Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett
‘—Organnes and Virginalles,’
‘With sounding Cymbals prayse ye hym—’
‘—Prayse hym with loude Cymbals.
‘—There are times when I feel,’ Philippa said, ‘that one set of cymbals would be sufficient.’
‘But the Duke de Guise,’ Lymond said, ‘is happy with two sets of cymbals, and quand le bâtiment va, tout va … Philippa, Philippa, what have you been hiding from us? A plague of demons is attempting to enter the room, a sword of fire out of the gullet of each of them, and every one of them as high as the clouds of heaven. The City Fathers have commissioned a Spectacle?’
‘Oh dear!’ said Philippa, groaning. ‘The City Fathers have commissioned two entertainments from Jodelle. But they should have drawn the boards first.’
‘They should certainly have drawn the boards first,’ Lymond concurred. ‘They’re going to act in and out of the King’s jacket buttons.… Oh, Christ. Orpheus?’
‘Orpheus,’ agreed Philippa sorrowfully. Fighting his way through the crowd, his laurel wreath knocked quite a little askew, trod a singular figure with a carmine smile, a paunch and a lyre. From the shifting shape of his mouth, but from nothing else, one could tell he was singing.
The court, being accustomed to mime, made no concessions. The volume of greeting, conversation and comment rose, intensified and thundered back on itself, carrying Orpheus into masterful inaudibility. A pasteboard belfry jammed in the doorway, tripped, and entered on six dirty feet. A second one followed.
‘Francis …’ said Piero Strozzi.
‘Be quiet,’ said Lymond. ‘I’m lip-reading. Chantés rochers, et avecq’ vostre Orphee, Adorés moy d’un grand Roy le Trophee. Rochers?’
‘Clochers,’ Philippa said. ‘They ordered rocks and got belfries. Bad handwriting.’
‘Hell’s own bells too, if I may say so,’ said Lymond.
‘Rocks with Sirens in them,’ Philippa corrected him patiently. “You’re very slow. It’s Jason and the Argonauts.”
‘No one’s handwriting could be that bad,’ said Lymond. The Sirens, quavering, retrieved their meandering minims, breathed, and arrived in scratchy unison at their ultimate lines.
O trois trois fois trois fois heureus Orphee
O trois trois fois trois fois heureus Trophee.
A yap of hysteria rose from the audience. ‘Francis,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘Mon petit François; Madame; I have done my best to help make of this historic Triumph an event which Messieurs of the Ville will relate to their grandsons. I have tried. You have tried. But nothing, mort-Dieu, can redeem this bella cagata. I, Hesychast,’ said Piero Strozzi, ‘am going to lie on the floor and—forgive me—study my belly-button.’
And he did, gracefully, accompanied by the claret flask. Philippa Somerville looked up at Lymond, who had risen and was concentrating visibly on the players.
‘Well?’ said Philippa kindly.
He turned his head slowly and stared at her. ‘Minerva in a canvas shirt of mail and a helm with a cock on the top. There’s a gorgon’s head on her shield.’
‘Oh.’
‘She has quite a short ginger beard. She’s forgotten her lines. In any case, she can’t hear the prompt.’
‘That must be awkward for her,’ Philippa said.
‘Yes. There she goes. You should listen. How about that?
‘… Me suis de ton Paris faite la gardienne
Par ton Pere, qui seul me rend Parisienne …
‘And now,’ continued the architect of the battle of Calais, his voice somewhat stifled, ‘there is a very large ship attempting to walk through the doorway.’
‘Argo,’ said Philippa. ‘I told you.’
‘And you recall those little budge wigs made of lambskin …? Could it be Jason?’ said Lymond. ‘In leopard fur, kicking the belfries in their white satin slops? It’s not their fault. They can’t see where the door is. But they’ve got the ship through. They’re trying to put up the mast. And who’s that?’
Philippa craned. ‘That’s Mopsus, the Argonauts’ soothsayer. He was killed by the bite of a serpent.’
‘Not this one. This one,’ said Lymond, ‘is going to be hanged like Mumphazard for saying nothing. You know how Jason died?’
‘Naturally,’ said Philippa, severely. ‘A beam from the ship fell on his … Oh, dear.’
