The Game of Kings

  “My name is Lymond.”

  It was unknown to them. “Well, Mr. Lymond—”

  “Lymond is a territorial name. My family name is Crawford.”

  “Then, Mr. Crawford—” said Gideon patiently, and broke off, for the yellow-haired man was looking beyond him.

  “Philippa!” said Lymond.

  Crouched at Kate’s knee, the girl made no movement. Kate said, “This child needs her beauty sleep. Off you go, pet. If the gentleman wants to speak to you, he can catch you tomorrow with your eyes open.”

  Lymond opened his hand, on which lay the key of the door. He said, “What the letter says and what you say are unsupported evidence. You claim you are not the man I want. All right. Let the girl prove it.”

  Kate’s brown eyes were blazing. “My dear Mr. Crawford, you’re not thinking. This child’s been a Messalina from birth.”

  The blue, feminine gaze moved to Gideon. “Send her here.”

  “Not unless she wants to.” Gideon was quite unarmed.

  Philippa got up, the plaits swaying and her short dressing gown dragged away from the white nightdress. She said, her lips trembling, “Don’t worry, Father: I won’t tell him anything.”

  Her parents’ eyes met. Then Gideon said, with an effort, “It’s all right, chick. You can tell him anything he wants to know. He can’t hurt us.”

  The child said again, “Don’t worry. He shan’t make me speak. Don’t worry.”

  With one raging glance ahead, Kate slid to her knees, pulling the child’s head to her breast, her mouth in its hair. “Pippa. Pippa, we’re awful fools. What Father means is that truly nothing we have ever done can harm us, and Mr. Crawford has mixed us up with someone else. But you know what unstable-looking parents you have. He doesn’t believe us, but he says he’ll believe you. It’s not very flattering,” said Kate, looking at her daughter with bright eyes, “but you seem to be the one in the family with an honest sort of face, and your father and I must just be thankful for it. Go over to him, darling. I’ll be behind you. And just speak,” she said with an edge like a razor. “Just speak as you would to the dog.”

  There were tears on the child’s cheeks, but she was not crying. She got up and walked down the room, stopping just out of Lymond’s reach. “I’m not a liar,” she said. “Ask anything you want to.”

  Gideon jerked. “I can’t stand this—” and was gripped by Kate’s fingers. “No. Let her be. It’s the only safe way. Damn and blast Willie Grey,” said his wife passionately under her breath.

  The ugly business began. The man Lymond, his back half turned, bent stiffly over the desk, his weight on both hands, seeking inspiration perhaps from the polished wood between them. He asked, “How old were you when you left London, Philippa?”

  She thought, and replied steadily.

  “Do you remember the oldest English princess? The Princess Mary? Did your father work for her? Do you remember when you lived at Hatfield? What time of year was that? Were you playing in the garden? Then when did you leave?”

  She did not always remember: sometimes he led her to answer by deduction; sometimes Kate helped her a little, without actually prompting. At length, the questions seemed exhausted. There fell an odd little silence during which Kate thought, He has exquisite wrists and hands. What an unspeakably foul thing to do to a child. Out of the mouths … What had she really told him? Enough to clear Gideon? Or worse, something damning … some childish error; a confusion of dates …

  Rage boiling inside her, she said, “Well, Mr. Crawford. Are you satisfied, or would you like to try all over again with a divining rod?”

  The fellow raised his head and turned to Gideon. “I am satisfied that you were not present at the time my unknown friend became adventurous with my reputation. Therefore the unknown friend must be Samuel Harvey. You might think there are easier ways of discovering that simple fact, but I assure you that if there were, I should have spared myself a long and unexciting evening.”

  “I hope,” said Gideon shortly, “by that definition never to experience an eventful one. May we hope to be rid of you now?”

  “Probably.” The roving gaze fell on Philippa’s white face: her brown eyes fixed on his looked out of bruised circles, as if the orbits had been minutely pummelled.

  Lymond dropped to one knee. With the musician’s hands he transferred from his doublet to her night robe a pin with, in its centre, a spreading, flowerlike sapphire the colour of his eyes. The girl shuddered as he touched her, but bore it passively: when he drew away she looked down and touched the brooch, fumbling with the unfamiliar catch. Then, before anyone could stop her, the brooch was out, and on the floor, and being smashed, and smashed again by Philippa’s stout wooden heel. Then she ran.

