be a change,” said the Dowager sourly, “from making crowns for Patey Liddell. You’re a perverse, deaf old man, and I don’t know why I come to you.”

“Do you not?” said Patey, exerting to the full his highly selective aural powers. “Then I’ll tell you: it’s to get a good bargain; and you can be sure of this: whatever Patey Liddell’s got a hand in’ll never hurt a Crawford.”

“Then I suggest,” said Sybilla, making for the door, “you steer clear of my daughter-in-law; or something Patey Liddell had a hand in this day is going to be a sore affliction to Patey Liddell.” And she went home.

*  *  *

So Christmas, unappalled at Lord Culter’s absence, came cantily to Stirling.

It was a French Christmas; a debonair Christmas full of frolic and folly; a spry, Gallic unctuous Christmas. Henry of France, at last roused to boldness and the cunning exercise of spite, had sent a small fleet to Scotland, and in it money for the Queen Dowager, and French military experts for her guidance and the better security of her fortresses. The military experts, tricked out in scent and white satin, danced like well-mannered clouds and talked in the Council Chamber of chests of money and major landings of troops waiting to come with better weather. The Government blew a sigh of relief, eyed the cut of the white satin and, flinging its armour out of the window, bawled for its valet.

The Court danced. The Court played rough games and watched masques. Cardboard cumuli, joggling cautiously from ceiling to floor, emitted Spirits of Love, giggling, with siren voices half a tone sharp
with nerves. Forty-two different kinds of main dishes were offered at one sitting, and even the puddings burst asunder and became sweating cherubs released from cardboard confinement and prone to emergency and fits of tears.

Sybilla, animatedly and comfortably at home, found time to watch her small flock. She observed Agnes Herries, graced with a new diffidence and dancing, under the Governor’s orders, with the Governor’s son. Christian, who did not care to dance in public, had been strategically waylaid by Tom Erskine. Mariotta, who should not have been dancing, was doing so, incessantly. The Dowager breathed a faint prayer for the well-being of the future heir of the Culters and returned her gaze to Lady Herries.

So she saw a tall, stooping figure appear in the distance; saw Agnes Herries hesitate, and then saw her disappear up the turnpike stair which gave access to the wall-walk on the roof. The tall figure followed her.

The Dowager walked over to Christian and sat down. “Hold my hand and talk to me,” she demanded. “Something interesting is happening on the tower stairs and I feel nervous and grandmotherly.”

Christian turned on the older woman her affectionate grin. “Nothing like practice,” said she.

*  *  *

The tall man was dressed in blue silk. Agnes, watching him emerge from the tower, noted the deliberate, light walk and the brome-grass hair ruffling in the night wind. He came nearer, and she saw yellow peregrine eyes with black, buried pupils.

“Lady Herries?” he asked; and when she nodded, he smiled suddenly.

“You’re so small. I have something for you, my lady—but it’s like Abbey Craig speaking to Dumyat. Perhaps, if you’ll allow me, we should settle our differences first.” And before she could object, he put both hands around her waist and swung her easily to the broad parapet. She arrived with a bump, had a fleeting thought about the state of the ledge, then arranged her skirts and turned again to the gentleman’s eyes. They were still very yellow, but kind. He took her hand and put something into it. “From Threave,” he said.

Agnes looked down. Between her fingers, dark with melted snow but warm and perfect, was a sturdy red rose. She said “Oh!” in a
surprised delight, and repeated it as his words penetrated. “From Threave?”

“From Jack Maxwell. With his respectful love. Well, Lady Herries: are you disappointed?” asked the Master of Maxwell.

She shook her head. “I think,” said Agnes, with a young and tender naïveté, “you are as handsome as your letters, sir.”

*  *  *

Long after the parapet was empty, a clatter of hoofs foretold a latecomer approaching the Castle Wynd, riding alone on a stumbling horse. The captain of the guard admitted him instantly and, soaked and battered with mud, Lord Culter dismounted and walked into the yard.

Richard had come straight from Perth, and brought with him from the Provost of Perth an account of the raid on Balmerino Abbey in which he was notably concerned. This he gave to one of the Queen’s officers, being hardly presentable enough to ask for audience himself. On the same grounds, he asked that his wife should be brought to the Palace to speak to him.

Crossing the flying bridge from Hall to Palace, Mariotta was aware of a very creditable sense of relief. At least the bloodhound had taken no actual harm this time; although his behaviour remained erratic, antisocial and evasive. Mariotta marched into the Palace with reconciliation to sell, at a price; Richard rose to welcome her with an expression which the Dowager would have recognized as discomfort and guilt. In the net result, Mariotta looked angry and Richard looked wooden, and the opening round was not one to inspire confidence.

This was because Richard made the mistake of blaming his absence on the fighting outside Perth. Mariotta heard him in silence, and then inquired stonily about the tracing of the glove. Richard’s account of this was lamentable. Told in the cold light of reason, the sobering of Jamie Waugh sounded remarkably like a drunken brawl: the exact points of difference were hard to define. He was brought to admitting, austerely, that the entire trip had been a wild-goose chase expressly fabricated by Lymond; he then apologized again for his absence and indicated that, if she would allow him, he would leave for Bogle House and change his clothes.