The Game of Kings

  “Now I shall increase the heat, and you shall see the glorious colour changes—green to whiter—the White Tincture. If we troubled with it, we should find it transmutes metal to silver.”

  “Aren’t we going to trouble with it?” asked Mariotta.

  He shook his black head. “We wait until the furnace becomes hotter still—yellow, orange—citron—and finally, blood red.” He paused weightily. “And that day, Lady Culter, will be very soon now.”

  “And what,” asked Sybilla, the blue eyes shining, “happens then, Mr. Bullo?”

  His expression altered from the grave to the bonzelike. “Cooled and powdered, what is left has become heavier than gold, dissolvable in any liquid, a panacea for all diseases, and a transmuter of lead into gold.”

  A breathless silence, fraught with fat visions, stretched on and was broken by Janet. “There is someone,” said Lady Buccleuch in annoyance, “at the door.”

  It was a travel-stained man from Ballaggan with a letter for the Dowager.

  The reek of the furnace and the dirty crucibles rolled out into the courtyard as she read it; Johnnie’s words vanished; the litter and alembics became commonplace. “What is it?” exclaimed Janet.

  Sybilla spoke to the messenger, her voice flat. “Tell Sir Andrew that Lord Culter is not here; but Sir Wat will come as soon as we can reach him. And tell him we suggest he takes his prisoner to Threave. That will save troubling Lady Hunter while they wait for Buccleuch.”

  “Prisoner?” said Mariotta. “What prisoner?”

  The wide, cornflower eyes were brilliant. “Oh, Lymond; Lymond!” said Sybilla. “Who else? What else? He’s driven that ridiculous boy half out of his mind, and this is the result.”

  Mariotta’s face, too, was white. “They have him?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Sybilla. “Lymond goes to England tomorrow, alone, Dandy says. They know where; they know how—the Scott boy has told them. Before Lymond crosses the Border, Hunter will have him.”

  Janet spoke uneasily. “They want Buccleuch’s help?”

  “They wanted Richard,” said the Dowager with a great weariness. “But failing him, Buccleuch, to take over Lymond from Sir Andrew and bring him north. But Richard’s away, thank God. Thank God,” she repeated, her voice brittle. “Because the young fool plans to trap Lymond at the convent. The ruined convent where five years ago his sister was killed.”

  They did not see Johnnie Bullo slip out. To do him justice, he set out south at full gallop.

  It was not his fault that he was too late.

  Part Four

  THE END GAME

  CHAPTER I: Twice-Taken

  II: The Ultimate Check

  III: Knight Adversary

  IV: Baring

  I

  Twice-Taken

  And what is a Knyght worth, wyth oute

  horse and armes?

  Certaynly nothynge more than on

  of the peple,

  Or lasse, pāventure.

  1. Forced Play Against Time

  SINCE its untimely dissolution, the convent at Lymond had invented new graces. Its tongueless bell slept unharried among the cuckoo flowers and behind painted robe and beaded halo its broken beams, leafed like an artichoke, fed a thousand mouths. Of human life there was none nearer than the adjacent hilltops, where armed men waited and watched.

  Lymond, with Scott and Turkey Mat, left Crawfordmuir before dawn, in a mild, vaporous rain that soaked them all. Scott rode mute, his breath unsteady in his lungs.

  It was Oyster Charlie who had first hinted that the band was to be broken up. Will had howled at the idea. “The Master abdicate? Not while he can act like Cyrus King of the World and be paid for it.”

  But the rumour got stronger. He had tackled Turkey Mat and Turkey had pulled a yellow face, his hand on his stomach. “It’s maybe likely. He’s off to England soon to meet this fellow Harvey and be made a lord, like enough. There’s no cause to keep the force on.”

  Why had he imagined the company to be perpetual? It had been created at Lymond’s whim, and was being disbanded by the same lordly hand.… Scott took to watching for the return of the weekly messenger to the Ostrich, and he knew before anyone when the word finally came summoning Lymond to the Castle of Wark on the second of June for his portentous meeting with Samuel Harvey.

  The Master announced the disbandment the same day in the hall, over the uproar of sixty furious employees. The Long Cleg had the loudest voice. “We dinna want to go. There’s no need. We’re doing fine. We want to go on.”

