Part 38 (1/2)

There was a long silence. Then slowly Richard got up from the chest. He looked very tired. ”Are you sure . . .

”He spoke very plainly indeed. Will Scott can tell you..

Her husband walked to the window. Faintly, in the courtyard, the dying glow of Johnnie Bulb's embers searched through the open door, were cut off, gleamed and disappeared as it swung in the wind.

Mariotta said, ”Well?” and he turned, making a gesture of despair. ”1 have lived with him for three weeks. He's tormented, perverted, dangerous, ruthless, but-.

The candielight lit her soot-black hair and the soft wool on her shoulders, as if a silver quill had embellished the air about her. Her face, resting on her knees, was shadowed and unreadable. ”But you believe him. It's another impa.s.se then, isn't it, Richard?.

”I'm d.a.m.ned if it is,” said Lord Culter suddenly, and swung around. ”My dear: listen. We've been married less than a year. Because of circ.u.mstances and foolishnesses and my mistakes and shortcomings we've been parted for nearly half that time. We've each in our own way been through a number of minor h.e.l.ls; and we've had a great loss.

”A mistake is something you build on: it's the irritant that makes the pearl; the flaw that creates the geyser-but a mistake made twice is a folly. It's cost something in terms of thought and sacrifice and even suffering to bring us tonight to speak with each other. We have a moral duty at least not to toss it away..

”And Lymond?.

Richard said steadily. ”You had no right to ask me that question, and no right to expect me to make that choice..

”I knew you wouldn't make it,” she said. ”I knew if you had made it, even in your owA mind, that Lymond would be dead. I was only-.

”-Frightening me for the good of my soul,” said Richard, and suddenly smiled. ”As Francis rejoices in doing. I've spoken to Will Scott too, you know. But won't you believe me? I've been frightened enough already..

He was standing looking down at her. ”Perhaps you've married the wrong brother. And that would be a pity. Because Francis lives in a pa.s.sionless vacuum and keeps his love for abstract things. And in the second place, I should never let you go..

She had longed so much to hear it that she was beyond speech; but there was a quality in her face that drove him suddenly toward violence.

”I love you,” said Richard to his wife. ”You have dominion of life and death over me. I am asking nothing except to prove it without being turned away. Or”-his eyes on her lifted arms-”being taken out of pity..

Her outstretched hands did not waver, and the candlelight on herface found an expression unsought even in his dreams. He came carefully to her side, and knelt under her light touch.

”Out of pity?” said Mariotta. ”My dear fool, why am I fighting you and denying you and hurting you except that I am so afraid of you, and of myself; because I love you far too well for peace and gentle harmonies.

”It's all right. My dear, it's all right. I am here: I love you: I wrn not leave you. None shall take it from us now..

He had dropped head and shoulders to the bed, one hand gripping the silk and the other holding her outstretched hand as if it were his hope of eternity. Mariotta brought her other arm to encircle his shoulders and comforted him.

* * *Roused very early next morning by Tibet, in tears, Sybilla received her son in her room.

She had risen and put on a vast brocade bedgown. With its stiff silk puckered about her, she sat in her high chair like Demeter about to breakfast on Pelops, her face in shadow from the paling windows. Richard bent over and kissed her.

She surveyed him, silently absorbing the pleasing, tranquil a.s.surance of him and the woollen robe he wore. Her own mouth relaxed, and she touched his cheek as he dropped to a stool at her feet and hugged his knees. ”You've made your peace. What odd children I have! I'm so glad,” she said.

”Could I have leave to stay, do you think?” asked Richard. ”What you've done about the steadings I hate to think. Salted all the sheep and given away the pigs and allowed the salmon to be poached .

I didn't kill him.~~”I know. You wouldn't have kissed me, would you?” said Sybila coolly.

Richard flushed. ”He's-Francis is in Edinburgh. Tom would tell you, he was badly hurt in England. Then he was taken-gave himself up-as we were coming north. I'd planned to get a s.h.i.+p for him and help him to leave.~~Some of the natural colour had returned to Sybilla's fine skin. She drew a finger down his cheek and said, ”That was remarkably well done, no matter what came of it. You won't regret it, either. What will they do?.

'F”The warrant is out for letters relaxing him from the horn. That lets them bring him to trial before Parliament. In two weeks' time, probably.” His eyes searched her face. ”There isn't much hope, you know. But to be honest, I don't think he greatly cares..

