Palmer, with a glitter of ox bone, thought it unlikely that Denmark would risk offending Spain by sending ships to help Scotland, and that France’s promise of further aid was a myth to distract attention from Boulogne.
Gideon listened to it all, and passed on to Lord Grey as much as he thought fit. Two days before their final orders came through, Gideon went with Palmer to the Tower to complain about a bad consignment of arms and, returning, met the Countess of Lennox who knew Palmer well, and remembered Gideon from Warkworth and remoter days when they were both in the suite of the Princess Mary.
Knowing of her shattering failure to persuade her father to support the English at Durisdeer, and of the curious episode which had lost them a hostage when she found herself trapped by unnamed Scottish outlaws, Gideon was surprised when she mentioned George Douglas herself.
He observed with some restraint that he and Grey were to meet Sir George when they got back north. Douglas had promised them a hostage, a boy Lord Grey had wanted for a long time. Buccleuch’s heir, in fact.
Margaret Lennox said, “My father told me that Buccleuch’s son was working with … a band of broken men on the Borders.”
“That’s right,” said Gideon. “It’s not a very savoury story. Apparently it’s his own leader who’s selling him out. Not but what, having met the gentleman, I should be surprised at his selling his mother for cat’s meat.”
She was avid for a description of the man; for more details. “And what is he selling the boy for? Money?”
There was a pause made hideous for Somerville by a sudden recollection. Tom Palmer, listening with mild interest at the lady’s other side, was a cousin of Samuel Harvey, whose life was to be exchanged for Scott’s. He cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, the thing is a little delicate at the moment. Not quite settled.”
She smiled understanding. “I suppose your Lord Grey wants the boy Scott because of what happened at Hume? I’d have thought to see him much more anxious to find the Spaniard who double-tricked him.”
“I expect he was anxious enough,” said Gideon, sorry for Grey’s sake that the story seemed to have reached the metropolis. “Only he never found out who the man was. And of course his value as a hostage wasn’t as great as Will Scott’s.”
“Fair hair,” she said aloud to herself. “And blue eyes, perhaps?”
“Who?” said Gideon. “Not the Spaniard. The man Scott eventually joined had.”
“Of course he had. I know him. Or I knew him once, in Scotland. Blond, blue-eyed, rapacious and polyglot.”
There was a startled pause. “He might speak Spanish?”
“He does speak Spanish.”
And there were always black wigs.… “That means,” said Gideon thoughtfully, “that our Spaniard and Scott’s leader may be one and the—Perhaps,” he said, “you should mention this to Lord Grey or the Protector.”
“Oh, I shall,” said Margaret Lennox. “Tonight.”
* * *
Two days later, the Protector made his mind known.
Lord Grey was to return to Scotland, and not merely to enthuse from the poop. He was to march into Scotland on the 21st of April to meet his loyal Scots at Cockburnspath, and go from there to Haddington, tidemark of his former advance. There, he was to fortify and garrison the town to make of it a fortress, a warehouse, a steppingstone and a threat to the whole of Scotland.
Gideon with him, the Lord Lieutenant left London. With him also went the memory of certain acid quips of the Protector’s, and a vindictive wrath against a glib and Spanish outlaw who was huckstering with the might of the English crown.
* * *
When the convent on the estate of Lymond was blown up by the English on information received from its former landlord, the remaining nuns found shelter in a larger nunnery near Midculter. In this convent Mariotta had now been resting in collected misery for six weeks, visited regularly by Sybilla.
The Dowager, taking Lady Buccleuch with her for the first time, was subjected to some pointed questioning en route.
“What I can’t understand,” said Janet, “is how Will suddenly discovered his finer instincts and whisked her away from friend Lymond. I thought he was dedicated with the rest to murder and nasty-minded rituals at the full moon.”
“He was sorry for himself, I think,” said Sybilla wisely. “And that breeds so much fellow feeling. Anyway, he talked with her just after Lymond had been abominable, and they wept metaphorically all down their shirts and shifts, and he promised to get her away secretly next day, and did.”
“And how extraordinary,” said Janet for the sixth time, “that they should meet you like that.”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Sybilla.