  Holding the child sobbing in her arms, Kate looked at Lymond with calm eyes. “And that,” she said, “settles, I think, any matter of insult by apology.”

  For a moment he stood, the fair face quite still; then he walked softly to the door and opened it. “If it seems any recompense, your animals have performed in the night a feat of multiplication which I believe, genetically speaking, to be quite fabulous,” said Lymond. Good night.” And the door closed.

  * * *

  Collecting his men unmolested, the Master left Flaw Valleys, picked up Scott and the rest of his force and camped at daybreak in a sheltered and uninhabited valley where fires would be unnoticed, and where a stunted belt of firs gave dry fuel and protection.

  During the ride there, Lymond made no secret of his mood. His eyes were savage and his voice, freezingly hostile, rang out again and again as the men riding silently with him came under the lash. The Lang Creg had suffered a passing fancy to go into the cattle business for himself. Pitilessly exposed, the whole tale was soon complete, and Lymond did what he rarely troubled to do: personally flayed the man, tied wrist and ankle to a tree, with his great riding whip.

  Scott watched until the Cleg slumped bloody from his ropes, and turned away sick.

  Then it was over, and they lay close-wrapped about the big open fires as a frosty dawn bleached the hilltops and the watch, turn and turn about, paced on the heights.

  And now, when the longed-for sleep was on him, Scott could not rest. In a dark corner of the trees, remote from interfering light he lay and listened to the incessant whisper of Lymond’s footsteps. Then the familiar voice, directly above him, said, “Sit up. I want to speak to you.”

  His face in shadow, Lymond leaned against the next tree and looked down on him. “You had a long talk with Johnnie Bullo today, didn’t you?” he said. “You adhere for three months, and now we are sundered. We are no longer articulated. We are no longer articulate. What did Bullo tell you?”

  Scott had seen a man flogged that night, but he was in no mood for finesse. He said uncompromisingly, “We were discussing your aberration after your visit to Annan in August.”

  “I see. And Johnnie told you—”

  “How you arranged for a blind girl to save your life without giving away to her who you are. How you induced her to spy for you. How you arranged to meet her, secretly, after you shot your brother in Stirling.”

  There was a pregnant pause. “I thought it was that,” observed the Master. “You object, do you?”

  But Will was no longer an easy subject: a reflection of Lymond’s own irony gleamed in his eyes. “Why should I? You’ve made no secret of your habits.”

  “And those very habits are feeding and clothing you, so why indeed?” The Master dropped neatly to the ground, and resting his back against the tree, looked up into the dark branches. “And yet you do object, my sullen one. In that fine, unreasoning, Pharos-like brain which works so hard at reflecting other people’s emotions, some minor luminary is sitting intoning disticha: it’s damned unchivalrous to employ women agents; and infamous to employ them without their knowledge; and indecent to employ them when they are physically defective. And such an offender will never enter the Kingdom of Hawick. So here you are, complaining thus
in black and white and grey, and armed with a moral code like an ogee.”

  It was clear that Lymond was out for trouble. Scott said, “Does it matter?”

  “That’s what Buridan’s Ass kept saying. It matters to this extent. If you are going to develop a pure and unspotted psyche you’ll need a freer air than this to develop it in. Did Bullo tell you the name of the girl?”

  “Yes. Christian Stewart. I played with her when we were children,” replied Scott quietly. “I swore to do all you asked of me and I have. I haven’t changed. But I can’t match your tone over this episode, that’s all.”

  “You’ll allow me pogrom and heresy, but not Christian Stewart. Why?”

  Scott said crisply, “I don’t mind hitting anyone who has a reasonable chance of hitting back. The girl thought she was helping someone in need. Instead, she’s spying for a condemned man, which means that if she’s found out, she’ll hang.”

  The Master’s manner continued to suggest that he thought he was having a companionable chat. Will said with sudden violence, “I’d cut off my right hand rather than do that to a girl.”

