Queens'' Play by Dorothy Dunnett
M. de Chémault heard him out. At the end, he said, ‘We have not been slow, sir, in extending our powers to help you. The gentleman beside me is Vervassal, herald to the Princess Mary of Guise, Queen Mother of Scotland. Address your wishes to him. On the other matters you have just mentioned we should of course be interested to hear more.’
Harisson was sure they would. But he wanted to find out what they would pay, first. He bowed. The man called Vervassal smiled; then picking up a handsome, light stick, came over and sat down beside him. The discussion began.
The conversation was conducted in French. Brice Harisson’s requirements were soon told, confined as they were to simple matters of land, money and security, and a safe haven in Scotland. The herald, dealing with them point by point, was excellent, quick, accurate and fair; and his powers of treaty seemed to be unlimited. Harisson, no novice at bargaining, could admire his skill while jarred by something underneath the words.
Twice, he found himself caught out in a foolish error of grammar. To Harisson, this was staggering; as shocking as if he had become partially undressed. Indeed he, always penguin-neat, felt ruffled beside this elegant person, fine as a fan stick carved under warm water, from pale hair to the pale, moving light of his rings. Harisson did not care for his eyes.
He did his business, which was to obtain a firm promise of satisfactory reward from the Queen Dowager of Scotland, and in return he undertook at midnight the next day to bring information of the most pressing importance to the French and the Scottish Crowns. More, he utterly refused to say. De Chémault indeed pressed him almost beyond his patience, but the other man had sense at least to say nothing and wait. And by midnight tomorrow, thought Brice Harisson, he would have evidence—if all went well, even written evidence—which would dispose of Robin Stewart for ever and earn him a fat Commendatorship in Perth.
The thing had gone just as he wanted. In spite of that, he took out a perfect handkerchief and wiped his brow before remounting his horse, and trotting back up the Strand.
Back at Durham House they watched him go, from the tall windows of de Chémault’s library.
‘Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone attend you, and may you be embalmed with the guts of a civet-rat,’ said the man called Vervassal pleasantly, in English; and walking over, opened a door. When he used the stick, especially, the hesitation in his walk was hardly noticeable. ‘Come in, Tom. Harisson propissimus, honestissimus et eruditissimus has gone.’
And the Master of Erskine joined them, the distaste which they all felt on his face, but his practical good sense already discounting it. ‘No sense in cursing the man. You’ll have to pay him and use him. We can’t find Stewart without him, and we can’t arrest Stewart without his evidence.
‘Officially, we know nothing of Warwick’s share in the plot, and for the sake of peace, we want to know nothing. Let Harisson come here tomorrow night and betray his partners ten times over. All that matters is that we should be able to get hold of Stewart and quietly take him to France, with Harisson’s unshakable testimony to convict him. Your obligations there, Francis, are ended.’
M. de Chémault had the sensation of being surrounded. The transaction had demanded speed. After Harisson’s initial approach the Ambassador had written immediately to Panter, his Scottish counterpart in Paris. His reply had not yet come when Erskine, the Scottish Councillor and Special Ambassador, appeared in London on his way home from France, and de Chémault thankfully turned to him.
Erskine had helped swiftly and effectively. Messages crossed the Channel, back and forth. Within a matter of days, the Scottish herald Mr. Crawford had arrived, accredited by every kind of document to the Court of the Queen Dowager of Scotland, and with full powers to treat.
It was excellent service, and under other circumstances, M. de Chémault would have accepted it with surprised relief. But Stewart had been an Archer in the company of John, Lord of Aubigny; and Lord d’Aubigny and his wife Anne had been the firmest friends of the de Chémaults for many years.
So, nibbling now at a biscuit and pouring wine for himself, his secretary and his two dynamic guests, the Ambassador watched, with divided feelings, the burden being removed from his shoulders. Or more particularly, he continued to watch Mr. Crawford, Vervassal Herald, as he talked. ‘Don’t count too much, Tom, on a tidy conclusion. Stewart, I would remind you, is a lamentable conspirator, and Harisson is a lazy fool. His arrival just now in broad daylight would strike any qualified spy with the ague.’
