The Game of Kings (78 page)

Bishop Reid barely waited for him to end. “The answer to that surely lies as Lauder has already said in proof of character. The man’s led a life of abandon and profligacy—he hasn’t denied it. There’s the blind girl. The sister-in-law. The Scott boy—” He paused as Sir Walter shot up and was pressed down again by a neighbour. “A
young boy who, we know, vacillated wildly in his attitude to his new protector. Disgust—or self-disgust—at one point, as we know, forced him to take the honourable course. His affections, it seems, have since altered again. We do not know what happened in the year he was with the panel, but one can hardly wonder at these signs of an extreme and unhealthy emotional instability. I for one would have found it hard to place any reliance on his support of Mr. Crawford, and I am glad to see he is not here this afternoon to perjure himself.”

It was beyond human strength to restrain Buccleuch any longer. “Perjure himself!” roared Sir Wat. “Unhealthy emotions! Self-disgust! Are you calling my son a debauchee?”

“I merely pointed out—”

“That boy,” bellowed Sir Wat, “was a shilpit, shiftless, shilly-shallying gomerel before he met up with Francis Crawford. And now, by God—he still maybe makes up his mind three times in the time a normal man would do it once, but I’d sooner have him back of me in an argument or a fight than any finnicking ninny that stayed at home and got wed at St. Cuthbert’s before he stopped talking like the squeak off a tumbler!”

“I don’t deny,” said the Bishop loudly, “that your son is now an exceedingly efficient fighting man: witness his unprecedented attack on yourself. I am only seeking to prove—”

“It seems to me you were only seeking to prove six other things as well,” said Sir Wat threateningly. “And all of them damned insulting.”

“—In any case,” said Henry Lauder quickly, “the point is made. We may be forgiven for believing that associations natural and unnatural come easily to Mr. Crawford. And that brings us, distasteful as it may be, to a popular report very widely current in the months after the disaster at Lymond. I must remind you, Sir Wat, that Mr. Crawford may have had reasons—very cogent reasons of his own—for encouraging and even inciting the attack at the convent.”

The violence with which Lymond propelled himself to his feet was such that his monumental chair rocked behind him. In the flicker of an eye he must have seen his brother half-rise in the same moment, and must have guessed what lay behind the furious anxiety in the grey eyes, and behind the avid expectancy of the Tribunal.

Lauder, waiting, breathed thanks for the instant’s pause before the attack. A storm of emotion might have coalesced all the liking and sympathy which existed already for Lord Culter, and the less than neutral curiosity of people like Herries and Buccleuch. But this fellow
fought with his head, not his heart, and the Tribunal would never warm to him. Henry Lauder was not a cynic: he was simply very good indeed at his job.

But Lymond addressed the Committee and not the Queen’s Advocate when he began to speak. The carrying, escharotic voice was thick with sheer cold fury for half a dozen words, and then he had it controlled.

“I see this idea is not new to you. Some lawyers believe that dirt will do as well as evidence any day; but Mr. Lauder, all heat and no light, like hell-fire, is not like that. He is simply being provocative; without of course making concessions to the feelings of either the laird of Buccleuch or of other members of my family.”

Lymond paused, and his voice, rock-steady, dropped a little. “Like Mr. Lauder, I have played on this stage before. I know the value of the stagger, the swoon, the vein swollen with ire and outrage. Mr. Lauder was a little afraid of all these; but instead he counted on me to wreck your amour propre as you had wrecked mine, with sad results for my case.

“That is why you heard the accusation you heard just now, grafted skilfully to the Bishop’s preceding statements about Will Scott of Buccleuch.” He paused.

“There is no foundation whatever for either suggestion. Will Scott is a normal, lively youngster: he left me when he did because he thought I was planning to give him up to the English, among other misconceptions. If you discount his father’s denial, you might also remember his moderation in the Tribunal today. Sir Walter is not a man to hide his feelings. My sister …”

His voice roughened suddenly. “Who will speak for her? The rest of my family, perhaps: will you believe them? Who makes it necessary to speak for her; for either of these young people? Are you so short of rods that you must despoil young trees: so short of stones that you need to walk the very graveyards for them … ?

“My lords, my Lord Advocate: I suggest that you have surely material enough before you now to suggest a verdict to you; that nothing more of value can come from this inquiry; and particularly nothing of value from the path Mr. Lauder would have you tread. I do beg you to remember that I, and I alone, am the person whose acts you are judging today.”

