And now James Achanna entered, with a smile spreading over his cat-like visage, when he saw how this goodly company were grouped.
He wished to gain the ear of the earl, but that formidable personage was conversing with the Dyck Graf.
When approaching he passed close to Murielle, who, while seeming to listen to Albany, was lost in reverie, and was unconsciously drawing from her pretty finger a pearl ring which Gray in happier times had given her. At that moment it suddenly slipped from her hand, and rolled among the rushes of the floor.
Quick as his wicked thought, Achanna let his handkerchief drop in the same place, and adroitly picked them up together.
"Good," he muttered, "this may prove useful."
We shall soon see what use he made of this ring.
Cautious in action, stealthy in step and eye, sharp in question but vague in answer – his eyes and ears ever open, and his tongue always prepared to speak in an age when men were slower in word than deed, – James Achanna was indeed a fitting tool for an unscrupulous feudal lord. Taking the opportunity of the Dyck Graf addressing a few words to the countesses of Douglas and Ormond, he said to the earl in a whisper, – "Would it please you, my lord, to play a game with me at tables?"
Then perceiving that the earl glanced at him with some disdain in his eye and hauteur in his manner, the politic Achanna added in a low voice, – "I have that to say which must be said instantly, and which none must overhear."
"Oh, we are to play a double game!" replied the earl with a sudden glance of intelligence; "bring hither the tables, the men, and the dice."
Achanna and he withdrew into the recess of a window. The tables were speedily opened, the men were marshalled, and the game began; but Achanna waited until his lord should make the first move.
"Proceed," said the latter impatiently.
"I am, then, to make the first move?"
"If it please you – begin."
They bent their heads near, as if interested in the game, and proceeded to push their men about vaguely, but vigorously.
"I told you, my lord, that I had met a certain Laird of Luaig," commenced Achanna.
"Yes, yes, at Grave."
"Well, I had my suspicions that the pretended laird of Luaig was no other than he we all wot of."
"Whom mean you – Gray?"
"Sir Patrick Gray of Foulis, captain of the king's guard; and now my suspicions are confirmed."
The earl started, and his eyes flashed with dusky fire, but controlling his emotion he simply asked, – "How?"
"I discovered him by watching the Lady Murielle. Cogsbones! I knew that the cock bird would soon find the hen."
"Sirrah," said the earl frowning, "you speak of a sister of the countess of Douglas – quick to the point, lest I hang you from that window by one of the curtain ropes!"
"Your pardon, Lord Earl; my speech is ruder than my thoughts," cringed the other.
"Quick!" continued the earl, almost grinding his teeth.
In a few words Achanna rapidly related the interview, which, by chance, he had overheard, in the church of St. Genevieve, and the earl was filled by such a tempest of anger that he became all but speechless; yet by a great effort of self-control, an effort the more painful that such exertion was quite unusual – he contented himself by glaring from under his black bushy eyebrows at poor unconscious Murielle with an expression as if he would have annihilated her.
"Think you the abbot took her there to meet him?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Where?"
"Thou ass! to the church of St. Genevieve?"
"Heaven forfend! no; 'twas he who saved her from Gray," whined the sycophant vassal.
"It is well," said the earl in a quiet voice, but with fury still kindling in his eye and quivering on his lip; "were it otherwise, by St. Bryde, I'd unfrock and scourge him through these streets of Bommel with a horse halter, a mitred abbot and my confessor though he be!"
"Who, think you, my lord, brought to Lady Murielle at Thrave, the tidings that Gray still lived?"
"I would give this golden chain to know."
"I overheard – "
"His name – his name?"
"Sir Thomas MacLellan, of Bombie."
"Gray's kinsman, the lieutenant of the guard?"
"Yes, my lord," said Achanna, sweeping into his girdle pouch the gold chain which the earl quietly passed to him; "and long ago I had further proof that it was he."
"But for the assurance she received, by letter, of Gray's existence, she would now, I doubt not, have been duchess of Albany, and might have spared us this journey to Rome."
"You remember, my lord, that the letter was tied to an arrow, which struck the turf at her feet as she walked by the side of the Dee?"
"Yes, I remember to have heard so."
"I found that arrow, and a week after, Malise MacKim, the smith, found a quiver full lying among the rushes. The two chevrons sable of MacLellan were painted on it, and the letter which bore the arrow was one of the same sheaf, the same shaft, notch, and feather; for, but a week before, Sir Thomas had bought them in the Friars Wynd, at Dumfries, as he passed south from Edinburgh."
"So, so!" said the earl, grinding his teeth; "if God and St. Bryde of Douglas permit me once again to cross the bridge of Dumfries I shall have a vengeance on MacLellan, so sure and deadly, that all Scotland shall ring with it from sea to sea."
And terribly the earl kept his vow.
"But where," he added, "is our lover at present?"
"That I have yet to discover."
"The Dyck Graf," began the earl, starting up; but Achanna caught his sleeve, saying, "Nay, nay, my lord, he will be certain to protect him. We cannot make a raid in Flanders as we might in Nithsdale."
"True, we must be secret. Oh, that I had them both, this Gray and MacLellan within ten Scottish miles of our gallows knob at Thrave, I would soon mar the interference of the one and the wooing of the other. I would summon all the Corbies in Deeside to his spousals."
"Leave the sequel to me, lord earl," said Achanna, in a low impressive whisper, "and Sir Patrick shall be punished even to your heart's content."
"Assure me but of that, Achanna, and thou shalt pocket a thousand silver crowns," said Douglas, pressing the hand of his trusty vagabond.
With his natural ferocity of disposition, and being usually in the habit of giving full vent to every gust of fury, the earl found great difficulty in preserving an aspect of external composure during the remainder of the evening; but immediately on the Dyck Graf's departure for the castle of Bommel, the company broke up, and Douglas prepared to retire, with a scowl on his brow, and bitterness in his heart.
"God – den to you, father abbot; art still labouring hard to ruin the empire of the prince of darkness? Oh, if ever thou shouldst fall into his hand!" said he with a mocking laugh, as he passed the worthy churchman, who started at the sound, for Douglas seldom laughed, and never in merriment.
Achanna and Count Ludwig, who had been extremely ill at ease in the vicinity of the Dyck Graf, now withdrew together to plot mischief and to discover Gray.
"James Achanna," said Albany, as they were bowing themselves out, "remember that I am to see you to-morrow."
"At Carl Langfanger's auberge, The Forester."
"Yes, at noon."
"I am at the disposal of your highness," said Achanna, using the title by which kings were then addressed in Scotland and England.
Albany started, and the colour mounted to his usually pale temples as he said, "Sir, I desire that you will not address me thus."