The Game of Kings (75 page)

There was a brief silence. Bishop Reid said, “Well, Mr. Crawford?”

Good. He was going to attempt it. Lymond said briefly, “If I hadn’t used the protection of an English lady, as Mr. Lauder so kindly mentions, the secret of the ships’ departure would be a secret
no longer. I haven’t any evidence that Acheson’s message was unknown to me. I can only refer you to some probabilities.”

Argyll said sharply, “Go on!”

Lymond raised his eyes.

“Am I not an unlikely messenger? To anyone in English pay in Scotland I should be known as an enemy of Lord Grey and Lord Wharton and of the Earl of Lennox; and also the object of a … well-publicized pursuit by my brother. And even if I were approached, would I risk it for a moment, my relationship with these three men being what it was?

“But the man Acheson was a carrier of dispatches by trade, and an unscrupulous one. We know from what Mr. Erskine has said that Mr. Acheson knew the contents of this message; knew that it was a matter of delivering more than two perfectly legitimate messages from Sir George.

“How did he know? There was no provision originally for Acheson to have a companion. The safe-conduct was widened by Sir George himself to admit me, in order to promote an exchange of prisoners. There is no question, naturally, of accusing Sir George of complicity in treason, therefore you have to believe either that, being provided with this innocent means of getting myself safely to England, I confided my dreadful secret to this perfect stranger; or that when I joined him Acheson was already carrying the dispatch, in which case he was unlikely, surely, to talk about it to me.”

Plausible again. The Lord Advocate saw the eyebrows raised around the table and heard the muttered exchanges.

Reid leaned forward. “What then was the object of going to England? Oh: I recall. The Stewart girl.”

It was what Lauder was waiting for. He hurled his pen from him so far that it cracked on the oak, and flung up an arm like a semaphore to flatten his hair.

“So-o, Mr. Crawford. Your sole reason for going to England, your lonely and chivalrous reason for giving yourself up, for flinging yourself on the mercy of these gentlemen who, as you have so laboriously proved, wished nothing better than to see you dead, was to arrange that the Lady Christian Stewart might go free?”

“Yes.”

At last. Now, by God, you’re hating it, thought Lauder. And I’m going to thrash you until you hate me as well. And then, my lad, you’re going to lose that cool temper and the Bishop had better
look out. “Yes,” he repeated aloud. “This is the girl, young, blind, wealthy, in close touch with the Court, whom you encouraged to obtain secret information for you—”

“That is untrue.”

“—while posing as a mysterious and illicit lover?”

“Both these accusations are untrue. Confine your attacks to me, Mr. Lauder.” The controlled voice clashed with Buccleuch’s: “Dammit, we can’t have that, Lauder. The girl was no light o’ love.”

The Lord Advocate said sombrely, “If you will listen, Sir Wat, you will hear that I am implying the reverse. I am saying that this was an honest, gentle and virtuous girl, a young girl of open and innocent years, betrothed to a fine man, who fell into the power of a practiced and powerful seducer, appearing to her in a guise both insinuating and irresistibly romantic.”

Buccleuch growled. “She knew who he was. I don’t see what bearing this has on the thing.”

“She claimed to know, finally, when she thought it would save him. Did you reveal your identity to her when you met, Mr. Crawford?”

“No,” said Lymond, and his hands closed.

“Why not?”

There was a pause. “It relieved her of what I felt to be … too cruel a quandary. I didn’t expect to see her again.”

“No quandary for a girl as upright as we know this one was, surely. Or do you mean she was already in love with you?”

“I mean nothing of the sort. We had been childhood neighbours, and she was a—kindly person.”

“I see. And having all these scruples, no doubt you went out of your way to avoid further meetings. Or did you see her again?” added Lauder suddenly.

There was another pause. Then the Master said evenly, “Several times. Shall we save some tedious questions and answers?—After the first and second, the meetings were not unavoidable. I allowed her to help me with my private affairs although I knew that by doing so I should make her virtue suspect, at least, if it became known. It was through pursuing my affairs that she was captured at Dalkeith. It was directly because of that that she came into the power of the Countess of Lennox. These were unprincipled and unpardonable acts, and you can’t possibly blame me as much as I blame myself.

