Lord Culter … the Scott boy … the Master of Erskine, without his father. That should be interesting: it was already interesting. One or two unknown faces, and some at the back he couldn’t see. He ran a bony finger over his chin and felt his usual rueful irritation that the hair which surged so cheerfully on his face should colonize his crown so feebly.
There was a hum of voices and a shuffle of feet: the initial procedure was over. They had put a chair in the centre of the floor for the panel: he remembered hearing that the fellow had been shot. Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter. They had called him. The name reverberated through the rafters: Lymond … Lymond … Master … Master. The boy Scott jumped and the brother, Culter, moved also. The rest simply looked stoic.
Everybody stared at the door. Two guards came in, and someone fair, of a vague distinction who walked steadily through the benches to the clear space in the middle, declined the chair and turned to face the Tribunal.
And this was a surprise. Unobtrusive, beautiful clothes; fine hands; a burnished head with a long, firm mouth and heavy blue eyes, spaciously set. He had been ill all right: the signs were all there. But his face was beautifully controlled, giving nothing away.
The guards withdrew. Orkney cupped his left ear in his hand and then took it away again. The answers to Argyll’s questions were professionally pitched; clear, pleasant and effortlessly audible.
Henry Lauder, Prosecutor for the Crown, guardian and administrator for all its people of the laws which secure their tranquillity and welfare, sat back in his seat and gave an unlegal twitch of sheer pleasure. He was, he felt, going to enjoy his day.
* * *
“This is not a trial,” Argyll had announced. “This is a preliminary examination conducted by us through Mr. Lauder, to lessen the burden on tomorrow’s meeting of the Estates. A number of questions will be put to you, and your replies will be noted. You will be given every chance to put your point of view, and a report based on these proceedings will be drawn up and placed before Parliament.…”
In other words, Parliament is busy with weightier matters than treason. Beware, for you are being judged.
“… And so, as a result of these productions,” the Lord Advocate was saying, swaying gently to and fro on his heels, “the above charges are dismissed. The Crown does not accuse you of the attempted murder of your brother, Richard Lord Culter, or of wilful and malicious fire-raising, robbery and attempted murder at your own home of Midculter, or”—he put out a bony finger and moved a paper in front of him—“or of the abduction of your brother’s wife and the slaughter of her child. These charges, as I have said, are not being pursued.”
Henry Lauder broke off, took away the spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose and said, “You don’t look very pleased about it. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“I was considering its legal implications,” said Crawford of Lymond, without raising his eyes.
The Lord Advocate sensed the grin on Foulis’s face while schooling his own. Of course, he had no right to recapitulate, but he didn’t expect to be told so.
He said, watching the prisoner under his lids, “I am glad you are following us. I am aware that you have not been in good health since a misunderstanding with your … force in June. We have no wish to unman you. It is, I think, unique in our time to encounter a plea of innocence against such a formidable list of charges.” He glanced up, getting no response.
Argyll said, “It’s after two, Lauder. Let’s get rid of the new charges first. Dealings with Wharton.” He addressed the prisoner direct. “You’re accused of consistently giving help and selling information to Lord Wharton, the English Warden. Notably … When, Lauder?”
Lauder said agreeably, “We are informed that you were a member of Lord Wharton’s force for a period in 1545, and that while there you acted under his orders in a number of raids and other activities directly detrimental to Scotland. Have you any answer?”
The sure voice said laconically, “Yes: but no proof. I offered my services to Lord Wharton over a period of four months and won his confidence by taking part in three small raids. On the fourth, major raid I misled him so that the English force was seriously damaged. I left him the same night.”
“I am sure you were wise. As an experienced soldier and tactician the throwing away of a troop—even a deliberate throwing away—must have been an ordeal for you.”
“Not at all,” said the prisoner briefly. “I had never commanded a force before.”
“Ah!” said Harry Lauder, who was perfectly aware of that fact.
“—But I’ve studied geography and I know my chess.”
