Queens'' Play by Dorothy Dunnett
The Queen Dowager came in, the Cardinal cool and fair at her back; kissed the child, and went out. This morning, her rôle was to wait.
In the darkness of the Vieux Château, Lymond waited, too, with tired patience. Miraculously, after a while he slept, in the shirt of coarse wool which was all they could bring him.
He was sleeping when the Countess of Lennox came upon him, his head buried in his bare arms. She had come prepared to bribe handsomely for the ten minutes’ pleasure she wanted, but had found the tall gaoler surprisingly modest in his needs. His smile had puzzled her, too.
Then the cell door closed behind her and locked, and she watched but could not tell what second he woke, for he looked up lazily after a moment and said, ‘Welcome, Countess.’ And added immediately, swinging with grace to the floor, ‘Lady, this is most indiscreet. Warwick’s brutish eye is everywhere, you know.’
‘They are gathering for the ceremony.’ He looked neither anxious nor angry, damn his kingfisher soul. ‘I feared we might not meet before you suffer at last for your crimes.’ She seated herself on the bare bed he had vacated, arranging her gown. ‘You see what happens when you lose your head.’
‘You warned me.’ He bowed in acknowledgment; the odd shirt over his long hose recalled, involuntarily, the cloth of gold tabard at Hackney. He said dryly, ‘Don’t look so surprised. Coronez est à tort, granted; but not for the first time in the world. Let’s not sing a fourpenny dirge over it.’ He twitched up a stool and perched on it, patiently embracing his knees. ‘Well. On which aspect of our ill-advised doings are we about to lecture each other? I have very little to say. As I recall, I exhausted the matter on several other occasions.’
‘But this godlike magnanimity is new.’ Under the high-dressed, green-wheat hair, Margaret Douglas’s eyes were wary. ‘Such forbearance, when your own Queen has forsaken you!’
‘Identify your Queens,’ said Lymond promptly. ‘You forget, we have a pack. The cells are bearing Queens as if every one were a coining iron, with a fat, laurel-wreathed face in the wax. If you mean the Dowager—’
‘Of course I mean the Dowager,’ said Margaret.
‘—She is a tough lady to woo. Matthew will tell you. Jenny Fleming’s stepfather, even. King Henry of England—’
‘I had not supposed,’ said Lady Lennox sarcastically, ‘that you were asking her hand. Your practices are quite other.’
Abruptly Lymond got up. ‘Oh, no. Not this. Not again. If you must dispute, dispute the living issues: Rome and Mary Tudor, Lutherism and Scotland, Spain and the German princes, France and Suleiman’s new empire, the rich new world and starving Ireland, and everywhere the new steel-founder’s war. These are the events you and Matthew are moving. I don’t want to know how small the mainspring may be.’
She had risen as well. ‘Then you would have done well to have found out. For that is why you are here, my dear: because you will not learn that in each of us the mainspring is the smallest thing in the world—is just the single word “I”.’
In the dim light they faced each other. ‘God help us both,’ said Lymond, his mouth straight, his eyes level for once. ‘But if I live, and if you live, I will bring you a nation of souls that will give you the lie.’
But he recovered his good humour, it seemed, quickly; for as she left she could hear his voice, at ease with villancico, carolling Ninguno cierre las puertas behind the grille of his door.
Muffled under the tinsel of birdsong, the bells for Tierce ran their oiled course. Robin Stewart heard them at the door of his cottage, the green light flecking his groomed hair and the painstaking white of his shirt; in the deep grass his boots shone, nutbrown, vigorously tended in their turn.
Inside, it was the same. Hard work had turned a hovel into a soldier’s room, clean, orderly and shining; the one chair mended, the bed folded, the scrubbed table spread with the best food he could buy or steal: farm butter and milk in a crock, a cheese, a board of patties and a thick jug of wine. In the corner, his canvas bag lay, packed like a surgeon’s, with his spurs and sword like silver beside it. On the long, rawboned unshackled frame as he waited lay pride and confidence and calm expectation. The scrubbed hands hung at his side and the angry eyes, sunk in skin darkened by harsh work and harsh purpose, were serene.