“But in all of them, Lady Christian was the innocent and deceived party. She did nothing dishonest, even in her efforts to help me; and, unpleasing as it may seem to Mr. Lauder’s active imagination, there was nothing but friendship between us. Under the circumstances no doubt you will find it ludicrous that I should cast myself into Lord Grey’s lap simply to free her; but that was what I did.”

The Lord Advocate might have been annoyed at having his effects spoiled, but he gave not the slightest sign. “It certainly has its suspicious side. Particularly when linked with the fact that Lady Christian died suddenly and violently immediately after you traced her to England.”

Erskine’s voice said harshly, “Wait a moment. Lady Christian died from a fall from her horse.”

Lauder said simply, “How do you know?”

There was real anger in Erskine’s brusque voice. “I knew Chris better than any of you—I was to have married her—and if we weren’t in a court of law I would shove down your damned throat the implication you’ve just been making. I saw Crawford of Lymond immediately after her death and heard what he said and saw how he acted. If I’d thought for a moment that he’d killed her, I wouldn’t have let Culter have the pleasure of fighting him.”

The Lord Advocate let this poignantly confident rebuttal wreak its own doom; and then said gently, “What then are you suggesting? That Mr. Crawford went to her rescue after all in a fit of erratic gallantry?” and was much surprised to hear Sir George Douglas’s smooth voice.

“Suppose, since they worry you, we dismiss the romantic gestures in favour of another fact? Mr. Crawford had been disappointed in his efforts to exculpate himself, as he thought, from the older crimes we have not yet discussed: he had just heard from me that the man who might do so was dead. He had already disbanded his force in expectation of a satisfactory meeting with this man and had suffered the considerable shock of being handed over to us by his own protégé. He might well, under the circumstances, have decided on a course of despair such as this.”

The Lord Advocate bowed without the least shade of irony. “A point well made. Particularly as it puts before us another fact. Mr. Crawford, it appears, had just been cheated of his hopes of reinstating himself in our midst—by whatever means—as an honest, loyal and worthy servant of the Crown.

“What then remained, one might ask, but to fly to England; to get rid of this awkward girl, who was in England and who knew so much of his activities, and at the same time to present information which he might hope at least would buy him a little leniency from Lord Grey? If not, how was he worse off?” Lauder let his gaze rove over the twelve diverse faces, shining with warmth and concentration; shrewd; passive; perceptive; wary.

“You are not dealing with a simple man. The accusations against him are astonishing in their variety. We have dealt with all but the most serious, and it would take a bold man to say ‘This is true’ and ‘This is untrue.’ His past connections with Lord Wharton were deliberate and innocent, he claims. There is no proof either way. His actions at Annan may have sprung from well-intentioned, if obscure motives. That again we shall never know.

“Whether for his own benefit or not, he appears to have given a certain amount of aid to the Crown during the famous cattle raid on the western march. In the same way he rendered us all a service at Hume—this time entirely for his own benefit. At Heriot he played a dangerous game—again for his own ends—in which his own brother and the Buccleuch family were pawns though it appears, generous ones, in the way they have spoken for him. His connection with the Earl of Lennox again is a matter unproven either way—guilty or innocent—but again material reward enters the picture, and it seems likely that what was done was done for this reason.

“We are left with Hexham, and what happened immediately before. So complex is the picture this time, so various the possibilities, that we can isolate the truth, it seems to me, in one way only.

“To know what was in his brain as he drew back that bow at Hexham we must look at the record of his actions in the past for his real ambitions, his real mind on issues moral and ethical and all those intangible things which dictate whether a man conducts his body for the profit of his body, or for the greater renown and comfort of his country, or in the service of his God.

“We have not found out these things this afternoon; and we shall not find them in those things I have mentioned. For this we must go further back, to the dreadful and deadly crimes of which Francis Crawford was accused six years ago, and for which he has still to answer. These are the matters I am proposing to bring before you now.”

A macer, hurrying from Lord Culter’s side, bent and said something
to Argyll. The Justiciar’s voice said, “What? Oh.… Certainly. No purpose in endangering—” And wriggling back his sleeves, the Earl whacked the table. “Adjournment for an hour. Break off meantime, Mr. Lauder.”