“Indeed.” There was a rustle of amusement. “Excellent qualifications in themselves, but …”
Lymond said mildly, “The one shows you where to go, and the other what to do when you get there. A man so fortified would be unique in Scottish arms, don’t you think?”
“Since, as you say, you have no proof,” said Lauder, “we must leave it to Parliament to decide how far your overthrow was deliberate and how much of your motive was selfless, against the tenor of your general character and behaviour. You are further charged,” said Lauder mildly, “with conspiring to lay misleading information about the intentions of the English army during the western invasion of September last year; of attacking a Scottish force under Lord Culter and the Master of Erskine, and of taking from their possession an English messenger bearing a valuable dispatch.”
He smiled up at the beams. “Doubtless the—misunderstanding—of 1545 between yourself and Lord Wharton had by that time cleared up, that you took such pains to help his invasion, Mr. Crawford?”
“Until the present moment, my lord, there was no misunderstanding over what happened in 1545. Lord Wharton had placed the sum of a thousand crowns on my head.”
“And yet you passed freely enough in and out of England, we hear. You offered to spy for him if he appeared to reject you?”
“No.”
“What fee did you receive from him for the services you did render?”
“After 1545 I received no voluntary payment from Lord Wharton.”
The Bishop, leaning forward, missed the significant word. He tapped the copy of the indictment before him. “That, Mr. Crawford, is untrue. According to several witnesses, you agreed to a suggestion by your brother that Lord Wharton was paying you.”
“I beg Your Grace’s pardon. What I said, more precisely, is that my money came from Lord Wharton,” said the Master coolly. “It did. I had just extracted it by force. Mr. Scott will perhaps confirm it if you wish.”
Scott was already on his feet, but Lauder conceded the point without calling on him. “Very well. I am prepared to accept the fact that a personal enmity had been established between yourself and Lord Wharton for reasons we shall not specify. You were not however freeing his messenger from purely humanitarian reasons?”
“Not precisely. He was a very silly man,” said the Master reminiscently. “I thought perhaps he would irritate the English less than he irritated me.”
“And for that profound reason you engineered a vicious attack on your brother’s force, from which he was only saved by Mr. Erskine?”
For the first time Lymond was momentarily silent. Then he said, “I was not on good terms with my brother. To such an extent that he would disbelieve automatically any statement which came from me.”
“We are all familiar with the sensation,” said Lauder blandly. “Go on.”
Lymond said evenly, “I had earlier encountered the messenger and after reading his dispatch put him on the right road to reach Lord Wharton. When my men found him in Lord Culter’s grasp he had destroyed his message and my brother was naturally bent on preventing him from delivering it verbally.”
“But you thought he should be permitted to do so?”
“Yes. Isn’t it obvious? The message was from Lord Grey ordering Lennox and Wharton to retreat immediately.”
The whirl of ensuing comment
gave Lauder time to savour annoyance. Gladstanes said, “And did they? Does anyone know?” and someone called, “Aye, Jock: my boy was in it. He told me the English pulled out of Annan that night, though the previous evening they’d every look of long roots.”
“In that case,” said the Lord Advocate, caressing his blue chin lovingly, “why, I wonder, did Mr. Crawford tell his brother the English were coming north?”
“Because I knew he would assume the opposite and take his men south to attack,” said the Master promptly. “Which he did. I believe they were chasing Wharton south of Annan all night.”
The Lord Justice-General cut across the hubbub. “If we grant your enmity toward Wharton—and I see you are prepared to cite witnesses for this—I still think you have to answer the charge of serving the English on the West March—whether Wharton, Lennox or another—for your own ends,” he said. “There are witnesses, it says here, to your activities during the invasion of six months ago, when you opened the way of escape for Lord Lennox while appropriating for yourself some of the cattle used as decoys.”
The face turned toward him was quite composed. “Most of the English who could still move had escaped by that time. The cattle were not for my own use: I returned them to their original owners, an English family to whom a number of Scots besides myself owe a great deal. For my part in the raid, Baron Herries can speak better than I can.”