  “By all means. But without me.”

  “No! You’re to stay!”

  “And who will make me?”

  The thunder increased. “We’re sixty to one!” And Turkey had turned from his comfortable seat in the front. “Two, man: two. And I’m the only other one that kens where your pay is.”

  Lymond snatched the ensuing decrescendo in which to be heard. “If you want to be paid, I’m afraid you must accept it. And even if you don’t, you really can’t make me stay, can you?”

  And, of course, they couldn’t. Sardonic to the last, he had surveyed them. “All right. Get out. Think for yourselves for a change. You’ve been pedlars: go and be merchants. You’ve been mercenaries: go and find something of your own to defend. You’ve finished teething and there’s the world: crack it open if you can. It’s a damned sight pricklier than I am. In any case, whatever you do, keep well clear of me.…”

  They were paid, and took their leave, clattering out in twos and threes: Oyster Charlie, the Long Cleg, Dandy-puff, Jess’s Joe. Turkey and he were last, as Scott knew they would be, because they had special claims. The money for them was in French gold and was in Scott’s own custody. But not in the tower.

  Dreading a homily, Scott was relieved to find that Lymond himself, travelling light, was packing quickly for his journey to Wark and made no effort to see him alone. When the matter of the gold cropped up, the boy said nothing about a convent. He said casually, “The store’s on your road, as a matter of fact. If you like, I’ll take a pack horse and ride with you so far.”

  Lymond had been indifferent, but Turkey was not. He thought bluntly that a fellow fetching a double salary of gold ought to have company on the way back as well. He attached himself firmly to Scott, who attempted to argue and only succeeded in making him obstinate.

  Thus in the long run, Turkey Mat as well as Scott took the Wark road along with the Master. The golden dales of Crawfordmuir fell behind them, broken, gouged and abandoned, and whether the four rivers they left were of Hell, or the Pischon, Dichon, Chiddikel and Perath of Paradise might have been hard for any one of them to say.

  That was this morning. The question now was how far the tiger would enter the cage.

  Lymond was riding very fast, taking no risks, although he had plenty of time to reach the north of England by next day, when Harvey’s convoy would pass through Wark. Turkey Mat, knee to knee with him, was talking more than usual, and it was a little time before either realized that Scott had halted.

  Waiting, the boy saw the Master turn, and then bring his chestnut in a fine arc back to him; saw Lymond’s eyes flicker to the splintered, obelisk elms on his left and then alter. When he came abreast, however, he merely inspected Scott’s green face and groaned. “Oh God: sermons and symbolism; I can’t stand it. Don’t bother to tell me. You’ve put the gold in the convent.”

  Scott said heavily, “It seemed a good place to me. The basement is quite intact, you know.”

  Unexpectedly, Lymond failed to rage. “Then go and get your money. Half for you; half for Mat, and for God’s sake jump off the pendulum next time before it gets my length.… Mat! This is where I leave you both.”

  Mat had heard, cantering up. “Already? What about your share of the gold?”

  Scott let him talk. He had thought of this possibility too: he had thought of everything. He moved restively behind the two men and made his unobtrusive signal and then rejoined them, a little sulky and very
young, his brow round and flecked with the sun. Mat was still arguing, but only seconds elapsed before they all heard the drumming of hoofs from behind the hill they had just passed.

  Lymond’s head came up instantly, listening; weighing up the quality of the sound. It was a large body of cavalry not yet in sight: Scots or otherwise hardly mattered; both were a danger to him, and a danger at this special and delicate crisis in his affairs.

  He turned quickly. There was only one source of cover, and it had to be reached before the first riders came into sight. After the merest hint of a pause he collected the chestnut, jerked his head, and followed by Turkey and Scott, raced for the convent.

  They got there, as he intended, before the first horses came into sight. They jumped the broken wall, dismounting, tying their horses out of sight in the roofless, rubble-filled building and flinging themselves among the toadflax as the grey light flickered like St. Elmo’s fire on the pikes and drawn swords of galloping horsemen rounding the hill.

