The gypsy settled on his barrel and flashed the white teeth. "Why," he asked Mr. Crouch, "did Lymond release you from Ballaggan?.

"You may well ask," said Jonathan strongly. "To send me home:that's what he said. And what does he do? Lock me up to catch my death in an upended quarry I wouldn't dignify by the name of a house, with robbers and cutthroats for companions-present company excepted; no intellectual resources-present company excepted; and no clothes but the one clean shirt on my back..

"You're away ahead of present company there," said Johnnie. "Why?.

"Why? How should I know?" exclaimed Mr. Crouch with exasperation. "The man hasn't spoken two words to me since I came here..

"Matthew knows why," said Johnnie, and smiled to himself. The Englishman presented Turkey with a face of indignant inquiry, and Matthew sighed. "The Master has notions about being discussed behind his back. But it's not all that private. The fact is that since the money began coming in fairly easy we've been filling in our time looking for a gentleman, and Lymond thought you were maybe him.~~"And it's a fine thing for you that you're not." Bulb's white teeth shone. "For-at a guess-the man the Master is looking for is the man who betrayed all those treasonable games of his to the Scottish Government five years ago. Am 1 right, Mat?.

Mr. Crouch got up so quickly he upset the cards. "Is that true? Because-.

"It's right enough. What of it?.

"Because," said Mr. Crouch with agitation, "I gave him the names of the two other officers of the household of my own rank in those days. Somerville and Harvey. I told him the names in all good faith. And now, from what you say-.

"You've dispatched at least one of them to a very fancy death," said Johnnie Bulb cheerfully; and watched Mr. Crouch, making little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns to himself, shoot in the direction of the door.

Will Scott reached it just before him. "Where are you off to?.

"I demand," said Mr. Crouch, "to see the Master of Culter. or whatever he calls himself. I find his whole treatment of me intolerable, and I intend to tell him so..

"Lymond isn't here," said Will. With dreamlike punctiliousness the door beside them opened and white fog swam and curdled about them. A shadow, beaded and plateresque, spoke. "Ring the bells backwards: on his cue, he is here. Who wants me?.

Mr. Crouch peered and was rewarded with a study, sfumato, of unmistakable hands ungboving themselves deftly. Then the door closed and Lymond became wholly visible, embracing Scott and Crouch in the heavy, unpleasant regard. "Well?.

For a moment the Englishman's heart failed him. Then he said stoutly, "I demand some satisfaction from you, sir. Four weeks have pa.s.sed since I left Ballaggan in your company, and no effort has been made to restore me to my home. Had I stayed with Sir Andrew Icould expect to be ransomed and back with my Ellen a month before this..

"I doubt it," said the Master. He threw the gloves on a chair and took an alepot from a tray hurriedly brought him. "I am disappointed in you, Mr. Crouch. Here you are in our Paestum, warm, fed and rent free, and with a face like cheese rennet. Are your companions dull? Surely you can educate them? Are they poor conversationalists? Then edify them: they should make princely listeners. Do they have little skill at cards? Then ruin them: you have my permission. It is really time," said Lymond, "that you were developing some sense of social responsibility." And he walked to the fire and seated himself, his eyes sliding over Matthew and Johnnie and the scattered cards. Will Scott sat down near him. Mr. Crouch, affronted and unhappy, stood stiff-legged before the fire. He began: "If I had stayed at Ballaggan-.

The Master, stretching in a leisurely way, looked up at his prisoner. "The a.s.s with the voice of Stentor," he remarked. "That was all you were to Sir Andrew, I regret to tell you. The cheese in the mousetrap, Mr. Crouch..

Will Scott suddenly found his tongue. "A trap to catch you, sir?" Lymond clicked down his tankard on the table beside him as a fresh one approached. "Who at Annan knew we were asking about our friend here?.

"The captain at the gate, I suppose, who let us in?" said Scott, remembering.

