So apt, so malevolently timed, one more great benefit conferred on the one side, one more debt incurred on the other! Who could choose but look on this picture, and on that, and acknowledge and be shocked by the inevitable comparison? And I must sit here and smile, thought the king, to hear him praised for his valour and impetuosity, and worse, worst of all, for his success, and say some good and gracious words in return, with my mouth full of wormwood. And is he to carry away his laurels thus unchallenged and undespoiled, while I am famished?
But he found good and gracious words to say, and the Northumbrian squire in his simplicity was well satisfied, and did the rest of his office joyously.
“And the Lord Henry Percy and his lady in especial greet your Grace, and pray you be of good cheer in this happy news, for that the price set upon these Scots prisoners, such as belong to the Lord Henry, shall be at your Grace’s disposal in the matter of the redeeming of their beloved kinsman, Sir Edmund Mortimer, out of his captivity in Wales. For they would not that burden should be borne all by the crown. And they wish your Grace joy, and comfort in the favour God has shown to your arms, and the Lord Henry trusts to see you in health and spirits at the assembly of your parliament at the month’s end.”
He was thanked and rewarded for his embassage, and dismissed in great content. And King Henry, alone in his chamber, held his head between his hands for fear it should burst with anger and chagrin, and something else which he did not or would not recognise for pure hatred.
“—joy and comfort in the favour God has shown to your arms!” Was there ever such insolent irony? As though some evil genius had inspired the man to find the most mortifying words possible in which to signify his loyalty and goodwill. True, he could hardly have heard, when he despatched his messenger, of the shaming tragicomedy in Wales. And yet how could a man so beset fail to hold it against him? Too happy Harry, the darling of fortune always, and always so sure of the love other men bore him. The fruit of his prowess to be sold to ransom Mortimer, and a graceful by-gesture made to his king in the process! And no doubts, never any doubts at all, that men thought as he would have them think, and would always be as he had always known them.
How was it possible for any man who fell within the circle of his radiance to forgive Hotspur for being Hotspur? In and out of season he must give off these sparks of personal brightness, to dazzle as he had dazzled James of Lusignan, King of Cyprus, with his “singular courtesy and noblesse” when he was governor of Bordeaux. Even the loss of Conway castle in his absence, a ridiculous incident enough, and costly, he could turn to appreciative laughter, and never grudge that the laughter, at second-hand if not directly, was against himself. So over-blessed a nature must bring a man either to a throne or a grave before ever he lived to be old. But I am no such creature, the king thought, burning in his own fury and grief, I cannot be thus constantly outdone and bear no grudge. And he shall not, he shall not, walk onward like this over my discomfiture, secure that his foot cannot slip. He shall feel the ground give under him, if only once, he shall fall, and men shall see him fall, and know him for a man like other men. And then if I please to reach him a hand and pick him up again, he shall know and acknowledge to whom he owes it, and walk more humbly thereafter.
And I will love him the better, his heart said, turning rebelliously in his breast. At St. Inglevert—do you remember, Lancaster?—he was the match of any he met in arms, if not the master, and so were you, and together you two held any two that France could set up against you, and Jean de Boucicaut himself acknowledged it.
But those were the days of innocence, long ago vanished and past recovery.
I will give him sharp orders, he thought, and bring him up on a short rein; and I will see him come to terms, and kiss the hand that curbs him. And then, then, I will restore him what I denied him, and graciously accept the proffer of it again as a tribute to me, so that for ever afterwards he shall know who is master between us two friends. He shall give, and I will deign to accept. And I will give, and he shall be mortally glad to accept.
But he was careful not to think, because some corner of his mind knew that that way lay a kind of death, of Hal in Chester, quite certainly notified, or soon to be notified, by Hotspur or another, of the long day’s work done at Homildon Hill six days ago. The one thing he could not have borne, the one thing he could not completely shut out from the fevered fringes of his mind, was the thought of the boy’s chill assessment of his father’s achievement and his friend’s. Hal had sent a messenger only yesterday with a dutiful report on his fruitless sally into North Wales, and his orderly return. Nothing could have been more controlled or correct, as if he did not know that his father had been driven out of the principality like a half-drowned rat, or a hound caught in a thunderstorm, and running for shelter with its tail between its legs. And now to think of him listening to the rhapsody of such another youngster as this Merbury, besotted as they all were on their paragon, Hotspur! From the contemplation of this inescapable judgment he turned his face resolutely away. There should yet be adjustment between them, and the boy should be made to witness it, whether he would or no.
When all the hot bitterness in him had cooled and congealed into a hard and reasoned purpose, and he had command of his face and his voice, he sent for his secretary, and dictated a letter to his council at Westminster.