He sat down, leaving behind him the uneasy silence of those who have watched a keg of gunpowder explode without a sound. Tom
Erskine said in a whisper, “God Almighty!” glanced once at Culter’s face, and wiped his own brow. Lauder rose.

“Are you withdrawing from further questioning, Mr. Crawford?”

“I am not. But—”

“But you would like us to close this inquiry for the sake of your health,” said the advocate comfortably, and watched out of the corner of his eye a note passing hurriedly to the top table. Buccleuch, crumpling it in his hand, said, “I don’t much fancy the line the questioning has been taking either, Lauder; but—by his Grace’s leave—I don’t think we should close the business without hearing Will again. I understand the damned limmer’s got stuck somewhere, but he ought to be here at any moment.”

Argyll consulted his immediate neighbours and leaned forward. “We are satisfied to leave our preliminary investigation at this point, Mr. Lauder. I cannot imagine, Sir Walter, that your son will have anything of great moment to add to what we know, but if he appears before these proceedings are finished we shall of course admit his evidence, although we cannot, I think, prolong this diet to wait for him. First, we should like you, my Lord Advocate, to gather together the facts which have been revealed so far and correlate them for us. Then, if he so wishes the prisoner may speak.”

Erskine sprang to his feet. “My lords, I beg you not to close without hearing Mr. Scott. There is evidence of the first importance involved.”

“What?” said Reid. His ear was cupped in his hand and his face hot and irritable. “It is irregular to speak now, Mr. Erskine. Sit down.”

Argyll was more patient. “You have knowledge of this evidence?”

“Only that it may be vital.”

“You have no idea what it is?” Erskine flushed. “No. But—”

The Justiciar’s voice was final. “In that case, I am afraid you must abide by my decision. If it arrives before this Assize ends, we shall admit it. Mr. Lauder—” He paused. “Mr. Erskine, you may sit down.”

Tom said briefly, “I was to give evidence in support of the prisoner’s actions at Hexham. May I do so now?”

Argyll’s tolerance this time was not so evident. He leaned forward. “We know what happened there, Mr. Erskine, and accept that you can confirm it. We don’t need to know any more at present, I believe. Now, Mr. Lauder?”

The Lord Advocate was amused and intrigued—intrigued to such an extent that he took a hand in the game. He said, “There is one further thing, my lord, which we might have clear. We have heard no comment from Lord Culter for or against his brother. Although we all realize the matter is painful to him, he might be able to throw some light on the unhappy affair at the convent.”

Argyll began, “I think we have heard enough—” and paused as the lawyer’s face became concerned.

Lauder said, “It was Lord Culter who spared himself least in the past year in running his brother to earth, and who in fact brought him back in the end. Should we not ask him to give us his reasons?”

It was a justifiable slip; and it happened so late that the Crown suffered less than it might have done. The Justiciar waved a cursory hand, and Lord Culter rose, purposeful and solid as Ebenezer. “It is true that I spent many weeks pursuing my brother,” he began, and Lauder, already warned by his voice, swore quietly under his breath. “I did so under a complete misapprehension,” said Richard calmly. “I believe him innocent of the charges against him; and I want to say that when intercepted—”

“Don’t labour the point, Richard.” It was the defendant’s voice, quick and caustic.

“—When intercepted, I was about to help my brother leave the country.”

Sensation. Lymond gave a curious grimace and stayed quiet; the Lord Justice-General sat up. “You realize, Lord Culter, that if this man is found guilty you have made yourself an accomplice to his crimes?”

Richard said briefly, “He is not guilty.”

The Lord Advocate was looking at him very hard. “Your lordship has thoroughly surprised us. I do not propose to question you about your sister, but I must ask this: as to the other accusations on this sheet—do you have any proof that they are false?”

Culter stirred uneasily. Lymond’s malicious voice spoke before he could open his mouth. “No, he hasn’t. I’m sorry to disperse the gentle and evangelical light, but even Richard can’t achieve a complete volte-face as quickly as that. All this whitewashing is intended, I gather, to protect my sister’s reputation: that’s all.”