This time the noise took much longer to die down. When it did, John Maxwell leaned back in his carved chair and astonishingly raised his deep voice, the impersonal yellow eyes fixed on the panel.
“The plan for the cattle raid was Mr. Crawford’s, made in a chance encounter when I was ignorant of his identity. I could take little active part. But he and his band drove all the livestock from the south side of the Border and succeeded in taking them to the right place at the appointed time in spite of very bad conditions: a quite remarkable feat of leadership. The Whartons detest him. The young one did his best to slit his throat a month or two later at Durisdeer.”
He stopped speaking as suddenly as he had begun and restored the front legs of his chair to the ground, ignoring the commotion on either side. First blood, miraculously, to the panel.
Licensed by the moment’s suspended excitement, Lymond stirred, and moving back a little, sat down in the chair provided for him. Lord Culter, watching, leaned back suddenly in his own seat and the Lord Advocate, who missed nothing, ran his eye quickly over the remaining charges and caught Argyll’s attention.
The Chief Justice thumped on the table. “Quiet, gentlemen! We have a great deal to get through.… Mr. Crawford, your explanations so far have been plausible if not entirely, as you will admit, supported by tangible proof. We now wish to examine your relationship with Lord Grey de Wilton, the Lord Lieutenant of the English army in the north. On the occasion of Lord Grey’s invasion of Scotland on the twenty-first of April last, you were the author of a message, purporting to come from a member of your band, which had the result of bringing the Laird of Buccleuch and Lord Culter, with their respective forces, in dangerous proximity to the English army?”
“It brought them, as I thought, within easy reach of Lord Grey himself,” said Lymond briefly. “The approach of Lord Grey’s troops at the same time was unfortunate and unforeseen.”
“You claim,” said the Lord Advocate, “that this was done purely to enable your brother, with whom you were not on good terms, and Sir Walter Scott, whose son you had corrupted—”
“Hud your tongue, ye sacco, socco, ferrum, dwellum, legalizing cricket—”
“—whose son you had enticed from the family hearth, purely to enable these two men to make an advantageous capture?”
“Not at all. I had a transaction of my own to complete. I was hoping to do so under cover of the ensuing melee.”
“A transaction with Lord Grey?”
“So far as his abhorrence of me would admit. I wished to meet a member of the English force, for private reasons. I had induced Lord Grey to arrange the meeting by promising him Will Scott.”
“Thus Sir Walter, Lord Culter and Mr. Scott were all invited into this commodious trap by you at the instance of Lord Grey?” asked Lauder. “In that case you certainly hoped to bring them within easy reach of the Lord Lieutenant.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw their lordships shuffling. He paid no attention, but kept his voice as unvarying as the panel’s. The man was an actor all right. But so was Henry Lauder.
Crawford of Lymond said, “Mr. Scott was invited in such a fashion that he could not possibly arrive in time to be in danger. The message to Sir Walter and my brother was sent without Lord Grey’s knowledge.” Someone at the table shifted, and Lauder turned instantly. “Yes, Sir Wat?”
Buccleuch hesitated, looking across the hall at his son. “That’s likely to be right,” he said at length. “At least, they ran like the hammers when they saw us coming.”
“And you followed, I gather, into the jaws of half the English army?”
Buccleuch said shrewdly, “What’s your argument? D’you think that after the showing-up he got at Hume Castle, Grey would stand by and allow the man to invite half the Scottish army to Heriot? I’m damned sure Grey didn’t know Culter and I were coming.”
The Lord Advocate stretched his legs. “Are you, Sir Wat? To my mind, all the signs point to an astonishing trust by Lord Grey in the Master of Culter. He made an appointment with him, we are told, without the support of more than a few armed men in a particularly deserted spot in the middle of enemy country. I fail to understand your reference to Hume Castle.”
The Earl Marischal stirred. “Wat means the attack on Hume led by a Spaniard last October,” he said. “They captured most of a supply train and wrecked half the fortifications. Mr. Crawford claims to have organized it.”