‘Philippa,’ said Lymond weakly against the rising gale of anguish and laughter, ‘I do beg your pardon, but if I am to attend court again, I shall have to retire under the table with Piero. Gradatim.’
He gazed owlishly at her and she, her eyes brimming, stared back at him. Acutely as she felt for the échevins’ suffering, there was a limit to one’s powers of civil endurance.
They exploded together, and Lymond slid, as he had threatened, under the table to lie silently shrieking beside the reclining figure of the Queen’s favourite cousin while Philippa, covering her face with her hands, sat helplessly through the heroic dregs of the Antique Triumph of Calais.
*
It ended just before midnight. A little after, wild-eyed with enforced courtesy, Lymond handed his wife into their coach and as they jolted off between their torch-runners, proceeded to relieve his feelings with a total recall of the Argonautes, from the warbling rocks to the whinnies of Mopsus.
Half-way home, he remembered that half his possessions were still with Jerott at the Séjour du Roi and the coach was redirected there in the midst of a calamitous declamation by Jason:
‘… Sentiront que HENRY est leur fatal Jason
Si tu scais bien sauver en un tel navigage
Tout le people qui fait avec toy son voiage
De Geans monstreux, horribles, affamés
Sans cesse sur le sang des petits enflammés …’
The coach stopped and Philippa, crying with laughter, followed him in. He entered, clucking O trois trois fois trois fois heureus Trophee and not in the least put out to find himself in the presence of his own English prisoner as well as Jerott.
Naturally, Jerott wanted to know what had happened: Marthe joined them, and almost immediately Danny and Adam. A jug of wine was brought. Sunk, trailing their finery in opposite chairs, Philippa and Francis Crawford related, restored to preternatural gravity, the events of the entire evening, beginning with the welcoming salvoes and going on with the chandeliers and Piero Strozzi’s silver.
They ended with the Argonautes, Philippa taking the parts of Orpheus, Minerva and Argo and Lymond the rest.
Austin Grey, standing obscured in the shadows, watched it in silence. But it rendered Danny and Adam, who in any case had also been drinking, almost totally helpless. Smiling, Marthe kept the wine flask going round. Jerott, already better fortified, with good reason, than anyone, laughed until his ribs ached so much that he had to fold his arms over them.
For a moment, disconnected by the stitch in his side, he listened not to the sense but to the interplay of the two flexible voices, one masculine and light, one mellow and feminine, unreeling their story, faintly affronted amid mounting hysteria. He opened his eyes.
He knew, because his memories of Francis Crawford went back further than those of anyone there, that Lymond was rather drunk, although he could still disguise it. The quick-wittedness, the invention, the faultless comedy timing were present at the price of a little concentration which had closed his outer consciousness for the moment. Jerott, no longer laughing, sat in the shadows and watched the dazzling performance and both the players, blond and brown, artist and acolyte.
Acolyte. But Philippa was a child no longer: he had known that since that single evening in Lyon. The severe, clear-skinned profile turned towards Francis might have belonged to any great lady. The brown and brilliant gaze only quizzed him at intervals: she seemed able, Jerott saw, to sense by instinct the course of his fantasy; and as with Lymond, what she was doing at present occupied all her awareness. Then Francis surged to his feet, leaving his robe, and launched into Jason’s querulous tour de force, fractured by interrup
Against her will, Marthe was laughing. Danny sobbed. Adam, his head in his hands, was also weeping with laughter. But Jerott, his attention already caught, watched Philippa Somerville, her gaze on her husband, come to her senses.
He knew how it turned you to water, that unguessed-at well of delight under the bitter intelligence. In his life with Marthe they had found it perhaps as many times as he could count on one hand: never more. When it came, you felt as Philippa looked, her soul in her eyes.
As he watched, she bent her head and crossing her hands, slid them along her forearms to still them. Oh God, thought Jerott. Don’t let it happen. She doesn’t deserve the torment. The lifetime of waiting, in return for a handful of moments of ecstasy. And standing behind him, always, the ghosts of his other, experienced women. The thoughts he did not share. The knowledge that one had his total friendship but never the key to the innermost door.… And there was an innermost door, which Marthe did not have, and had never had, although his hopes of that, and that alone, had been his reason for marrying her.