The Lord Advocate said nothing; he simply lay back in his chair, the blue chin dropped on his chest, and stared thoughtfully at Lymond, who stared thoughtfully back. It was Argyll who said, “We
really must have this clear. Do I understand Lord Culter is romancing? That he didn’t help you to escape?”

“Imagination reels,” said Lymond, “before the improbable delights of such an event. No. He was bringing me here to have me hanged, having just failed to kill me in formal combat in England. Mr. Erskine will confirm.”

Mr. Erskine, in a dour voice, confirmed, without looking at Culter, who was on his feet and choked with protests. “I think,” said the panel kindly, “that you should sit down. It makes no odds now, you know.” And after a moment, Richard did so.

An odd silence had fallen. It was late: long past time for the evening meal. They were exhausted with argument and heat and concentration and the concealed ravages of fear.

No darts had been thrown; no mines exploded; no reputations peeled of their tactful patches and splints. All was righteousness and decorum; and the rich, pliant voice of the Lord Advocate, beginning in the stillness and unreeling delicately the case against Francis Crawford.

He was clever enough not to brush again through the harsh Orcadian pastures of Bishop Reid’s imagining. He kept to his indictment—kept concisely and damningly to its severities, and made no appeal to the heart: the time for that was past. Instead, he bent his mind to weaving a fabric of steel: a case so massive, so intellectually secure, so lockfast that no man, however fluent and however gifted, should break it. Of these bright phrases, forged and concatenated, would emerge the gyves which tomorrow would snap into place. He ended very calmly.

“And so I present to you a trespasser of a kind which the law in its grace and impartiality has scarcely knowledge to deal with: a man who has plunged his kindred men into untimely death; has rent blood and limb from them; has forced apart mother and son and scythed sheer to the stubble a meadow of children, for a handful of tainted and murderous coins. A man who, nourished in this generous womb, can turn upon his mother land and hack her, deface her and betray her, deny her and spit upon her as an empty waste, a name upon a map, a race of strangers and a source of wanton exercise and plunder.

“Such a man is Crawford of Lymond: such a man this land may pray never to see again in the difficult ways of her history. I say: busy yourself no longer about him, for he is better condemned, and most harshly dead.”

The silence of his careful making followed him and lay upon the Tribunal for a stricken and pulsing space. Then at the long table Argyll moved, and the twelve Assessors stirred and sighed.

Erskine, lifting his stunned head, saw that Richard’s eyes were wide and full on his brother; but Lymond looked at nobody, the queer cornflower gaze concentrated in space. The Lord Justice-General began to speak, and had to clear his throat.

“We have heard and understood you, Mr. Lauder, and have been well served by your skill and your clarity in this most distressing task today. The panel has also heard you. We now invite him to address us in his own defence on the charges so preferred against him. Mr. Crawford.”

From Lymond’s pale hair to his finger tips no uncomprehending muscle moved. “I have nothing to add,” he said.

In the crowded room the atmosphere tightened as if he had shouted. “Nothing?” exclaimed Argyll. “You are accused of treason, sir: you have heard the gravest accusations and the gravest doubts expressed about your evidence. Have you no excuse?”

Bare of irony, Lymond’s eyes left the Justiciar and rested on his own immobile and flatly crossed hands. “The margin is so small,” he said, “between life and no life, fact and lie, treason and patriotism, civilization and savagery … If Mr. Lauder can see it, he is lucky; if you can comprehend it you have a better right to judge than I have to plead. I have nothing to add.”

“If you can’t tell the difference between loyalty and treason, Mr. Crawford,” said the Bishop, “then you are certainly safer hanged.”

The Master’s eyes studied him. “Why, can you?”

“As long,” said Orkney broadly, “as I know the difference between right and wrong.”

“Yes. The position is very similar. Patriotism,” said Lymond, “like honesty is a luxury with a very high face value which is quickly pricing itself out of the spiritual market altogether.”

“Feeling for one’s country,” said the Lord Advocate softly, “is not usually considered as a freestanding riddle in ethics.…”

The easy voice lifted the comment and the topic, and carried them to deeper waters. “No. It is an emotion as well, and of course the emotion comes first. A child’s home and the ways of its life are sacrosanct, perfect, inviolate to the child. Add age; add security; add experience. In time we all admit our relatives and our neighbours, our
fellow townsmen and even, perhaps, at last our fellow nationals to the threshold of tolerance. But the man living one inch beyond the boundary is an inveterate foe.”