Part 5 (1/2)

Exquisitely done, my young man, thought Christian. She said aloud, ”Well, to begin with, you were wearing an English cloak. We've disposed of that for your own sake. Feeling in Boghall about the Englishhas been running gallows high since Lord Fleming was killed. You're safe in this room with Sym and myself, but I shouldn't advise you to attract the attention of anyone else in the castle..

”I see. Or I shall meet my fate. Without pitie, hanged to be, and waver with the wind. My beard, if I had one-Lord, I nearly have- is full young yet to make a purfie of it, even to replace the one I've stained. And why, Mistress Stewart, should you and your henchman trouble to defend me from death and horrible maims?.

”What a suspicious mind you have.” Blandly, Christian matched metre with metre. ”Why do you think? For gold, for gude; for wage or yet for wed?.

”I think no such thing: you malign me, I a.s.sure you. Every coherent sentiment escaped from the louvre at the back of my head long ago, and I am swimming in a sea of foolishness. I've -already forgotten what we're discussing..

Simon Bogle, a single-minded person, had not. ”Lady Christian and 1,” he said dourly, ”were wondering what your name and style might be?.

In a feverish silence, the young man stirred restlessly. ”LadyChristian. d.a.m.nation. She has a t.i.tle and I don't know it. She lives ina bog; and of this also I am ignorant. Q.E.D. I cannot be Scots.

Therefore why your excessive kindness . . . Oh G.o.d! Of course.

Ransom..

”And natural virtue. For gold and for gude, in fact.” Christian, visited by an unworthy satisfaction, was magnanimous. ”But as part owner of the property, I think we should defer speech until you're more rested. You've had a sore knock there..

”Several sore knocks,” he said, and fell silent, rousing himself only as she felt for and took away pillows. ”Don't you want my name?” And dreamily, ”This officer, but doubt, is callit Deid. . .

”No.” Aware of Sym's silent resistance, she spoke firmly. ”No, never mind. Not just now,” feeling exhaustion and faintness overwhelm him. Even so, he managed a gruesome chuckle.

”O lady: nor later. Deceit deceiveth and shall be deceived. It's no good and I can't prove it's no good: I shall be as much use to you as the Nibelunglied. For I can recall nothing . . . nothing . . . not the remotest d.a.m.ned shred of my ident.i.ty..

* * *Christian left the situation in Sym's hands that night. Next morning, however, she woke thinking of her prisoner, and obtaining food and wine by a shameless lie in the kitchen, made her way with it up the private stair.

Inside the sickroom, she was aware of a strange step even before she shut the door; and indeed as she turned to do so, a voice said readily, ”You may want to come back later, Lady Christian. Sym is out, and I'm up and standing by the window..

She shut the door. ”Ab, you're feeling better. My dear man, not even an attack on my virtue would drive me downstairs till I've done. I've already climbed more steps this morning than a bell ringer..

He laughed, but did not come to help her, she noticed; and, respecting his tact, she took the tray herself to the window seat and laid it on a kist. Then, sitting by the bed, she ascertained that the fever was gone, the headache was less; that he was profoundly grateful, and remarkably well up in current events.

”So Simon has been talking to you..

”He has seldom stopped. He tells me Lord Fleming's widow and family are all at Stirling, and thinks it uncommonly rash of you to stay behind. With which, as a special hazard myself, I must agree..

She shrugged. ”I can do more good here at the moment than in Stirling.” And felt impelled to add, ”Naturally, I can't risk being an enc.u.mbrance, or a hostage either. If things get much worse-or much better for that matter-a friend of the family will take me to Stirling..

”And I shall stay with captors somewhat less benign. Ah me,” he said rather ruefully. ”It may sound selfish but, as the poet said, words is but wind, but dunts is the devil..

”Doesn't that depend who you are?” she remarked. ”If you bear a Scots name, you've nothing to fear. Or is this officer, but doubt, still callit Deid?.

There was a pause. Then he said, ”Are you quoting from me?.

”Your very words last night..

”Oh. I must have been in dire spirits. Have you ever lost your memory? I suppose not. It's an experience. Pleasant but precarious, like the gentleman who sat under palm trees feeding fruit to a lion . . .” Pausing for breath, he added, ”I rely on you to put down any lacunac to the effects of a blow on the head. I am but ane mad man that thou hast here met-.

”-I do you pray,” she said gravely, ”cast that name from you away..

Delighted, he took her up at once. ”Yes, of course. Call you Hector, or Oliver . . . What else? Sir Porteous-Amadas--Perdiccas-- Florent . . . How common the predicament seems to be. Most of the heroes and all the poets appear to have been there before me. I am as I am, and so will I be; but how that I am, none knoweth trulyDisdain me not without desert! Forsake me not till I deserve, nor hate me not till I offend.” And he abandoned English plaintively.

”Li rosignox est mon p?re, qui chante sur le ram~e, el plus haut boscage.

La seraine, ele est ma mt~re, qui chante en la mer salle, el plus haut rivage . .

”Your French is excellent, of course,” said Christian. ”And you disliked being called English..

”Thank you..

”Implying Scottish rather than English affinities-.

”I hoped you'd notice that..

”-In which case,” said Christian reasonably, ”do you not owe it to yourself to appear in public? Someone here might even recognize you..

”A shrewd move, decidedly,” said the prisoner with interest. ”If I disagree, I am undoubtedly lying about my loss of memory. On the other hand, it might be genuine, and my belief that I am Scots might be unfounded; in which case your friend Hugh, according to Sym, will be apt to give free play to his prejudices, and your hopes of a ransom will vanish..

”You must think us very mistrustful,” said Christian equably. ”Why should you be lying? If you are English, you would have no motive for hiding your name. The sooner we know, the sooner we should arrange your freedom..

”I find the Socratean method even more uncomfortable than plain sarcasm. I propose to say what you wish me to say, viz.: there are two exceptions in your category. If I were English but dest.i.tute, and if I were English and politically important, I should avoid identification like the plague..

''-Therefore?.

”Therefore when I say, as I do, that I have no wish to appear to your friends before my memory comes back, you have no means whatever of proving the honesty of my reasons-.

”Which in fact are . . .

”Funk,” he said promptly. ”Sheer terror of the dark. I don't like standing outside the door of a crowded room any more than you do, waiting to be pounced on from inside..

Christian said, ”A priest would tell you this was pride and selfconceit.

”If anyone so described it to you, I hope you impeached him for a pompous liar..

”My dear man, would you have me excomnlunicate? It's a process of hardening one goes through. You would find me hard to shock..

”And to deceive?.

She smiled, and threw his own quotation back at him. ”Deceit deceiveth and shall be deceived. You have an incorruptible voice and a lawyer's tongue. One thing I commend in you: you refused to add to the sins of the poets. A false pedigree is always worse than none at all..

”Avoiding your traps, O virtuous lady, O mixt and subtle Christian. But, as you see, I am honest and good, and not ane word could lie..

She laughed. ”I deduce that you've lived on Hymettus on honey and larks' tongues..

”And can, I suppose, die in a bog as well as anywh~re,” he said dryly.

No one likes to appear cheap. Betrayed into archness, Christian caught her temper and said evenly, ”I can't, of course, answer for what will happen to you if I leave before your memory comes back. But meanwhile, until it does, you may have grace to stay anonymous, if you wish..

She rose, adding briskly, ”And meantime, there are many would envy you. Make the most of your freedom, my friend-you've more of it than any of us..

”True. Only lunatics have more. I'm ungrateful to find it intolerable; and more than intolerable, of course, not to know the extent of the burden I'm putting on you..