The Game of Kings (6 page)

Lymond considered this with every appearance of seriousness. “I see. Thus the baseness of my morals is redeemed by the stature of my manners? You admire consistency?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But prefer consistency in evil to consistency in good?”

“The choice is hypothetical.”

“Lord; is it? What an exciting past you must have.”

“I despise mediocrity,” stated the young man firmly.

“And you would also despise me if I practised evil but professed purity?”

“Yes. I should.”

“I see. What you are really saying, of course, is that you dislike hypocrisy, and people who can’t stand by their principles. I find it so helpful,” continued Lymond, “when some of my gentlemen have well-defined codes of conduct. It makes them more predictable. What security have I got for your loyalty?”

Redhead chanced his arm, solemnly. “Your appraisal of me, sir.”

“Touching; but I’d prefer your appraisal of yourself. Do your principles admit an oath of fealty?”

“If you want it. I won’t betray you, any of you; you can have my word on that. And I’ll do anything you want, within reason. I don’t mind,” said Redhead recklessly, “what crimes I commit, as long as they’ve got a sensible purpose. Wanton injury and destruction, of course, are just juvenile.”

“Of course,” said the Master, digesting this remarkable statement. “Then let us be adult at all costs. Do you have a mistress? A wife? No? All, all in vain, this flors de biauté? A little quietness, if you please. We are all ready to help, you see. What else … Do you use broadsword or rapier? A hackbut?”

Smoothly spinning, the inexorable questions resumed, faster and faster. “What do you know about gunpowder? Not very much, is it? How old are you? Year of birth? If you must invent, stay awake afterwards.… What are you like with the longbow? There’s Mat’s quiver: hit that tree. Passable. Now the thorn. Good. Now,” said Lymond, “kill the man by the cooking-pot.”

Exhausted, deflated and angry, the boy directed one haughty grimace at the Master, hauled on the bowstring and sent the shot of a lifetime buzzing for the mark.

A great cheer, part shocked, part sardonic, arose. There was a blur of movement. Mat disappeared, and a swarm of curious bodies shut off the view of the target. Redhead knew, if he had never shot straight before, that he had put an arrow through blood and bone this time. He stood still.

A gentle voice rebuked him.

“Careful, careful! my slave of sin. These are Sordidi Dei. How nice,” said Lymond, “to have simple emotions. No trouble with principles; no independence of thought; no resistance to suggestion; no nonsense about adult behaviour when it comes to one’s own amour propre.”

The skin around the boy’s mouth was taut. “I’m not immune to trickery. And the Sordid Gods in this case are yours, I think; not mine.”

“Ah, no: not mine; I am godless,” said Lymond. “Not for me to solve the enigma.

“There is the waste of purpose. Whereas I always have a purpose—you were wiser than you knew, and less successful than you feared. Oyster Charlie has been giving me a little trouble. But if his wits are moribund, his hearing is sensational—a matter of compensation, I suppose. Well, Mat?”

Turkey Mat shook himself free of the crowd, grinning. “Just a shower of blisters,” he said. “He dodged behind the pot and got a spray of chicken bree for his pains. He’s laying low now, is Oyster. He kens as well as you what that was for.”

“Excellent. The warning cock and the Devil’s bath,” said Lymond, amused. “Symbolism is coming cheap today.”

“You mean I didn’t kill him?”

“No. Thus even your remorse of conscience is rooted in hallucination. Oyster is not dead; merely lightly boiled in the shell. I hope you will both perceive the point of the experiment.”

Lymond surveyed the grinning audience with an air of gentle discovery. “Is there no work to be done? Or perhaps it’s a holiday?”

In a moment, the spectators had vanished. Left facing the three men, the boy stood straight and with some natural dignity, although silent. Indeed, there seemed little to say. The Master evidently thought the same. He smiled warmly. “A pleasant entertainment. Thank you. Have you thought of doing it for money? No? You should. It would go down very well on fair days in Hawick.… Take the young gentleman’s boots off, Mat, and loose him on the hills somewhere. Preferably not within ten miles of me.”

The young gentleman turned scarlet. Of course. Having made the bear dance, turn it to the dogs. And to that, youth and hurt pride had only one answer. “You’re welcome to try,” said Redhead, and lunged.

Lymond got hold of the upraised arm halfway to his face. He shifted his grip, twisted, and holding the limb on the edge of agony, smiled.

