The Game Of Kings Part 44

Sybilla looked out of the dark window. To the east, Moultrie's.h.i.+ll and the Dow Craig, with Greenside on its farther slopes; wherefor nine hours she had once sat and watched Davie Lindsay mock theThree Estates before the Three Estates and the Crown before theCrown. That was a tolerance fast slipping from them.

The Lang Gait and Gabriel's road, unlit; and few and distant lights from Broughton and Silver Mills and Kirkbraehead and Canon Mills. Below, her garden plunged and rolled to the turgid waters of the loch, and the tall lands on either side s.h.i.+fted their shadows with the s.h.i.+fting moon.

There was an Ewe had three lambs; and one of them was black. The one was hanged, the other drowned; the third was lost, and never found. . . . Sybilla's hands closed hard on each other.

It was then that Tom Erskine, riding lightly and alone, came sweeping to the door.

Half an hour went by. In Mary de Guise's palace the tapers took fire from room to room, as the Queen Dowager moved with hermaids to the audience chamber, turning her head as she walked to speak to Richard, on her right, and Henry Lauder, behind her.

They stood beside her as she settled on the dais. The Lord Chancellor was already there, his clothes wrinkled and dusty as the Queen's; and Argyll came in quickly, bowed, and sat with Huntly and Erskine and the secretaries along the wall of the short, elaborate room.

It was very hot, and the lights rebuffed their tired eyes. Because of the hour and the perpetual, malignant circ.u.mstance of crisis, the Queen demanded no ceremony. She spoke a little longer to the Lord Advocate, and next to Argyll; and then one of the secretaries answered her nod by opening the door. The Queen Dowager sat and watched Lord Culter, and Henry Lauder watched the Queen.

Richard smiled. Crawford of Lymond, standing just inside the doorway, smiled back, bowed, and remained where he was, in himself a novelty and a force to the considering gaze lifted to him. Chin sunk on her chains, starched gauze thinly shadowing the bridge of her nose, the Queen moved a hand and watched the man advance to her chair. She said, in her heavily accented English, "I was curious..

The Master replied in his own rapid French. "It is I, Madame, who am curious, or I should not have manufactured myself a silly predicament..

"The Justiciar cannot follow you," observed Mary de Guise. "We shall speak in English, in which he cannot follow me. There is no precedent, Mr. Crawford, for addressing a man who has been done an injustice by the State. We had, I thought, reached the safe haven of corruption where we need never fear to misjudge anybody. I am astounded to find myself wrong..

A nasty one. Too shrewd by far to answer, Lymond only inclined his fair head: he had the knack of seeming to have been delivered in his garments, observed Lauder, irritably aware of sitting on rucked linen and surrounded by half-awake and unvaleted statesmen.

The matronly, autocratic voice continued. "Through Will Scott of Kincurd, we have had constant information of your providing about enemy movements and enemy affairs. We know now that we owe to you other gifts of money and of secrets over the years, and that we have had ignorantly the use of your talents and your abilities at Hume and at Heriot, at Carlisle and Dumbarton. All these services performed beneath the edge of our sword and below the heel of our boot: performed with vigour and wit and independence.

"You have amazed me, Mr. Crawford. You see in me a misery of rage which should compensate you a little for your suffering. Bequeathed a shabby and ransacked armoury, I have thrown away tempered steel. My G.o.d, M. le maitre, you have done us an injury:you should have held us by the neck and shouted your wrongs into our lungs. What redress can language give you? A polite apology, and Mr. Lauder's regrets?.

"Modified regrets," said the Lord Advocate. "I love Mr. Crawford like a son, but I wouldn't have missed that examination..

"If you mislay your notes," said Lymond, "you will find them engraved on my liver. La reine douairi~re is generous. My impression is that I made several mistakes for every one of the State's. The thing is best forgotten..

"My dear Mr. Crawford," said the Queen Dowager. "How can I forget, when my daughter recites scurrilous poetry, and holds you still dear to her heart . . .

Huntly moved. Mary of Guise folded her hands without looking at him, but a fibre entered her voice which was not there before, and her gaze hardened over them all.

"I am aware," she said, "that to most of you-to most of the people who fight for me and against me, and for and against the Protector-the royal line is a certificate of birth, and a circlet of metal; a p.a.w.n astray on her own board and more used to domination and a ruthless handling than the weakest of her subjects.

"To me, it is a little girl, fresh and warm, holding surprises and knowledge and happy years in her palms. When armed invaders come and men die and are captured and plot and betray, she is still a small girl, crying because she has wakened in the night." Her eyes dropped for a moment to her hands and her lip trembled for a moment, and then became firm.

"By all your efforts this year you have kept the Scottish crown safe from capture-yes, of course. What I remember, I, is that you have won me a year of my daughter's company.

"The last year, perhaps. She is safe. You, sir, with courage, kept the secret that allowed her s.h.i.+ps to sail. Yesterday the wind moved from the south: autumn is coming, and a colder season perhaps than we have known yet. Yesterday my daughter set sail from Dumbarton:with Lord Livingstone and Lord Erskine, with her brother, with fleming, Beaton, Seaton and Livingstone and Lady fleming, she set sail for France, to live there and, in time, to marry the Dauphin.

Some will say, we should have admitted England, this importunate bridegroom; and kept unspilled blood ~and whole hearths for our dowry. I think not. I hope that we are choosing wisdom as well as pride, and a long peace as well as a quick harbour..

"And England?" It was Lord Culter's voice.

"The King of France has taken this kingdom in perpetual shelter. He will demand of England peace between our three nations; and that all enmity between England and Scotland should cease..

Outside, dawn had come, pale and wind-torn, with stars set tardily in its brightness. In the yellow glare of the lights, Lymond's gaze had turned to his brother. "So they lose, after all," he said. "All the King's knights. Lord Grey and Lord Wharton, Lennox and Somerset, Wilford and Dudley, Sir George Douglas, Angus and Drumlanrig. Such plotting and striving and discomfort and distress; so much gold spent; so many peoples moved across the face of Europe to confront us. It's a sad thing to woo with cannon and to lose..

Mary de Guise had her mind as well as her eyes bent on the intent, fair face below her. "I wonder, are you with me?" she said.

The guarded eyes lifted instantly. "Yes . . . I think so. There is a divine solution, but we are only human, and Scots at that. Which means we dote on every complexity..

"And what award shall we give you," said Mary de Guise gravely, "for all you have done for us? Apart from the unqualified love of my daughter?.

Lymond's charming smile entered his blue eyes as he stood, experienced and pa.s.sive, before her. "I have no other desires, and can imagine none..

"No?" said the Queen Dowager, and rising, swept Francis Crawford out of the room, ignoring her statesmen stumbling in surprise to their feet; leaving Richard faintly smiling and Lauder cursing with determination. "No other desires? Au contraire. There are some that I shall expect to find out and one, a.s.suredly, that I know," said the Queen with decision; and opened a door.

In a lifetime of empty rooms, this was another.

Then there was a whisper of silk, a perfume half remembered, a humane, quizzical, intuitive presence; and a wild relief that deluged the tired and pa.s.sionate mind.

Sybilla was there. She saw her son's eyes, and flung open her arms.