"Who let us in and suffered accordingly. When the English got out of Annan and my dear brother got in, the captain was left to breathe his last. He did so, I fancy, into Sir Andrew Hunter~s ~-And guessing you had an interest in Crouch, Sir Andrew set about getting hold of him in order to take you . . . but," said Scott, working out the problem with some care, "why keep it to himself in that Case?.

"It's not difficult to imagine," said Lymond dryly. "First, Sir Andrew is a young man living considerably above his means; second, I have a price of a thousand crowns on my head; and third-" He paused, and Scott saw his eyes were cold. "The third reason," said Lymond slowly, "is still open to conjecture. In any case: the ensuing flight of fancy has cost friend Hunter a broken head and Mr. Crouch-I see-a cold in the head and an unhappy lapse in good manners..

"Now look here," said Mr. Crouch, too riled to be afraid. "I've had about enough of this. I was taken a prisoner of war, all right and proper, and I've got the right to be exchanged or ransomed back, as soon as may be, according to the law on both sides. You talk," said Jonathan heatedly, "as if it was a privilege to be shut in a d.a.m.ned, filthy-.

"But it is." Lyniond uncurled and rose; with a long index finger he pressed the t.i.tmouse into his own seat and closed his protesting fingers around the second mug of beer. "But it is. Such a study you will never meet again. Here we are, our beards smugly shaven, prolixt, corrupt and perpetuall. You have come until the grisly land of mirknes, and with reasonable luck you may leave it yet. And that, Mr. Crouch, is the greatest privilege of all..

Mr. Crouch, pot in hand, made to speak. Lymond forestalled him. "No. You spend your speech and waste your brain. Accept our gifts and be grateful. Either Gideon Somerville or Samuel Harvey is a douce and G.o.d-fearing man and has nothing but legitimate shock to expect from me. Whatever happens to the other he will probably deserve and would have happened most likely whether you helped or not. But I don't want my birds flushed, Mr. Crouch. When I've spoken to both, you can ~o home..

The prisoner was not rea.s.sured. "I want to go now," he said starkly.

"You can," said Lyniond gently. "Oh, you can. Whenever you ~wish. Fragment by fragment. Drink your wine and learn grat.i.tude. Quoi! Ce n'est pas encore beaucoup d'avoir de mon gosier retire votre cou?.

Mr. Crouch, succ.u.mbing to force majeure, drank his wine: the Master, turning his back on him, rambled to the card table and idly fingered the scattered suits. "Blind Fortune, stumbling chance, spittle luck, false dealing-take to cards if you will, Marigold, but must you stare at me like a kitten with its dam? . . . Johnnie, are your gypsies all here?.

"A mile away. I smell wind later on..

"Good. Away thou dully night. Scott, into what impurities has Turkey led you, other than the giddy vaults of gambling?.

"Impurities!" exclaimed Mat, indignant on principle.

"Moral irregularities," said Lymond. "Diversions.~~"Oh, diversions," said Mat, with the air of a man who understoodall. "G.o.d: we've been that d.a.m.ned hard at it, we havena had a diversion since the last night at the Ostrich..

Scott, his face still crimson, said belligerently, "I've never been to the Ostrich..

The familiar, chatoyant glint was in Lymond's eyes. "The Ostrich is in the hands of a common woman, that dwells there to receive men to folly. The question is, do we seek such madness? The answer is, we do..

He looked from one to other of the three men, his eyes flickering. "Let us go to Paradise, where every man shall have fourscore wives, all maidens. Let us go tonight, and speir at the Monks of Bamirrinoch gif lecherie be sin. . . . Scott?.

Will's eyes were bright. He nodded.

"Matthew? Yes, I'm sure. And Johnnie, who is going in any case..

Johnnie Bulb smiled, and hissed between his teeth. "Just so..

Scott, caught watching Lymond again, blushed scarlet. The Master addressed him thoughtfully. "Are you anxious to go? These serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping..

Sophisticated at all costs, Scott quoted Rabelais. "But the ravens, the popinjays, the starlings, they make into poets..

