Part 33 (1/2)

Ignoring Lennox totally, Henry Wharton flung his arms in a wide gesture of exultation, divesting himself with a twist of bow, quiver, helmet and pack. They fell on the table with a crash. ”Lymond! You've got him?.

Repressively, Lymond himself answered. ”I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. n.o.body 'got' me,” he said. ”And where have you been, my billy: to the devil and back to have your beard combed?.

Before Grey's astonished gaze, the scene of a moment before began to repeat itself. They had to hold the young man, struggling, away from the Master. Grey shoved him into his father's grasp and said sharply, ”You control him. What's so inflammatory about . . .

Wharton answered curtly. ”Made a fool of himself at Durisdeer in February. Milked like a cow tree..

”How?.

Lymond, irrepressible, answered. ”It was a wonderful beard he had, a magnificent pelt. He was bearded like a Dammar pine, of the fas.h.i.+on of prophets and pards, one hair sitting here, another there.

But was it fitting? Was it well-considered? I asked myself: peach or nectarine, clingstone or freestone, bald or-forgive me-downywhich?.

”What,” said Lord Grey impatiently, ”did he do to Henry?.

”Shaved and cropped him with his own knife,” replied Lord Wharton shortly, and the angry faces around the table, with the furious exception of Harry's, broke into ill-repressed smiles.

”A picture,” observed Lymond. ”It isn't considered proper to shout in church. Besides, Lord Lennox is talking..

He had cour.age, or a singular rashness. Tom Erskine, his hands gripping the tapestry, wondered also, jaw set, if Lymond had observed what he himself had just seen: the smallest stirring in the inert body of the messenger Acheson, lying stunned on the marble face of a tomb.

It forced Erskine himself to a decision. With infinite care he edged along the narrow pa.s.sage behind the tapestry, reached the spiral stair, and slipping down it, stepped out on the wide, stone-flagged balcony which overhung the south transept where Lymond stood. Bending low, Erskine crossed the flags and lying still beneath the stone bal.u.s.trade, raised his head cautiously and peered below.

From his low and castellated rampart he caught a glimpse of a yellow head. He raised himself higher. At the same moment Lymondstepped back two paces before Lennox, who was shouting abuse: this brought him halfway along the table with his right side to the balcony and the catafalque with Acheson on his left.

He was, then, keeping the messenger under his eye. A moment later the Master turned his head to speak to the Countess of Lennox and raised his eyes a fraction, searching the stilted lancets and then, briefly, the wide Midnight Stairs and the gallery at their head. Erskine was by then almost certain the quick blue glance had identified him.

Someone was saying vehemently, ”That's a lie!.

Lymond seemed undisturbed. ”Don't be simple. Didn't you know that Margaret spent her sojourn in Scotland with me?.

The woman raised her brows. ”Haven't we had enough of this? When I was captured, I was taken to Lanark. Matthew knows that. The offer of exchange came from Lanark, not from you..

Lymond replied gently. ”I naturally covered my mediator by giving him good credentials, but he did not, I'm afraid, come from Lanark. How deceitful of you not to have told your spouse. I wrote my offer of exchange, I remember, on the back of a letter from Lord Lennox to his wife which in itself was a thing of joy. I recall, for example .

Lord Lennox shot a pale glance at his wife. ”There is no need to go on with this nonsense..

I recall, for example, a good many things, but don't excite yourselves. I shan't embarra.s.s the dynasty. Didn't you know she was using the war as a fulcrum for her fis.h.i.+ng line with myself as the prey? I was to be driven into the nets since, unlike the beaver, my self-defence stops short of unserviceable gestures. Do you find that objectionable? Pitiful? Even a little ludicrous, perhaps? A self-interest so insanely exclusive that it includes even murder?.

Now Margaret as well was on her feet, her eyes burning. Lennox was pale; around the table the others looked angry and uncomfortable, as if mesmerized into allowing the intolerable scene to go on.

The man Acheson stirred again.

”Murder?” repeated Lord Grey. ”Oh: the Stewart girl? She was killed riding..

”She was killed riding, by an arrow. She was threatened, pursued, her young guide killed, and done to death herself as surely as if the arrow had been directed at her.

”If your eyes burned from their sockets now you would be lost and terrified and appalled as she was-and you are men. You're not inenemy country, in the hands of a cruel and bitter woman; or galloping blind on a frightened horse over unknown fields with a dead body behind you and a pack of the hounds who killed him baying at your heels. That isn't only murder: it's murder of a very special and d.a.m.ning kind, and there is a name for those who engage in it . . .

The admirable voice was stripped, as was Lymond's whole bearing, of his normal pleasant negligence. He went on.