“And be able to hand Mariotta over to your care.”
“Yes.”
“And go back without being suspected so that he could help his father to trap Lymond.”
“Yes. Here we are,” said Sybilla cheerfully, and entered the convent. Where the first person they saw was Will Scott, talking to Mariotta.
It was hard to know who was most taken aback: Will himself, his stepmother or Sybilla. Janet, the first to find her tongue, said, “God Almighty!” and showed all her teeth in an enormous grin. “Look what we’ve got! Orpheus wriggling rump first out of Hades with his chivalry ashine like a ten-thread twill.”
What Scott mumbled was hardly heard, because Sybilla said quickly, “I think perhaps he’s waiting to see me: he knows I come on Mondays. Will you excuse us a moment?”
Unhappily, Will was flustered, as well as being unaccustomed to the Dowager’s little ways. He said, “It isn’t private, Lady Culter—just a letter I wanted you to pass to Andrew Hunter for me.” And he thrust a paper into Sybilla’s unresisting hand.
“Andrew?” said Janet, gazing fondly at her stepson. “What’s the point, Will? He’s already left with the rest.” He looked puzzled, and she repeated. “You know. Left with Wat and Culter when they got your message.”
“My message?”
“Your second message telling them where Lymond and Lord Grey were going to be.” She gave an apologetic glance at the Dowager. “I didn’t tell you, Sybilla. But Will’s message came through just before we left. Wat and the others should be well on their way to the east coast by now.”
Sybilla sat down abruptly beside Mariotta. Scott said, “But I haven’t sent any messages!”
“Eh!”
“No! This is the first I’ve ever sent anyone since I joined Lymond except—except about Crumhaugh, of course. This is just to ask Sir Andrew to keep his promise to stand by me if—in case—when I leave the Master.”
This time it was Janet who sat down. “You haven’t sent Dandy any messages before?”
“No.”
“Nor any more to Buccleuch?”
“No.”
“Then who,” said Janet, with a tremor in her strong voice, “wrote in your name to all of us today telling us to go immediately to the old manor garden at Heriot where Lymond, Sir George Douglas and Lord Grey of Wilton could be had for the taking?”
There was an appalled silence.
“Lymond,” said Mariotta, and laughed hysterically.
* * *
Mariotta was quite right. Having galvanized both his brother and Buccleuch into five weeks of expectant planning, Lymond arrived at Cockburnspath with Johnnie Bullo in attendance two days before Lord Grey was due to make his next march into Scotland. Under cover of his safe conduct, he and Johnnie were taken direct to Sir George Douglas.
The advance army waiting at the ravine for Lord Grey was under canvas, and Sir George shared a tent with the commander, Sir Robert Bowes, Warden of the East and Middle Marches. He was however alone when Lymond was ushered in, the gypsy waiting outside.
Sir George greeted him, his face a dim, shadowless beige under the sunlit canvas. He was about to lose the most promising ally of years, and he hated the prospect. He said without preamble, “I’ve just come from Lord Grey. You ought to understand
that I’ve kept my part of the bargain: I obtained his lordship’s promise to produce this man Harvey for you. But—”
“Ah!” said Lymond, airy and stylish in dark blue. “There’s a but. Like Glaucus, we have a but, but no honey in it. Lord Grey has changed his mind?”
“The Protector changed it for him. Harvey is still in London; he isn’t coming north.”
“—And?”
Douglas said curtly, “And Sir Robert Bowes has orders to see that you send for the boy Scott regardless. You’ll be paid in money, not in kind.”
“And if I don’t?” asked Lymond.
“Your life is not in danger. Only your good health.”
Sir George’s angry glance met Lymond’s sardonic one, and there was an uncomfortable silence. At length the Master stirred. “So. Not the honey barrel, but the tilly-seeds of torture, so that I disgorge the secrets of my bed and board.”
Douglas was flushed. “All that is wanted is a message in your writing which will bring the boy here. Your gypsy friend can take it … but you will not, of course, be allowed to tell him the conditions under which it is being sent.”
“I see. You expect this to give you, personally, some security?” said Lymond suddenly.