"No," said Lymond. "The popinjays they dismember..

* * *The four men and the gypsies reached the Ostrich Inn at nightfall in thick fog.

During the long ride, Will Scott stayed with Bulb. In the first moments, the Master's sorrel disappeared among the h.o.a.ry beasts of the gypsy troop and stayed there: bursts of m.u.f.fled laughter and occasional s.n.a.t.c.hes of song excoriated the ears of the other three. Turkey Mat, flesh with the flesh of his horse, rode solitary: long tail, fluid back and supine, sentient wrist. Bulb, at Scott's side, sat as an owl might sit, listening for the folding of long gra.s.ses. Once, with the uncanny thought-sense Scott had noticed before, he said, "He's wild tonight," and the boy hardly realized another had spoken.

To the new Scott, the core and engrossment of his days was their central figure. Nothing of the warm vulgarities of Branxholm or the artifice of the Louvre or the ambitious, emotional expediencies of Holyrood had prepared him for the inhumanities of Lymond. To themen exposed to his rule Lymond never appeared ill: he was never tired; he was never worried, or pained, or disappointed, or pa.s.sionately angry. If he rested, he did so alone; if he slept, he took good care to sleep apart. "-I sometimes doubt if he's human," said Will, speaking his thought aloud. "It's probably all done with wheels..

A scintilla in the fog was the gypsy's smile. "He proved very human in September. I seem to recall you had a sore head as well, after the skinnish with Culter and Erskine?.

Scott's horse halted. He swore, kicked it on again, and said, "I was on my back for four days: d'you mean Lymond was. .h.i.t?.

"Very humanly. By a stone. And led us the devil's own dance bringing him back, Mat and I. We had to leave him under cover- Culter and the rest came about us like bedbugs in an almshouse dorter-and when it was safe to go back, the infallible Lymond had found himself a horse and vanished. We found him, of course..

"Where?.

"It would be a shade indiscreet to say. Particularly with the two most interested parties at our elbow. You perhaps noticed that when we came back there was no mention of our pa.s.sing faiblesse. Lymond, you see, is omnipotent, as you were saying..

The white teeth flashed again. "Ask me again. I'm going to Edinburgh this Sat.u.r.day, b~t when I come back, we might meet over it. The story'll charm you. You'll maybe want to write a poem about it, if you're that way inclined: how Lymond pa.s.sed the days after Annan. It's a bonny tale..

Scott listened, and hearing in Bulb's voice an acid counterpoint to the high, sudden cackle of gypsy laughter behind, grinned sedately to himself and rode on.

They had kept to the high ground, where the fog was thinner and the ground less rotten. At some point the heather roots and tarnished bracken of Scotland became the heather roots and bracken of England. They crossed the Border like a fixed and hidden constellation and pa.s.sed silently over lost gra.s.s behind the dim, leading form of Johnnie. The whiteness turned to black; the day withdrew, and they breasted the last incline.

Before them, vast golden parhelions blistered the fog. They approached. The colour changed and sharpened, became windows lit by lanterns and candles; and an open door, and faint music and voices, and a warm, stinging fragrance of roast meat curiously laced with musk. Became a courtyard with running ostler-wraiths, appearing andevaporating with the horses and, finally, an enormous shadow in the wide doorway: a monstrous, eighteen-stone shadow of a woman with a fresh, childlike face, who stretched powdered arms, calling, to Lymond. "It's yourself . . . and Johnnie! Back at last . . . Lord! We thought we were abandoned..

"Why else," said Lymond, "are we here?" The eyes were sea-blue and the expression one of celestial affability. "This, Marigold, is the Ostrich Inn. So hop Willieken, hop Willieken: England is thine and mine . . ." and moving swiftly to the threshhold, he scooped up the tremendous form of his hostess, accepted a hearty kiss and a dimpled arm along his shoulders, and disappeared indoors.

Scott found Johnnie Bulb looking at him with an ironic glint in the brown eyes. "Come along," said Johnnie. "We're allowed in as well..

