Part 12 (1/2)

The black eyes travelled slowly over Sir Andrew's body, and rose to his face. ”My son is always remarkably fortunate in battle,” she said. ”He has never yet received a mark of any kind..

”And d.a.m.n it,” Mr. Crouch was to say much later to his wife, his face reddening again at the thought, ”the old sow said it as if she'd have liked him better mincemeat..

As it was, the occasion was awkward enough to make Hunter flush and force a change of subject. Shortly afterward he set Biblical phrases buzzing in Mr. Crouch's head, by producing from his purse a small wrapped bundle which he laid on his mother's bed. ”I thought this might interest you: I came across it the other day..

The paralyzed woman looked neither at him nor at the packet; she allowed it to lie until she finished grooming the lapdog, replaced thebrushes, and with a sudden ill-tempered smack sent the stertorous creature bundling to the floor. Then she smoothed the counterpane, pulled away a long, tawny hair caught in one of her rings, and opened the parcel.

A vast, hexagonal brooch set in ebony and diamonds shouted into the suns.h.i.+ne in a cacophony of light.

The thing was enormous. Crouch, sitting within yards of the bed, could see the centrepiece was a heart set with pointed diamonds:around the heart and attached to it by foliated gilt wire were crystal plaques, each bearing an angel's head, bewinged and carved in onyx:the plaque below the point of the heart was joined to it by a scroll, and on the scroll in diamonds were the initial letters H and D, entwined.

It was the most expensive-looking jewel Mr. Crouch had ever seen in his life. He looked, suffused with pleasurable excitement, at Sir Andrew. Hunter, his expression at once eager, deprecating and defensive, watched his mother.

”H for Henri, D for Diane de Poitiers!” cried Mr. Crouch. ”My dear sir, seldom if ever have I seen such an exquisite piece. A tour de force. A veritable masterpiece. I am surprised,” said Mr. Crouch, taking thought, ”I must own, that the French King's-er-lady should have allowed it out of her hands. A piece of-.

For the second time he was interrupted by his hostess. She raised her black eyes from the gift to her son, and the expression in them deepened at the expectancy in his face. She threw the covering back across the jewel.

”A remarkable piece of vulgarity,” she said. ”I fear, Andrew, that a stronger woman might have been able to do more than I to educate your taste a little. It is a great grief to me that I cannot help you more. However, there is no need for you to waste your purchase. I am sure there is some good burgess's daughter whom you have a kindness for, who would be perfectly satisfied with it. I believe,” she continued without a pause, ”that I saw some new arrivals cross the courtyard a few moments ago. I don't wish to appear to remind you continually, Andrew; but as master here you really must not appear discourteous. I am sure Mr. Crouch will excuse you..

Mr. Ciouch hastily did. Sir Andrew, with an apology, left the room, and Lady Hunter tossed the rejected gift on to her bedside table. Mr. Crouch ventured a remark.

”That'll likely have cost Sir Andrew a small fortune, now,” he said. ”Nor it won't be easy to resell, I wager..

The crippled woman directed her unwinking stare at him. He wriggled. ”The price of aesthetic education, Mr. Crouch,” she said, ”is never small..

Mr. Crouch (for once) did not feel competent to answer.

Belowstairs, even among the crowded majolica ware, the air was freer, and the need to welcome visitors a blessed distraction. Sir Andrew knew and liked Sym Penango, Sir George Douglas's secretary: he made him welcome and received his message over a cup of wine, while his men were accommodated in the b.u.t.tery.

An inquiry about Mr. Crouch? Oh. Did Sir George say from whom? But Penango had no further information, and supposed Sir George had none either. Presently he excused himself: he and his men were expected at Douglas. In due course the stragglers were coflected, wiping mouths on padded sleeves, and the troop rode off into the dusk.

Sir Andrew went thoughtfully upstairs, stopping to relight a torch which had gone out on the landing. Inside his mother~s room it was becoming dark. In the failing light from the windows he could see her, upright in bed, her head turned toward him.

Something struck him vaguely as odd, then he placed it: the miraculous silence. Crouch wasn't talking.

A closer look showed the prohibition to be quite involuntary. Mr. Crouch was sitting on the floor beside his chair, tied and gagged.

