Culter watched him quietly, one hand pattering on the chimney piece. “I’m sure you have. I thought perhaps you might consider me less dangerous to Will than Lymond will be. Or to be less parochial—that you might agree that obstruction of royal messengers and leakage of state information ought to be stopped by responsible people.”
“Responsible! That’s nearly a bad word to a Buccleuch,” said Dame Janet, pouncing as she spoke on a snatch of down. She missed it: it became incandescent and whisked up the chimney. “And there’s Will’s immortal soul for you,” said Lady Buccleuch, seizing her moral with evangelical skill from her own hearthstone. “And here’s his father, worried yellow in case the poor creature scandalizes the nation and promotes an international incident anent the Buccleuch family.”
“International incident my—!” said her husband rudely, going red in the face. “Let the Council put the chains on Will, and he’ll be lucky to escape with his silly neck. You wouldn’t be so rarin’ keen to haul him into the light of grace if he were a son of your own, Janet Beaton. And why the sour mouth, pray?” pursued Buccleuch, who on a celebrated occasion had pulled an even sourer. “What unnatural sort of corruption is Will to meet at Lymond’s that’s new in the French court? Credit the boy with more strength of mind than a new-gutted lamp-wick. Or are you maybe not so much worried about Will as anxious to put a bit rope round that yellow-headed cacodemon’s neck? I told you at the time, if you kept your mouth shut, you wouldn’t have got a hole in your shoulder.… Dod!”—as a storm of juvenile complaint exploded in the rafters—“Woman, can you not keep those brats quiet! Some folk,” said Buccleuch to Lord Culter with heavy sarcasm, “have woodworm and weevils. Branxholm has weans.”
Lady Buccleuch was tart. “And whose fault is that?”
“Oh, mine; mine; mine, I suppose,” bawled Sir Wat. “I’m a fair oddity: I can raise my weans in an annual crop like barley all on my own, and I’d think a wife just a plain interference in the business.”
“I wouldn’t just say you were wrong,” said Dame Janet cruelly. “At least you were getting some fine yields, by all accounts, before ever a priest said a marriage service over you.”
“Oh, is it sermons now? You’ll make a bonny figure in a surplice, my lady: Sister Berchta with the long, iron nose and the ae big foot; and it forever slap in someone else’s business.…”
The Buccleuchs, foaming pleasurably, pranced into battle. Richard stood still, his eyes on Sir Wat’s profile: a cheek more than usually red proved that Buccleuch was aware of it. The exchange continued. The argument became corybantic and public; it blared; it stopped. A commotion at the door, a magnetic tumescence of children, a bright voice and a beaming servant announced the unlooked-for arrival of Lord Culter’s mother.
“Sybilla!” Buccleuch, in a spray of cushions and offended dogs, got up and went forward. Janet, her tongue arrested in blistering flight, rose likewise from her coiling threads and hugged the small, self-contained figure. “Come and sit down.”
“Well, Richard!” The Dowager, relinquishing her furs, approached the fire and offered a cheek to her son. He was courteous, but with a wariness in his manner which did not escape Lady Buccleuch. They all sat, Sybilla capturing the nearest child, drying its thumb and setting it firmly on her lap. “I want sanctuary from the Herries child. You’re looking very well, Wat. Being in a decline suits you.”
Janet said quickly, “What’s wrong with young Agnes?”
“We have had a visit,” said the Dowager gloomily, “from the prospective bridegroom. Arran’s son. He was not well received.”
“What about it?” said Buccleuch. “She’s a ward of the Crown. Arran can dispose of her as he wants, and if he wants the Herries lands for his son, who’s to stop him?”
“His son,” said the Dowager prosaically.
“Good lord.” Buccleuch stared. “There’s nothing wrong with that lassie’s face her dowry won’t correct.”
“I don’t think even her dowry can drown her voice,” said the Dowager. “When exercised with intent. Besides, she’s waiting for a thin man with a romantic smile named Jack: palmistry can be so embarrassing. Which reminds me. Janet, you’re bid to Midculter tomorrow week. We are to have a dissertation on the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“The Phil … ?”
“I knew Wat would forget to tell you.” In greatest detail, Sybilla explained. She outlined the properties of the talisman and the subtleties of its manufacture. From there she launched into a technical description of the cure for a tertiary.