* * *Men keeping vigil at the dawn of battle spoke of the square common room of the Ostrich. It rose two silken stories high, and whole oxen confessed to the fires at each end and reached sizzling Judgment on the crowded tables, alongside pies and puddings and heaped fragrant trenchers and jars of bland, toowarm wines. All the pleasures of unfilled time belonged to the Ostrich. For thosewho were shy about sleeping in public, a wooden arcade around three sides of the room supported a gallery at first-story level, off which opened the private rooms. Wax lights blazed. The gypsies, flooding the centre floor with music and violent colour, danced in the footsteps of tumblers and harpists and magicians and monkeys; of bears and minstrels and dogs and play actors and mimics; and the painted walls and brilliant hangings kept a sense of them. Combers of talk and laughter rolled aggrandizing from pillar to pillar with the beat of drum and guitar; the air bounced with fat enjoyment and gourmandise, and bright ministering women like chaffinches flew and darted between the dark arcades.

Will Scott, at one of the fires, found his fogged eyes swimming with the blaze of marching lights and his senses drugged with fleshly smells and mulled wine and the heat of the fat-spitting fire. Lymond had vanished; Johnnie Bulb was plying his trade with his gypsies, and Mat, after an encounter half glimpsed in the pillars, had disappeared too. A gigantic and violent nostalgia for venison seized Scott:in its very midst he saw on the table before him a perfumed andsteaming haunch, laid by the white, ringed hands of the she-monster. She smiled at him. She was beautiful. The round, rose-petal facewas clear and young and yet maternal in its look; her hair was shining and clean, her great bulging torso ma.s.sy with velvets and ermines cut to show the great snowy shelf of her breast, on which rubies lay, calm, beaming testimony to her serenity.

He rose uncertainly. She put down wine and two tankards, bread, sweetmeats, cheese and knives and salt; then swung off her tray with one hand and pressed him back into his seat with the other. "You don't get Molly serving you every day . . . but then, you travel in very special company." Her fine eyes with their dyed lashes appraised him. "Nice manners! You're strong, but you're kind: that means gentle birth and a pitying heart . . . What's your name, my dear?.

Her sweetness was irresistible, and her bulk meant nothing. He smiled back. "I'm called Will..

"Will! That's better!" The lovely eyes and mouth melted; she rufiled his hair gently, as his mother might have done. "Make a good meal, my dear, and your golden-haired friend will be with you shortly. Oh, G.o.d!" said Molly, and raised heavenly blue eyes to the rafters. "That hair! He was born to wreck us, body and soul, that one. Look at this!.

She lifted a white arm and fished below the rubies. A thin chain came into view, and at its end a ring with a single, magnificent square diamond. "I suppose I've had more jewels in my life than most, but this is the one I wear; the one I got from him." She laughed, and let it slip back. "Don't look scared! Diamond rings are proper currency for such as him, but you won't need to pay for your dinner at the silversmiths. Never mind my babbling. Go on, eat up, and drink, and forget your troubles, whatever they are. That's what the Ostrich is for..

She went quickly, gentle-footed, and he saw her go with a pang, and with a sudden, pleased resolve to do with diamonds. Then he turned to the table and forgot her. The venison was rich and savoury and cooked to tender perfection. The wine was warmly fumed and superb. The candies were strange and sweet; the cheeses firm and flavoured.

Life was glorious.

With a soft elegance Lymond slid into the seat opposite, and drew wine and plate toward him. He had changed into fine, fresh clothes:studying him, Scott was made conscious of his own splashed jacketand breeches. Slicing the venison, the Master remarked, apropos, "Molly doesn't clothe giants, unhappily, my Pyrrha. You've met her?.

Will nodded.

"Molly married an innkeeper," said Lymond. He poured wine and drank it, his eyes studying the other tables. "And the innkeeper was never seen again. He married Molly, and brought her to the Ostrich-and next month, there was just Molly. Molly and her girls." Will said, "She's a great admirer of yours..

