An unmistakable voice was bellowing from the centre of the room. Fergus McDonwald used no M.C. He did his own shouting.
“I just want to say how glad I have been to have you all under my roof tonight. You know I’m not much of a hand at standing in a draught, shaking hands and saying good-night, and anyway I hate to stop people enjoying themselves. But I must be off to my dinner just now. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to it. Stay as long as you want. The scotch will last longer than you lot, eh?”
He gave a laugh then ploughed his way through the guests towards Matlock who watched his approach with a fixed smile on his face.
“Matt Matlock!” cried McDonwald in a voice which was audible in every comer. “You’ll be stopping for a wee bite with us? Come along, eh?”
His great arm rested like a yoke round Matlock’s shoulders and he was steered unresisting towards the door. Before they left the room Matlock caught a glimpse in a mirror of the crowd of wildly surmizing faces they left behind. In their centre was Browning’s man, his face impassive.
“The world will know,” he said as the door closed behind them.
“Know what, eh?”
“That we’re just good friends.”
The red-haired man laughed immoderately but did not pause in his progress down the long corridor which lay before them. Matlock was almost trotting to keep up with the man’s powerful strides.
“What’re we doing? Working up an appetite?”
“Oh, how I love your English wit.”
They reached the end of the passage and as they did so the door facing them opened. McDonwald swept him in without pause.
“Sit,” he said, pointing to one of two uncomfortable looking chairs which were the room’s only furnishings. The total effect, despite the better state of the walls and ceiling, was much the same as that of the room where he had talked with the Abbot.
“No thanks,” he said.
“The Laird said ‘sit’,” said a voice so deep and accented it made McDonwald’s sound like a middle-class drone. From behind the door, shutting it with his shoulder as he stepped forward, came a figure not much more than five feet high and just as broad. His head was shaped like a cottage loaf, wide-jawed rising to a low peak at the black-thatched crown. His nose looked as if it had been added as an afterthought in plasticine and his eyes were tiny and blankly evil. Brother Francis seemed a happy memory.
“Sit,” he repeated jabbing Matlock in the chest with a finger like an iron rod.
Matlock staggered back, the creature advanced. McDonwald said in a mildly admonitory tone, “Now Ossian,” and Matlock brought his right hand round, fully expecting to break his wrist.
He was still holding the whisky glass.
It shattered with a mild explosive noise as it crashed into Ossian’s head just above the left ear. His face registered little change except for the superficial embellishment of a great ribbon of blood which flowed swiftly from his temple to his nose, and he sank to the floor without a murmur.
Matlock looked at his hand which still clutched the solid base of the glass. The broad silver ring he wore on his middle finger had a drop of blood like a ruby perched upon it. He dropped the base and looked intently at his open palm. It was unmarked. He bent down and wiped the ring carefully on the unconscious man’s jacket.
“Now,” he said, “What about dinner?”
“What do you think this is?” asked McDonwald. “A bloody fight behind the fives court? Just because you’re drunk enough to knock this bungler out doesn’t mean you impress me, Matlock. You’ll sit for me now.”
Matlock sat, wearily.
“What about him?”
“Succour for the fallen foe, eh? He’ll be all right just now. I wouldn’t be around if I were you.”
“I’d like that.”
“In that case, just tell me quickly what I want to know. What was Browning’s offer?”
“A seat in the Cabinet.”
“You accept?”
“Not yet.”
“And that bloody rambling priest?”
“He wasn’t as generous. He merely threatened to kill me if I came to terms with Browning.”
“That all, eh?”
“Oh yes.”
“Nothing about me.”
“Oh no.”
Oh yes — a great deal about you, my kilted Celt. Enough to have made me more careful.
“Now listen to me, Matlock. We don’t like you much in Scotland. We have long memories there.”
“Then you’ll remember that it was me who made you independent.”
“Aye. And we remember what you said.”
The Scots had been agitating for decades for some form of independent government. The Age Law proposals were used as the basis of yet another great wave of patriotic protest. People were taking to the hills in droves. Matlock was badgered day and night in and out of Parliament. A militant group in Edinburgh occupied St Andrew’s House and proclaimed secession. Their broadcast statements were so anti-English in tone that Matlock was urged from all quarters to send the troops in. He didn’t. He accepted the secession, gave two days grace for transference across the border either way, required all Scots domiciled or wishing to remain in England to register as aliens, deported those who wouldn’t, including the entire Scottish Nationalist Party in Parliament, and threw a line of barbed wire across the border which was later replaced by what the papers called a prefabricated version of Hadrian’s wall.
“You said that it was like cutting off a dead branch, noisome with fungus and riddled with worms. You said that the decline of England began with the Act of Union.”
“Did I say all that?” asked Matlock as if surprised. “Perhaps I was a bit extreme. I do recall, however, saying that if we looked at the European boundaries of the Roman Empire, we would see to this very day the boundaries of civilization. The barbarians are beyond. I see no reason here to change my opinions.”
McDonwald’s large fist crashed into his rib-cage just below his heart. The red beard thrust close to Matlock’s face as he leaned forward in pain, and the harsh voice hissed fiercely, “Don’t try to be bloody English with me, Matlock. I’ll have a drop of your blood with every drop of your bloody false condescension.”
