by Andre Norton
So, easily enough, Fitz was able to part with his telltale ring and in return had a few coins to rattle in his almost empty pockets. Mr. Norwood continued out of town. Fitz wrote a civil thanks to Sir Hew for his entertainment on the paper which Isaac supplied.
It must have been all of an hour later that the little man in the badly cut bottle-green coat came in. Fitz had finished his note, read part of the journal and was just about to join a game of brag when he noticed the newcomer for the first time. There was nothing remarkable about the fellow, except that he did not bear the identifying stamp which most of the regular patrons had. He lacked the faint air of discontent, the reckless bravo, or the bitter resignation of the Tories-in-exile. Instead he had a sleek, well-fed, plumpish body and a complacent regard for the world. And he was watching Fitz, not openly, but as if his principal interest in the room was really the Marylander. A moment or two after he was sure of that, Fitz stirred. There was nothing he could prove, no out and out staring for which he could demand an explanation. But he was sure that the man in the green coat had come to the Lighted Candle for no other reason than to see him, Fitzhugh Lyon.
There were the Bow Street Runners who would be interested in an escaped prisoner of war, and the lack of posters bearing his name on the walls of that shop was no guarantee that such did not exist elsewhere. For all he knew his capture would be as profitable as Crofts'. And yet, if he allowed himself to be driven away from the Lighted Candle by mere suspicion, he would lose all hope of contact with Norwood. To try to reach the coast and the smugglers' route to France by himself would be sheer folly, especially without funds.
He glanced up just in time to see the back of that green coat as it passed through the door. With a sigh of relief he got up. Now would be the time to leave. If Green Coat had been after him and had gone to summon help, he must get away before they returned. Fitz slipped out of the smoky room and hurried to his lodgings.
The maid was turning out his room and none too pleased to be interrupted, so he went down the hall to Robinson's quarters and heard a sullen grunt in answer to his knock. Within, the Tory was huddled over a table engaged in literary exercise, his muse refreshed from time to time by swigs from a bottle which also served as a paper weight. He looked up to greet Fitz with a near snarl:
"Well, how neatly did Isaac bilk you?"
"Not too much, I hope." Fitz rubbed his ringless finger. He had worn the band so long that his hand felt curiously light without it.
"You're green. Springtime green, Lyon. But beggars can't be choosers, not in this world. Now, get off with you and leave me to my scribbling. I'm no lily of the field—I do a little toiling." He dug his pen savagely into the paper. "Oh, aye, take a book with you—if that's what you're after."
Fitz took the nearest volume and withdrew to his own room, now luckily deserted.
The elegant, stately lines of Alexander Pope made him sleepy. Slamming down the book, he went to lounge on the window sill and stare down at the street. And straightway he stiffened. Had he, or had he not, caught a glimpse of a bottle-green coat whisking into the doorway of a shop across the street. But, as he tried to see into the gloom of that open portal, a large coach, bearing the gilt of arms on its door, came smartly down the way and stopped directly in front of the house.
A powdered footman in maroon livery jumped down and rapped on the door below. He was admitted, and a few minutes later a discreet tap brought Fitz to open to the bowing servant in the hall.
"Please, sir, you are Lieutenant Lyon?"
"Yes." Fitz was short and suspicious.
" 'Tis Sir Hew Penslow, sir. 'E 'as 'ad han haccident, sir. If you would be so kind has to come an' speak with 'im. 'E's hin th' coach, sir "
Without stopping to think Fitz pushed past the footman and hurried down. A hoarse voice welcomed him as he jumped onto the step of the coach.
"Come in, my boy. Bad foot—took a tumble last night. Come in!"
As if that were a signal, Fitz shot forward, sprawling into the coach. The footman, who had propelled him there, slammed the door, and before the American could get to his knees the vehicle was off at a good pace. Fitz clawed his way up in time to see Burnette throw aside the robe which had muffled him. Sir Hew was nowhere within.
The solicitor put out a hand and drew Fitz up beside him on the seat.
"Pray forgive Jenkins his zeal, Mr. Lyon. But it was needful for us to make our meeting as complete a surprise as possible. You are none the worse for your too abrupt entrance, I trust?"