* * *
In Bamburgh castle, where they had carried him from Wooler as soon as he was fit to be moved, the earl of Douglas took his ease in a very light and illustrious captivity. They had found no less than five flesh wounds on his body when they stripped him of his armour, but all clean and none dangerous, once the draining of his blood was staunched. But there was one loss that could never again be supplied to him: he had lost the sight of his damaged eye. All he could discern on that side was a shade of difference between dark and light; but with the one eye remaining he missed very little of what went on about him, and within the week he was out of his bed and trying his skill at aim and balance about the rooms and staircases. Since the light hurt his blinded eye, and indeed the cut which had damaged it was not yet healed, he went with it bandaged and darkened with a black shade. Hotspur’s wardrobe furnished him with clothes, and Hotspur’s stable, when he was strong enough, and already restive with inaction, supplied him with a mount. His parole was given and taken, and there was no need for him to lack exercise. They rode together, hawked together, played chess together, and to work off the convalescent’s stiffness as his wounds healed, essayed a little mild sword-play together. The prisoner was popular with those who attended on him, adored and followed round faithfully by the children, and well-liked by Elizabeth, to whom he was heartily gallant.
“Your lady,” he said warmly, “has been to me the kindest of hostesses and gentlest of nurses. Were I her honoured guest, she could not have used me more generously.”
They were walking their horses among the sand-dunes south of the castle, and on their left hand the sea ran high and grey, and the gulls were uneasy, aware of coming wind.
“Why, so you are. And she’s trying to buy a little justice from fate,” said Hotspur, with an overshadowed smile. “As she uses you, she trusts, so may Glendower use her brother Edmund, who is also a prisoner.”
“She uses me according to her own sweet nature, and could do no other for her life. But I’ve seen,” he said, grown serious, “that she frets over him.”
“So do we all. It’s three months now, and no news, not a word of ransom yet. Though when parliament meets—it’s no more than six days now, we shall be leaving tomorrow—I hope the matter may be quickly resolved. She has lost one brother already,” he said sombrely, “of the two that she doted on, when Roger was killed in Ireland, four years ago. Now she fears for the one remaining like a hen for her only chick. It’s been so ever since I’ve known her—she was the eldest, and felt herself a mother to the pair of them. And Edmund was always the more venturesome, and the one that frightened her most. He’s five years her junior
. And, faith, since we married I’ve been pressed into service as one more brother to him, a father, too, since his own father died when the boy was barely thirteen. I’m very near as fond of him as Elizabeth herself. I wouldn’t for the world he should miscarry.”
“He’ll do well enough with the Welsh,” said Douglas stoutly, “why should he not? This Owen’s an able prince, no more like than any other prince of Christendom to do harm to a prisoner, or let harm come to him.”
“That I believe, but Owen is mortal, and hunted hard. How if he be killed, then who follows on? And in such a state of war as we have now in Wales, mischances can happen all too easily. Their way is to pick up everything movable and retreat into the mountains when pressed, and in such rapid removals and sudden onslaughts a man can come by his death by pure accident. And in sickness, say—and wounded, as he was—how if a prisoner hampered their movements too much? They might be forced to discard him—and a stray company working at large would not scruple to cut his throat, though Owen would. He is not in a court captivity, he must live wild like the rest, and founder if he cannot keep their pace. I shall not be easy until we get him back.”
“For a Mortimer,” said Douglas, “they won’t haggle over the price.”
Hotspur laughed aloud, startling his horse into a side-long dance. “Not haggle? If you knew how many complaining letters I must write before I get the means to pay my men their dues! God knows how the treasury comes to be so desperate poor. But there isn’t an officer of the crown who hasn’t had to put his hand deep in his own coffers to make good what should be crown expenses. Else none of us could keep an army together.”
Douglas was laughing, too, though a little ruefully. “Faith, I begin to see how I may be serviceable to your lady. If coin’s so short, it might be simpler to offer me to Owen just as I am, in exchange for Mortimer. If the price of an earl is what he asks, send him an earl. But I doubt he’ll hold out for the money. I’d best be sending out letters to see how my credit stands at home.”
“The thought,” admitted Hotspur, grinning, “had entered my mind. But I’m not in such a hurry to be rid of you just yet. So we’ll sound out parliament first, and hold you in reserve, my lord, for a last resort.”
They rode back together very companionably; their rides were short as yet, for Douglas was still weak, and tired soon. Hotspur watched the marred profile beside him curiously as they paced side by side, for he was greatly drawn to his prisoner, and could not reconcile the many stories concerning him with this man he had begun to know. He had come into his earldom only two years ago, very shortly after the scandal which had sent Dunbar storming over the border into England in dudgeon, and asking for a safe-conduct to King Henry’s court; for the old earl had died very soon after the coup on which he had staked so much, leaving this new Archibald Douglas to step into his shoes. Only two years established, barely thirty-three years old, and already he had a reputation as formidable as his father’s. Perhaps the most powerful man in Scotland now, excepting only Albany, the regent. King Robert himself hardly counted, poor soul. Fifty-three years old when he came to the throne, and crippled by the kick of a horse in his youth, what could he do against all these turbulent and forceful lords, his brother Albany, his son Rothesay, and these Black Douglases who bore almost the prestige of a royal dynasty?
And now this dark story that had leaked out of Scotland earlier this year of the death of the duke of Rothesay—the husband of Douglas’s own sister, and the brother of his wife, doubly close kin to him! Certain it was that the young man had died at Falkland palace in Fife. Of a bloody flux, the official proclamation had said. But unofficially the word ran that he had died of plain starvation. It was Albany’s castle, and it was Albany who had shut up his nephew there, and must carry the burden of his death. Scotland had proved too small to hold two such power-hungry men. But there were those who said that Douglas had known of it and connived at it.