But the Councillor belittled it. ‘He’s Somerset’s man. He has the entrée anywhere.… My God,’ said the Master of Erskine, ‘why have I to go back to Scotland? What I would give to see Robin Stewart’s face when he finds out you aren’t—’
But the man Crawford rose, the knuckles sharp on the silver knob of his stick, and broke in without haste. ‘Will they not be expecting you at Holborn if you are to set off north today?’
Reminded of his own business, Tom Erskine hurried to take leave of the Ambassador. Vervassal, who was staying now at Durham House, went with him to the yard. Outside, the Councillor turned and met the neutral eyes of his companion, who had once been Thady Boy Ballagh and was now, openly, Francis Crawford, herald, in a solution so simple that only Francis Crawford had thought of it. Tom Erskine said quickly, ‘Do you think you can make Stewart speak?’
‘Yes,’ said Lymond, in the same pleasant voice.
‘Because if you don’t, it must be done in France, by whatever means they can find. Whoever employed Robin Stewart in the first place must still be in France, and you owe him a debt. I understand that. Go back to France after Stewart’s taken if you must—you can go quite openly as Crawford of Lymond, the Dowager’s herald. No one will connect you with Ballagh except those who know already. And if you’ve no wish to go, you can trust your brother to do what is best. He’ll stay with the Dowager until it’s all over.… You should be rather pleased,’ said Tom Erskine, ‘with O’LiamRoe?’
‘Well. Yes. He got drunk on the palm wine of power,’ said Lymond dryly. ‘That was all right. But it was I who fell out of the tree.’
At twelve o’clock on the following night, Monday the 19th of April, the French Ambassador waited again, behind the tall shuttered windows of Durham House, for Brice Harisson and his promised betrayal. With him were Lymond, de Chémault’s senior officials, and his secretariat.
They waited in vain. Half an hour passed of the new day, and then an hour, and no Harisson appeared. At three, taking a risk, de Chémault sent a junior to go on foot to the Strand. He came tack at dawn, to where Francis Crawford and the Ambassador waited alone in the library under splayed candles; eyes, throats and minds thick with long conjecturing and the consuming heat of the fire. He brought the news that at half past eleven the previous night, Brice Harisson had been arrested on Warwick’s command.
By midday, they knew that Harisson had been taken with two servants and lodged in the private custody of Sir John Atkinson, one of the two sheriffs of the City of London—a mark less of respect for the prisoner than for his nominal employer Somerset. By early afternoon, they knew the ostensible reason: three letters, written by Harisson to the Queen Dowager of Scotland and to two of her lords had been confiscated in transit. In them, Harisson had expressed his gratitude for the Queen’s promise to take him into her service, and had begged them all for their continued interest so that on leaving England, where he had handsomely benefited from the King, he would have means to live in the service of his gracious Queen.
One further item of news was forthcoming. The incriminating letters had been seized and taken to Warwick by one of the Earl of Lennox’s men.
V
London:
The Intentional Betrayal
Every betrayal, intentional or with concealment, is false: there are equal fines for the theft which is concealment, and the concealment which is robbery. Thou shalt not kill a captive unless he be thine.
HAD he been trapped by a peasant walking on all fours in a goa
Matthew Lennox he had always disliked. Somerset had distrusted him, and had shown it; Margaret Lennox had crossed him again and again, and in the bank of ill will which now lay solidly between the two factions, Harisson had had his full share.
But who would have expected Lennox to intercept these damnable letters, and to have betrayed him in this way to Warwick? And, thought Brice Harisson, pacing round the packed furniture on Sir John’s polished floor, how could he hope to persuade Warwick that his correspondence with the Scots was to disarm suspicion only? Long before the apprentices’ bell in the morning, the two liveried bodyguards outside Sir John’s parlour door heard the secretary inside, exercising his worries.
