green eyes across her fingers as he raised her hand to his lips, ‘You see, madonna: I will do your way.’
‘The Chancellor? O I am glad,’ said she, and it was as if some benediction came and went like a breath of honeysuckle among common garden sweetnesses.
‘Then, ladies, give us leave for an hour. ’Fore God, matters of state, here in Memison, serve as salt pilchards and fumadoes ’twixt the wines, lest too much sweetness quite cloy us. Even as lovely Memison and your dear acquaintance, madam, are my noonday shadow and greenery in the desert of great action.’
‘And yourself,’ said the Duchess, ‘Lord of us and all; and yet slave yourself to that same desert.’
‘Of one thing only, in earth or heaven, am I slave.’
‘And ’tis?’
‘Of my own self will,’ said the King, laughing at her. ‘Come Chancellor.’
They two walked away slowly, over the lawn and through under that colonnade to another lawn, a hundred and fifty paces in length, may be, and forty across, with the long eastward-facing wall of the castle to bound it on the further side. Fair in the midst of that lawn they now began to pace the full length of it back and forth with slow and deliberate strides; and whiles they talked, whiles they seemed, falling silent, to weigh the matter. Low was their talk, and in that open sun-smitten place no danger of eavesdropping; unless the blackbird that hopped before them, jerking his tail, should listen and understand their discourse; or the martin, skimming to and fro in flashes of black and silver, still coming and returning again to her nest in the colonnade.
‘I have eggs on the spit, Beroald.’
‘I know,’ said the Chancellor, very soberly.
‘How should you know? I never told you.’
‘I can smell them, even through this air of lilies.’
‘Beroald, I have resolved to employ you in a matter I did mean, until this morning, none should have hand in but myself only. Am I well advised, think you?’
‘If your serenity mean, well advised in undertaking of the thing, how can I answer, knowing not for certain what it is?’
‘I mean,’ said the King, and there was a tartness in his voice, ‘is it well advised to open, even to you, a business of so much peril and import?’
The Chancellor paused. Then, ‘That is a question,’ he said, ‘my Lord the King, that neither you nor I can answer. The event only can answer it.’
‘You say, then, the event must show whether I be a fool to trust you? Whether you be, as I think, a man of mettle, and a man of judgement, and my man?’
‘Your highness hath spoke my thought with your own mouth.’
‘As cold as that?’
‘Well, there is this besides,’ said the Chancellor: ‘that you were always my furtherer; and I, having looked on this world for five times seven years, have learnt this much of wisdom, to “bow to the bush I get bield frae”.’
‘A fair-weather friend could say that,’ said the King, searching his face. ‘But we are to put into a sea we cannot sound.’
The Chancellor replied, ‘I can say no more; save that, if this be action indeed, as your highness (as I have ever known you) counteth action, then, choosing me or any other man, you have but a weak staff to lean unto.’
‘Enough. Beroald, my eye is on the Parry.’
‘So are lesser eyes.’
‘These four years.’
‘Since his crushing for you of Valero’s rebellion in the March of Ulba. You have taken your time.’
‘I would let him run on in his course of spending.’
‘Yet remember,’ said the Chancellor, ‘his policy is that of the duck: above water, idle and scarce seen to stir; but under water, secretly and speedily swimming towards his purpose.’
The King said, ‘I know an otter shall pluck down yonder duck by the foot when least she doubts it.’
‘It will need civil war now to bring him in.’
‘He is my Vicar in Rerek. Will it not argue a feeble statecraft if I, that have reigned twenty-five years in troubles and disquietudes, cannot now command my own officer without I make war against him?’
‘Your serenity may have information we know not of. But most certain it is that, ever since the overthrow of those attempts in the Marches made him higher crested, he hath used your royal commission as his grappling-iron to grapple to his private allegiance the whole mid kingdom ’twixt Megra and the Zenner. I say not he meaneth openly to outbeard the sovereign himself. I think not so. But waiteth his time.’
They took a turn in silence. Then said the King, letting his right fore-arm, that had lain loosely about the Lord Beroald’s neck, slip back till the hand shut strong upon his shoulder: ‘You remember we lately found a league in hand ’mongst some discontented spirits in Rerek and the Marches, which practice, though the branches on’t were easily cut off, yet was it thought to have a more dangerous and secret root. I myself have since, by divers ways, as many lines meet in the dial’s centre, come nearer to the truth. There be five or six, instruments of his: names, were I to name ’em you’d ne’er believe me: so many showing friends, so many unshowing enemies. I have letters, enough to satisfy me. Advise me: what shall I do?’
‘Summon them before you, himself and all, and let them answer the matter. If their answer be not sufficient, take off their heads.’
‘What? When the cry “Puss, puss, where art thou?” were next way to fright ’em to open rebellion? Mend your counsel, my lord Chancellor: this serves not.’
‘Serene highness, I am a man of law, and should meddle no further than my commission. Yet is it the platform and understanding of all law that the King, just cause arising, may lawfully act without the law? You are our great pilot, on whom all we cast our eyes and seek our safety. For security of your person, it were good this Vicar were made away. This then is my counsel: assure yourself well of your forces, and, that done, strike: and at unawares.’
The King laughed in his great black beard. ‘You have confirmed my very resolve, and so shall it be. But with two provisoes. First, I’ll not, like an unskilful boor, kill my good hawk ’cause she turns haggard: I’ll tame my Horius Parry, not end him.’
‘I’m sorry, then,’ said the Chancellor. ‘He is a buzzard: he is of bad carry: you can make him do nothing.’
‘Who are you, to prescribe and measure my ability?’
‘It should not be for my honesty to flatter you. Moreover, your highness hath proved him a man that neither believeth anything that another man speaketh, nor speaketh anything himself worthy to be believed.’
‘I say to you,’ said the King, ‘I’ll bring him to lure. As some reclaim ravens, kestrels, pies, what not, and man them for their pleasure, have I not so used him as my own these years and years? I would not lose him for twice the purchase of that dominion he holdeth for me.’
Beroald said, ‘If my words be too thin to carry so tough a matter, let your serene highness be advised further: require of my lord Admiral, or Earl Roder, or old Bodenay, your knight marshall in Rialmar, their opinions; or your tributary princes in north Rerek: they’ll say the same.’
But the King answered him, ‘Not all of you, Beroald, on your bended knees, nor all my liege subjects up and down the Three Kingdoms, might move me in this. Besides,’ he said, halting and turning to look Beroald in the eye, ‘(and here’s second proviso): to be King, as I have ever opinioned and ever set my course according, should be by competency, not by privilege. If I of myself be not competent of this thing to perform it, better goodnight then and a new king i’ the land.
‘Hearken, therefore, and note