"She likes my money," said Lymond, and catching the look in Scott's eye, grinned nastily. "Which ring did she show you? The diamond or the seed pearl?.

Resentment on Molly's behalf faltered. "She showed me a diamond ring," said Scott defensively.

Lymond grinned again. "If you're fool enough to wear a valuable stone in your bonnet, you must expect to be sized up accordingly." He laughed outright. "Never mind, my innocence: everyone falls in love with Molly. But not, of course, uniquely with Molly." The pensive blue gaze continued to travel. "The dark wench by the other fire is Sal; the redhead by the kitchen door is Elizabeth, and the one at the next table Joan.~~Will looked at Joan. She was pink and brown; her eyes sparkled like tourmalines and she had sharp ankles and red-heeled shoes. "I've seen worse," he remarked, and raised his tankard with an air. Lymond refilled it, and his own; and when Scott had finished his, filled it again. "Multa bibens . . ." Then he looked around, signalled, and returned the gentle, appraising stare to Will's face. "And now," said the Master, "suppose we fulfill our glad destiny?.

A cloud of musk approached and Molly in it, a cherub in its nest. "You're ready, dear?.

"We are. And the room?" asked Lymond.

"Waiting for you. Number four, dear." A key changed hands. "You remember the stairs?.

She laughed, and Lymond said, "They haven't left any great impression, but I recall they exist. We'll find them. Come, Marigold..

Where there is no custom of reticence in childhood, there is no vice of which a well-brought-up young man need be ignorant-even a young man who three months before has cherished the purest ideals. When Will Scott got to his feet, his heartbeats were behaving oddly, but he was not slow in following the Master across the jammed, legstrewn room, up a dark stairway leading from arcade to gallery, andalong a long, stiffing pa.s.sage railed off on one side from the room they had just left. Wooden doors on the other side of the corridor were numbered. Lymond unlocked the fourth and went in, with Scott at his heels. The Master turned, and kicked the door shut.

The room held an uncurtained bed, a mirror, an armory, a table, two candlesticks and a youngish man, sitting on a low, cushioned bench. As Scott approached, the man jumped to his feet, frowning. He was tall, with long, fine hair and pale, opalesque eyes set shallowly in a triangular face. He said, "I am expecting a gentleman. Are you . . .

"I am Lymond." The Master moved into the candlelight, and recognition and relief showed in the other's eyes. "And this is my lieutenant, Mr. Scott. Will-the Master of Maxwell..

Three months of Lymond's company had taught Will Scott presence of mind. He bowed, and out of the wreckage of his emotions salvaged the necessary recollection: of the Master staging a rescue on the Carlisle road on a dark, October night, and of his voice saying afterward, "The Master of Maxwell is an important personage almost entirely surrounded by English. . . Consider this an opening for smothered mate." Scott, directing a private grimace at Lymond's unresponsive back, seated himself fatalistically on the edge of the bed; the Master of Maxwell was also reseated. Lymond, bringing a jug and cups from the armory, said, "You're making for Carlisle, Mr. Maxwell?.

"If it's any affair of yours, I am, sir." Yellow tiercel eyes notched with black stared at the Master; Lymond, impervious, poured wine. Scott, his interest suddenly commanded, thought, A show of muscle, by G.o.d! Have we found one gentleman who hasn't yet succ.u.mbed to the legend.

In silence, Lymond offered Maxwell wine; in silence, he took it. Then the Master hitched himself smoothly on the edge of the table, glanced at Scott, who had buried his nose in a cup, and said, "I chose the Ostrich as our rendezvous, Mr. Maxwell, because of its uncommon properties. This is the sounding board of the North. No whisper is too low for the Ostrich. No movement too faint for its eyes. Consider, for example, who pa.s.sed north recently. Ireland, for one- your brother's priest from London. He'll be waiting for you at Threave, anxious to have your views on Lord Maxwell's offer to surrender Lochmaben to the English. Who else? A surveyor fromCalais, on his way to Wharton. The Scots garrisons at Crawford andLangholm are worrying his lordship: Mr. Pet.i.t is to advise on the bestways of fortifying Dumfries, and Kirkcudbright, and Lochwood, andMilk, and c.o.c.kpOOl Tower, and Lochmaben-when they have it.

