Part 10 (1/2)

Grey opened his mouth and turned, missing in that instant a descending stick, and found himself promptly pinned from behind, with an arm across his mouth.

He bit, fruitlessly and painfully. He kicked, with better results; then, summoning his considerable reserves, embarked on a wrestling trick which most mercenaries would have recognized, but Scott did not. The boy held the older man as long as he was physically able, and then fell back for the fatal instant that was necessary for his lords.h.i.+p to shout, ”Help! Guard! Athathinthl” having little time to choose his words; and that was long enough for the guard outside to burst in, and for Dudley to erupt onto his feet.

In the brief and damaging interval which followed, the fighting was less preventative than justly punitive. By the time the interloper had been knocked to, on, and across the floor, the room was packed with avidly a.s.sisting soldiery, and the affair had taken on the look of a riot.

Dudley, at a sign from Grey, cleared them all out and gave orders to lock up all the men who were with Taylor. Two pikemen were set against the door, and then Dudley, after a brief inquiry below, joined his lords.h.i.+p in studyi~ig his bedraggled captive.

The ex-Mr. Taylor lay on a small carpet, bleeding copiously from the nose and with the beginnings of a glorious black eye. His s.h.i.+rt showed white through the tears in his jerkin, and his skin showed pink through the tears in his s.h.i.+rt; his red hair stood on end.

Surprisingly, he was not an object of pity. His one good eye regarded the two men with a fair a.s.sumption of calm, and he even grinned a little, ruefully, at Grey.

”The devil!” he said impertinently. ”Now we've hardly one whole set of features between us..

Lord Grey seated himself fastidiously at his desk, first clearing alitter of papers which had whirled from desk to chair. He pa.s.sed ahand over his thick, fine hair, pulled down his sleeves, and gave ajerk to the short skirt of his doublet.

”Now,” he said, putting thirteen generations of ice into his voice, ”let uth thee what we have here.” And he fixed Scott with the kind of look linked with a.s.sizes.

”You have not, of courthe, come from Roxthburgh?.

”Find out!.

”I propothe to thend to Roxthburgh to do jutht that.” He paused. ”Do you know the penalty for arthon and attempted murder?. . . or wath it a kidnapping? In any cathe, you won't dithpothe me to lenienthy thith way..

No reply.

Grey tried again. ”I prethume you ~re a Thcotthman?.

His Lords.h.i.+p's misfortune was Scott's downfall as well. He couldn't resist it.

”Yeth!” said Scott, and got his mouth shut for him by the buckle of his own belt. He tasted blood.

Dudley swung it again, warningly. ”Keep a civil tongue, sir. What is your real name?.

”Find out..

Again the belt. He supposed they questioned him for ten minutes, and still pumped full of excitement, ~ie not only kept them guessing, but in a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic way, even enjoyed himself.

Finally Grey swung around to the desk again. ”We need to uthe thtronger perthuathion. The men below are obviouthly in colluthion too..

Dudley said, ”They've lost their tongues as well,” and went on hurriedly. ”Woodward tells me it looks as if most of the stores are missing, even allowing for what was burnt. The boneheaded fool at the gate let them in on the strength of their dress and the seals-they were authentic enough-and-of all things-because he recognized two of the horses. Of course, the train was dead on time, and he was desperate to get the beer in, into the bargain. Which reminds me-.

Lord Grey for the first time looked really disturbed. ”Not the beer?” Dudley said, ”There's not a barrel left. Nor any ordnance to speak of, apart from what blew up. And what's more, no money..

”What!” The two men stared at one another. This affair was serious. Water was scarce and unsafe: men had to have ale; and the horses needed hard feed to enable them to foray and keep open their communications. The need for arms and food was equally pressing.

Grey was silent for a long time, and then he got up and, walking over to the p.r.o.ne man, stirred him with one foot. This time, the voice was a general's voice, and the lisp was not even remotely funny. ”Where ith the retht of the train, and where are the men who thet out with it?.

The exhilaration had worn off; extreme mortification was biting atthe edges of his courage. But he fought hard to keep his eyes calmly on Grey, and if the effort was visible to the soldier's practiced eye, Scott didn't know it. He said dreamily, ”Far, far away! And farther every hour!.

Dudley said sharply, ”Ah, then you had others with you who didn't come to Hume?.

They would be halfway home by now, and surprised that he hadn't joined them. Then they would find the carts had never been driven to Melrose. And tomorrow, wait in vain for himself and his party. And then, somehow, Lymond would find out: against orders, he had got into Hume . . . but hadn't the brains or the guts to get out. Scott braced himself.

