Queens'' Play by Dorothy Dunnett
So Mary of Guise had come to recognize that she needed help. ‘If he is in France for the term of my visit, I shall be satisfied,’ she had said of Lymond, without pretending to mean it. ‘In one year’s time, his allegiance must be mine,’ she had added, and had meant every word.
But she had cast him, in her mind, simply as a picturesque adventurer; and that, grimly, was what he had shown her from first to last. Only in London, after O’LiamRoe’s message had come and her hand had been forced had he sardonically accepted and brilliantly played the role which at last had come fitly to his hand. And then, that done, had come back to the confines of his undertaking.
His undertaking was to save Mary, and that he had done. What secrets he had listened to on the loving shoulder of France she did not know; what the cajoleries of the Constable and the Queen might lead to she could only fear; what the flatteries of her brothers and the growing attention of the King might stir in him she could only guess.
She had designed the incident of the boarbaiting for her own ends: to prove to the suspicious her lack of regard; to give her, if need be, an excuse to beg clemency in the end, were he to be exposed; to present to him a stage on which he might exhibit himself, as he seemed to delight, to the best advantage, a promise of the applause and admiration in store for him, a favourite at her side.
And when she had read the disgust in his eyes she had known, again, that she had been wrong. She had been wrong; and she had lost him. He had saved Mary and he had safeguarded England’s new burgeoning relationship with France. He had discredited the Lennoxes and won the attention of the French Council. He had George Douglas’s admiration, for what it was worth; had he come in time, he could have swayed Jenny Fleming, she knew. What he had been busy about in the affairs of O’LiamRoe and Ireland she could only suspect. He had only to exert himself and he could make a following in Scotland; he had only to stay, and he could draw together for her all the Scottish allegiance in France.
In that queer afternoon audience, she had said none of this. Instead, she had spoken with feeling of all he had done, leaning lightly on the performances and the risks, stressing heavily the political sense and perception, coming as near humility as a Queen and a princess of Lorraine might safely do over the stupidities and exigencies of her station. And all the time she knew that it was not for her sake that he had kept quiet, when she denied him, but for her adopted country.
She had spoken of her plans. Soon she would return home. Only, meantime, her son was not well. And she waited to hear, with anxiety, what news the Marshal de St. André would send of his offer to England of her daughter in exchange for the English possessions in France.
He had known about that. It shook her, again and again, to discover how much he knew. They will never give up Calais on a promise as vague as that,’ he had said. ‘You need have no fear.’
And then she had asked him to stay in France. ‘Men fall short of your desire, and so you abandon men. The Crown falls short of your expectations, and you abandon the Crown. A leader with no following is an aerolite unloosed, M. Crawford, its power blinding and blistering where it wantonly falls, until it burns itself out. To take a puny man and make him great is your gift. I offer you a child to fashion and make worthy of your soil.’
She had added much more. There would be a knighthood. His estate of Lymond should be made great: French architects would rebuild; the storehouses and purse of a grateful state would be his. In Scotland, when he chose finally to return, he could re-create the beauty and brilliance of France.
Not even her ladies had been present at this interview. She had dressed herself with care; she had given him her hand and permitted him to sit. And it was she, accustomed to dealing with male minds, barely aware of her sex, who found herself irritatingly aware that, sitting motionless, answering laconically and fast, he had formed his opinion long ago about her mind and her abilities, and was addressing himself solely to the pitch of these … as he might have done to a bullfrog similarly endowed, she thought with a sudden flash of anger, who had happened to be the Queen Mother of Scotland.
‘I offer you a child to fashion,’ she had said; and his tone, even and courteous, did not change. ‘Then you must send her to Scotland—for that is where I shall be,’
After a long while she said slowly, ‘I do not think you understand what I offer.’
And he had answered, rising as she rose, his eyes clear under the smooth brow where youth sat; the youth she would close in her fists if she could, the youth she coveted, raging, to fling against the mewing pack of wild creatures, the Douglases, the Stewarts, the Hamiltons, the ambitious sons and the kingly bastards and all young, young, young who would one day snap at her vacant throne.
And in all his enviable youth he stood before her and said, ‘I have understood and I have refused. If you wish me to lead, I shall lead. In Scotland I shall make a company of men who can match any fighting men in the world; and for twelve months in Scotland they and I shall be. If you want me, send.… But I may not always come.’
‘Even for the child?’ she had said.
‘Even for the child.’ And his eyes had betrayed for one moment the life she knew must be there, but did not know how to reach. ‘The brilliance and beauty of France were all ours, and more, forty years ago. They ended with Flodden, and they cannot be pinned on afresh, like a decaying rose. They must grow again, and in security. It has been merry,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘But the time for follies is over.’