When, late in the afternoon, the door opened on Sir John Atkinson accompanied by the herald Vervassal, Harisson’s sheer, frozen panic could have been axed in the cask and sold off by the pound. He dared not even burst into recriminations before the sheriff’s cold eye. John Atkinson was a merchant, a guild master and accustomed to judging cloth and men. It was in fact Lymond’s tailoring, although the sheriff may not have known it, which led him, after a brief and minatory preamble, to allow the herald to interview his prisoner alone.
Today Lymond wore the tabard of his office. Before the armorial blaze of blue and red and cloth of gold Harisson was aware, for the second time, of his own imperfect state: his immaculate grey hair unkempt; his linen unchanged. Cap in hand, the herald was assuring the sheriff that he might call on the resources of his nation to clear up this unfortunate and unauthorized attempt to change allegiance. Then, as the sheriff left, Vervassal pulled on the crimson velvet hat turned up with ermine and, shutting the door with his stick, addressed Harisson with the clear fluency he remembered.
‘Since neither of us is the host, we may as well both sit down. Spare me your fury. I know I have ruined your defence; but at least I have rescued your skin. My lord of Warwick is perfectly aware that you have promised to betray him to the French Ambassador, and the French Ambassador is quite aware that the secret you promised to sell him concerned Robin Stewart’s plot. The confiscated letters were only a pretext. Warwick wants you out of the way until he finds out how much de Chémault knows.’
Vervassal paused. He had spoken in English as excellent as his French had been. Harisson realized, as his brain darted shrilling among the impossible obstacles of this fresh landscape, that this man, whose own name he did not know, must be not French but Scots. He sat down.
‘Better,’ said Francis Crawford, and choosing a high chair, seated himself quietly, the links shivering on his broad chain. An idea struggled in the chaos of Brice Harisson’s mind. ‘Lennox!’ he said sharply. ‘Lennox has told Warwick these things?’ And, as Vervassal inclined his head, ‘But how the devil could he know?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said the herald calmly. ‘But the Prince of Barrow, it seems, understands Gaelic; and the Earl of Lennox is suspicious enough of his guest to see that he is followed. O’LiamRoe was at the Red Lion.’
He waited until Harisson had finished swearing and said, ‘Quite. The fact remains that, so far as Warwick knows, he has only to rid himself of you, and he may proceed with the scheme without the French Ambassador or anyone else knowing what secret you were about to confide. An excuse for death or life imprisonment won’t be hard, I fancy, to find. In fact, he has already found it.’
It was coming too fast now for Harisson. The cold was in every dapper limb, and his face and posture spelled their fear unregarded. ‘But you say de Chémault does know.’
‘Unofficially only.’
‘Warwick will deny his interest. He’ll lie about it.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then how could he touch me?’ cried Brice Harisson, harried by this clear-eyed messenger of fate into perspicacity. ‘A false charge against me would only admit his own guilt. He should be begging me to protect him!’
‘That is why,’ said Lymond gently, ‘you are here, and not in Newgate. He is waiting to see how much de Chémault knows. It is for you to make sure, here, now, publicly and through me, that the French Ambassador knows everything, and that Warwick is aware that he knows. Let me call in Atkinson and tell the whole story of Robin Stewart to us both. You will be free by the morning.’
Momentarily discarding the picture of himself confessing publicly to a sheriff of the City of London that he had attempted to sell to France the most intimate details of an English-inspired attempt to poison a future French Queen, Harisson seized another ghoul by the hind leg and flung it to the fate snapping at his heels. ‘Free to get a knife in my back from Robin Stewart. How long do you think I’ll live once he knows I’ve sold him to France? De Chémault would have had him under lock and key before he knew it, if this hadn’t happened.’
‘The Ambassador can have him safely under lock and key still,’ said Vervassal, ‘if you tell me now where he is.’
There was a silence. Harisson suddenly felt exhausted, physically battered as if he had been fighting; his hands, knotted between his calves, were tensed, ready to fling out, to strike the table, to sweep through his hair as fresh evils appeared. He needed help, and he had nowhere to look; for Somerset, walking in the shadow of the block, couldn’t protect him. ‘Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you,’ Brice Harisson said.