The Queen was to die during the Investiture, which would open at ten. An hour earlier, he had asked, Lymond should bring the King’s troops to take him into the custody which would prove to the world that of this, at least, he was innocent. And through his information, Artus Cholet would be taken in the act; d’Aubigny would be inculpated and the shadow of Thady Boy’s guilt removed from Lymond himself.
He would bring perhaps a dozen Archers; or perhaps only a few of the Constable’s own men from the castle, with an officer. There must be an officer, so that the testimony would be quite clear. He would hear them coming: first the pealing alarm of the birds, then the drum and rustle of hoofbeats; and the trees would lift above the helmeted heads, toss and curtsey and lift again until they were all past. Then Francis Crawford and the officer would dismount and come forward, and he would offer them food.
He would say nothing, but the new face of Thady Boy would note everything, the clean shirt and the hard work; and as they left, they would walk shoulder to shoulder, sure of each other, as they were on the tower at St. Lomer.
The bells for Tierce stopped ringing, but Robin Stewart stood and watched by the door.
Dethick had lost his temper. Hearing the thick Dutch-French ringing from the Privy Chamber the Constable banged with his blue-robed thickset shoulder through the tambours and fifes, the silver-tissued Gentlemen nursing axes, the Audiencier and the Commis du Controlleur de l’Audience in black velvet, the heralds at arms, lined up uneasily in silk and gold fleurs de lis, the mob of silver-hoquetoned Archers and the ground-matting of pages into the King’s room.
He was not there yet. Garter, his crown pushed back, his beard limp as a lapdog’s front paw, was demanding the upholsterer. The French heralds hung by uneasily and Chester, embarrassed, was on his way out to fetch help. There were, he saw, only two tables instead of three, and the carpet had not been spread. He silenced Garter, his courtesies a little belated, and got a third table in.
There was half an hour yet before the Investiture. He opened the door of the French robing room; the dresses were blinding, and so was the scent. Three Knights of the Order of St. Michael jangled together in their shells and white velvet; he missed the red velvet hat of the Chancellor and came away dissatisfied. His white ostrich feathers bobbed, and the thirty ounces of gold, troy weight, round his neck clinked garter to garter as he strode along.
The English Embassy Extraordinary, similarly dressed, waited about rather silently in a room nearby. Anne, Duke de Montmorency and Constable of France, sent a page to tell the drummers to begin, and all but trampled on the boy de Longueville, Mary of Guise’s French son, with extraordinary news.
Waving a thick hand at the plaintive business around him, Montmorency heaved about him his blue robes the colour of heaven, and hurried off.
‘Witness against Lord d’Aubigny is clear,’ he was saying ten minutes later, standing again, his clothes gathered ready to leave. ‘And this man Cholet, when we can trace him, will no doubt be made to confess. But until that moment, remember, there is nothing to say that the Tour des Minimes was d’Aubigny’s doing. I cannot release Crawford without clearer proof. As it is, the affair of d’Aubigny, evidently, will require the most gentle attentions.… Madame, I must go.’
He had no special liking for the Queen Dowager of Scotland, but he could admire her gift for negotiation; he had never before caught her with her timing at fault. Hurried by the boy, he had found her with only one of her ladies, the mad Irishman O’LiamRoe who had insulted the King, and a big man he recognized vaguely as some sculptor.
Listening to the tale, he realized that the unfortunate was happening. The sculptor Hérisson had evidently in his keeping a man called Beck, a Flemish m
If he were caught, it meant the convenient scapegoat in the Vieux Château must be freed, and the King must be coaxed to put aside the friendship of d’Aubigny. While his heart could wish for no more, the Constable knew this particular diplomatic labour was beyond him. He said, staring at Mary of Guise, ‘We can do nothing while the Embassy is here … corbleu; envisage the Commissioners sent to ask our princess’s hand watching the grounds being combed for a French assassin intent on killing the girl … especially if the assassin is inspired by some English minority.—You have no firm reason to believe the attempt will be made today?’
