us quietly to your father.”
Scott, distrusting his ears, stared.
Wharton said dramatically, “Never!” Lymond’s elbow moved and the young man gave a convulsive jerk. “First scene, second act,” saidthe Master. “Stop play-acting, you fool, and take us in. Nobody I ever met could argue with a knife at his ribs.”
Probably, more than anything else, the supreme confidence in his voice convinced the young man. Holding his arm tight against the short incision Lymond had cut, he bit his lip, and began to move reluctantly onward. Scott, leading Lymond’s horse and his own, walked after.
The events which followed were always to have for Will Scott of Kincurd the curious, narcotic quality of a bout of fever. In the course of it, he became dimly aware that they had arrived at a house; that Lymond had again produced the allusive password and, with sullen acquiescence from Wharton, demanded private audience with their lordships for himself, his colleague and a Scottish prisoner with valuable information.
It passed off without a hitch. One of the guard inquired of their lordships above; and then, clattering down, jerked a thumb. “That’s all right: up ye go!” he said. And they went.
* * *
The Provost of Annan had built according to his station; and the parlour adopted by the joint leaders of the invading English army was decently panelled in linenfold, with a particularly fine Italian desk pulled near the scarlet peat fire.
At the desk sat my Lord Wharton, knight and member for Parliament, Captain of Carlisle, Sheriff of Cumberland, Warden of the West Marches and loyal and perspicacious servant of the English crown in the north. He was reading aloud passages from a paper covered with his secretary’s writing, pausing for comment as he went. The Earl of Lennox, nose to nose with his own fair reflection in the dark window, was drumming his fingers on the sill and indulging in witty interjections.
Thomas, first Baron Wharton, was a tough little self-made Englishman with a whittled brown face and cold disenchanted eye. But Lord Lennox was a different matter. The Earls of Lennox reached back into the history of Scotland; this one had been reared in France and had lived blithely on his wide lands in Scotland until deciding that wealth and power lay closer to hand in the south. The title Matthew Lennox coveted was King Consort of Scotland. When Mary of Guise,the widowed Queen Dowager of Scotland, would have no truck with him, he merely turned coat, joined the forces of England and married Margaret Douglas, King Henry VIII’s niece who herself had a strong claim to a crown or two.
He was, incidentally, worried about his wife Margaret. The next day’s march lay through her father’s lands. The Earl of Angus, head of the noble Douglas family once castigated by Buccleuch, had written to him anxiously pointing this out and hoping that his son-in-law and Lord Wharton would, if invading, remember the ties of kinship. Lord Lennox remembered them, but he doubted whether Wharton would; especially if this time Margaret’s turbulent father should plump for the Scottish side and join the Queen’s army against him.
Jubilation over the news from Pinkie had meantime however swept gloom from the air. Wharton was planning his exodus from Annan to the north, and Lennox was dreaming of throne rooms when the door opened.
Being well oiled, it opened quite gently, and Henry Wharton, followed closely by Lymond, was within the room before either commander looked around. By then Scott too was inside, unloading the wounded Drummond in a corner. He retired to the door and stood with his back to it just as the man at the desk turned and half rose. “Harry! You blundering fool! What’ve you done?”
Unequivocably, the firelight showed the bound hands, the glitter of Lymond’s knife.
His son was mute; and the hard eyes of Lord Wharton shifted to the figure behind. “You, sir! Who are you, and what d’you want?”
Lymond laughed.
Scott, distrusting his ears, stared.
Wharton said dramatically, “Never!” Lymond’s elbow moved and the young man gave a convulsive jerk. “First scene, second act,” saidthe Master. “Stop play-acting, you fool, and take us in. Nobody I ever met could argue with a knife at his ribs.”
Probably, more than anything else, the supreme confidence in his voice convinced the young man. Holding his arm tight against the short incision Lymond had cut, he bit his lip, and began to move reluctantly onward. Scott, leading Lymond’s horse and his own, walked after.
The events which followed were always to have for Will Scott of Kincurd the curious, narcotic quality of a bout of fever. In the course of it, he became dimly aware that they had arrived at a house; that Lymond had again produced the allusive password and, with sullen acquiescence from Wharton, demanded private audience with their lordships for himself, his colleague and a Scottish prisoner with valuable information.
It passed off without a hitch. One of the guard inquired of their lordships above; and then, clattering down, jerked a thumb. “That’s all right: up ye go!” he said. And they went.
* * *
The Provost of Annan had built according to his station; and the parlour adopted by the joint leaders of the invading English army was decently panelled in linenfold, with a particularly fine Italian desk pulled near the scarlet peat fire.
At the desk sat my Lord Wharton, knight and member for Parliament, Captain of Carlisle, Sheriff of Cumberland, Warden of the West Marches and loyal and perspicacious servant of the English crown in the north. He was reading aloud passages from a paper covered with his secretary’s writing, pausing for comment as he went. The Earl of Lennox, nose to nose with his own fair reflection in the dark window, was drumming his fingers on the sill and indulging in witty interjections.
Thomas, first Baron Wharton, was a tough little self-made Englishman with a whittled brown face and cold disenchanted eye. But Lord Lennox was a different matter. The Earls of Lennox reached back into the history of Scotland; this one had been reared in France and had lived blithely on his wide lands in Scotland until deciding that wealth and power lay closer to hand in the south. The title Matthew Lennox coveted was King Consort of Scotland. When Mary of Guise,the widowed Queen Dowager of Scotland, would have no truck with him, he merely turned coat, joined the forces of England and married Margaret Douglas, King Henry VIII’s niece who herself had a strong claim to a crown or two.
He was, incidentally, worried about his wife Margaret. The next day’s march lay through her father’s lands. The Earl of Angus, head of the noble Douglas family once castigated by Buccleuch, had written to him anxiously pointing this out and hoping that his son-in-law and Lord Wharton would, if invading, remember the ties of kinship. Lord Lennox remembered them, but he doubted whether Wharton would; especially if this time Margaret’s turbulent father should plump for the Scottish side and join the Queen’s army against him.
Jubilation over the news from Pinkie had meantime however swept gloom from the air. Wharton was planning his exodus from Annan to the north, and Lennox was dreaming of throne rooms when the door opened.
Being well oiled, it opened quite gently, and Henry Wharton, followed closely by Lymond, was within the room before either commander looked around. By then Scott too was inside, unloading the wounded Drummond in a corner. He retired to the door and stood with his back to it just as the man at the desk turned and half rose. “Harry! You blundering fool! What’ve you done?”
Unequivocably, the firelight showed the bound hands, the glitter of Lymond’s knife.
His son was mute; and the hard eyes of Lord Wharton shifted to the figure behind. “You, sir! Who are you, and what d’you want?”
Lymond laughed.
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