Fitz, breathing hard through his nose, was able to bite back the words which were burning his tongue. To lose his temper now—before he knew the meaning of the affair—would be the action of a fool.
Burnette laughed, almost merrily, and wagged a finger at him. "I fear that you are in a naughty temper, sir. Perhaps we had better prolong this drive and air you into a cooler frame of mind before you meet with my lord. The Lyon temper is notorious, you know, and two confined in the same room might well reduce all London to smoking embers."
Fitz swallowed and found his voice, making it as even as he could.
"You represent the Earl of Starr?"
"Just so. In fact his lordship is my patron. And this day's work will be but small return for all the favors he has seen fit to grant me in years past."
"I am not interested in the Earl of Starr!" Fitz snapped.
"Oh, but you should be, sir, you should be. Now he is most interested in you. You are, I take it, the American-born son of Captain the Honorable Hugh Lyon, second son of his lordship?"
Fitz refused to answer. Whereupon Burnette drew from his pocket the ring Fitz had thought he had safely pawned and tossed it in the air, catching it neatly as it fell.
"Having been bred overseas," the man of law continued, "you probably do not understand the present situation. My lord's heir, Viscount Farstarr, is a disappointment to his grandfather, a vast disappointment. He will not make an old man, nor even a middle-aged one—he is fast spoiling his constitution and ruining his health. Therefore my lord must look about him for an heir more worthy to carry on the earldom."
Fitz snorted. "He needn't look to me for that!"
Burnette continued to smile. Fitz leaned forward and tried the fastening of the coach door. His companion laughed.
"You will find that secure enough, Mr. Lyon. We need have no fears of being bowled out—no matter at what pace we travel."
"So I perceive." Fitz settled back. He would have to see this crazy adventure to its conclusion. After all, one kidnaping had started him on the path which had led to this second one. And of the two, perhaps the second was the less dangerous. The Earl of Starr might be looking for an heir, but after the coming interview he would look in another direction.
Seeing that his charge was now disposed to be peaceful, Burnette began to talk, mostly about the Lyon family and their tangled affairs. Fitz soon learned that he had appeared on the scene in the midst of a crisis. "The Viscount has seriously angered his lordship with his follies. And Starr is full ready to set him aside if he can."
"He seeks a prop for his old age then?" inquired Fitz disrespectfully. "But how does Farstarr take this? By all the accounts I have had of him he is not a meek soul."
Burnette waved a hand. "Farstarr shall be taken care of as his lordship decides. Starr is still the head of the house and he is not in his dotage, that I assure you, sir. Those who have the ill luck to cross him find him still a most formidable enemy."
"So?" At this hint of warning Fitz's chin went up. "A bit of a tyrant, eh? Quite in keeping with the rest of the court " The minute the words had crossed his tongue he could have bitten it. Anyone wearing the service coat of His Majesty would not speak so. He had given himself away then, and yet Burnette had not seemed to catch it. Surely the lawyer was not so insensitive. . . .
The coach rocked on through the fashionable quarter of west London until they came to a square where large houses, surrounded by walls, squatted each in a circle of vegetati
on. Into the carriage drive of one of these houses the coach swung and drew up before its main door. Fitz followed Burnette into a long hall where a line of powdered footmen stood statuelike along the wall. A substantial being, well covered with plum velvet and silver lace, murmured in Burnette's ear, and he turned into a side room, motioning Fitz to follow him.
It was a library they entered. A library where rows of leather-bound volumes were relieved here and there with the blind-eyed marble busts of full-chinned Romans and sulky Greeks. If one of these books had ever been taken down, Fitz thought, save for the purpose of dusting, it would be a marvel of scholarship in such a house.
There was a fire in the hearth, and before it, with a swathed foot resting on a stool to receive the warmth of the flames, sat the master of the house, all his vast and quivering bulk enveloped in the wings of a mammoth chair.
His wig was a work of curling-tong art, his lace finer than cobweb, and though his peach satin coat was cut with the stiffly boned skirts of an earlier fashion, it was new and patterned in silver lace, as rich as the steel-bead embroidery of the waistcoat, which could not restrain the bulges of a truly Homeric paunch.