O’LiamRoe answered. ‘Only that the man has left his home for Châteaubriant. And it seems likely that it will be done while Robin Stewart is at large and while Lord d’Aubigny himself is plainly on duty. A house-to-house search, monseigneur—’
‘No. Unthinkable,’ said the Constable. ‘No. I must go. And you, M. le duc. Thank you, M. Hérisson, and you, my lord of the Salif Blum. My officers will call on you after the Investiture and M. Beck will be taken au secret. Meanwhile, the child must be doubly guarded. My lieutenant will present himself to you. Take as many men as you need, and surround her. She need not be frightened; they will hide their arms. You will give my lieutenant also your designation of Cholet. One may not search, but all men may observe. Between the banquet and the conference if I can, I shall return to the matter. Madame … messieurs.’
The grand rabroueur had gone. His leaf-gold tresses on end, his eyes in baskets from the long night without sleep, Phelim O’LiamRoe smacked his two fists together and cursed. The Queen Dowager, hardly aware of him, had turned her erect body to the window, followed by Margaret Erskine’s wide eyes. But Michel Hérisson, who had arrived so unexpectedly on the Irishman’s heels, ran his hacked and gouty hands through the wild white hair and said through his teeth, ‘Liam aboo, son, Liam aboo! My Gaelic’s all out in holes, the way my arse is ridden out through my breeches; but if you are saying what I hope you are saying, Liam aboo, my son, Liam aboo!’
On the lake, the early mist had all gone and the little boats had been moved into the middle. A small gathering of musicians, moving tenderly about a flower-decked raft, were tuning rebec, lute and viol for a rehearsal, thin as oyster-catchers in the still air. Elsewhere, on the shore, in the tilting ground, about the pavilions and stands, men were busy.
It was magnificent, if not very new. The theme and costumes for today had been used before: they did the English Commissioners sufficient honour. Industriously classical, Sibec de Carpi’s stands lining the tilting ground were redecorated with vine garlands and busts, cartouches and winged genii bearing the three royal flags; for after the Investiture, after the banquet, after the conference, there would be jousting that night.
And later still, a water pageant. Round the lake, low gardens had been laid out, a fountain erected at each end and a pavilion put up overlooking the water, draped with eye-blinding cloth of gold and fitted with lamps and torch sockets. From here, where the painters worked stripped to the waist, the Court would sit after dinner and watch the spectacle of Ida, la bergère phrygienne, driving cautiously round the lake, her chariot harnessed to geese and nymphs and satyrs, Pans and centaurs gambolling round. Some of these, lured by the sun and an authorized negligence of dress, were already there, spread on the dry grass: a Victory with gold wings sat under a pear tree playing a whistle, and two priestesses crowned with snakes chaffed a Bacchus in purple sitting on the paving, knees akimbo, and feet spread green in the cool pond.
Behind the gardens, the accessories were stacked: the hero’s flask of leopardskin destined to spray the paths with cheap wine; the chariots to be drawn by elephants, ostriches, deer; the Fortune forwarded from Angers, wheel and apple in hand; the carts with statues of kings and gods stacked inside. Among a group of forest maids admiring them was Diana herself, Madame de Valentinois, in black cloth of gold sewn with silver stars and amazingly brief, though not as short as the nymphs’ dresses, turned up to mid-thigh. Their bows and darts, of carved and gilded hardwood, were piled among the crowns and the torches and the cages of doves. Her ladies, in violet lustring, looked hot and rather cheerful: the workmen were not shy of tongue.
‘The auld quean,’ said the Keeper of the Menageries, watching mask-faced from under his turban on the distant side of the lake. Hughie the elephant, half-dressed in expensive gold harness, eructated with sonorous calm, and Piedar Dooly, his bees’ legs in fustian black hating the ground they stood on, said coldly, ‘It’s the King’s woman. Would you need three eyes to see it? And if he isn’t here, where is he?’
The brocaded figure, cross-legged before the biggest pavilion, watched keepers and cowardies move about the tents and cages, listened to the soft animal sounds and breathed through bean-wide nostrils the pattern of smells that reveal the well-regulated menagerie. He did not turn his head. ‘If ye dinna know, then likely you’re not meant to ken,’ said Abernaci. The camel, which was supposed to carry the incense, had thrown a fit in the night. Mules would have to do; he wouldn’t trust any more cats. The grass rustled to approaching feet, and another figure slid on its haunches beside him. ‘If you mean the Prince of Barrow, he’s at the castle,’ said Tosh. ‘Christ, what does it remind you of?’