As Sir Andrew took this in, the door behind him banged, locked, and a knee like the hammer of G.o.d took him, hard, in the kidneys and hurled him to the floor. His chin hit the blue tiles like a pharmacist's pestle; he tried, swimniily, to roll over and found himself pinned by a relentless matrix of bones. He heaved, unsuccessfully, felt his a.s.sailant groping for purchase to wrench back his arms, resisted, and finally did manage to roll over.

For a moment, the two men breathed the same sweating air. Hunter saw a pitiless mouth, two intent eyes behind a black mask, and a head covered with some sort of woollen cap. The mouth twisted; so did the deadly trained body, and pain leapt from a lock on his knee. Black-mask gave a sudden, triumphant laugh. ”The Common Thick-knee,” he said breathlessly, ”is a bird . . . capable of running at great speed.” He increased his leverage, grinning. ”Now here, Dandy mine, we have a specimen of the Uncommon-.

How he broke the lock, Hunter never knew, but he afterward wondered if the strength which surged up in him would have done sobut for anger at the stupid jibe. He jerked, broke the hold on his legs and threw the other man half on his side, driving off at the same time the predatory fingers feeling for his throat. Then he flung himself on his opponent. The clenched figures rolled over completely, then again; a fine stool splintered, its prowling leopards bifurcated, and a row of medicine bottles fell from the bedside table with a tympanitic crash. Catherine Hunter, her eyes like charcoal above her bound mouth, stared without expression at her son. Crouch, pink with emotion, watched, squirming in his bonds.

Hunter was on top. He wanted to shout, but all the power of his lungs was occupied in driving his body: the sound of both men's breathing was like tearing cloth. Feeling the black eyes on him, Hunter set his teeth and grinned; then, listening to his muscles speaking, exerted all his force to flatten the other's body and approach the twisting throat with his thumbs. The masked figure writhed desperately; its arms threshed; it began to go limp. Sir Andrew, his fingers finding and burying themselves at last in the flesh over the great vessels, threw caution to the winds and, raising himself, exerted all his power in pressing on the neck below him. He had an instant's vision of eyes screwed, not in pain, but a kind of barbarous hilarity, and then booted feet curled themselves neatly and smashed into his unguarded and exposed groin; one of the searching hands, now armed with iron from the hearth, cracked open his face and beat him back as he knelt, retching; then Black-mask, rising, threw away his andiron and bent over him.

Hunter, racked with the torments of the d.a.m.ned, heard him say through the throbbing in his brain, ”Come along, Dandy . . . observe the modus operandi . . . How can thou float . . . without feather or fin.” He was gripped by wanton arms, balanced a moment, helplessly convulsed, and then with a sickening wrench sent hurtling across the room. Chairs, candlesticks, books, fell. The world vanished in a b.l.o.o.d.y mist, reappeared insp.i.s.sate with pain, disappeared. Playful, inhuman fingers rested on his collar, hooked below it, and methodically began to flay his head against the high gloss of the tiles.

The voice said, erratically, ”Who . . . falls upon rushes, falls soft; beware of . . . vain pride in terrestrial treasure, Sir Andrew. Anddoused lights . . and fireirons . . . and wrestling in slippers.” He was released, and lay, three parts unconscious, looking up at his tormentor.

”And of tempting me further,” said Black-mask, smiling. ”I have come to see your little English friend, Sir Andrew; but I'll break you a limb in the Turkish style as often as you like. . .

Hunter, drowning in tides of nausea, closed his eyes, and shut out the mask, and the black, unwinking eyes in the bed.

A Variety of Mating RepliesFor suth ye Rok in to his first moving . . . mHe may nocht pa.s.s, nor of his steid to steire,Quhill knycht or p.a.w.ne is standand hi so nere,And in mydfield, gif he be stedit still,To four poyntis he pa.s.sis at his willTwo rokis may a king allone put downe,And him depryve of his lyf and his crowne.

1. Play with a Rook Proves Dangerous

THE shop of Patey Liddell, goldsmith, was on the south side of the Middle Raw in Stirling, handy for the Burgh Yett, and only a short walk from St. John Street. It was a tall thin building, with a coloured timber arcade, and outside steps to the first floor where Patey stored his stock, and Lady Culter was sitting having her miniature painted.