“Softly, softly! Remember your superior upbringing, and your Caxton. How gentlemen shall be known from Churls. Don’t be a Churl, Marigold. Full of sloth in his wars, full of boast in his manhood, full of cowardice to his enemy, full of lechery to his body, full of drinking and drunkenness. Revoking his own challenge; slaying his
prisoner with his own hands; riding from his sovereign’s banner in the field; telling his sovereign false tales …”

“You have it pat.” The boy, suddenly released, rubbed his arm.

“Naturally. My rule of thumb. We all have our religion. With Johnnie, it’s Paracelsus. Mat here follows Lydgate; and your father and Ascham fit very well together. If he thunder, they quake; if he chide they fear; if he complain—”

Shocked into interrupting, Mat spoke, a broad finger directed at the redheaded boy. “His father? He was nameless.”

“Allow me to introduce you.” Lymond, speaking mildly, was watching Bullo. “Will Scott of Kincurd, Buccleuch’s oldest son.”

The gypsy smiled back boldly. “A prize indeed.”

Understanding and contempt filled the boy’s face. “Of course. Your diffidence is explained. But I assure you, you needn’t be afraid of Buccleuch. He’ll neither hound you for taking me nor pay you for ransoming me. In fact, he knows I’ve left to join some such as you.”

“Some such,” repeated Lymond idly. “And didn’t try to stop you?”

The young man laughed. “He didn’t much fancy seeing his son and heir exposed in the gutter. He tried. But there are two other boys in the family. He’ll get used to it.”

Lymond shook his head sadly. “There goes your day’s work, Johnnie.”

Johnnie Bullo slid noiselessly to his feet, an ecstasy of white teeth. He stretched lazily, sketched an elaborate bow to Lymond, nodded to Mat, and made for his pony. On the way, he stopped and prodded the boy with a long, dirty finger. “Home for you, laddie: home!” said he. “You need a longer spoon than the cutlers make to sup with this one.”

“Well?” said Lymond. And Will Scott, to his secret astonishment, read an invitation in the tone.

“I haven’t a spoon,” he said. “But I had a knife I could trust.”

“This?” The Master slipped from his belt the dirk he had removed when Will, the solemn tracker, had been ambushed by his quarry. He tossed it thoughtfully once, twice, and then pitched it to its owner. Will caught it, his expression an odd compound of surprise and mistrust.

With acute misgiving, Turkey Mat watched him. “You’re not taking him on, sir?”

“On the contrary,” said the Master, his eyes on Scott “It’s the other way round.”

Matthew persevered. “He’ll wait till we’re settled, oath or no oath, and then bring Buccleuch and the rest down on top of us.”

“Will he?” said Lymond. “Will you, Marigold?”

Brilliant, youthful face confronted restless one.

A little, malicious smile crossed the Master’s face.

“Oh, no, he won’t,” said Lymond confidently. “He’s going to be a naughty, naughty rogue like you and me.”

*  *  *

Much later, Lymond appeared again, still in riding dress, with a steel helmet fitted closely over his hair. A heavy white cloak marked with some kind of embroidery in red hung over one arm.

“Mat, I’m off to Annan. I leave you in charge. If that English messenger gets into trouble, Jess’s Joe will report to you. Take all the men you need to free him and get him to Annan. I shall be back before dawn. Then we move to the Peel Tower.”

Turkey’s hand automatically massaged his stomach. “Fair enough.” He added bluntly, “You’ll not expect us to get you out of Annan if you fall into trouble?”

“My dear Mat, I can’t possibly fall into trouble,” said Lymond. “I shall be under the best protection. I’m taking Will Scott with me.”

That evening at sunset the whaup and peewit lay quiet in Annandale and the black shadows of the Torthorwald and Mousewald hills marched east over moors prickling with movement and furtive noise.

Darkness fell, and two horsemen slipped silently around the hills and made directly for the gates of Annan, capital town of the district and newly possessed and occupied by the English army of Lord Wharton. On the last rise the riders paused to look down at the red eye in the plain, the bloody glitter of the river and the drifting thickets of white smoke. The wooden houses of Annan were on fire.

A peal of laughter shivered the silence.

The sound died away in the cold air, and there was silence again.

Will Scott, in no mood for verse, shot a look at the silver-tongued, malignant animal beside him and blurted a question. “Why did you let me join you?”

Lymond’s eyes were fixed on the burning town; his voice was entirely prosaic. “I need someone who can read and write.”

“Oh.”