‘Paris. Lyons. Rouen. Dieppe. Amboise. Angers,’ said Abernaci. ‘There’s a kind of sameness. Only this time we’re untying our very own purse, so we’re a wee thing skimped as to hay. D’ye mind Hughie upsetting the—No. Ye werena at Rouen.’
‘They play at gods,’ said Piedar Dooly, and spat. ‘French and English alike. Gods out of hell would you say, harrowing green land for their tennis courts and dressing lapdogs in treasure that would keep half Ireland in bread for a year. The heroes of Tara would have put them face to schisty face and used them for millstones.’
Dropping back on the burned grass, Tosh stretched his arms under his head. ‘Ye needna miscall the French. They drove the English fairly out of their country.’
In two wiry steps, Dooly lowered over the funambulist. ‘With eight thousand Irishmen to help them!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you saying that Ireland won’t send the English off her shores with a blow that will make these fat folk look seven ways at once—and the Scots too? Doesn’t every man know that the great Scottish nation has got so soft all out that France has to fight all her wars for her? Women ruled by women … and there’s the great war-lord chief of you all, in her petticoats, scarce off the breast of her nurse, come to preside at the weapon showing there.’
Tosh, an even-tempered man, caught Abernaci’s eye and rolled over. ‘Oh, aye, there’s great bullocks in Ireland,’ he said. ‘But they canna get them shipped for their long horns, they say.’ Abernaci, having observed that the child Queen had indeed come to the far edge of the lake, hopped to his feet and stood astride, shading his brown cracked face with his hand. ‘Christ. The governess. The Erskine woman. The Fleming boy. Two of the children, and six men-at-arms. They’re examining the boat the way it was a good case of beggar’s leprosy.… They’re getting in.’
‘They’ll be as safe in mid-water as anywhere, if the boat’s all right,’ said Tosh. ‘What’s the rest of the armada?’ In the middle of the lake, twelve little boats bobbed, roped to each other and then to a buoy: gondolas, brigantines, galleys in small.
‘Nothing to harm her,’ said Abernaci. ‘Brigantines and galleys for the mock fight, the state barge, and boats with squibs and canes of fire darts and clods and moulins à feu. Even were they all set off at once, they couldn’t hurt; and they can hardly be set off. There’s not a lit torch been allowed near the lake. You’ll have heard—Man,’ he broke off, turning on Piedar Dooly, craning at his elbow. ‘Are ye not for finding O’LiamRoe, now ye ken whaur he is?’
‘Ah, get comfortable,’ said the Irishman contemptuously, and turned his ba
For the second time, the eyes of the other two met. ‘Nor to me,’ said Tosh briefly. ‘—I hear also that Cormac O’Connor is sick.’
Piedar Dooly dropped to the grass. ‘O’LiamRoe—would you know it?’ he said. ‘I tell you, were I not to let the wind out of him this while and that, we would never see the Slieve Bloom again.’ And he hugged his knees, his raw face complacent.
It was Abernaci, used to reading the speechless, who stood as if graven, receiving the first signals of danger; then, like a snake striking, flicked into the grass and came up with Piedar Dooly’s shoulder pinched flat in one hand. Tosh, jumping to his feet, took one look and gripped Dooly’s other arm, a question on his broad Aberdeen face. ‘Would you say,’ said Abernaci kindly, ‘that he was waiting for something?’
Piedar Dooly was too wise to shout, and too stupid to keep his mouth shut entirely. ‘Stad thusa ort!—It’s too late, anyway,’ he said smiling, and spat.
The King’s Keeper looked over his head at Thomas Ouschart, and then spoke aside briefly in Urdu. Then, holding the little Firbolg very carefully between them, they carried him silently into the pavilion.
At five minutes to ten the King, hatless in white, entered the Privy Chamber, and the Archers of the Guard, the gentlemen and princes lining the walls uncovered and bowed. The music stopped.
Outside the far door, the Garter procession had been formed for ten minutes, talking in low voices, sweating in velvet. The Constable, incongruous among all the English faces, had arrived, a little late, to take his place next to Mason. Ahead of him was the Bishop, Sir Thomas Smith and Black Rod; in the middle, Northampton was talking to Dethick, a Christian act for all concerned. The file of servants stretched in front up to the doors, not speaking at all. Their necks were clean.