The Lord Advocate followed his eyes, then turned back, bowed and sat down as Sir James Foulis appeared at his elbow. “The old fool: it’s been coming for half an hour. Hasn’t he got eyes?” said Lauder comfortably. Through the curtain of officials and guards he could see that Lymond had lowered his head on crossed arms, exposing nothing but the nape of his neck and the admirable lace of his shirt.

The room was clangorous with conversation. Most of them, Committee and witnesses, were on their feet with a flopping and unpuckering of robes, a stretching and a crackling of paper. They gathered in half-prepared knots, mesmerized still by the rigours and tensions of the day, and unwilling to leave while the play was not yet done.

After less than two minutes Lymond gripped the arms of his chair, and then rose. The moment’s collapse, Lauder guessed, had been a bitter humiliation: he had not yet regained any colour. Nevertheless he made a deep and impeccable bow to Argyll and walked out through the door without pausing.

“That,” said Henry Lauder, closing his spectacles and throwing his pen in the wastepaper basket, “is a brain. If I were ten years younger and a lassie, I’d woo him myself.”

Foulis of Colinton caught Oxengang’s eye and grinned; to Lauder he said, “Well, he timed that little episode neatly enough.”

“He
timed it?” The Lord Advocate, peeling off his soaking robe, was making for the cool air outside.
“He
timed it? Don’t be a bloody fool, Jamie.”

Will Scott was among the last to move. As he made to get up, a heavy hand cuffed his head and he looked around and up to see his father.

“Are your teeth sewn up?” demanded Buccleuch. “You’ve been busy enough chattering all around Edinburgh up till now.”

Will said resentfully, “Lauder stopped me twice, but he won’t again. I’ll damn well …”

“Dod, d’ye need a dub and whistle? Bawl it out, man, and he canna stop ye.” He grinned reminiscently. “Your man has George
Douglas’s measure, anyway. There’s no proof one way, but thanks to Douglas there’s no proof the other, either.”

Scott said grimly, “Does it matter? They’ll have him nailed down with the original indictment. All the evidence is on their side this time.”

Buccleuch grunted, observing his son’s expression. “I’ve seen Henry Lauder up to the oxters in evidence and still lose a case,” he said mendaciously. “I’m off to the house for a dish of eggs. If you’re staying with Culter, find out about that little mare of his. If I get some siller for this fellow Palmer I’ll think about buying her after all.”

Scott had already nodded and moved away when the sense of this penetrated. “Palmer?”

Buccleuch grinned. “High and mighty Sir Thomas Palmer, the engineer. Did ye not know? I took him after the raid last month.”

“Where is he?”

“In the Castle with the rest of them. A wild lot, I’m told. Why?”

“Nothing,” said Scott, and made for the street so fast that he jammed himself in the doorway with his sword.

*  *  *

Big Tommy Palmer, former captain of the Old Man at Boulogne, former knight-porter of Calais, former overseer of petty customs, former gentleman-usher and popular companion of King Henry VIII, had been a prisoner of war once before, in France, and although financially unembarrassed by this second mishap was spiritually much discomfited and in need of cheering up.

At his request, he and a dozen of his own men had been put together in one medium-sized room in the Castle. They were all men of good standing and of reasonable value in cash, so the room was pleasant, with carved oak panelling, slightly chipped; a small-paned window looking sheer down the Castle rock into the loch, and a low, thick door with an adequate guard outside it.

Will Scott found it less easy than he had expected to get in. He finally managed it only with the help of Tom Erskine, and then on the pretext of discussing with Palmer his father’s plans for his ransom.

Since in fact he had nothing to discuss, the business aspect of his talk with Sir Thomas came to an early end, and Tom Erskine moved to go. But captivity by this time was boring Palmer; he was willing to go on talking, and Scott was in no hurry to leave.

They exchanged politely some of the current gossip of both courts and touched chastely and with mutual interest on the characters of some of the less powerful but more public figures in each. One or two of Palmer’s companions joined in.

Erskine, aware that it was nearly time to make for the Tolbooth and taking only a detached interest in the talk, found the engineer rather likable: a man in his late fifties with grey beard and bright curling hair. Between hair and moustache the skin was red-brown with the sun; his much-wired front tooth sparkled like a trout rising in still water when he laughed, which was often.