“What makes you call it false?” gasped Matlock.
“That,” said McDonwald, repeating the blow.
It took Matlock longer to recover this time. Even now he felt the same stupid urge to counter with some ironical comment but held his tongue. Two punches from this man were enough. And in addition Ossian was beginning to stir.
“What else do you want?” he croaked.
“That’s better. Much more sensible,” said the Scot. “Matlock, I’m not sure how much you know, how much you’re just a pawn. I could find out or Ossian here could find out for me. But this much is certain, you’re very important to a lot of people. And if you’re important to them, you’re important to me. So listen Matlock. It doesn’t matter much whether you have power, or are having power thrust upon you, or even if you’re just the bloody messenger boy. No insurrection in the North can succeed without us. That much is certain. You’ve come to us for aid enough already. Now, if you want our help, you’ll do things our way. Understand? I said I don’t like yoù, Matlock, but I think you’re a man I can deal with. I want to see that Bible-weevil cracked open before we move another step. Then we can get down to some serious talking.”
Matlock shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said, in a voice he tried to keep quietly sincere, “I just don’t understand.”
“Don’t play with me, Matlock. I’m offering you the Governorship of the Northern Counties when this thing comes off. You’ve got a big organization there, but there are too many groups; it’s too bitty. They’ll be at each other’s throats sooner or later unless there’s a top man. That’s you. You’ve got the name, got the reputation. You just need the organization. That’s me.”
Matlock rose to his feet and took a couple o
f steps towards the grotesque figure of Ossian who had now raised himself up on his elbow and glared balefully up at his attacker. The blood on his neck was beginning to congeal, so obviously (more’s the pity, thought Matlock) no major vein had been severed. As the man moved his head, the light struck off several minute fragments of crystal still set in the brown band which wound over his face. The effect was rather pretty in a way. But not in any way that brought present comfort to Matlock.
“Listen McDonwald,” he said. “I’m not being funny, nor even particularly evasive. I’ve had a long, hard trying day. I need time to digest both your drink and your offer. I must have more details, more information. And I would prefer to continue our talks out of the company of this creature.”
The Scot came towards him and he stepped back instinctively expecting another blow on the chest. It was not offered, but Ossian suddenly grappled with his left leg. Fortunately he had made his effort before he had fully recovered his strength and Matlock had no difficulty in keeping his balance and bringing his right leg round with a vicious kick to the stomach. The servant groaned bubblingly and subsided again.
“You’re not storing up riches in heaven, Matlock,” said McDonwald. “None the less, you may be right. Let it not be said that a McDonwald did not know how to treat a guest. You mentioned dinner before. Come away then and we’ll try to restore your precious equilibrium.”
“Lay on Macduff,” said Matlock with relief. “And damned be he that first cries, Hold! Enough!”
The Ambassador squinted at him suspiciously, then decided to accept the remark as a compliment and bellowing with laughter he led the way back along the corridor, turning into a more noble and dignified door which proved to open into the dining-room.
Matlock never forgot that dinner, though everything about it, from Freud’s theory of the selectiveness of memory to the alcoholic base of apparently every dish, seemed to consign it to oblivion.
There were two other guests — an Oriental from some anonymous Embassy who sat all night as inscrutably as folklore demanded, and another Scot whose status was not revealed. He was a small wiry man who looked as if he was used to the outdoor life. His face was brown with the blowing of winds, not the bombardment of infra-red from artificial suns which Matlock had seen on Browning. Only a curious hollow on his right temple, as if the bone had been crushed in, had proved impervious to the blast of weather, and the skin in the nadir of this cavity gleamed palely.
No introductions were made, not even to the small impressively still woman who sat at the foot of the long polished table and whom he assumed to be McDonwald’s wife. She it was who by small gestures of the fingers of her left hand controlled the entrance and exit of the courses. McDonwald’s part seemed to be to produce drink which he did in profusion, not letting himself be confined by any jingoistic considerations. Matlock at one stage found his plate surrounded by half a dozen glasses including one of Tokay and one of Danish Lager, almost as rare in these insular days. He could not have survived the meal had not McDonwald followed his frequent toasts by hurling his glass into the fireplace. Matlock followed suit with enthusiasm. He was sitting at the west side of the table (he gauged north by the direction in which his host normally turned when toasting Scotland) and the fireplace was on the east side of the room. His glasses had to be hurled across the table between the Oriental and the other Scot and Matlock’s half-full glasses spattered them as they passed. Neither moved.
Somewhere along the trail of courses a piper had appeared and was walking majestically round the room playing a music whose few tonal variations did not seem to correspond with any known melodic system.
“Is he miming to a record?” Matlock asked very clearly but no one seemed to understand him. McDonwald probably did not even hear him as he was on his feet again proposing another toast to the Immortal Memory. Matlock joined in. His glass took a small nick out of the Oriental’s left ear as it whistled towards the fireplace. Smiling, the man rose, bowed politely to each member of the company and left. As he did so the panelled wall at the north end of the room folded smoothly back, the piper stopped playing, a trio of two violins and an accordian struck up in his place and the long polished floor revealed by the removal of the wall was invaded by eight kilted men.