”Naturally,” he said. ”I hope they keep some beer for me..

This time he had no trouble in meeting their eyes. After a moment Grey swung to the desk and began writing. ”Two men to Berwick for replathementth, two to Roxthburgh, to look out for thignth of ambuth, and dithcover the latht point the train got to.” He finished writing and handed both papers to Dudley. ”Right away..

Then he stood up and came over again to Scott.

”I am thorry you've thet thuch a thmall prithe on .your life. I cannot afford to feed you and your men with what food we have left. Tomorrow you can e,kthpect to meet a thpy'th death. We have a prietht. If you want your relativeth to know, you had better give him your true name..

Scott said, ”My men are mercenaries. If you pay them, they will fight for you as well as your Germans and Spanish do..

”Pay them?” said Grey. ”With what, prithee?.

Scott was silent, in the bitter awareness that his exercise in self-expression had murdered ten men. Grey addressed the pikemen.

”Lock him up. But away from hith men . . . they might take advantage of him..

In the revolting hole they took him to, he had only one comfort. He hadn't said who he was. If they knew he was heir to Buccleuch, he thought cynically, they wouldn't let him so much as catch cold. They'd take him to Berwick and use him as a tool to make his father do as they wanted.

For all his airy words to Lymond, he didn't think for a moment his father would stand by in public and watch him murdered. No. He'd do what the English asked him to do-again. And this time, ironically, he would be the cause of it. Ii he told them who he was.

He thought, lying bruised on the cold flags: This time tomorrow I shall be out of the whole d.a.m.ned mess. It didn't help very much.

* * *Nor did the news that Grey's small search party had found and brought back the two remaining carts and the original English members of the supply train, found tied up and frozen where he had left them, just off the causeway.

They arrived, packed s.h.i.+vering among the crates, and jumped down from the wagons, s.h.i.+rt-tails flying, to cheer after cheer. There wasn't a man among them with a pair of hose, breeches or a jerkin on him:their teeth chattered and their feet were blue. Even the masons repairing the explosion breech dropped tools and poured over to watch as the unlucky travellers hopped into the castle. Comment was rife and on well-marked lines.

When the last of the men had gone indoors, Dudley examined the two carts and set a strong guard on them before reporting in high spirits to Grey.

”We've got some of the beer after all; and most of the heavy ordnance . . . culverin and stoneshot-.

What else he was going to say was never known.

The door burst open, the tapestries flapped, and a human tornado, enveloped in a whorl of depot-stamped canvas and trailed by protesting soldiers, erupted into the room.

The visitor brushed off his escorts, slamming the door in their faces, and strode headlong to Grey's desk.

”Madre Dios! Caballeros, su ayuda . . . su venganza! Ladrones!” Hissing, the newcomer fixed his lords.h.i.+p with a burning eye, and even Lord Grey had to admit the magnificence of his rage.

”He sido mortificado, insultado-.-hombre-me hecho hazmerrefr!-Mirame!” screamed the insulted one, and peeled off the canvas. Mr. Secretary Myles, tried beyond endurance, gave a soul-destroying quack. Dudley and Grey, pinned to the petrified edge of diplomacy, gazed at the sorry remains of a ruffled s.h.i.+rt, pleated and trimmed with shredded bullion; hair, once black, oiled and curled, swooning from a coa.r.s.e woollen cap, askew; and below, bare thighs, blue with cold, and tarred and feathered from toe to knee as a duck goes to market. A single dest.i.tute earring winked next to the highbred nose and smooth olive skin.

Lord Grey, recovering an aplomb he had hardly known for a month, rendered sympathy, concern and indignation in a mollifying buzz. By a combined effort he and Dudley got the still-detonating visitor into a chair, rewrapped in Dudley's cloak, and his feet in a pewter basin of hot water to melt off the tar. He was brought a pot of mulled wine and invited, at last, to address himself to Mr. Myles, who spoke Spanish.

The caballero was displeased. ”But,” he said with some hauteur, ”I speak the Scottish perfecto..

”Oh,” said Dudley, taken aback. He, Grey and Myles waited.

The Spanish gentleman inspected his feet, sat back and proceeded to prove his point. He introduced himself: Don Luis Fernando de Cordoba y Avila, leader of the captured supply train, and said much about his relatives on both sides. He referred in pa.s.sing without deference to His Majesty the Emperor; to the n.o.ble and adventurous life of himself and a few compatriots as masters of their own swords in London and Flanders, and drew their attention to the proverb ”Un hidalgo no debe a otro que a Dios, y al Rei nada..