Douglas’s voice was sharp. “If there were any alternative, be sure I should take it—” And broke off as the Commander came in.
Sir Robert Bowes straightened, nodded, and surveyed the Master at leisure from fustic head to silver spurs. He smiled. “Is this the fellow?”
“—But even a gib-cat has claws,” said Lymond, returning the smile and answering the thought. “Where is Samuel Harvey?”
“In London,” said Bowes comfortably. “Are you going to send this message to Scott for us?”
Lymond surveyed him with mild distaste. “Why should I?”
“Thumbscrews,” said Bowes picturesquely. “The iron glove—hot lead—pincers—knives. And the whip.”
The Master’s eyes were hilarious. “What, all in your baggage? There’s the English army for you. My God, do you have to whip them from behind as well?”
But it was bravado. He told them almost immediately all they wanted to know, and inscribed a letter to Will Scott with which Bullo uncomplainingly set off.
Arriving with the rest of the army on Monday, Lord Grey was charmed with the news. “This afternoon, at the pond belonging to that old house at Heriot,” said Bowes. “He’d already made a verbal arrangement with the boy, to be confirmed with his letter, and we thought it best not to change it.”
“Splendid. Good work. Thought all he had to do was collect Harvey, send the message and leave, hey? That’ll show him!” said the Lord Lieutenant. And on learning that a party, including Lymond and Sir George Douglas, had already left for the fateful appointment with Will Scott, Lord Grey collected Gideon and trotted off on the same path to enjoy the denouement.
Sir George Douglas was extremely uncomfortable.
To begin with, his elegant length was curled frondwise round the base of a holly tree whose bulk was a perfect screen, and whose eavesdrip was agony. And secondly, thus fixed and transfixed, he was being pricked, railed at, attacked and generally sacrificed to the playful god Momus.
The patch of ground at Heriot chosen by Lymond for the vigil for Will Scott had once been the kitchen garden of a large, fortified house, long since burned and bombarded and reduced to a masons’ boutique.
Among the twisted remains of medlar and apple trees, kale and gooseberries, thyme, catmint and pennyroyal, bramble, blaeberry and camomile and a bower of nettles, a select squad of Bowes’ own men lay in approximate concealment, watching the moors to the west. In the open, beside the green mud of an ancient fishpond, sat Lymond, on a block of hewn stone, with his ankles and wrists inconspicuously lashed to each other and to the block.
Although tethered like a billy goat, he had no impediment to speech. Thus suited Lymond, happily aware that for an hour or two he had never been safer. Despite almost tearful threats from Bowes, he sat amber-headed in the April sunlight, melting as the tears of the Heliades, and tore them to shreds. After a while he got quite carried away himself.
“… He and the King of Naverne
Were fair feared in the fern
Their headēs for to hide—
“—The other extremity, I see, is harder to conceal, the merry merry holly. It might, of course, help to stand up: why not stand up? No? Well, yours are the marybones: I am perfectly comfortable and capable of reciting verse until the thyme withers and the pennyroyal is debased. Give me death, but not dumbness. Let Parrot, I pray you, have lyberte to prate. And a captive audience; an attentive audience—an increasing audience. Your noble commander, no less, and—who else? Art thou Heywood, with the mad, merry wit? Good lord, no. It’s Flaw Valleys, in person.”
Lord Grey of Wilton, stalking into the clearing with a fine scorn of concealment and Gideon at his heels, had his eyes fixed on its soliloquizing centre.
The hair was different, the skin was different, the clothes were different, but the voice with its rapidity, with its lowering excess of mental agility, were the same. “The Spaniard; we were right; it’s the same man. You’ve got him!” pealed Lord Grey, and came to a halt.
Lymond looked over his shoulder and back. “Spaniard? Behold,” he quoted sadly, “my countenance and my colour. It’s only Sweet Cicely awaiting the bees, and blushing in young modesty like a seraphim; two wings over the eyes and the other four pinned with some damnably hard knots: God save Flamens and keep all the knotless from high winds and short memories.”
Paying not the slightest heed, Lord Grey pursued his idea. “The Spaniard who stole my horses and supplies at Hume Castle. Deny if you can that you’re the fellow.”