Above all of this splendor of raiment hung a red face, patterned on cheeks and nose with broken purple veins, the vast jowls of which overhung his stock and flapped as he spoke.
"So this is the rogue, eh? Come forward, come forward, you "
With the point of his cane he jabbed the air in Fitz's direction. In the pouches of flesh his vigilant eyes blinked, and he puffed out his thick lips as he raised a quizzing glass and inspected Fitz from dusty shoes to uncovered head—much as if he were viewing a new-caught slave lately brought from the Gold Coast. But Fitz stood his ground and gave him back stare for insolent stare.
"You're no Lyon!" The Earl burst out, and Burnette came forward ready to answer. Starr stopped him with a half-snarl:
"I don't doubt that this young whelp is of Hugh's begetting, fair enough. 'Tis just the kind of wrong-faced creature that blank fool would sire. But he's no proper Lyon. Look about you and prove it for yourself, man!"
He motioned toward the walls where a series of family portraits hung. In none did Fitz see his lean face or rangy body duplicated. The Lyons were fair and mostly fat at the age when their faces had been put on canvas for the sake of posterity. Fitz sighed in honest relief and found his voice.
"I never pretended to be a Lyon of Starr, sir," he said mildly.
"Well, you're Hugh's brat and we'll have to make the best of it," was his grandfather's gracious reply. "And a peck of trouble you bring with you, you rogue. Escaped prisoner—bah!" The Earl spat, none too accurately, into the fireplace. "I needs must get Farstarr out of a sponging house and you out of Mill Prison-all in a week!"
"I am out of Mill, sir, or I wouldn't be standing here. And there is no need for you to trouble yourself with my affairs "
"Your affairs? Your affairs, you insolent young puppy! You have no affairs—d'you understand? No affairs except those I think right and proper for you! Hold your tongue!"
Scarlet flamed up Fitz's throat into his cheeks. He took two steps forward until he was within arms' distance of the man in the wing chair.
"You have no right to speak to me in that fashion, sir." He ground out the words, determined to hold his temper. "Rather than listen to more of this I shall walk out of this house and give myself up to the first magistrate.”
"Will you now?" The fat jowls creased, and Fitz guessed that Starr was registering amusement. "Lud, the puppy shows his milk teeth, does he? You'll do just as I say, Fitzhugh Lyon. This is not your savage-infested wilderness, this is a civilized country with the proper respect for rank and authority. And the Earl of Starr is not without power hereabouts. You are going down to Starr Court, where you shall remain until we have settled this ridiculous nonsense about your being a rebel in arms."
Fitz laughed. He could not help it. The arrogance of the old earl was so far beyond anything he had ever known that he could not take it seriously. But Burnette was sober enough, and Fitz remembered those ranks of footmen in the hall. By force Starr might be able to accomplish his will. At least he might attempt to transport his new found grandson to his country seat. But keeping that grandson there was another matter.
However, his grandfather seemed to be sane enough, and Fitz felt a faint uneasiness as he watched them. He had heard about England and the power of a great landowner—especially a Tory lord such as Starr had been earlier, when politics still amused him, and how that power was unlimited in some ways. This situation might be more dangerous than he had first deemed it.
"Beginning to use your wits, aren't you?" asked the old man. "You'd better make the best of it. If I were to say that you are a raving lunatic, mind you—I'd be believed. And a madhouse would accommodate you quickly enough on my word alone. Come, you're no thick-headed clod. Farstarr is drinking himself into the tomb. A viscount with an unlimited purse—that's not a bad thing to be. ,,
Fitz bowed. "Perhaps. But I'm an American, sir, and wish to remain one.”
The Earl hitched himself forward in his chair and the crease of his smile was now an open-jawed grin. "War is it, eh? War, grandson? Damme, you've made a new man of me this hour! I thought I was too old for battle, but you've set the sap to flowing again—with that impudent cock of the head. So be it then!"
Fitz dodged, but not quickly enough to wholly escape that stinging blow from the cane which fell across his shoulder. The Earl shook with roaring laughter which echoed almost madly about the room.