For the the first time, he saw a spark of fear in her eyes. ”Why? Because of Christian?.

”A number of things, I think . . .” He waited, and then said, ”Will you go and see him? Soon?.

”No. I should only weaken him now,” said Sybilla curtly. ”And in any case, I have a little travelling to do, and I must be back in good time..

”Travelling?” Never in this world would he understand her. ”Yes, my darling,” said Sybilla. ”And someone, as Buccleuch would say, is going to loathe my guts before I've finished with them..

IV

Baring

Wherefore the n.o.bles and the peples ben sette in their proper places.

They that ben sette on the other syde kepe the Quene.

And thus kepe they alle the strength and fermeteof the royaume.

1. Remiss

THAT year, as in other years, death was not man's ultimate terror and chief source of his disquiet. Death was cheap and quick, indiscriminating and often friendly. You could die in a day, from the pest. You could die in a second in the innocent hub of a brawl. Children in thousands never came to life, or lived only hours. You could die in battle, and you could die at the minor instance of the law, for cheating and stealing and concealing disease. Death was better, often, than pain, mutilation and deformity; than starvation in banishment; than the intangible evils of sorcery and enchantment. People died suddenly, from week to week and month to month, and their disappearance had to be accepted. Death was cheap and quick.

In time of siege and foreign occupation, the doom and death of a traitor might go unnoticed. But many in Edinburgh lost fathers or brothers at Solway Moss, and had heard Carrick Pursuivant at the Cross six years before charging and warning the traitor to appear.

Twice they had summoned the absent Lymond to the diet of his libel, and twice the record book had noted, The ajoresaid being sum-moned did not appear. For this contemptuous failure in his duty to his Sovereign and this rebellion against the law of his country, sentence of fugitation was pa.s.sed, making him rebel and outlaw.

Now, six years later, triumphant officialdom spoke. Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter, being in ward in Her Majesty's Castle of Edinburgh, was summoned to appear on the eighth day of the month of August in the year of Our Lord 1548, to answer charges of treason, of revealing and showing to our ancient enemies of England the secrets of the Queen; of treasonable intercommuning and rendering of aid and comfort to our said enemies; of murder, a.s.sault, abduction and robbery, and crimes against the Estate and Church as set forth in the indictment.

The news reached Will Scott where he hung about in a frenzy of inactivity in Edinburgh. He tried and failed to get access to the Castle. Buccleuch, already aware of the event, left his son alone and got back to the siege of Haddington. Richard, with a lot to do at Midculter and a strong unwillingness to leave it, stayed with his wife and made quiet preparations to return before the eighth. Sybilla, having got rid of all her enc.u.mbrances, collected a small, well-armed retinue and left for parts unknown.

* * *The Dowager reached Ballaggan on the first of August, carrying the date in her breast like an aposteme.

She was brought into the hall and made welcome, under the vacant survey of alabaster and murrhine. Crossing the little Turkey carpets which cost so much, Dandy Hunter took her to his study as she asked, and poured her wine and made her comfortable, without pressing her for news of either of her sons. She smiled at him very gently and took from her purse a little box, which she laid on the table between them. ”I came to return this,” she said.

Smiling, a little puzzled, he took it. His sleeves were caught with embroidered bands and the stuff of his jerkin, as fine as her own, was lined with tissue. Smiling at her again, he unwrapped, fastidiously, what lay inside the box; and then, with the smile lingering forgotten on his lips, drew out and laid before him the contents.

It was a hexagonal brooch, set in ebony and diamonds and shaped like a heart set about with crystal plaques, each bearing an angel's head in onyx.

The silence stretched out. Then Sir Andrew stirred and lifted his eyes. ”But this isn't mine..

”No?” said Sybilla. ”But Patey Liddell altered it for you: I saw it in his shop. Your mother might remember..

Remembrance brightened his face. ”Ah!” he said. ”Now I have it. Yes, indeed-I bought it for Mother, and lost it again the same day.” He gave her a rueful smile. ”I'm sorry, but your son was the culprit. The brooch lay by the bed when he broke into the house, and when he had gone, it had vanished too. I'm afraid I was so angry and concerned about Mother that I dismissed it . . . I'd forgotten it altogether. Wherever did you find it?.

”But,” said Sybilla, ”you handed it to Patey after Francis's visit..