He was waiting peaceably now, the child’s glove on his shoulder; but d’Aubigny was watching the Master of the Lists, was waiting for the paper which the Master took now in his hand, and adjusting the spectacles which, to his sorrow, he could not do without, perused and then read.
‘To messire Jean Stewart, Chevalier, Seigneur d’Aubigny, la Verrerie et le Crotet, fell the choice of arms to be used in this match, the fullest choice as the said seigneur demands to be provided, under pain of forfeiting the match.’ And, licking his lips, he proceeded to read out the list of arms from which Lord d’Aubigny desired to choose.
And the quick Douglas mind had guessed right. Notorious among the malicious, sometimes done in sport, sometimes for a wager, this shift was the most ill-mannered and peremptory in the whole game of arms. The injured party had this right: to force his opponent to bring together an adequate choice of weapons, such as gentlemen might use. He had the right, if he chose to exert it, of stating sword by sword and plate by plate from what weapons and what armour and what horseflesh he desired to select.
Stewart of Aubigny had done just this. As the Master’s voice launched forth, spoke, and then rolled on through phrase after phrase, first exclamations and then gathering laughter answered him from the stirring stands.
‘Item. Horse. A pair of Turkish mares in harness, with ears and tails clipped, and furnished with military saddles; a pair of cobs, saddled in plaited armour and a pair of Spanish jennets with leather saddles and clipped tails. Two asses, caparisoned in velvet, with têtières of brass.
‘Item. Two partisans, damascened in gold. Two halberds, with silk tassels; two pikes. A pair of the new Italian pistols. Two hand arquebuses, furnished with balls. Two cutlasses; two poniards with double edges and St. Hubert in the hilt, and two single-edged, with a honed point. Two rapiers, and two Swiss bastard swords with plain quillons, double-edged.
‘Item. Two suits of goffered leather, with chain mail over. Two engraved corselets, damascened gold and silver. Two brassards in Milanese steel, and two in German. Two cuirasses the same. Two bucklers, decorated in silver, with leather straps; and two with steel. Two pairs of gauntlets. Two morions, plumed, with …’
Long before the list ended, the laughter died. The form of mockery did not seem particularly witty; and they had all at least expected to witness a fight. In silence, the Master reached the end and folded the paper. D’Aubigny’s eyes, large, flashing with life, looked at Lymond and then, head high and smiling, his lordship turned to the King. The trumpets
‘Do you produce these arms, M. le Comte?’ asked the Master, of Lymond.
And—‘I do,’ said Francis Crawford, with the clarity, the abandon, the felicity of some royal bridegroom; and you could hear the sound, throughout all the pavilions, of the torches burning. Then, two by two through the barrier came the men of his short retinue in their brilliant dress which you remembered seeing, suddenly, on the King’s pages a day or two before, with other servants to help them. And two by two they paced to the cloth of gold table and laid on it the most precious armour in Europe.
Gamber made the engraved armour Henri had worn at Blois; the golden cuirasses were wrought with lions; the morions with rams’ horns and ostrich feathers, with diamond buckles at their roots. The swords had each their own scabbards, rubies on velvet, pearls on silk. The pistols lay in leather cases, the hackbuts with damascened stocks lay each with its pile of balls. The horses were brought on, shying a little at each other and the queerly muted noise, their housings sparkling with gold, their saddles waxed.
The English Embassy sat up, and made brief and privately astonished noises of admiration. Every Frenchman round the King was prudently silent. For every courtier there recognized the armour, horses and weapons of Henri, King of France.
It was the greatest rebuff John Stewart of Aubigny had ever received in his life; and the greatest he ever would receive until he ended his days in undistinguished obscurity after undistinguished service far from Court. And it was public as a proclamation to every French courtier there. Death, to Lord d’Aubigny, might have been less unkind.
He stood, his gaze on the King for a long time, sparing only a glance for the glittering arms on the table, and none for Lymond. He said, his voice a little high, ‘I am satisfied,’ and the Master of the Lists, looking in vain for guidance from the King, the Constable or the defendant himself, said desperately, ‘State, then: what is your choice?’
He was a captain of lances, and he tried, at the end, to gather about him some tatters of pride. The handsome face, ignoring the Master, looked again up past the cloth of gold and the embossed fleurs-de-lis to the royal tribune, its crest the same as the one he had worn once on his own breast and back. Lord d’Aubigny, his eyes on the King, said, ‘I make no choice. I forfeit my injury and withdraw my cartel of challenge.’
