Part 22 (2/2)

Scott said heavily, ”It seemed a good place to me. The bas.e.m.e.nt is quite intact, you know..

Unexpectedly, Lymond failed to rage. ”Then go and get your money. Half for you; half for Mat, and for G.o.d's sake jump off the pendulum next time before it gets my length. . . . Mat! This is where I leave you both..

Mat had heard, cantering up. ”Already? What about your share of the gold?.

Scott let him talk. He had thought of this possibility too: he had thought of everything. He moved restively behind the two men and made his un.o.btrusive signal and then rejoined them, a little sulky and very young, his brow round and flecked with the sun. Mat was still arguing, but only seconds elapsed before they all heard the drumming of hoofs from behind the hill they had just pa.s.sed.

Lymond's head came up instantly, listening; weighing up the quality of the sound. It was a large body of cavalry not yet in sight:Scots or otherwise hardly mattered; both were a danger to him, and a danger at this special and delicate crisis in his affairs.

He turned quickly. There was only one source of cover, and ithad to be reached before the first riders came into sight. After the merest hint of a pause he collected the chestnut, jerked his head, and followed by Turkey and Scott, raced for the convent.

They got there, as he intended, before the first horses came into sight. They jumped the broken wall, dismounting, tying their horses out of sight in the roofless, rubble-filled building and flinging themselves among the toadflax as the grey light flickered like St. Elmo's fire on the pikes and drawn swords of galloping hors.e.m.e.n rounding the hill.

Turkey, his beard full of burs, his clothing soaked with the light rain, spared breath for an ironic cheer as the troop streamed frieze-like along the road: they galloped to the exact point the three men had just left, and then forsaking the road entirely, bore like a grey and s.h.i.+ning harrow through the wet gra.s.s, making straight for the convent.

Mat's mouth fell slightly open. ”It's the second sight. It must be:I'm d.a.m.ned if they saw us..

Brittle as exploding gla.s.s, Lymond said, ”They didn't see us. They expected to find us here. They're Ballaggan men..

”The horses-.

”Too late. You heard Scott: there's a bas.e.m.e.nt,” said Lymond, and twisting like a dorcus led them full tilt through the shattered rooms, Scott beside him and Mat at his heels. The stairs plunged downward, broken and shallow. At the head of them the Master took a quick step, wrenched Scott's sword screaming from its sheath and flung the boy weaponless down the stairs with such force that he landed knee and shoulder at the first bend. The look in the blue eyes chilled even Turkey. ”You lead. Another trick and I'll kill you..

Then they were running downstairs, Lymond with a sword in each hand. Mat said, ”The boy . . .

”Of course: who else? But he may not know there's a pa.s.sage out of that cellar. Unless it's full of Hunter and his friends, waiting for us..

It wasn't. At the next bend there was light: a sickly glint from a wall taper exposing the sunk treads and checkered green walls. Then they were in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The floor was littered with rubbish from the groined roof, and dust covered everything. In a corner stood a heavy leather chest, securely locked: their useless gold. They sought instead what their lives depended on: the low and obscure door to the nuns' under-ground pa.s.sage. It was there. They saw the lintel. The rest was blocked, triumphantly and symbolically indeed, with stacked cases of gunpowder.

It was suddenly very quiet.

Overhead, they could hear the jangle of harness and men's voices but no steps descending, although Mat moved instinctively to the narrow stair and put his sword across it. Scott was standing motionless between the gold and the gunpowder, the tallow dip in his hand, light and shadow racing in freshets over the stone between leader and accolyte.

Softly Lymond said, ”You put the cost of your pride at three lives?.

”Three!.

Lymond answered Mat without turning his head. ”Why do you fancy he's holding the torch?.

It was quick, of course, admirable; but quick thinking would hardly rescue him now. Scott raised the flare, beside red ear and thick jaw and tousled, ,marigold hair. He said, ”Just a precaution. You have ten minutes to walk upstairs and give yourselves up; otherwise they fire stoneshot, and then Greek fire, and there'll be an explosion like Muspelheim. By waiting, of course, you'll take me with you; but that's a dull prospect compared with setting a score of young la.s.sies to fry....

”You b.l.o.o.d.y little traitor, shut your mouth!” It was Matthew, not Lymond.

The direct a.s.sault on the memory was intentional: a revenge indeed for every doubt and indignity and misery that Scott had suffered. He had perhaps reckoned without Lymond's peculiar strength.

No trace of the ordeal was visible to Scott. The raw light shuddered on the Master's face but Lymond himself was quite still. He said, ”You evidently want to be taken seriously. I am now doing so. You are prepared to take responsibility for Matthew's death?.