“Further. I’m anxious to meet and talk with an Englishman of the name of Crouch. Jonathan Crouch. He may be in Annan. If he isn’t you shall help me find him and then, Aenobarbus, you shall have a diamond, a maiden and a couch reserved in the Turkish paradise. Meanwhile—”

“Are they expecting you,” asked Scott, “at Annan?”

The half-seen mouth curled. “If they are, I advise you to fly like a woodpecker, crying pleu, pleu, pleu. Lord Wharton has threatened to gut me publicly and the Earl of Lennox has a personal price of a thousand crowns on my head. No. I propose to appear in one of my twenty-two incarnations, as a messenger from the Protector, with yourself as my aid. My name is Sheriff: yours shall be—what?”

Scott had also read his poets. He quoted dryly. “This officer but doubt is callit Deid.”

“Apt, if pessimistic. You have nothing to do,” said Lymond, “but look beautiful, honest and English and pray that one Charlie Bannister has arrived before us to smooth our way. Our John the Baptist. A poor soul, but even if he has barely one head, much less eighteen, he will do to vouch for us. We shall converse briefly with the gullible ones at the gate, encounter Crouch—I trust—and return. An innocent and worthy programme. Si mundus vult decipi, decipiatur. Come along then, Marigold. It’s warmer down there!”

And the two figures swept downhill, neck and neck, the red crosses on their cloaks bellying in their passing.

*  *  *

“Halt and …” began the Cumberland voice, and trailed off for the second time; whereat Scott found in himself an unexpected impulse to hysteria.

Above the two horses rose the gates of Annan; around them pressed an escort of the outlying guard; before them stood the gatehouse
where the guard on duty was trying to extract their names and business under harassing conditions.

“Look,” Lymond was saying bitterly, “at the dirt on your pauldrons. And your doublet.”

“… declare …”

“Your sword’s filthy. And your dagger: how d’you expect a rusty blade to bite?”

“… declare—I can’t help that!” said the guard excitedly, abandoning formalities. “Robin! Davie! Move a step and I’ll spit you!”

“Well, if you do,” said Lymond resignedly, “for God’s sake use someone else’s sword.”

But when the captain came, a swarthy, middle-aged Bewcastle man, Lymond dismounted at once and introduced himself. “You won’t remember me; Sheriff’s my name. One of the Bishop’s men from Durham. Sorry to make a mystery of myself, but I’m supposed to tell you to your face: it’s business of the red tod’s cub.”

The password worked its miracle. As Lymond spoke, the captain’s face changed; the guards were dismissed, and in privacy he turned to the two newcomers. “You’ve a message for their lordships from the Protector?”

“On the heels of one only,” said Lymond. “You’ve spoken with Charlie Bannister?”

“The Protector’s man? No.”

“Damnation!” Scott shortsightedly found some amusement in Lymond’s anger. After a moment he went on. “The fool must still be on the road here—I hope nothing’s come to him. I started from Leith yesterday with a message-round like the Odyssey. He was due to leave just after and come straight here.… It doesn’t matter. I’m behind time,” said Lymond busily, “and I’ve got a message for one of of your men: Jonathan Crouch. That’s all.”

Drinks had been brought; the captain’s eyebrows rose above the rim of his cup. “Crouch of Keswick? Then you can forget it. He was lifted in a skirmish two days ago.”

The wine went down Lymond’s throat like a drain. “One message less, thank God. Who got him?”

“Whose prisoner is he? I dunno. They’re welcome,” said the captain with relish. “Drive you funny in the head, Crouch would. Tongue like the clatterbone of a goose’s arse. Are you going?”

Lymond was certainly going, and so, he hoped, was Will Scott. The
captain was quite ready to speed them off … provided they spent ten minutes first with the joint commanders.

“A few minutes either way won’t hurt you; and Wharton’ll have my skin if this man Bannister doesn’t arrive and I let you go too.”

Cheerfully, Lymond continued to make for the gates. “What Wharton will do to you will be nothing to the Protector’s delight if I spend half the night here. I’ve told you already. I left long before Bannister. We won the battle on Saturday: that’s all I know.”

The captain, unmoving, blocked his way. “Come along, man. Don’t let me down. If you’ve nothing to say you’ll be out in a trice.” There was a half-formed suspicion in his mind, and to object again was clearly unsafe. Without further demur, Lymond remounted and, with Scott, followed his guide through the main streets of Annan.