  “No doubt you would,” said Lymond, twirling a dry sprig. “And sacrifice everyone else for your principles as usual. But bend that stern eye on the other side of the picture. We know the disadvantages to the lady: what price the advantages? Is she happier for my coming? Modesty is clearly out of place. She is, in the purest sense, ravished. Is her life more exciting, more filled with achievement, pride and natural enjoyment in a charming and docile member of the opposite sex? Yes. Finally—if she is found out, will she suffer shame and discomfort? She will not. She will be revered as the delicate subject of outrage, and the odium will fall on my always inaccessible head. Three formidable weights on my side of the scales. And I haven’t troubled to list the advantages to myself, which are enormous.”

  To separate truth from sophistry was almost beyond Scott’s tired brain. He flung off the wraps and got to his feet. With his back to Lymond, fidgetting among the leaves, he said, “I can’t understand how you could do it,” and the voice was the voice of an upset boy.

  Lymond also rose, suddenly. “You can’t understand how I could do it? By God, what pit of feminine logic have we tumbled across now? What are we discussing, a test case in casuistry or my personal complexity of habits? If you have a saint in your soul, I’m willing to bait him for you, but I’m damned if I’m going to meet you stumbling about with a candle inside my pia mater. For one thing, you would find it harsh on the nerves.” Lymond stretched out an arm, and digging in long fingers, twirled Will painfully to face him. “Don’t you believe me? I can prove it. If you were truly conducting an analysis, my dear one, you would want to have this as evidence.”

  Will Scott took the paper Lymond held out to him, noting the broken seal. The familiar knot twisted his stomach again. The letter was headed simply, To the Master, and went on:

  I am leaving this in the hope that one day you will call at Flaw Valleys. You will already have discovered that in other respects your visit is in vain. The gentleman you wish to interview is Mr. Samuel Harvey, and he is not only in England but quite inaccessible to you.

  He is not inaccessible to Lord Grey. The proposal he has made to me is that Samuel Harvey will be brought north, and an interview arranged between you and him, if in exchange you provide Lord Grey with the person of Will Scott of Kincurd, Buccleuch’s heir, who is at present under your disposal. The arrangements have been left for me to conclude; and for this purpose I am prepared to make myself available to you at any time on any day at one of my castles. My movements are doubtless well known to you.

  To obtain access, you need only mention that you bear a message about Mr. Harvey.

  The letter was signed, GEORGE DOUGLAS.

  Scott felt as if he were being suffocated. He knew his face was white, and his eyes were almost too heavy to keep open. He pulled himself together and said, with a trace of his original irony, “I see. Have I been sitting another test? It hasn’t escaped me, of course, that Grey wants me because of Hume. And that it was you who arranged for me to be prominent at Hume.”

  “Partly,” said the Master. “You did some of it yourself …” And struck, perhaps, by the confusion in Scott’s face, Lymond suddenly began to laugh. For a moment, so amused and so tired was he, the laughter was less than controlled and Scott, shocked, recognized in the other for the first time since he had known him, the outward signs of extreme fatigue.

  Then Lymond said, “And now where are we? It’s difficult, isn’t it, to know whom to trust? Fide et diffide, in fact: and that is the moral of this little story. Be mistrustful, and you will live happy and die hated and be much more useful to me in between.

  “Sit down,” said Lymond, and waited while Scott dropped again to his blankets. He took the letter from the boy’s hand and straightened. “I showed you this, my would-be catharist, because I don’t need you as a barter. I’ve got something George Douglas wants much more—information. And if that fails, I have a feeling I can acquire a hostage of my own worth two—forgive me—of Buccleuch’s expanding nursery. In that, indeed as in all else,” he added with exaggerated courtesy, “I shall want your help.”

  Scott lay back on his rugs. He said cravenly, “I understand. If that’s so … I’ll help all I can.” Sleep swam in his head, his lids closing with it.

  “Of course,” said the Master politely, and tossed a blanket over the boy. “For my boy Willie.…

  “My bird Willie, my boy Willie, my dear Willie, he said;

  How can ye strive against the stream? For I shall be obeyed.”

  III

  French Defence

  The seconde pawne that standeth tofore the Knyght hath the forme and figure of a man.… By this is signefied all maner of werkman, as goldsmithes.