A delighted smile spread over Lymond’s attentive face, and then faded in consternation. “You want your tawny velvet, and I gave it away.”
“You insolent blackguard!”
“Muy illustrissimo y excellentissimo señor,” responded Lymond politely. “How did you find out, I wonder?”
Lord Grey said frigidly, “You made two obvious mistakes. One was to show yourself to Somerville here, and the other was parading your miserable polyglot talents before the Countess of Lennox.”
“Ah!” said Lymond; and a moment later continued. “Manerly Margery, Mylk, and Ale. Por vos suis en prison mis; Por vos, amie! I wondered at the Protector’s sudden tenderness for poor Mr. Harvey.”
“And you may as well know,” said Lord Grey, high colour in his cheeks, “that you’ll have plenty of time to reflect on the folly of your tricks. Plenty of time. I mean to have you hanged—”
“—Higher than Haman and the ramparts of Hume—”
“—And burned—”
“—More successfully than Polycarp. And ripped, salted and stuffed with myrrh and cassia and set up painted to remind all low people, all boasters and braggers and bargainers, that villainy is mortal. And what about Douglas? Does he suffer the same if Will Scott doesn’t appear? He’s present, as a matter of fact, though you might not think it—somewhere.” He looked wildly around. “But where? My joy, cry peip! where ever thou be!”
Lord Grey also looked around. Part at least of Sir George must have been visible because the Lord Lieutenant said irritably, “Get up, man: are you broody? No need for that yet. The boy will be hours yet by all accounts.”
A derisive groan broke from the bound man. “Nay, not so. I am too brittle; I may not endure.…”
“Hold your tongue!”
The prisoner smiled and settled himself as luxuriously as he could against the cold stone while Lord Grey and Douglas conferred.
Gideon, watching the relaxed profile with its veiled eyes and lightly contemptuous mouth, was gifted by remembered anger with an extra insight.
The man was coiled like a spring, waiting. Waiting for what? With the whole might of the English army lying behind them at Cockburnspath, Gideon couldn’t imagine. But this was no broken Colossus, waiting to be whisked off for ol
d metal: it was a clever man, and an expert actor.
Gideon left Grey’s side and strolled unobtrusively over to the pond, where Lymond greeted him without expression. “Any friend of Meg Douglas has my respect.”
Gideon looked down, hands clasped loosely behind his back. “As it ha-happens, I don’t greatly care for her. What are you waiting for?”
The impudent mouth widened. “Rescue,” said Lymond. “Why not?”
Somerville gave him back the same smile. “Not while I’m here.”
“You probably won’t be. Lord Grey is leaving.”
Looking round, Gideon saw that this was true. Satisfied at having identified Lymond and unready to abase himself behind prickly evergreens, the Lord Lieutenant was preparing to go back to camp.
Gideon crossed to him quickly, and in a brief exchange, got permission to stay behind, having pleaded in vain for more men to stay with him. On a billow of diminishing comments, Lord Grey disappeared. Gideon manfully selected a gorse bush which happened to be the nearest cover to Lymond, and the little clearing settled down to comparative silence.
* * *
Since Johnnie Bullo took the summons to Branxholm instead of to Will Scott; since he delivered it verbally through a dear friend who was unknown to Buccleuch; and since he represented it as coming from Scott and not from Lymond, Sir Wat and Lord Culter set out forthwith with all their men to Heriot under the natural impression that they were about to lay Lymond and his allies by the heels in the act of bargaining over Buccleuch’s son.
Johnnie had been generous with his information, both about the site and its hazards. As they rode, Sir Wat and Richard laid their plans, which were simple: by riding north around the bluff on which the house ruins stood, Lord Culter would silently infiltrate behind the Englishmen; Buccleuch with his men would appear in full panoply along the wide, exposed moors to the west and south, and dash the would-be ambush back into Richard’s arms.
The prospect was intoxicating. In a state of near euphoria the Scotts and the Crawfords drove at the hills lying between Branxholm and Heriot and the hills vanished, as small fish into the gape of a whale. Then the blue and silver wheeled and passed to the northeast, while Buccleuch slackened his pace, and prepared to time his attack.