Thus drummed out of the conversational stakes, her son rose. The Dowager declined his escort home, gracefully accepted an invitation to stay the night, and watched as, impeded by remarkably little pressure on all sides, Richard prepared to go home.
Lady Buccleuch, walking with her guest to the yard, was in no carefree mood either. “Wat has a tongue on him like an anteater, and he doesn’t much care what he does with it. Damn it, I like Will. He’s as much to me as any child of my own.”
“Buccleuch understands that, of course,” said Richard. “All he’s concerned with is protecting the boy, after his fashion. But the brutal fact is that there is no protection. I tell you, Lymond has taken three months to kill all the years of my childhood. He’ll destroy Will Scott in a week.”
Not the statement but the expression of it moved her. She valued him sufficiently not to show it, but said flatly instead, “You don’t need to convince me. I’ll go further and say I’d stop at nothing—nothing at all—to part Will from the Master.”
Richard was silent. Lady Buccleuch waited, then trapped an arm, and with it, his eyes. “God—if your conscience is as tender as that, I’ll say it. I know what’s good for Buccleuch. One of these days he’s going to catch up with Will, and when he does, he’ll take good care that you don’t get to hear of it. But there’s nothing to stop me from telling you—Wait, now! Wait and hear me. Lymond dead means Will captured and facing his deserts. Buccleuch’s afraid of just that thing; but surely nothing could make it clearer to England that Will has been acting without sanction? And no one, surely, on the Scottish side is going to hurt Buccleuch’s oldest son—the more so since his venture at Hume. That’s common sense; and being so, I haven’t the slightest compunction in going behind Wat’s silly back. Do you agree with me?”
There was another pause. Finally Richard said, “I do, of course. But—I’m sorry—I can’t see myself entering into a kind of conspiracy against Wat. Not when his own views are quite clear. Persuade Buccleuch of all you’ve just said, Janet, and then I’ll be glad to get all the help I can from both of you.” He mounted, and eyed her from the saddle. “Janet Beaton: go in and manage your man. Then I’ll discuss it with you.”
Lady Buccleuch’s face split into its disarming grin. “Och, I’ve finished discussing it,” she said. And smacking the rump of his horse, she waved him goodbye.
2. Irregular Partie Between Two Masters
Three days later, the land was choked with fog, consuming the sight from the eye and the air from the nostrils of Scot and Englishman alike. In the two estuary forts the militia were hagridden in the white gloom by the creak of marauding rowlocks; Hume and Roxburgh went red-eyed to bed, and the Borderers lay sleepless at night with their swords and dirks warm about them. The Peel used by Lymond’s men was likewise lost and cradled in fog. In the ruinous hall of it, the heir to Branxholm was playing cards with every mark of professional ease and skill.
“Play the eight,” advised Mr. Crouch intelligently. “Then Matthew can put down his ten.”
Turkey Mat, flinging down his cards, dragged a horny palm over his bald head and breathed like a sailing skiff, lee rail under. “Fancy, now: I had the queerest notion there that you were out of this game.”
Mr. Crouch was unperturbed. “I am. You told me yourself to keep off, or you’d play the next with my chitterlings.”
Turkey, grunting, unbuckled a leather purse at his belt, reversed it, then let it fall with an eloquent
flop on the table. “And you needna skin your nose looking for the reason,” said he. “It’s the ones with the smooth pansy faces that turn out to be the know-alls at cards. Three months’ wages off me in as many minutes, and my very breath pledged before it comes out between my teeth. Englishmen? Sharks! And the cooing voice on them like a bishop piping for his red bunnet.”
“Your mistake.” Will Scott, sprawled elegantly over a chair, had in two months found a certain style, and was enlarging on it. “Next time look at its teeth before you fleece it.”
“You can talk.” Turkey eyed the pile of money in front of the boy. “I’ll swear Crouch has been giving you lessons. You were safe for twenty crowns any day when you first came, and now you’ve a nose for pips like a peccary hog.”
“Mr. Scott has a quick mind.” Since his enforced residence at, and his lightning departure from, Ballaggan, Mr. Crouch had been short of an audience, and he was not the man to lose a chance. He said, a trifle wistfully, “The best man I ever saw at the tables was Buskin Palmer—”
“Him King Harry hanged for taking too much off him at cards?”
