The Game of Kings (5 page)

“… So Lymond—dear God, Lymond must wait.”

*  *  *

Only eight months had gone since Henry VIII of England had been suspended in death, there to lie like Mohammed’s coffin, hardly in the Church nor out of it, attended by his martyrs and the acidulous fivefold ghosts of his wives. King Francis of France, stranded by his neighbour’s death in the midst of a policy so advanced, so brilliant and so intricate that it should at last batter England to the ground, and be damned to the best legs in Europe—Francis, bereft of these sweet pleasures, dwindled and died likewise.

From Venice to Rome, Paris to Brussels, London to Edinburgh, the Ambassadors watched, long-eared and bright-eyed.

Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England.

Henry, new King of France, tenderly conscious of the Emperor’s power and hostility, felt his way thoughtfully toward a small cabal between himself, the Venetians and the Pope, and wondered how to induce Charles to give up Savoy, how to evict England from Boulogne, and how best to serve his close friend and dear relative Scotland without throwing England into the arms or the lap of the Empire.

He observed Scotland, her baby Queen, her French and widowed Queen Mother, and her Governor Arran.

He observed England, ruled by the royal uncle Somerset for the boy King Edward, aged nine.

He watched with interest as the English dotingly pursued their most cherished policy: the marriage which should painlessly annex Scotland to England and end forever the long, dangerous romance between Scotland and France.

Pensively, France marshalled its fleet and set about cultivating the Netherlands, whose harbours might be kind to storm-driven galleys. The Emperor, fretted by Scottish piracy and less busy than he had been, watched the northern skies narrowly. Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waited for the opening gambit.

C
HAPTER
   I:  
Taking en Passant

 II:  
Blindfold Play

III:  
More Blindfold Play: The Queen Moves Too Far

IV:  
Several Moves by a Knight

 V:  
Castling

VI:  
Forced Move for a Minor Piece

VII: 
A Variety of Mating Replies

O
N Saturday, September 10th, the English Protector Somerset and his army met the combined Scottish forces on the field of Pinkie, outside Edinburgh, and smashed them to pieces in a defeat as dire as any the Scots had suffered since Flodden. They did not, however, capture the baby Queen or take the fortress of Edinburgh, but remained outside its gates burning and wrecking while, as Buccleuch had predicted, a second English army invaded Scotland on the southwest, and ensconced itself in the near-Border town of Annan on its triumphant way north.

On the same day, quite near Annan, a man rode a broad-faced pony into a farmyard and stopped, a pike at his chest. Sitting still, he hissed through his teeth, brown eyes judicial over inquisitive nose. “Colin, Colin! You’re not doing yourself justice! It’s as smart, ye ken, to let Lymond’s friends in as his unfriends out.” And as the pikeman answered him with a bleat—“Johnnie Bullo! I didna ken ye, man!”—the rider clicked his teeth and the pony moved on.

It carried him gently through a rubble arch and up a long alley to a yard crowded with men. Saddlebags, rugs, weapons, tenting and food sacks lay piled against the house wall; and the reek of a boiling pot over an open fire fought weakly with the odours of sweat, leather and horse dung. Johnnie Bullo entered the yard through a gate, and dismounting, addressed the air.

“Turkey in?”

A man passing with a bonnetful of eggs jerked his head across the open yard and grinned, showing two sets of bereaved gums. “Over yonder, Johnnie.”

Turkey Mat, professional soldier and veteran of Mohacs, Rhodes and Belgrade, sat against an upturned barrel, hauling off his boots and bellowing orders. Forty and liverish, he had done nothing for his looks by growing a curled black beard in the Assyrian style. The men in the yard admired Turkey.

Johnnie Bullo approached gently. “Man, you’ve a fire there you could lead the Children of Israel with.”

Turkey Mat was emptying river sand from one boot. “Hey, Johnnie! No harm in a lowe with the farm bodies at home.” And as Bullo wordlessly turned to survey the planks nailed over doors and windows: “That’s the farmer, not us. He’s got six lassies and says he pays us for protection, no’ for stud fees.… We’re moving on tomorrow anyway; and I hope to God it’s to the Tower: my stomach’s declared war on my elbow. Have you brought the dose?”