"Then Mr. Thomson, Lord Wharton's deputy, came north. That was in order to meet your uncle, Drumlanrig. Sir James failed, I'm afraid, to persuade him that between men of integrity hostages are irrelevant. And, of course, a number of gentlemen from the West Marches pa.s.sed through to Carlisle to sign the celebrated oath. To serve the King of England, renounce the Bishop of Rome, do all in their power to advance the King's marriage with the Queen of Scotland; take part with all who serve him against their enemies, and obey the commands of the Lord Protector, lords lieutenant and wardens.

And most recently, one of Wharton's men came south with an indiscreet letter from your brother-in-law the Earl of Angus to someone else, which is going to interest the English considerably..

Even to Scott, most of this was news. If it were true-and Maxwell would certainly know-it was a show of strength that even he could not afford to ignore. John Maxwell stretched his long legs, put down his cup, and lay back, the yellow eyes fixed on Lymond. "Do you own the Ostrich? Or only a capacity for pleasing Molly?.

The blue eyes smiled. "A distinction without a difference..

Maxwell said, "Mr. Crawford, there is no need to show me the hood. I respond quite well to the lure. Our last talk intrigued me a good deal..

"Sufficiently?.

"Sufficiently for your purpose." The luminous eyes, apparently satisfied with their diet, released their grip. Maxwell rose, refilled his cup and sat down, continuing in his dry, brisk voice. "I have the information you wanted. Samuel Harvey, who is a bachelor, lives in London and is there at present on duty and unlikely to come north. Gideon Somerville is a wealthy man, now retired from court, with a manor called Flaw Valleys on Tyneside near Hexham. He is married and has a ten-year-old daughter. I made these inquiries privately when last in Carlisle: there is nothing to connect them with your name..

"I'm obliged for your care. As it turns out, it hardly matters..

"You've no interest in these men?.

"I intend to meet them both. But one of your brothers-in-law isaware of it, and either he or Grey will almost certainly prepare the ground for me. No matter. Of Cat, nor Fail, nor Trap, I haif nac Dreid..

"Your self-confidence is incredible, sir," said Maxwell dryly.

"Subject to intelligence," said Lymond, "nothing is incalculable. Your marriage, for instance..

Scott, fascinated, thought he saw John Maxwell's eyes narrow. There was the briefest pause, then the tall man said, "I have considered your suggestion. On my present standing with the Queen Dowager, neither she nor the Governor would conceivably agree, even if the plan worked..

"Your standing might be improved..

"My brother, Lord Maxwell, is still a prisoner in London. And there are hostages at Carlisle for my good behaviour..

"It might be improved without overt harm to your reputation in England. It's now mid-November. In two or three weeks' time, the Earl of Lennox is due at Carlisle, and if affairs are favourable, he'll try another experimental march into southern Scotland..

"And so . . .

"And so, by pure chance and natural greed, Lennox's men might bungle the raid. The real nature of the chance being known only to the Scottish Government, acting on your advice. Lennox blames his men for the failure: the Queen knows it is due to the Master of Maxwell..

Silence. Maxwell moved. "Is this possible?.

"You shall hear. I'll describe it to you now; and in greater detail later when we know Lennox's exact movements. And the credit shall be yours..

The Master of Maxwell said, "I am trying to persuade myself that all this is not a matter of great disadvantage to yourself?.

Lymond smiled gently. "The road Lennox will take pa.s.ses the road to Hexham," he said. "I told you there would be a trap. And the English will spring it for me..

They rose at midnight, Maxwell lifting his cloak and hat, gloves and whip. He nodded to Scott and stooping, turned in the doorway to Lymond. "And curb your mad, antic mind, I beg you. I've no heart to spend myself sustaining what you are creating for me..