“Him. He,” said Mr. Crouch, a stickler for accuracy. “The great master, that was. I owe any little touch I might have at cards to that man and his brother. When I was in the Princess Mary’s household—”
“And when would that be, now?” inquired a new voice.
The trio turned. With some forethought, table and stakes had been set up at a distance from the other activity in the crowded room, and the authority of Mat had so far kept their bailiwick exclusive. When Turkey turned, it was with a snarl which changed to a mild roar. “Johnnie Bullo! Man, I wish you’d take to wearing clappers on your breeches; you’re desperate sore on the arteries. And that last damned powder you gave me would have done Jimmie of Fynnart a twelve-month and pointed up the whole of Linlithgow if you laid it on with a trowel. Will ye bring to mind it’s my inner workings you’re repairing, not the Toll Brig o’ Dumfries.”
Johnnie Bullo, gently oblivious, drew up a barrel, sat on it, and again addressed the Englishman. “So you were in the Princess Mary’s household, were you? When? Was it the year of Solway Moss?”
Jonathan Crouch looked blank.
Johnnie expounded. “The year the Scots King James died, and the small Queen was born. The year Wharton broke up the Scottish army on the Solway and took half of it prisoner to London, including Lymond. The year Lymond’s pastime was first discovered in Scotland, and the English gave him a fine manor for his pains. Fifteen forty-two.”
Mr. Crouch said, “Well now … Yes. I’d be with the Princess about that time. Five years ago, near enough.”
“I thought so,” said Johnnie. Mr. Crouch looked confused, Matthew seemed vaguely annoyed and Will Scott, removing Turkey’s purse from the board and laying down a fresh card, said, “Well, go on. We can’t bear the suspense.”
The gypsy settled on his barrel and flashed the white teeth. “Why,” he asked Mr. Crouch, “did Lymond release you from Ballaggan?”
“You may well ask,” said Jonathan strongly. “To send me home: that’s what he said. And what does he do? Lock me up to catch my death in an upended quarry I wouldn’t dignify by the name of a house, with robbers and cutthroats for companions—present company excepted; no intellectual resources—present company excepted; and no clothes but the one clean shirt on my back.”
“You’re away ahead of present company there,” said Johnnie.
“Why?”
“Why? How should I know?” exclaimed Mr. Crouch with exasperation. “The man hasn’t spoken two words to me since I came here.”
“Matthew knows why,” said Johnnie, and smiled to himself.
The Englishman presented Turkey with a face of indignant inquiry, and Matthew sighed. “The Master has notions about being discussed behind his back. But it’s not all that private. The fact is that since the money began coming in fairly easy we’ve been filling in our time looking for a gentleman, and Lymond thought you were maybe him.”
“And it’s a fine thing for you that you’re not.” Bullo’s white teeth shone. “For—at a guess—the man the Master is looking for is the man who betrayed all those treasonable games of his to the Scottish Government five years ago. Am I right, Mat?”
Mr. Crouch got up so quickly he upset the cards. “Is that true? Because—”
“It’s right enough. What of it?”
“Because,” said Mr. Crouch with agitation, “I gave him the names of the two other officers of the household of my own rank in those days. Somerville and Harvey. I told him the names in all good faith. And now, from what you say—”
“You’ve dispatched at least one of them to a very fancy death,” said Johnnie Bullo cheerfully; and watched Mr. Crouch, making little ejaculations to himself, shoot in the direction of the door.
Will Scott reached it just before him. “Where are you off to?”
“I demand,” said Mr. Crouch, “to see the Master of Culter, or whatever he calls himself. I find his whole treatment of me intolerable, and I intend to tell him so.”
“Lymond isn’t here,” said Will. With dreamlike punctiliousness the door beside them opened and white fog swam and curdled about them. A shadow, beaded and plateresque, spoke. “Ring the bells backwards: on his cue, he is here. Who wants me?”
Mr. Crouch peered and was rewarded with a study, sfumato, of unmistakable hands ungloving themselves deftly. Then the door closed and Lymond became wholly visible, embracing Scott and Crouch in the heavy, unpleasant regard. “Well?”