The gypsy brooded. “What d’you suppose? I’ve had it a fortnight. It’s begun to grow whiskers like your own. What you want is a cross between an apothecary and a bloodhound.”

Flinging down the other boot, Turkey swore. “There’s been a war! Do they no’ tell you anything in these parts?”

Johnnie grinned, dropping to the ground beside him. “I thought you went east?”

“So we did. I never saw so many weel-kent faces all in the one place; the most of them chowed off and in no state to give the sort of snash you get from half of them when they’re upright. It was better,” said Matthew, “than a front seat at the Widdy-Hill the day after the Assizes.”

“And profitable?”

“Oh, aye.” A smile winked in Turkey Mat’s beard. “There was Arran, biting his nails to the elbows at Musselburgh, wanting men and food and powder and intelligence (and wanting the last more
than most); and Protector Somerset coming north hung over with booty and Wee gifts from the Lothian lairds, with a trail of tumble-down castles behind him … man, the moneybags were fleeing here and yon like cockroaches on a biscuit. Mind, that was last week,” he added with belated caution, watching Bullo bounce a small leather bag in one hand.

“Twelve crowns,” said Johnnie agreeably.

“Twelve crowns!
Twelve crowns for a teazle o’ Tay sand and chopped henbane and a week’s rakings from the doocote! It’s robbery!”

Nevertheless the transaction was completed, the gypsy derisive. “What’s money to Lymond’s men? I hear Governor Arran’s thinking of calling him in to finance the next expedition.” He waited a moment, then added lightly, “And I hear you got yourselves a new prize up-by into the bargain?”

Turkey registered surprise. “Not us. We fell in with an English messenger with a dispatch from the Protector to his commander at Annan; but Lymond wouldn’t touch him.”

Bullo raised an eyebrow. “So the Master’s money is on England, is it? Now
that
, Matthew, is interesting.”

The other shrugged and bawled an order across the yard. “God knows; but he sent Jess’s Joe after to make sure the message reached Annan safely. Did you want him? He’ll be back directly. He turned off with Dandy-puff for a minute just before we came in.”

Bullo showed his teeth. “And in drink, maybe? It would be nice to have him civil, for once.”

There was no chance to comment. As he spoke, three riders passed through the gate and drew rein: two were the Master of Culter and the man Dandy-puff, while the third was a stranger, a young man, tied to his horse and wild about it. Johnnie Bullo’s smile widened. “Hell’s hell again: the de’il’s back.”

Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter, was neat as a pin and stone sober. He dismounted, emitting a feu de joie of explicit orders: the prisoner was unhorsed and unbound, the animals led away, and the muddle in the yard cut up to shape instantly. “God!” said Matthew in simple admiration. “He’s got a tongue on him like a thorn tree.” And they watched him approach, the stranger trailing sulkily behind.

As at the sack of his mother’s home, Lymond was lavishly dressed. The knowledgeable gypsy eyes scanned the dairy-maid skin, the
gilded hair, the long hands, jewelled to display their beauty while the Master, serenely smiling, returned the compliment under relaxed lids.

“Johnnie, my night-black familiar. Civility’s nearly as dull as sobriety and I cannot—will not—be labelled dull. I have peper and piones, and a pound of garlik; a ferthing-worth of fenel-seed for fasting dayes, but dullness have I none: nor am I overfond of being discussed, my Johnnie.”

“You’ve quick ears, Lymond.”

“But yours, like Midas whispering in the hole, are closer to the ground.… What do you think of our new recruit?”

If the gypsy found the question surprising, or the reference offensive which it undoubtedly was, he showed nothing of it, but simply turned and bent an admiring glance on the tall young figure behind Lymond.

“My, my. He’s a bonny blossom to be let away from his nurse.”

The stranger flushed. He was a graceful creature, with fair skin and a thatch of carroty curls. His clothes, of a thoroughly expensive and unostentatious kind, were a credit to tailor and souter: his scabbard and accoutrements were inlaid and ornamented with a little more
brio
than the rule.