“Oh? Dear me, I see this is another point on which Mr. Scott is anxious to speak,” said Lauder. The redheaded boy, angrily on his feet, began, “I can vouch …” and was smiled down by the Queen’s Advocate.
“Later, Mr. Scott. It makes very little difference to the argument, you know. Lord Grey’s animosity, on Mr. Crawford’s own showing, was mainly directed against yourself and not against the Master of Culter. We have already proved that the Lord Lieutenant trusted him sufficiently—or was certain enough of his loyalty—to allow him prior information of Lord Grey’s own movements.”
Scott was still on his feet. He said angrily, drowning Tom Erskine’s voice, “Grey didn’t even keep his part of the bargain. He didn’t even bring up the man the Master expected to meet.”
“Then there was a bargain,” said Lauder placidly. “Mr. Erskine?”
Tom said quietly, “I can vouch for Lord Grey’s feelings toward the Master of Culter as demonstrated at Hexham. There was no question of his being on any but the worst terms with both Wharton and Grey.”
Lauder looked unimpressed. “We have already proved, surely, that this is a man who sells himself to the highest bidder. If Lord Grey indeed failed to pay him in whatever coin had been agreed for his betrayal at Heriot, it was inevitable, surely, that such a man should bite the hand which failed to feed him. It does not alter the fact that the message inviting Sir Wat and Lord Culter to Heriot was sent off before his encounter with Lord Grey, and therefore before he could have known that Lord Grey was not keeping his side of the bargain.
“And remember,” the Lord Advocate added agreeably, “that at that time both Lord Culter and Sir Walter were publicly committed to seize Mr. Crawford. You are being asked to believe that Crawford would first antagonize Lord Grey by failing to produce the person of Will Scott, and then risk immediate capture by his brother and Buccleuch. It does not seem very reasonable to me; and I note that Mr. Crawford himself has very little to say.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lymond. Passionless devil, thought Lauder. He isn’t sorry. But then, neither am I. I’m trying to hang him, and he’s trying to save his strength so that there won’t have to be an adjournment before he’s ready for it.?
??
Lymond said, “I was carried away by the strange charm of your reasoning. The unhappy Lord Lieutenant seems to be credited with a fearful grudge against the Buccleuch family. I thought perhaps you had found a dark plot to seize his wife and junior attachments as well.”
The Queen’s Advocate replied without looking up. “But we have been assured that Mr. Scott could not possibly have arrived in time to come to any harm. If he will forgive me, he was presumably merely the bait for his father.”
“Non minime ex parte, Mr. Lauder. The boy would have been ten times simpler and ten times safer to capture as well as being a much more telling weapon. If we may separate the facts from the faculae we seem to have this.
“One, both before (at Hume) as I think I can prove, and after (at Hexham) as Mr. Erskine has proved, Lord Grey and I were enemies. Two, by failing to keep his part of the bargain at Heriot, Lord Grey had clearly no plans for collaborating with me in the future. Three, some of your prisoners, whose names I shall give you, will tell you that the English army had no orders to support Lord Grey in his supposed ambush, and that the dispatch of a troop was an afterthought due to their suspicions of me.
“Four, as Sir Wat has already stated, the men left by Lord Grey made no effort to capture him or my brother, but fled before them. Five, far from being caught between two fires, I had hoped my promised interview would enable me to reinstate myself with my brother and his friends, in which case I had nothing to fear from them. And lastly, Sir George Douglas, who was detained by Lord Grey during one of his embassies to England at that time, was present at Heriot, and if he will do so, can vouch for the fact that the only bait in the trap was myself.”
Henry Lauder pushed a hand through his sparse hair. Open your mouth too far and someone will fill it with rubbish. He wondered briefly what hold the man had on Sir George to risk citing him as a witness, and cynically applauded the tactics. Everyone knew Douglas played on both sides. By preserving his fictitious character Lymond had made it easy for him to co-operate.