  1. Touching and Moving

  IN THE two weeks after the cattle raid, several moves followed each other in apparently random sequence. Christian Stewart, adroitly missing an encounter with Tom Erskine, left Lanarkshire and went north to Stirling to await the coming of the Culters and Lady Herries to spend Christmas at Bogle House. Shortly after, Buccleuch and Janet left also for the Scott house in Stirling, moving slowly to accommodate Walter, David, Grisel, Janet and seven ninths (as Buccleuch crudely put it) of Margaret.

  The Culters stayed at home until the third Sunday in December; then, leaving Richard to his inevitable business, the Dowager seized a break in the weather to transport herself, Mariotta and Agnes to visit Sir Andrew Hunter’s mother.

  Before the gates of Ballaggan, and after they had crossed the Nith safely and dry-shod on its upper reaches, the Dowager rallied her party. “Hear me, children,” said Sybilla. “This is a naughty old woman, but she’s too old to change, and too feeble to be lectured. So speak up, keep your tempers, and remember you’ll be naughty old women yourselves, one of these days.” So they went in and, Sir Andrew being temporarily absent, were taken straight upstairs.

  Lady Hunter’s room was as warm as a byre and as forbidding as a lying-in-state. Cocked on her pillows, the paraplegic greeted and seated the three visitors. Then the puckered mouth, fiercely active, said: “Mariotta. Come and let me see you.”

  She studied the girl. Mariotta, hanging grimly to her temper, gazed back. “I have good news of you,” remarked Lady Hunter. “You haven’t the bones for it, but that can’t be helped. None of the Crawfords would make more than a hen-sparrow. When will it be?”

  Mariotta’s face was pink with controlled emotion. She said politely, “In the spring.”

  “Hum. Richard pleased?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “He will be. Hah! Sybilla. That’s two lives between Lymond and the money. You’ll be happy now, I dare say.”

  Mariotta, supposing herself dismissed, returned to her seat with an expressive glance at the Dowager who said mildly, “We were all perfectly merry before, so far as I know. I can’t say I ever considered the matter in a racial light, but it will be nic
e to have babies about again. You ought to prod Dandy a little: it’s high time he got married. It would do you good to nurse something other than that smelly terrier of yours.”

  Lady Hunter’s brittle fingers played with her rings. “In these days of opportunism, Andrew has little to commend him to an heiress, either in fortune or appearance. Unlike his brother.”

  Forgetful, Mariotta contradicted. “Oh, surely not? He has everything to recommend him.… There must be pretty girls by the score who’d give the nails off their fingers for him.”

  “Oh, yes. Plenty of those. Ballaggan can’t afford that kind, however,” said Lady Hunter. “Pretty girls with no dowry are for the hedgerow, not the altar. We are not all as fortunate as Richard.”

  “Dear Catherine: yes,” said the Dowager. “How lucky that we are all rich and beautiful. Otherwise we should be so affronted. Do you drink everything in those bottles?” And the conversation was safely transferred to physics, and from there to herbs, on which the old lady was expert and, in her own acid way, entertaining.

  Mariotta listened, more interested than she had hoped to be; Agnes, within reach of a lethargic Cavall, amused herself by parting its fur idly with her slippers; and neither did more than give fair ballast to the conversation until the Dowager, gauging swiftly the amount of time to be filled before Sir Andrew might come, got to her feet saying something bantering about vaults.

  The bite returned to Lady Hunter’s voice. “If you were bedridden as I am, Sybilla, you wouldn’t care for all the affairs of the household to lie about for servants to read. As I’ve told you before, these recipes are worth money: there is no call to be careless with them. The keys are behind you.”

  The Dowager disappeared, and after a sizable interval returned in time to disentangle Mariotta from an appalling inquisition into the state of the linen at Midculter. With her she brought the promised book of recipes, which lasted safely until Sir Andrew came in.

  Mariotta, watching him, found her defences rising on his behalf. She knew him already as a kind and ready confidant. No one, looking at the fine hands and good carriage, could say he was uncomely; no one listening to the warmth of his voice could find him displeasing.… Poor Dandy.