"This is the best day's work you have done for me, Burnette," he managed to say between roars. "You've added a good ten years or so to the life of this old carcass. It's worth twice the thousand I promised you for the business. Get this devil's brat down to Starr Court and it's all yours, all yours "
He gasped and pawed at the fine lace at his throat, his eyes rolling. But Burnette was ready with a glass. Starr gulped the draft, sputtered and spit, and then sank back in his pillows.
"I'm an old man," he said. But Fitz judged that quaver in the hoarse voice a very excellent bit of acting. "I'm an old man and to all pleasures there must be an end. But not to me—no, not to me for a long time yet. Farstarr wants to step into my slippers while they are yet warm, does he? I'll live to see the mourning rings given out at his funeral, that I shall. And don't forget that, either of you!" He grinned. "I'm still Starr and I shall continue to be—as long as I wish to. Now get out, get out, both of you! I'm tired of the play. Let me have good reports from Starr Court or it'll be the worse for you!"
Outside the library door Fitz faced Burnette squarely. 'I've had enough of this fantastic scheme," he snapped. "Let's put an end to it here and now. Or do you want my thanks for the entertainment, too?"
Burnette laughed. "You are not as clever, Mr. Lyon, as I deemed you. My lord was speaking honestly when he said that his orders are obeyed in this house—and in a goodly section of England, too. If he wants you at Starr Court, to Starr Court you shall go, with all possible dispatch!"
Fitz glanced over his shoulder. Two of the monumental footmen were closing in on him, cutting off his retreat.
"Come, come, sir," Burnette was obviously well satisfied with his own arrangements, "do not reduce this to an open brawl. I have my orders and, as you see, the means at hand to carry them out. I do not think that at your age you will desire to be carried to the coach by force."
Fitz showed his teeth briefly in a gesture which bore little resemblance to a smile. "How well you read me, Burnette. Starr Court "
"You think that Starr Court may not be as much a prison as Mill?"
Fitz's eyebrows went up. "Do you leave me a modicum of hope, sir? That is passing kind of you. But somehow I mistrust such a friendly move—I can't conceive why. And now, I take it, we depart straightaway."
As the coach swung along the crowded road out of London Fitz asked another question:
"What is your reward for body snatching?"
; "You heard his lordship "
"Yes. But I am inclined, somehow, to believe that it was more than a thousand pounds which set you questing after me."
Burnette lost a shade of his urbanity. "It was!" The force of his words stripped some of the gentility from his voice. "I've served the house of Lyon since I was out of school, and my father did before me, and his father before him. The Lyons of Starr are erratic, but there have been brilliant men among them, and shrewd men, and to most the family was their creed, the core of their life. His lordship is a ruin, but he still holds the reins and his mind is as keen as ever. I have no liking to think of that pinch of stink standing in his shoes."
"My so dear cousin, the Viscount, seems to arouse ill feeling in all quarters," Fitz remarked. "I have heard nothing good of him since his name was first mentioned to me."
"You never will. If he were not Farstarr, or if he dared to do openly what he now occupies himself with in private, he would be clapped into a madhouse."
"As the Earl threatened me?"
"And do not believe that his lordship did not mean that!" warned Burnette. "Starr has the power to do as he wishes and you are unknown here. One word from him and you could disappear—like this!" He flicked a bit of lint from the sleeve of his coat.
"If he is so powerful why does he not snap the Viscount into proper behavior?"
"Farstarr has friends, and one or two in very high places. Most of the time he is able to hide behind a mask which is no more vicious than that of any fashionable rakehell. But his lordship has no desire to see him lording it at Starr Court or wearing the coronet after him. That is why, when I received a hint of your existence from Sir Hew, I went straight to Starr House with the story. We traced you all over Devon."
Fitz openly smothered a yawn. "Some nineteen years too late," he observed. "I have no desire to reach for either what my grandfather wears on his feet or on his head—his shoes or his coronet—and within a reasonable space of time I hope to convert you to the understanding of that. You see, my friend, I am not one of your countrymen. I repeat to you what I have said to his Lordship—I am an American."