Vervassal’s reply was perfectly tranquil. ‘I can do nothing for you that would impute guilt of conspiracy to my mistress. Only Warwick can free you. And then only if you publicly confess.’
By now, it was too much. ‘If he’s arrested me on suspicion of going to de Chémault,’ said Brice Harisson sarcastically, ‘he’ll be damned sure to free me when he knows why.… I’ll get out of it somehow.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Vervassal. ‘Then your mind is not very quick. I have shown you the only way. Warwick is unlikely to stir until he thinks he has de Chémault’s position clear. You have one day’s grace, perhaps two. When you have considered what I have said, send for me. In the meantime I make you this offer. I cannot contrive your escape. But the Ambassador and I from this moment will use all our powers to have your offence mitigated on the grounds of these letters, and will try to prevent Warwick bringing forward any charges more serious. In return we must have the means of preventing Warwick’s share of the plot going further. Tell me where Robin Stewart is.’
The comfortable room, with its wood and tapestry and leather was growing dark. In the jewelled light from the fire the herald’s gold tissue glistened flatly, and the Scottish leopards in their silken pastures, rising lean from the shadows, offered haunch, head and claw to the glow.
‘No,’ said Harisson.
‘You wish Stewart and Lord Warwick to pursue this plan to their joint profit?’ continued the light, ironical voice from the darkness.
The word Harisson used to describe Robin Stewart escaped unwanted from his congested mind, and was not in Gaelic. It was then, indeed, that not only his logic left him, but the thin veneer of accomplishment which had handsomely covered a soul and mind much less than handsome. ‘God damn Robin Stewart to hell,’ said his friend furiously, the pliant voice sliding high on the thin scale of hysteria. ‘I want to get out of here alive—that’s all I want!’ And to the voice of irony and reason he simply repeated, higher and harder, ‘No! No! No! No!’
Vervassal waited no longer. He rose, dim in the near-dark, and bending, lit a taper from the fire and carried it delicately to the sconce by the door. A branch of silver candlesticks sprang to life, sparkling on his tabard and the feathered gold of his hair round the red velvet cap. His face was shadowed.
‘I shall be back in two days,’ said the herald. ‘Send to de Chémault when you want me.’
Like a bird’s, Harisson’s two hands cl
Beneath the golden light the other man’s face was luminous as alabaster. ‘Dear me, you are appallingly ignorant of affairs. Haven’t you found out?’ said the herald gently. ‘The Ambassador knows—it is no secret, I assure you. My name is Francis Crawford of Lymond. My brother is Culter. I am not, of course, an officer of the Lyon Court. But temporarily Herald to the high and mighty Princess Mary, Queen Dowager of Scotland, in absence of better.’
On Harisson’s chair, the small, wishbone hands had sprung open; in the darkness the round, desperate eyes strained. ‘That’s the man—’ Harisson broke off, then, raggedly, gave a high laugh. ‘You’re Lymond? My God, did he even bungle that one as well? You’re the man Robin Stewart thinks he murdered!’
‘Not one of his most resounding successes, then, we must admit. You see therefore why I should like to meet him. Also, as you may know, the Earl of Lennox is an old and dear enemy of mine, and by now he also should know where I am. Which means that he will do all he can to encourage Warwick to preserve Robin Stewart and to foil the Ambassador and myself. Think out all I’ve said, my dear Harisson. Your choice is France; or Warwick, Lennox and death.’
For a moment longer, Vervassal remained in the doorway, his head a little bent, his expression strict, as if condemning the dramatic vulgarity of this speech. Then with a kind of shrug of impatience and distaste, he opened the door and went out. The bodyguards outside shut it and Harisson, crouching, remembered not to put his head in his hands and disarrange his hair.
To de Chémault, the account by Lymond of this affair was retiary in its lack of substance. In effect, the herald said only, ‘I am sorry. We have lost him. I rather think I mishandled it. I was counting on some metal in the core, like his brother, but he collapsed like wet fruit. He’ll do precisely what Warwick tells him.’