Highland Ballad Part 18

She struggled. "They would not have been killed in the war."

"And if not for your countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war.

"No," he continued, raising his hand to stop her. "Don't tell me that you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature's unchanging law.

Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead."

Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth.

"You have an answer for everything. That doesn't make you right. In the eyes of G.o.d---"

"G.o.d ?" he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. "You have reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl."

She did, then wished she hadn't. Those cold and knowing eyes seemed to look straight through her. Hatred deserted her, leaving only fear. And in that moment she was sure it was not her father, but the Devil himself who stood before her. His wicked tongue was a foil far too clever for her innocence, and she knew it. She felt her innermost temples exposed, and had little doubt that he could ridicule and undo the most sacred feelings she possessed.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I I don't believe? Are you afraid? I am going to tell you; and if only once in your fairy-tale existence you listen to the voice of reason, then let it be now." He spoke evenly at first, but it was clear that she had stirred the cauldron of his emotions.

"I disbelieve for the simplest, and most undeniable reason of all.

Experience . For forty years I have taken what I wanted, disobeying each Commandment, each precept, a thousand times over. And not only do I go unpunished. . .but I have thriven, and raised myself to great power.

"I will tell you something I have never told anyone; you may take that any way you like. Listen! From earliest manhood I have fought against the principles, nay, the very heart of Christianity. In truth, a part of me longed for punishment and reversal: to be put in my place, as a sign there was some meaning, some Order in the world. But there is none, unless it be survival of the fittest. Hardly the kind of world that a G.o.d would make, unless his sole purpose was to punish its weak, pathetic creatures."

He paused, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. "The only 'earth'

that the meek shall inherit. . .are the indifferent shovelfuls the diggers throw back into their graves!

"What have you to say of that , little wh.o.r.e of my flesh? Answer me!"

She knew not where she found the words, nor the courage to speak them.

She only knew that they were right.

"The final reckoning has not yet come," she said quietly. "Your imagined victory will slip through your fingers like sand."

He bolted from his chair and came at her, before either realized what had happened. Pinning her against the door, he mastered his wrath only long enough to cry out in a dreadful voice:

"Be gone! Out of my sight!"

Mary fled from the room in tears. He slammed the door after her, then struck it so violently that the oak s.h.i.+vered and his hand nearly broke. For she had committed the one act that no evil man can tolerate.

She had spoken the truth.

That evening Lieutenant Ballard appeared, to escort the ladies to, "More suitable quarters." He led them, along with two armed guards, to the high tower at the furthest extremity of the Castle.

After a long and torturous spiralling of stairs (for their escort would not let them rest), they came at last to the uppermost story.

There Ballard took a long iron key, and forcing the eye of the lock, pulled back the thick wooden door, pierced by a single, barred window.

They were ushered in, and all doubt of their position left them. It was a prison cell. Piled hay on the floor comprised the beds, two water buckets, one filled, the other empty, their only toilet. Two woolen blankets had been rudely thrown down, as if their captors resented even this small show of humanity. But for these, and for the water, the place might have gone unchanged for a hundred years.

Ballard approached the girl, and took her roughly by the wrist. Too numb to react, she could only watch as he pulled the ring from her finger, and flung it out of the high, paneless window. No explanation was given for this action, or for the sudden change in their status.

And when they tried to ask, the Lieutenant only smiled, and said in a harsh voice:

"Little Mary, Queen of Scots, locked in the Tower, waiting for death."

And he let go a laugh, so void of compa.s.sion that it made the blood run cold. He strode back out onto the landing, then turned again to face them through the closing door.

"Master 'enry has a visitor, and needs no more trouble of you. If you want to live a little longer, do nothing to call attention to yourselves. Quiet as mice, my pretties, or bad men will be sent to keep an eye, and more 'an likely both hands, on you ."

He pulled the door to, and left them in darkness.

Twenty-Three

That same evening, after observing the necessary formalities surrounding the arrival of Earl Arthur, Stephen at last broke away from the banquet and went in search of his sister. Whatever his father's feelings, he was both glad to have her under his roof, and firmly set in the belief that he was acting on her behalf. His motive for seeing her now (so he told himself) was a sense of responsibility for her comfort and well-being.

The affection which he felt for her at their first meeting had not changed, his thoughts continued, except that the l.u.s.t had gone out of it. And in a sense, even this was a relief. His greatest need now was for friends.h.i.+p and a sense of family, both of which might only have been lost and obscured, had they become conventional lovers.

He had drunk more than his share of the wine served at dinner, seeming unconcerned by his father's tension, and the measured severity of Earl Arthur. And now, as he walked the long corridors he fell to reminiscing, to gentle, water-color thoughts of their long ride together across the countryside. And he remembered their first kiss, so innocent, so full of feeling. To see her now, and to know that it was in his power to bring her back to pride and prosperity, aroused in him a feeling of warmth and tenderness which he had not experienced since childhood. To speak with her late into the night. To kiss and to touch, her..... The door was ajar.

The room was empty. She was gone.

An old peasant woman was making up the bed. He wasted little time on her. "Where is my sister?" he demanded.

Her eyes narrowed at this. But after a moment's pondering, she seemed to understand doubly. "Ah. She and her guardian have been moved to other quarters."

"What other quarters?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir."

"What do you know!" he cried angrily.

"Only it was the Lieutenant as took 'em, and that he was none too gentle." And she turned away, concealing her purpose, as ever.

Stephen stormed out of the room, blind with rage. Those who pa.s.sed him in the hallway drew back as from a fire. Even those servants of long standing. . .none had seen him in a state like this.

He entered the banquet hall just as the Earl and his entourage were leaving. The withered Arthur nodded stiffly in greeting, but Stephen never saw him. His eyes knew the presence of one man only, and that man stood at the head of an emptying table.

His father eyed him darkly as he approached, and with a stern gesture, ordered him to keep silent until they were alone. Then giving final instructions to his steward about the service and lodging of his guests, he turned and walked sharply to an auxiliary den, with his son a brooding tempest behind. No sooner had the doors closed behind them than the deluge broke. At first the father tried to weather his son's wrath, hoping that it would soon spend itself, like all his pa.s.sions.

But Stephen was not merely upset. He was outraged. For perhaps the first time in his life, he knew the intoxicating power of righteous anger. His sister, whom he loved and had sworn to protect, had been locked away like the coa.r.s.est and commonest of criminals. And he knew Ballard well enough to imagine the state in which he must have left her, and what she must be feeling now. The thought of his thick, gnarled hands upon her, dragging her away, was the final straw.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d ."

It has been truly said that a father shall be judged by his sons, and that if he is found wanting, they will be a bane and a curse until death. All the enmity and resentment he had ever felt toward this man, all the shortcomings of his own character, indeed, every injury he had ever suffered, he now held to be the fault of the fat, corrupted animal before him.

"You will set her free, now ," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Or so help me G.o.d, I will find her and do it myself!"

"Stephen ....."

"You fear Earl Arthur? It is I you should fear. I know enough to have you transported, along with the lowest horse-thieves and highwaymen!"

"You had best calm yourself, Stephen," replied Lord Purceville coldly.

"And if you know what is good for you---"