Watching him ride thus, strongly recovering from wounds that might have killed a lesser man, and whistling softly and contentedly into the sea wind, it was impossible to think evil of him. And after all, Rothesay, so they said, had led Margaret a dog’s life after all her father’s pains to secure him for her, and been by any standard a poor bargain for any girl, having worn out so many before her—including, the bolder gossips whispered, Dunbar’s unhappy daughter, affianced and bedded but never wed. Who could say if Margaret was not better off a young widow, able yet to make a humbler and happier match? And yet murder was murder. Hotspur could not conceive of such doings in the dark; but neither could he connect his prisoner with them. The man’s heart, even in captivity, was light as a bird. Even with an eye covered, he was debonair to look upon. Even in bodily weakness and misfortune, he charmed all who came near him. And of all fighters Hotspur could remember holding at the end of his own sword, this was the bonniest. And he could not choose but love him.
* * *
Elizabeth rode with her husband as far as Alnwick, to spend one more night with him there; and Douglas added himself to the escort which was to bring her home again to Bamburgh afterwards. The distance was not more than fifteen miles, and he was beginning to feel his strength returning, and to look round for employment, feeling himself for the first time a little cramped in his enforced inactivity.
They came down through the woods to the bridge over the Aln late in the afternoon, when the light was beginning to change from clear pale gold to grey, after a sudden bright day of recovered summer; and at the head of the rise beyond, the castle cast the shadow of its towers and curtain wall across the river, standing guard over the town. Of late years, since the death of his second wife, the earl had begun to feel happiest and most at home at Warkworth, nine miles or so down-coast at the head of the Coquet estuary, but Alnwick was full of childhood memories and family warmth for Hotspur, and he never rode across the Aln bridge without being moved to spur into a canter up the winding hill to the barbican, the last stage of the way home. Elizabeth set spurs to her mare and kept pace with him, and Douglas and the squires of the escort fell back a little, and let them pass through the gates alone. Hotspur was happy that day, for no great reason except the late benediction of sunlight and blue sky, and the unhurried and companionable ride. In the shadow of the barbican he waited, and reached out an impulsive hand to her, and hand-in-hand they entered the castle precinct.
Grooms ran to take the bridles, and a squire to cup Elizabeth’s foot in his hand and lift her down; but Hotspur was before him, plucking her boisterously out of the saddle between his palms and setting her softly on her feet. The escort came trotting in after them just as the earl emerged from the doorway of his great hall, long and lean in a dark gown of brocade and fur, with George Dunbar at his heels. The earl of the March of Scotland, like his host, was bound for the parliament at Westminster, and it was reasonable enough that they should travel together on the morrow; yet Hotspur’s brow clouded faintly at the sight of him here.
“Sir, your son and servant!” He leaned to his father’s embrace and kiss, and held him off afterwards at arm’s length to look at him more closely. The gaunt, hawkish face was glad of him, and yet not wholly glad; there was a slightly grim set about the mouth, and the brows were drawn a little too straight and low over the bright black eyes. “Someone is in your displeasure! Not I, I hope?”
“I never knew you care overmuch for that,” said Northumberland drily, and turned to take Elizabeth’s hands, and kiss her warmly. “My lord of Douglas, I’m glad to see you so well recovered. There are letters,” he said abruptly, turning back to his son. “For you, and for me. The king’s messenger was here yesterday, and hearing you would be riding this way so soon, he left them here with me.”
His voice was perfectly flat and inexpressive, and that in itself said more than his words. There was something here that was not in accordance with his will, and certainly not to be communicated here in the courtyard. “Come, we’d better go in.” He led the way, with patent purpose, into the retir
ed room he used for his own private business. But he did not scruple to draw in Dunbar and Douglas to join them, and called for a page to bring wine before he closed the door.
There were two sealed scrolls lying upon his table beside the window. He took them up, one in either hand, rather as if he held a pair of daggers, though his face was mute and controlled but for the glitter of intent eyes. “These, for you. This, from the king’s council. And this, from the king.”
Hotspur took them without a glance, his eyes steady upon his father’s face. “You know what is in them, I think.” And yes, someone was certainly in his displeasure. The council, or the king?
“I have received the same. So has March. Here are no favours, and no favourites. You had better read.”
He hesitated a moment, still trying rather to read his father’s face; then he shrugged, and broke the seals. It did not, after all, take a great indiscretion to fire his father’s ready resentment, or a great gesture to cool it again. And what could be amiss with Henry, when they had just presented him with the most valuable victory of his reign?
He unrolled the council’s communication first, and they watched him read it through with brows sharply contracting into impatience, then into half-incredulous anger. He looked up with the warning golden flare in his eyes, and the sting of dark colour in his cheeks.
“But this is insolent folly! No such order has ever been issued before. How dare they so presume without authority?”
Northumberland uttered a short bellow of laughter. “Without authority? They had authority enough to set them scurrying to do as they were bid. Read the king’s letter!”