“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.
“Thank you very much for a splendid evening.”
Out of the mists a figure moved. But no female this. It was a troll, a mountain- troll with his face patched leprous white.
Ossian. Bandaged but not soothed.
I hope he’s not my protection, thought Matlock sleepily. Protection.
He began to laugh.
All those who are not protecting me are trying to kill me. And all those who are not trying to kill me are protecting me.
Laughing still, he fell asleep as the fiddles struck up a slow, lilting melancholy waltz and the kilted men moved silently off the polished wooden floor.
He awoke in his own bed feeling remarkably fresh. Someone had obviously been kind enough to pop a Cleerhed capsule into his mouth last night before bedding him down. He had no recollection of his return.
He stretched luxuriously and his right hand came in contact with something soft and warm. For a moment puzzled, he let his hand stray this way and that. Then he turned round.
“Lizzie,” he said.
She was leaning on her elbow looking down at him. She smiled and made a slight movement forward so that her right breast brushed his shoulder.
“Good morning,” she said. “I came at my usual time and when I found you here I thought that what’s good enough for the boss is good enough for the secretary.”
He sat up and looked round the room. The window had been repaired he noticed. Quick work by someone. Though the blast marks still remained in the wall.
His clothes he noticed were neatly arranged on a hanger in the open wardrobe. Lizzie’s on the other hand were strewn over the floor in uncharacteristic disarray. She followed his glance and said, “I was in a hurry. In case you woke up and stopped me. It seemed the best opportunity I’d had in ages. Matt, what’s the matter? Why have you been putting me off?”
“Lizzie,” he began despairingly, but she did not let him continue.
“No; wait, Matt. Explanations after. Let’s remind ourselves what we’ve been missing.”
She put her arms round his neck and drew him back down beside her. He tried to speak once more, but her mouth pressed hard against his. After that he didn’t try again.
Later she lay on top of him like a wrestler who has just made a pin-fall.
“Now,” she said, “talk.”
He could find nothing to say. Lizzie, Lizzie, he thought in anguish, I cannot believe you false. Or at least I cannot bear to find you false.
He crushed her to him with unconscious violence so that she gasped and struggled free.
“Who’d have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” she asked, twisting round to massage her back.