  Turkey, his beard full of burs, his clothing soaked with the light rain, spared breath for an ironic cheer as the troop streamed friezelike along the road: they galloped to the exact point the three men had just left, and then forsaking the road entirely, bore like a grey and shining harrow through the wet grass, making straight for the convent.

  Mat’s mouth fell slightly open. “It’s the second sight. It must be: I’m damned if they saw us.”

  Brittle as exploding glass, Lymond said, “They didn’t see us. They expected to find us here. They’re Ballaggan men.”

  “The horses—”

  “Too late. You heard Scott: there’s a basement,” said Lymond, and twisting like a dorcus led them full tilt through the shattered rooms, Scott beside him and Mat at his heels. The stairs plunged downward, broken and shallow. At the head of them the Master took a quick step, wrenched Scott’s sword screaming from its sheath and flung the boy weaponless down the stairs with such force that he landed knee and shoulder at the first bend. The look in the blue eyes chilled even Turkey. “You lead. Another trick and I’ll kill you.”

  Then they were running downstairs, Lymond with a sword in each hand. Mat said, “The boy … ?”

  “Of course: who else? But he may not know there’s a passage out of that cellar. Unless it’s full of Hunter and his friends, waiting for us.”

  It wasn’t. At the next bend there was light: a sickly glint from a wall taper exposing the sunk treads and checkered green walls. Then they were in the basement.

  The floor was littered with rubbish from the groined roof, and dust covered everything. In a corner stood a heavy leather chest, securely locked: their useless gold. They sought instead what their lives depended on: the low and obscure door to the nuns’ underground passage. It was there. They saw the lintel. The rest was blocked, triumphantly and symbolically indeed, with stacked cases of gunpowder.

  It was suddenly very quiet.

  Overhead, they could hear the jangle of harness and men’s voices but no steps descending, although Mat moved instinctively to the narrow stair and put his sword across it. Scott was standing motionless between the gold and the gunpowder, the tallow dip in his hand, light and shadow racing in freshets over the stone between leader and accolyte.

  Softly Lymond said, “You put the cost of your pride at three lives?”

  “Three!”

  Lymond answered Mat without turning his head. “Why do you fancy he’s holding the torch?”

  It was quick, of course, admirable; but quick thinking would hardly rescue him now. Scott raised the flare, beside red ear and thick jaw and tousled, marigold hair. He said, “Just a precaution. You have ten minutes to walk upstairs and give yourselves up; otherwise they fire stoneshot, and then Greek fire, and there’ll be an explosion like Muspelheim. By waiting, of course, you’ll take me with you; but that’s a dull prospect compared with setting a score of young lassies to fry …”

  “You bloody little traitor, shut your mouth!” It was Matthew, not Lymond.

  The direct assault on the memory was intentional: a revenge indeed for every doubt and indignity and misery that Scott had suffered. He had perhaps reckoned without Lymond’s peculiar strength.

  No trace of the ordeal was visible to Scott. The raw light shuddered on the Master’s face but Lymond himself was quite still. He said, “You evidently want to be taken seriously. I am now doing so. You are prepared to take responsibility for Matthew’s death?”

  Buccleuch had hinted, and Sir Andrew had confirmed. You don’t make concessions to a man who has killed his own sister. “Matthew’s safe,” said Scott. “We’re all safe, for ten minutes. She was called Eloise, wasn’t she? Why did she die?”

  “Because in this age only the intolerable have survived. Matthew, quickly.”

  Scott reached the gunpowder before them, the tallow spluttering in his hand, smiling. “Touch one box and I’ll explode it.”

  The dreadful, fragile little situation was too much for Mat. He raised his heavy sword, inhaling stale air with a roar. “Explode it then, you bloody little rat: you don’t have the guts!” and stumbled, arrested by Lymond, iron-armed.

  “You’re dealing with hysteria, not guts or lack of them. Scott: if I were alone I’d say throw and be damned. Burn us into red and white rose trees. Make sweet cinders of our bloody gold. Exercise this pitiful, feckless piety you’ve discovered and reap your own trashy reward. Why the melodrama, I don’t know. If you were determined to trap me, it seems a fairly simple thing to do without the busking. If you want the satisfaction of a discussion, you won’t get it. Make your decisions, such as they are: you’re in command. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Hell, but I have!” said Mat. “Jump him! Start on the boxes. He won’t throw.”