For a moment the Englishman’s heart failed him. Then he said stoutly, “I demand some satisfaction from you, sir. Four weeks have passed since I left Ballaggan in your company, and no effort has been made to restore me to my home. Had I stayed with Sir Andrew I could expect to be ransomed and back with my Ellen a month before this.”
“I doubt it,” said the Master. He threw the gloves on a chair and took an alepot from a tray hurriedly brought him. “I am disappointed in you, Mr. Crouch. Here you are in our Paestum, warm, fed and rent free, and with a face like cheese rennet. Are your companions dull? Surely you can educate them? Are they poor conversationalists? Then edify them: they should make princely listeners. Do they have little skill at cards? Then ruin them: you have my permission. It is really time,” said Lymond, “that you were developing some sense of social responsibility.” And he walked to the fire and seated himself, his eyes sliding over Matthew and Johnnie and the scattered cards. Will Scott sat down near him. Mr. Crouch, affronted and unhappy, stood stiff-legged before the fire. He began: “If I had stayed at Ballaggan—”
The Master, stretching in a leisurely way, looked up at his prisoner. “The ass with the voice of Stentor,” he remarked. “That was all you were to Sir Andrew, I regret to tell you. The cheese in the mousetrap, Mr. Crouch.”
Will Scott suddenly found his tongue. “A trap to catch you, sir?”
Lymond clicked down his tankard on the table beside him as a fresh one approached. “Who at Annan knew we were asking about our friend here?”
“The captain at the gate, I suppose, who let us in?” said Scott, remembering.
“Who let us in and suffered accordingly. When the English got out of Annan and my dear brother got in, the captain was left to breathe his last. He did so, I fancy, into Sir Andrew Hunter’s ear.”
“—And guessing you had an interest in Crouch, Sir Andrew set about getting hold of him in order to take you … but,” said Scott, working out the problem with some care, “why keep it to himself in that case?”
“It’s not difficult to imagine,” said Lymond dryly. “First, Sir Andrew is a young man living considerably above his means; second, I have a price of a thousand crowns on my head; and third—” He paused, and Scott saw his eyes were cold. “The third reason,” said Lymond slowly, “is still open to conjecture. In any case: the ensuing flight of fancy has cost friend Hunter a broken head and Mr. Crouch—I see—a cold in the head and an unhappy lapse
in good manners.”
“Now look here,” said Mr. Crouch, too riled to be afraid. “I’ve had about enough of this. I was taken a prisoner of war, all right and proper, and I’ve got the right to be exchanged or ransomed back, as soon as may be, according to the law on both sides. You talk,” said Jonathan heatedly, “as if it was a privilege to be shut in a damned, filthy—”
“But it is.” Lymond uncurled and rose; with a long index finger he pressed the titmouse into his own seat and closed his protesting fingers around the second mug of beer. “But it is. Such a study you will never meet again. Here we are, our beards smugly shaven, prolixt, corrupt and perpetuall. You have come until the grisly land of mirknes, and with reasonable luck you may leave it yet. And that, Mr. Crouch, is the greatest privilege of all.”
Mr. Crouch, pot in hand, made to speak. Lymond forestalled him. “No. You spend your speech and waste your brain. Accept our gifts and be grateful. Either Gideon Somerville or Samuel Harvey is a douce and God-fearing man and has nothing but legitimate shock to expect from me. Whatever happens to the other he will probably deserve and would have happened most likely whether you helped or not. But I don’t want my birds flushed, Mr. Crouch. When I’ve spoken to both, you can go home.”
The prisoner was not reassured. “I want to go now,” he said starkly.
“You can,” said Lymond gently. “Oh, you can. Whenever you wish. Fragment by fragment. Drink your wine and learn gratitude. Quoi! Ce n’est pas encore beaucoup d’avoir de mon gosier retiré votre cou?”
Mr. Crouch, succumbing to force majeure, drank his wine: the Master, turning his back on him, rambled to the card table and idly fingered the scattered suits. “Blind Fortune, stumbling chance, spittle luck, false dealing—take to cards if you will, Marigold, but must you stare at me like a kitten with its dam? … Johnnie, are your gypsies all here?”