”I have no very gratifying memories of Crawfordmuir. I offered myself for sale, as I remember, in exchange for the truth. Your wife was eager to buy, Lord Lennox; but she also deals in adulterated coinage. She told me something was unprovable which I knew could be proved, and she told me a man had been killed whom I knew to be alive-so I withdrew my offer. But to save Christian Stewart from these attentions, believe me, I should have honoured it at any cost..

There was a grandeur in Margaret Douglas's fury. ”Stop your foul tongue! You paltry, conceited liar!.

”Did Christian Stewart die? How did she die?.

Lady Lennox stepped before him, shaken with rage. ”She died of a fall from her horse. It was no fault of mine. She's better off than she ever was as a mistress of yours! Only you won't blacken my name from revenge in front of these people!.

The answer was implacably hard. ”Look at your husband's face. Look at Lord Grey. Blacken your name! Are you known, do you imagine, as Zen.o.bia?.

She whirled on Grey. ”Take him away! Can't you stop this?.

”And al was conscience and tendre herte,” said the clear, forbidding voice. Grey cleared his throat. Wharton's eyes were fixed on the roof corbels and their coats of arms; his son, standing sulkily by Grey, was biting his lip. The Earl of Lennox looked hard at his wife, his eyes glancing white like pale, sea-washed pebbles. Lymond addressed him, not looking anywhere near Acheson; not allowing anyone's attention to stray to the white marble and the uneasily stirring body.

”Oh, you haven't been chcated. You are one with Black Douglas and Royal Tudor, and through her with any man from the highest to the most humble whom she wants to dominate. Any man. The rotten apple, Lennox, hangs lowest. There's more ambition in one of those tears of fury than in the whole of your G.o.dforsaken career. You must let her push you; you can't rest any more; you can't fail her or she'll destroy you. Won't you, Margaret?.

Acheson groaned.

With sharp distaste Lord Grey said to Lymond's guards, ”Take him away!” but Margaret was already advancing on her tormentor. With all her considerable strength she struck at his mouth with the back-driving flat of her hand and Erskine, his heart in his teeth, saw the Master call smoothly on his reserves.

The woman's wrist was caught and pulled to him. Then, behind the s.h.i.+eld of her body, he side-stepped and s.n.a.t.c.hed. With young Wharton's bow and quiver in his free hand he backed to the stairs, dragging Margaret, wildly struggling, with him.

He held her, one-handed, until he reached the foot of the steps; then hurling her from him an instant before she fought quite free he turned and raced up the wide, shallow treads.

Erskine was ready. As Lymond crashed breathless beside him in the shelter of the bal.u.s.trade his sword was out, ready to cut back the expected rush; but the other man was already on his feet again with the bow strung. There was omy one arrow. He said under his breath, ”Keep down, d.a.m.n you!” and as Erskine knelt, Lymond took aim below.

Wharton and his son, hallway up the stairs, halted.

”Get back!” said the Master.

There was a long pause. Lennox, at the foot of the steps, was bent over his wife. Grey, still at the head of the table, hadn't moved; the two guards stood helplessly beside him.

Against a bow and a fine marksman, their swords might be unbarrelIed shooks. The Whartons recoiled down the stairs and the tilt of the bow followed them. Behind, the gallery was empty, a hall-open door leading to the deserted monks' dormitory, the day stairs, the cloisters, the refectory, the storehouses: a thousand hiding places and a thousand exits.

They held the hour in their fingers, like a day lily. They had merely to destroy Acheson and go.

The bow in his hands, Lymond stood motionless. Erskine was turning on him, riven with urgency, when he saw the movement above his head. On the narrow ledge to the right, the twin of his own former stance, a man stood with a hackbut.

From that ledge there was no turnpike down to the gallery, but the arquebusier had no need to come closer to Lymond to have him fully in range. Erskine turned, frantic exhortations in his mouth, and saw, at last, why Lymond had made no effort to shoot.

For Acheson had moved. Sitting up, hands on marble, he was attempting weakly to stand. Until he did so, he was totally screened by the parapet. And there was only one arrow.

The loading of an arquebus is a protracted affair. Hidden under the low wall, Erskine had a terrible leisure to watch this man's quick fingers. He saw the glimmer of the manipulated barrel and knew from the tightening of Lymond's fingers on the bow that he also had seen.

The Master gave it no other attention. He was talking, the limpid, carrying voice penetrating the transept below as Acheson, disgruntled and b.l.o.o.d.y, rubbed his black head and muttered.

”Keep your voices down,” said Lymond. ”Don't move. Don't shout for help. I can kill any one of you from here.” His eyes were tranquil, of a clearheaded strength: there was no hint in them of the day's exhaustions and disasters. Talking, he moved slowly along the wall, trying to uncover Acheson. The hackb.u.t.ter, in his haste, dropped something with a small b.u.mp and picked it up again.