From time to time Patey peered down, Cyclops-fas.h.i.+on, to the shop proper through a neat hole in the floor boards, partly to watch for customers, and partly to howl threats at his apprentices, known caustically as the Seven Little Masters, who dwelt among mystic coloured, fires at the back of the shop.

Mr. Liddell was lively as a frog, his small face niellated with gold dust, and his white hair trained over his ears, which were missing. Patey readily explained how this happened, and the numerous versions, in toto, lent substance to Sybilla's private belief that the manwas a rogue. He was also a brilliant goldsmith; and the source to Lady Culter of much simple entertainment.

Why she had made this appointment for today, the morning of the Wapenshaw, was beyond her to recall. Why indeed the plans for the Wapenshaw had been allowed to stand so soon after Pinkie was another matter, but the Dowager could guess. She thought, with unusual depression, that it was probably just as well, under the circ.u.mstances, to have a count of arms: that had begun in the morning and would be over by now. And if the Queen thought that outdoor exercise would keep the lieges from one another's throats until the meeting was safely convened, she was probably, in a French way, right. This brought her mind on to her son.

”Patey!” said the Dowager at the top of her voice. ”It isn't a tapestry! Haven't you done yet?.

Patey Liddell raised a denunciatory finger. ”You moved!.

”I can't help moving,” said Sybilla, in a nicely controlled shriek. ”Your wretched cus.h.i.+on's come adrift from the stool: it's like trying to steer hurley-hackit. Are you going to be long?.

The old man beamed, nodding vaguely. ”A wee thing to the right.” Lady Culter turned obediently. ”Are-you-going-to-be-muchlonger?.

Patey worked away, his tongue silently tracking the strokes of his brush. ”As to that,” he said piously, ”the gude Lord alone kens. You've changed your hair, tae..

”I've washed it,” said Lady Culter tartly. ”If you think I'm going to remain unchanged and unwashed for sixteen months while you immortalize me, you're wrong. If you could pin up the sun permanently in the top left corner of your ceiling, you would..

”Ah, the bonny lad,” said Patey, working phonetically through the last sentence. ”Only the other day I said to him, says I: wi' the separations o' war, says I, whitna better than a bonny picter o' the wee la.s.sie tae carry neist the heart..

”What did he say?” shouted Sybilla with interest.

”He said,” said Patey, a shade reluctantly, ”that he'd think about it when he kent whit I was charging for this yin. Acourse, I told him, it's all in the frame. Says I, gin ye choose gold now, that'd be a wee thing costlier than your dear mother's: on the other hand, tin's dirt cheap, and if the la.s.sie puts up wi' the insult, who'm I tae-” He raised an astonished eye from the floor. ”'S breid! There's a customer!” And before Sybilla could murmur, he skipped to the stairs and vanished.

The Dowager instantly got off her seat and picked up the miniature. The likeness was, she thought, fairly good. Appraising her face at one remove, she was glad to find that sixty hara.s.sing years had left it, on the whole, quite presentable. The eyes and bones, of course, had always been good.

”But I must have it today!” A familiar voice, laboriously distinct, rose through the peephole, and the Dowager, entranced, prepared to listen.

Patey's voice said, ”Well, it's no done yet, Sir Andra..

”Then when will it be ready?” Hunter sounded impatient, and Sybilla sympathized. There was another exchange, then silence as Patey disappeared to the back of the shop. Then a new voice:”Hullo, Sir Andrew! Man, what's happened to your face?.

The Dowager had no special interest in Sir George Douglas, but her wandering attention was jerked by Sir Andrew's reply.

”My face?” said Sir Andrew, and laughed ruefully. ”G.o.d; like the beggar, I'm all face. It was that d.a.m.ned Crouch man, the prisoner of war..

”Good Lord!” Sir George sounded startled. ”I must say, he'd none of the air of a man-eater..

”Dammit, it wasn't Crouch that did the damage,” said Hunter. ”It was some murderous brute with a black mask who smashed the house open, tied up Mother like a boiling fowl and thumped me-I must confess-to a pulp. It wasn't too funny at the time..