VI LORD LESSINGHAM’S EMBASSAGE

      THE ADMIRAL AND THE CHANCELLOR • DISCORDS OF LESSINGHAM’S PLANTING • THE ADMIRAL MUCH PERPLEXED • DIVIDED POLITICS • LESSINGHAM AND VANDERMAST • CONFERENCE IN ACROZAYANA • THE DUKE BROUGHT TO BAY • A BROKEN CONSORT • THE DUKE AND LESSINGHAM: STRANGE CONCORDS.

      THAT was of an evening of late May-time, the fourth week after these things but now spoken of, that the Lord Beroald sat alone at the upper edge of a clearing in the oak-woods that clothe the low Darial hills south of the lake, looking northwards to Zayana. From his feet the ground fell gently away for a hundred paces or more to the bridle-path. Below that, the tree-clad face of the hill dropped sharply to the lake seven or eight hundred feet beneath. The sky was fair, and the weather smooth and calm. His horse grazed at ease, moving to and fro amid the lush grasses. Save for that munching sound, and the sound of falling water, and now and then the note of a cuckoo calling, and now and then the noise of the horse’s hoof against a stone, there was silence. A marmot came out of a heap of fallen rocks behind him on his left and sat up with little fore-paws hanging down as if in a helpless soft dismay, viewing the Chancellor. She whistled and retired back to her hole when the silence was broken by a fresh noise of horse-hooves, and the lord Admiral rode up into the clearing, greeted the Chancellor, and dismounted beside him.

      ‘It is very much,’ said the Lord Jeronimy, when they were sat down together upon a great stone, ‘that we should be fain to take counsel under the sky like owls or moor-dogs.’

      Beroald smiled his cold smile. ‘I am much beholden to your lordship for suffering this inconvenience. In the city, a flea shall not frisk forth unless his intelligencers comment upon her. And this new business both calleth for speedy action, and needs that both you and I examine and consider of it o’erheard by none.’

      ‘Will he not take my no for an answer?’ said Jeronimy. ‘Why, what a loose hot corrupter of virtue have we here. First getteth no from me; then no from the Duke; and now sueth to your lordship to be in a manner his go-between, as if I were a silly maid to comply at last, with oftener scenting of the flower. What new conditions now then?’

      ‘’Tis not altogether thus,’ said the Chancellor. The offer is now to me in my own particular.’

      Jeronimy opened his lips as if to speak, but there was a moment ere the words came: ‘To you, my lord? Good: and upon like condition?’

      ‘Upon like condition.’

      ‘Of suzerainty?’ said Jeronimy. ‘Well, and do you mean to take it? No, no,’ he said, meeting the Chancellor’s cold eye: ‘I meant not that. I meant, in what estate left you this business with him? did you in a manner temporize?’

      Beroald answered, ‘I did handle the thing in such a vein as that I must give him yea or nay tomorrow.’

      The Admiral pulled off his black velvet cap plumed with a white estridge-feather set in a diamond brooch, mopped his head, and put on his cap again.

      The Lord Beroald gazed steadily before him on Acrozayana, two or three miles away, mirrored in the glassy lake. His speech came cool and glassy, like the thing he looked on, remote and passionless as if it were his own thought speaking to itself. ‘It is needful,’ he said, ‘in this business, that we hold heedy guard, and reckon well our strength. Now is ten days today that this Lessingham, treating with full powers on behalf of the Vicar, hath dealt with us touching the Meszrian regency; and if there be any alteration made in these ten days, ’tis to their advantage, not ours. First his offer unto you, my lord Admiral, that the Vicar would receive and acknowledge you as regent in Meszria conformably in all points to the King’s testament, and upon condition (which he stiffly maintained to be in that same testament supposed and implicit) that you should do him homage as, pending the Queen’s minority, your overlord. That condition you did, in agreement with the Duke, with Roder, and with myself, after mature deliberation of counsel, flatly refuse. The next day after your so refusing, he did offer the regency upon like condition to the Duke, who did refuse it. That was but yesterday. And now, this very morning, did send for me and propound to me the self-same offer; which I, forbearing all private closer conference, fobbed off until tomorrow. Thus standeth it, then. What follows? If I refuse,’ (upon that ‘if’ the Admiral pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his head), ‘next move belike is overture of regency to Roder, and then, if he’ll not take it, war. I like it not. The Duke I do trust but as you do, my lord: very discreetly. These Meszrian lords, not at all. The Vicar hath a fair solicitor, hath got the right ear of Zapheles, and Melates, too, or I am much mistook: young fools, that have not the wit to see in all the Vicar’s promises but fair sunshining, sweetly spoken and but sourly to be performed. Prince Ercles in the north, too, is not so good to rest on, even if Barganax be safe: if the Vicar make war upon the Duke and us upon pretext of enforcing of the King’s testament, you shall not see Ercles nor Aramond put their finger too far in the fire o’ the Duke’s behalf; Lessingham, I am told, hath made friends with ’em both of late.’

      ‘That Lessingham is a subtle devil,’ said Jeronimy.

      ‘This latest offer thus made to me,’ said the Chancellor, ‘hath given us the chance if need be to afterthink us. That were pity were it appear in the end that our eyes were greater than our bellies. I would remember you of this, my lord Admiral, that in point of construction the Vicar’s claim of suzerainty is good in law. We are precisely bound to uphold the testament. It can be said that, going against him in this, we do merely violate it. The Parry himself none but a ninny would trust further than a might see him; but here ’tis not to deal with him direct, but through Lessingham.’

      ‘As ’t should be handed us,’ said Jeronimy, ‘in a fair gilded cup, to make his poison go down the smoother.’

      ‘I see it not altogether so,’ said Beroald. ‘’Tis a young man of most supposed abilities both in the council and a soldier of renown. I have these ten days studied him like a book, and I find no point to question, but all to confirm and justify what reputation saith of him: an honourable man, and a man with the power to hold his principal to whatsoever he shall stand warrant for of his behalf. And he hath, in no qualified way but at large, took it upon his honour that upon agreement made betwixt us the Vicar will perform the King’s testament unto the littlest letter.’

      Jeronimy said, ‘He is a subtle devil.’

      ‘It is for you, not me, to determine,’ said the Chancellor. ‘Only I would have you consider of all this, not as somewhat to be swept up with a sudden and tumultuous judgement, but as a thing of heaviest import. For you see, you may, upon this offer thus made to me, open your dealings anew with