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 it well. ’Twas not by chance I guested with him in Laimak two weeks since in such loving-kindness, in my progress, and well forced; nor by chance that I removed thence with great show of pomp south hither into Meszria. It was to lull them. For all this I did, knowing secretly that he is to meet one night, in some convenient place remote among the upper waters of the Zenner, with five or six (the same I spoke on), there to complete and make up their plot for seizing of Rerek to be a kingdom of itself, with him king thereof. Of time, place, and other particulars of this meeting set, I expect information hourly. You and I, we two alone, will keep that tryst with ’em: wherein if I bring not the rest to destruction and him to his obedience, at least I’ll die attempting it.
‘Well? Will you go, or bide behind?’
The Chancellor very pale and proud of mien, gazing as if into some distance, said after a minute: ‘I’ll go, my Lord the King.’ The King took him by both hands and kissed him. ‘And yet,’ said the Chancellor, facing him now squarely, ‘I would, with your serene highness’ leave, say one word.’
‘Say on, what thee lust.’
‘This, then: I think you are stark mad. And yet,’ he said and drew up his lip, ‘I may well humour my master in this, to suffer myself to be murdered along with him; for I am not afraid of my death.’
The King looked strangely at him: so might some eagle-baffling mountain look upon its own steadfastness imagined dim in some lake where rufflings of the water mar the reflection: so, it may be, might Zeus the cloud-gatherer look down, watching out of Ida. ‘If such fate expect my life, then better so. This must be for us a master-hour, an hour that judgeth all others. I’ll not turn back, Beroald.’
‘TIME, you know, is a curious business’, said Lord Anmering, tilting his head forward a little to let the brim of his panama hat shade his eyes; for it was teatime, and the afternoon sun, from beyond the cricket field below, blazed out of cloudless blue full in their faces. ‘Love of money, we’re told – root of all evil. Gad! I think otherwise. I think Time strikes deeper.’
Lady Southmere replenished the vacuum with one of the more long-drawn, contemplative, and non-committal varieties of the inimitable transatlantic ‘Aha’.
‘Look at Mary,’ he said. ‘Look at me. If I wasn’t her father: wasn’t thirty-two years her senior. Wouldn’t I know what to do with her?’
‘Well, I dare say you would.’
‘Easy