“—And his fancy hat!” breathed Matthew in awe.

The newcomer addressed Lymond with dignity. “I must confess to disappointment. Do you mete out this kind of treatment to every gentleman who offers you his sword?”

“Big words, too!”

Turkey Mat was silenced by the Master’s hand. Lymond, his back to the stone dike at one end of the yard, crossed his legs gently before him and instantly the yard, led by curiosity and its hope of a rough-house, deployed itself. Turkey and Bullo, grinning, ranged themselves on either side of the Master. The young man, stranded perforce in an open circle, stood his ground.

“Oh, Marigold!” Lymond spoke plaintively. “A silken tongue, a heart of cruelty. Don’t berate us. We’re only poor scoundrels—vagabonds—scraps of society; unlettered and untaught. Besides, we didn’t believe you.”

“Well, you can believe me now,” said the young man belligerently. “I didn’t ride all the way from—all this way to find you just to pass a dull Tuesday. I’m taken to be a fair fighting man. I’m prepared to join you; and I’d guess you need all the swords you can get. Unless you’re overnervous, of course.”

“Terror,” said Lymond, “is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We
eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright. So you want to join us. Shall I take you? Mat, my friend, awful and stern, strong and corpulent—what do you say?”

Turkey was in no doubt. “I’d want to know a good bit more about the laddie, sir, before I had him next me with a knife.”

“Oh,” said Lymond, “would you? And what about you, Johnnie?”

Johnnie Bullo regarded his fingers. “If I were yourself, I would perhaps give him his head. He looks a meek enough child.”

“So did Heliogabalus at an early age,” said Lymond. “And Attila and Torquemada and Nero and the man who invented the boot. The only thing they had in common was a cherubic adolescence. And red hair, of course, makes it worse.”

He considered, while the boy watched him steadily; then said, “Infant, I can’t resist it. I’m going to put you to the proof; and if you impress us with your worth, then quicquid libet, licet; as was remarked on another, unsavoury occasion. Are you willing to be wooed, sweet Marigold?”

Redhead was not charmed. “I’m willing to give you reasonable proof of my talents, of course.”

“Proof of your talents! … Oh, little Peg-a-Ramsey, we are going to do well together. Come along then. Gif thou should sing well ever in thy life, here is in fay the time, and eke the space. Your name?”

“You can call me Will.”

“—Sir,” said Lymond affectionately. “Surname and parentage?”

“My own affair.” A rustle among the onlookers gave credit to this piece of bravura; Lymond was undisturbed. “Never fear. We’re all runts and bastards of one sort or another. Do you swim? Hunt? Wrestle? I see. Can you use a crossbow? Your longest shot? Can you count? Read and write? Ah, the sting of sarcasm—Have we a scholar here? Then produce us a specimen,” said Lymond. “What about some modest quatrains? Frae vulgar prose to flowand Latin. Deafen us, enchant us, educate us, boy.”

There was a pause. The examinee, dazed by mental gymnastics at top speed, at first boggled. Then he had a pleasing idea. Lowering his lashes over a malicious sparkle he recited obligingly.

Flat incomprehension informed every face. He halted.

There was an uneasy and deferential pause. Then Lymond gave a short laugh and capped him in German:

“You appear,” said the Master, “to have left your studies at a very tender age? Don’t trouble to explain: tell me this instead. What about Pharaoh’s chickens appealed to you? Why did you decide to join me?”

“Why … ?” repeated Redhead, needing time to think.

“Word of three letters,” said Lymond. “Come along, for God’s sake: no need to let me have it all my own way. What was it? Rape, incest, theft, treason, arson, wetting the bed at night …”

“… Or burning my mother alive,” said the other sarcastically.

“Oh, be original at least.” The Master was undisturbed. “Why are you here?”

Silence. Then the boy said slowly, “Because I admire you.”

An appreciative titter ran round the audience. “You shock me,” said Lymond. “Explain, please.”

“All right,” said the boy. “You’ve chosen a life of vice, and have been consistent and reliable and thorough and successful in carrying it out.”