  “He will,” said Lymond calmly. “Big bangs and primary colours appeal to the young.”

  “What then?”

  “Up to the realms of this universal patron.”

  “Dandy Hunter? Give ourselves up?”

  “Unless like Hanno you wish to sail by streams of fire. Unbuckle your sword. The suicide impulse is very strong in the air.”

  Lymond was already, left-handed, unfastening his own sword belt. He pulled it off complete with scabbard and dropped it on the rubble behind him. Mat’s followed. In his right hand Lymond continued to hold Scott’s sword. “The ten minutes are nearly up. You were saying?” he said to the boy.

  It was the steadiness of the voice that shook Scott. He exclaimed, “For God’s sake: this is where she died. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “If I killed her, why should it? If I didn’t, I’m not likely to be goaded into triple suttee, even to enable you to expire in a spray of madder-fed milk.”

  “You are willing,” said Scott harshly, “to give yourselves up?”

  “We are waiting with, I hope, well concealed impatience to do so.”

  “In that case, I’ll take back my sword.”

  Knowing Lymond, Scott was well prepared. He expected a thrust or a cut, or even the heavy blade hurled in his face. Instead Lymond said briefly, “I’m damned if I’ll give it to you. This one wrote a betrayal. It can stay and sign it.” And he hurled it away from himself, far across the dark cellar where it spun with a little tongue from the torch flame, carrying the boy’s gaze instinctively with it.

  In that one small blind instant, like the tiger of Scott’s own fantasy, Lymond jumped.

  Too late to avoid him, Scott had all the time in the world to do what he wanted. The heavy torch, flung with all the boy’s strength, left his hand and soared high over the gunpowder boxes, jettisoning sparks. The shadows pounced after it; the new, rough wood of the boxes bloomed under its high star; then it fell.

  Halfway to the powder it collided with the clogged, sodden wool of Lymond’s cloak, simultaneously thrown. Torch and cloak fell together; the wrap, batlike and sluggish, rolled over the lower boxes like a carpet and the tallow dip, upright, hit the topmost box, hesitated, bowed, and then halting i
n the surge of its own fire, toppled slowly forward and into the cloak. There was a flare of light, writhing over ceiling and uneven, web-clotted walls. Then Matthew leaped forward and Scott, borne to the floor by Lymond’s hard strength, twisted vainly to stop him. There was a shrinking of light; a stink of tallow; a hiss; and the shock of utter darkness seized them all.

  There was no light; there was no air. Scott heard Matthew blundering about, seeking them. He could hear Lymond’s quick breathing, close to his face and his own raucous panting. He could feel cool fingers bending and turning, the weight of the lean, clever body and the steady leverage on his own limbs.… Kill girls! He could kill girls; but he wasn’t going to stop Will Scott.

  He broke that hold, and the next. He knew some of Lymond’s tricks, but not all. The pressure on his ribs had gone. Now he needed only to get his right hand free. He twisted.

  Matthew stumbled on them and laid hands on something. Lymond’s voice, breathless, told him curtly to keep away. There were men’s voices in the convent above, and someone shouted something, but the blood roaring in his ears deafened Scott. He crashed again on his side, bruising his hip agonizingly against fallen stone, gritted his teeth, and shifted his own grip again.

  It was bitter delight: to feel Lymond, the cool, unassailable Lymond, wince beneath his grip. He pressed with all his weight, and felt the other man jerk. Then, brutally as Dandy Hunter had done, Scott felt a surge through their locked limbs; cramp gripped his legs, and he was raised in the air and smashed on the rubble.

  His own grip weakened. “God … !”

  The powerful muscles opened again; again he fell, and this time struck his head, his senses spinning with the pain. He had rolled halfway across the Master’s legs; he had no sort of hold at all; Lymond could do as he pleased … but he wasn’t going to. Scott’s right hand was free. Thank God, to be reminded in time. His right hand was free; his jerkin was torn apart; and beneath it, strapped to his body, was the small, sharp knife he had put there long before.