Adam was looking at him. Stupid with too much wine and too much emotion Jerott turned his head, and so caught, without warning, the expression on Austin Grey’s face. Then, as he watched, the polite mask replaced the scorn, the hurt anger; and Marthe, still laughing, was prompting Philippa and Philippa, obedient, was rising: ‘I beg your pardon. The honestest woolgatherer that ever came to us. What am I? Minerva?… Voyant ainsi, ô Roy, dans ma main docte et forte …’
Lymond put an egg in her hand. ‘La mer des cronicques et mirouer hystorial de France. For God’s sake don’t squeeze it,’ he said. ‘We’ve passed that bit: we’re into the Masque. What do you want to be, Victory, Virtue or Mnemosyne? It doesn’t matter. Dance! Music! Are you men or sedentary blubbers?’
And it did become a dance, of a kind, with Adam seizing a lute, and Lymond seizing Marthe, and Danny and Jerott seizing each other and Austin, because she pulled him out, laughing, partnering Philippa in a storm of blown eggs filled with scent which should have been thrown at the Masque but which had been appropriated, it was to be supposed, by the Queen’s cousin and the Voevoda of Russia, lying under the table.…
If Lymond had not for once let himself drink, it might not have happened. He might have found means, changing places in a hysterical vuelta, to escape spinning Philippa as the others were doing. But he didn’t avoid it, although he barely touched her. His hands had already left hers when Marthe, cannoning into them, flung Philippa bodily into his arms and then, with her strong, craftsman’s fingers held her locked there. ‘Come. Be merry. Kiss her,’ said Marthe.
Lymond burst her grip, dragging her palm through the links of his shoulder-chain. She howled with the pain of it and turned on him like a pole-cat, her hand gushing scarlet.
‘Has she the pox?’ exclaimed Marthe. ‘You’ll seek out strumpets, fumble with courtiers, fornicate with either parent of the heiress you are supposed to be marrying, but to embrace your wife sickens you?’
The music stopped in the room; and the movement.
‘Ah,’ said Lymond. His face had emptied. ‘From a new host and an old harlot, the good Lord deliver us.’ He picked up Philippa’s furs. ‘Adam, will you see Philippa home?’
Arrested in mid-revel Adam left Danny, whose hazel eyes had abruptly focused. Jerott started forward. And Austin, his skin sallow, made to follow and then stood, his eyes fastened on Philippa.
Marthe moved. Intentionally or not, she now stood fully blocking Philippa’s path from the dusty parlour. ‘You didn’t think Kate or Jerott ever doubted the lady’s chastity?’ she observed sardonically. ‘They were terrified, my gallant friend, in case you or she fell in love with one another.’
‘Then reassure them,’ said Lymond. ‘I am sufficiently served, as you say, with the tag and rag of the streets. Stand aside, please.’
Marthe did not stir. ‘Of course you are guiltless,’ she agreed, smiling at him. ‘But evasion itself can be seductive. Look at her. She is …’
Austin moved and was pulled up, hard, by Danny Hislop.
‘This,’ said Lymond, ‘is by no means a game I will play, or consider playing. Move.’
‘No,’ said Marthe baldly. ‘You can shift me by force. If you do, I shall resist, and you will have to injure me a second time. Philippa. Do you want that to happen?’
The folds of Philippa’s gown were quivering, but her back was flat, and her voice very clear and collected. ‘We have accepted your hospitality. Mr Crawford owes you his life. While I am, here, no one will lay hands on you.’
A spasm like wind on water ran marring over Marthe’s intent face. ‘Oh God in heaven, I hate you!’ she said to her brother.
‘I know,’ said Lymond wearily. ‘I shall stay. Let Philippa go, and the others.’
Austin said, ‘You uncivilized …’ and was shaken quiet, again, by Danny, his eyes on Marthe.
‘It is my wife who is retiring,’ Jerott Blyth said. ‘Marthe, go to your room.’
‘She won’t obey orders, you fool,’ said Danny Hislop. ‘Take her.’
He might have done. But before he could move, Philippa stepped forward and thrust her hands in the tightly clenched hands of Lymond’s sister and spoke to her. ‘It’s too late. It will punish all the wrong people. Come with me. Leave him.’