Buccleuch had hinted, and Sir Andrew had confirmed. You don't make concessions to a man who has killed his own sister. ”Matthew's safe,” said Scott. ”We're all safe, for ten minutes. She was called Eloise, wasn't she? Why did she die?.

”Because in this age only the intolerable have survived. Matthew, quickly..

Scott reached the gunpowder before them, the tallow spluttering in his hand, smiling. ”Touch one box and I'll explode it..

The dreadful, fragile little situation was too much for Mat. He raised his heavy sword, inhaling stale air with a roar. ”Explode it then, you b.l.o.o.d.y little rat: you don't have the guts!” and stumbled, arrested by Lymond, iron-armed.

”You're dealing with hysteria, not guts or lack of them. Scott: if I were alone I'd say throw and be d.a.m.ned. Burn us into red and white rose trees. Make sweet cinders of our b.l.o.o.d.y gold. Exercise this pitiful, f.e.c.kless piety you've discovered and reap your own trashy reward. Why the melodrama, I don't know. If you were determined to trap me, it seems a fairly simple thing to do without the busking. If you want the satisfaction of a discussion, you won't get it. Make your decisions, such as they are: you're in command. I have nothing to say to you..

”h.e.l.l, but I have!” said Mat. ”Jump him! Start on the boxes. He won't throw..

”He will,” said Lymond calmly. ”Big bangs and primary colours appeal to the young..

”What then?.

”Up to the realms of this universal patron..

”Dandy Hunter? Give ourselves up?.

”Unless like Hanno you wish to sail by streams of fire. Unbuckle your sword. The suicide impulse is very strong in the air..

Lymond was already, left-handed, unfastening his own sword belt. He pulled it off complete with scabbard and dropped it on the rubble behind him. Mat's followed, in his right hand Lymond continued to hold Scott's sword. ”The ten minutes are nearly up. You were saying?” he said to the boy.

It was the steadiness of the voice that shook Scott. He exclaimed, ”For G.o.d's sake: this is where she died. Doesn't that mean anything?.

”If I killed her, why should it? If I didn't, I'm not likely to be goaded into triple suttee, even to enable you to expire in a spray of madder-fed milk..

”You are willing,” said Scott harshly, ”to give yourselves up?.

”We are waiting with, I hope, well concealed impatience to do so..

”In that case, I'll take back my sword..

Knowing Lymond, Scott was well prepared. He expected a thrust or a cut, or even the heavy blade hurled in his face. Instead Lymond said briefly, ”I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll give it to you. This one wrote a betrayal. It can stay and sign it.” And he hurled it away from himself,far across the dark cellar where it spun with a little tongue from the torch flame, carrying the boy's gaze instinctively with it.

In that one small blind instant, like the tiger of Scott's own fantasy, Lymond jumped.

Too late to avoid him, Scott had all the time in the world to do what he wanted. The heavy torch, flung with all the boy's strength, left his hand and soared high over the gunpowder boxes, jettisoning sparks. The shadows pounced after it; the new, rough wood of the boxes bloomed under its high star; then it fell.

Hallway to the powder it collided with the clogged, sodden wool of Lymond's cloak, simultaneously thrown. Torch and cloak fell together; the wrap, batlike and sluggish, rolled over the lower boxes like a carpet and the tallow dip, upright, hit the topmost box, hesitated, bowed, and then halting in the surge of its own fire, toppled slowly forward and into the cloak. There was a flare of light, writhing over ceiling and uneven, web-clotted walls. Then Matthew leaped forward and Scott, borne to the floor by Lymond's hard strength, twisted vainly to stop him. There was a shrinking of light; a stink of tallow; a hiss; and the shock of utter darkness seized them all.

There was no light; there was no air. Scott heard Matthew blundering about, seeking them. He could hear Lymond's quick breathing, close to his face and his own raucous panting. He could feel cool fingers bending and turning, the weight of the lean, clever body and the steady leverage on his own limbs. . . . Kill girls! He could kill girls; but he wasn't going to stop Will Scott.

He broke that hold, and the next. He knew some of Lymond's tricks, but not all. The pressure on his ribs had gone. Now he needed only to get his right hand free. He twisted.

Matthew stumbled on them and laid hands on something. Lymond's voice, breathless, told him curtly to keep away. There were men~s voices m the convent above, and someone shouted something, but the blood roaring in his ears deafened Scott. He crashed again on his side, bruising his hip agonizingly against fallen stone, gritted his teeth, and s.h.i.+fted his own grip again.

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