They began to dance. They danced lightly, athletically, with muscular grace. Matlock was enchanted. The Scot with the hole in his head disturbed his concentration by thrusting another drink into his hand. He tried to put it away from him, but the man insisted. Finally he tossed it down for the sake of peace.
It bubbled down his throat and into his stomach. For a second he felt very sick, then it passed and he was cold sober.
“Now,” said McDonwald who did not seem to need any artificial restoratives, “perhaps we can talk.”
In fact it was McDonwald who talked, for which Matlock was very grateful. His sobriety was confined to his immediate neighbourhood. Outside a circle of about six feet in radius from his mind, everything was still gloriously, drunkenly hazy. He watched this boundary with suspicion while McDonwald rambled on, with what sounded like an official lecture on Scottish History since Secession.
“You did us a favour, Matlock,” he said at one point. “By making us an agricultural economy again, you gave us back our greatness. We’ve got space and to spare up there. There’s fish in the rivers and lochs again, grouse on the moors, and the red deer on the mountain slopes. We’re a nation of farmers and fishers again, of herdsmen and hunters.”
Matlock took time off from his watch on the hazy middle distance to laugh and say, “I think one of the funniest things I ever heard was when you accused the English of coming across the Border to steal your sheep. One of History’s little ironies.”
McDonwald’s eyes smouldered redly.
“Ironical perhaps. But more than irony for those we caught. There was another raid last night. Fifty of your thieving countrymen died.”
“It cuts both ways, McDonwald. The Border’s no barrier to your own men.”
“Do you blame them?” said McDonwald with a smile. “Provoked, that’s what they are. And admittedly we may be a wee bit short of manufactured goods. Not that we need them, you understand.”
“They bring enough on the black market, I hear.”
“Now where would you hear a thing like that? It sounds like Browning’s propaganda. I’m surprised at you, Matlock.”
The circle of clarity, unsupported by his watchfulness, was beginning to contract rapidly.
“Let’s stop fencing,” he said wearily. “What do you want of me?”
“Nothing. We want to give you our help. You need it. Listen, man. The North of England, geographically, economically and, I believe, culturally forms a unit with the Scottish Lowlands. The boundary has been an artificial division since Hadrian built his bloody wall. Now there’s a chance to right a great historical wrong at the same time as you right a great social wrong. Once we link the manufacturing power of your Northern Counties to the natural and agricultural wealth of Scotland and we’re embarking on a new era of greatness for this island. Man, you’re a Northerner yourself. This is where your destiny lies.”
“Again I ask, what do you want of me?”
“I’ll put it simply if you want it simply, Matlock. We’re willing to help. But if we commit ourselves to an Act of War, we want certain guarantees. To date, we haven’t found a man able to give us those guarantees, or at least one we would be willing to accept them from. Now once this thing gets going, you’ll have it in your power to come, like Lenin, from a great distance if necessary and take over all control. We provide the machinery to get you there, to get you heard. But there are others who won’t want you to take charge, at least not in any capacity other than that of a figurehead. The Abbot of Fountains is one of these, perhaps the most important. This is the first agreement we must make with you. He’s a key figure, so we can’t take care of him too early. He’s well protected in his own den, so we can’t get too close to him. But he has to go,
the minute he has served his purpose which will be the minute you arrive on the scene. As I say, there are others. But the Abbot is the first.”
The circle of clarity barely included McDonwald now. Matlock stood up and by a great effort of will pressed it a little further back.
“What you are saying then is that you know you are not strong enough to take on England alone. Equally you realize that if you make a move to take over control of an internal revolt without co-operation from its leaders, you will fail and probably the revolt with you, and Browning will have a perfect excuse to invade you.”
The Scot with the hole in his head spoke for the first time.
“That’s about it,” he said.
“So you want me.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll think it over. It’s been a great day for offers.”
“You can have till tomorrow. Think wisely, Matlock.”
“Not more threats!”
The circle rushed in on him with frightening rapidity.
“You didn’t try to kill me today, did you?”
“No. Why should we?”
“Why not. Why why why not?”
The circle no longer existed. The euphoria of the alcoholic haze was back. The two fiddles and accordian were still rattling away and the kilted men sped unerringly along the maze of their dance, hands raised high, mouths set in formal smiles or opened to emit nape-bristling shrieks.
“Eech — ha!”
The sound was so near it was almost deafening. Suddenly Matlock realized it had come from him. He smiled slackly.
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I had better go home.”
“Perhaps you’d better. Matlock, were you serious? Did someone try to kill you?”
“Oh yes yes yes. Ver very much.”
Deep inside him he felt stirrings of the giggling shame of the drunken man in sober company. The weatherbeaten Scot said distantly to McDonwald, “Put a guard on him. We must give him protection.” A small area of his mind noted with interest that the slight man was giving orders to the great McDonwald. Suddenly he sat up and looked gravely down the table to where Mrs. McDonwald might or might not have still been sitting.
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