But Marthe’s fists and Marthe’s eyes rejected her. And Marthe’s voice said, ‘Look at her,’ to her brother. ‘You drunken fool, why do you think she follows you? To be lectured, to take arms, to care for your bastards? She loves you. She’s ripe for you. What have you to lose? Embrace her. Then take her home and see if I am right or not,’ Her voice thickened. ‘Remember me?’ she said. ‘The marriage will stand.’
Philippa dropped her hands and turning, walked to the fireplace. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the wall.
The Marquis of Allendale broke from his captor, was retaken, and this time was silenced by force. Apart from Adam and Danny, no one in the room either watched or listened to him.
Face to face, Francis Crawford and his sister looked at one another.
‘And thank you from me,’ said Lymond pleasantly. ‘You are an expert in love? In morality? In Christian conscience? How? From the stews of a fortune-teller’s in Lyon? From your years as a Muslim, scouring the Levant for money? From your marriage to——’
‘Stop it,’ said Philippa. She had turned.
‘… from your marriage to Jerott?’ Lymond said. ‘Go on. Be our guide. Look about. What other paramours can you find for me, sister?’
‘Stop it!’ said Philippa, at the top of her voice this time. She faced them, breathing quickly. ‘None of you knows what you’re doing. Be quiet. If nothing will end it but someone’s pride being broken, then as usual, it had better be mine. Mr Crawford. I am sorry to be lacking a beard, but if you will briefly be Jason, I shall do what I can with Medea. With the utmost distaste, let us embrace one another.’
But the eyes he turned on her were as blank and as inimical as the eyes which had swept round them all, and especially lingered on Austin.
‘God in heaven,’ said Lymond. ‘How many more services am I supposed to perform in payment for Marthe’s attentions on Volos? Marthe? Step aside.’
‘You will have to strike me,’ Marthe said. Blood still ran down her hand. She lifted her golden head, braced for his fist and his shoulder.
‘Strike you?’ said Lymond, and laughed. ‘No. I am going to describe Güzel’s naked body. And call upon you for corroboration.’
A woman sniggered.
Philippa ran for the door. Marthe, her face sallow, must have twisted out of her way for she reached it: a moment later they heard her footsteps flying down the stairs and then crossing the yard. A horse stamped, and there were voices.
For a moment Lymond stared after her. Then he, too, made his way out precipitately. They heard his voice speaking her name; but the sound was overlaid by the rumble
Freed at last to move and to speak Austin Grey choked and then, his face yellow, left the room abruptly. No one stopped him.
Marthe also got up and went out.
There was a little silence. Then Danny Hislop heaved a sigh. ‘O beau sire Dieu, what a hell of an evening. Jerott, you either want to have another half-bottle, or vomit three ways what you have, like the Rosault.’ In five months the professionals Hislop and Blyth had reached an understanding.
It was Adam who found another bottle and helped them drink it, the scar bright and pink on his face. It was also Adam who said presently, ‘Listen. It’s pouring.’ Lymond had still not returned.
‘I’ll go,’ said Jerott. ‘It was my bitch of a wife. When Marthe’s about, there’s always someone puking-drunk somewhere.’
Adam and Danny watched him as he walked out of the room and through the house and down the steps into the downpour.
*
Outside, it was darker than the slades of the Comté of Oye and muddy, though less so than the Pas de Calais. The voices of the men were stilled and all mankind was changed into mud. All the captains who had worked like dogs for the success of Calais had had to sit at table, Philippa said, and listen to the great Guisard claiming the victory. Including Strozzi. Including Francis, the Voevoda of all Russia, who had allowed his work, without comment, to stay in obscurity.
Standing drunk in the yard, while the rain soaked his hair and spread cold through the cloth of his doublet, Jerott thought of the fine design, firmly executed, of the campaign of Guînes and of Calais. And of his own joy and his liberation, after these huckstering years, to be again under the hand of this man, his arts at their meridian.
It had given him courage last night to come home to Marthe: to say, ‘I have been wrong. Forgive me. I love you: I wish to stay with you; but I have discovered I am a soldier.’
And she had laughed and said, ‘Does the army know? Have some more wine.’
He had not answered because he did not know, as Francis did, how to wound without blows to protect himself.