Above him, Henri’s schooled face did not change. He said, ‘Pray do not disappoint us. We and our friends here had hoped to see some sport.’
‘The sport is done,’ said John Stewart, his voice faded, and received the King’s permission to go.
He walked firmly, in the midst of his retinue, banner high, and the glittering procession threading the undisturbed sand received neither cheers nor catcalls as it became dim in the night distances and dissolved. The fall of a favourite is celebrated with discreet music at Court.
On the field the Vidame, his hand on Lymond’s shoulder, gently caressing, was inviting him to fight; and the English delegation, shifting a little in their seats, were careful not to meet each other’s eyes. Northampton was smiling again.
They fought on jennets, for exhibition only, and the bout was pretty to watch. The Vidame, not unaccustomed to doing his courting with a poniard, talked all the way through
Francis Crawford fought delicately, like an automaton, his eyes largely elsewhere, and won. At the end, kissed, congratulated and bewreathed, still preoccupied, he took his jennet past the cushioned ledges where the Scottish Court was watching, and pausing, his little horse stayed between his knees, he unpinned his gauge.
Then he looked up, the light striking gold from his hair and resting on the high planes of brow and cheekbone and nose as he studied the child’s face.
Mary unseated herself and sat again angrily, one fold of red hair fallen down the outside ledge of the box. ‘But you didn’t fight M. d’Aubigny!’
‘No.… The King did that,’ said Francis Crawford.
Her eyes opened. ‘I didn’t see him!’
‘It was done another way. But I did fight someone, you know. Will he not do?’
‘M. le Vidame?’ It was the voice of proprietory scorn. ‘He brings me cats!’
Oh. Does he?’ said Lymond with interest. ‘It’s one thing he hasn’t brought me yet. How difficult it is. Then if he will not serve, I fear I must keep the glove until I find someone who will. What about that?’
‘But yes, excellent. Do you keep it, M. Crawford. For someone truly dangerous. Such as the Irishwoman who wished me some harm?’
‘No. We were wrong, you and I. The lady is a friend.’ Lymond, no doubt sensing the Dowager’s sharpened interest, changed the subject. ‘I must go, your grace. There is word that The O’LiamRoe is to show the Court how to play hurley, and they will need a few sober men, and a physician and a priest too, before they are done. But if I am to take your glove, I ought to leave you some token at least.’ And, reaching up, he laid something on the little Queen’s outstretched palm.
It was the enormous diamond. The Dowager caught it from her. ‘Ma mie, no! M. Crawford, she cannot accept that. It is greatly too much.’
‘It is the King’s,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘I understand that, unlike the pots and pans, he does not expect it returned.’
Under his own gauntlet, the edge of a bandage showed. She understood him too well. No duties; no obligations; no responsibilities—except to himself. And yet … he had kept the glove.
‘Say me a riddle,’ said the Queen.
The jennet was becoming impatient; he had paused long enough. ‘We are not private enough,’ he said. ‘Your servant, my lady.’ And smiling, tightened the reins.
‘Sing me a song, then,’ she pressed. He was hers; he had worn her gauge; others should see how pleasant they were together. But he only smiled again, and bowed, and moved off, the applause rattling down the stands, and the equerries closing in behind, his banner held high over his head.
Mary, watching half-annoyed, half-absorbed, raised her voice chanting; hardly heard, Margaret Erskine was thankful to notice, in the noise and movement around. Then she broke into full song, taking both parts herself, in a very good imitation of the famous voice: the voice which through a long winter had sung to the King and courtiers of France, and had played with her Queens.
‘King and Queen of Cantelon
How many miles to Babylon?
Eight and eight and other eight.
Will I get there by candlelight?
If your horse be good and your spurs be bright.
How many men have ye?
… Mair nor ye daur come and see.’
August 1961—October 1962
Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye
Reader’s Guide
1. For discussion of Queens’ Play
In some respects Queens’ Play is a sixteenth-century spy story, its hero a Scottish “mole” at the French court. How comfortable is Lymond as a state “operative”? Why is the state uncomfortable with him? Does he safely complete his mission, to save a child from an assassin? How does the tragic failure of his relationship with Robin Stewart qualify this?
2. Though Queens’ Play does not travel to Ireland, the politics and plight of that small, proud, conflicted nation are crucial to the novel. Why does Dorothy Dunnett choose to tell the story of Ireland largely through the figure of the emphatically anti-political Phelim O’Liam Roe? What qualities of ancient Ireland, sixteenth-century Ireland, perhaps even contemporary Ireland, does O’Liam Roe display?
3. In an important scene toward the end of the novel, Lymond attempts to “show the French court to itself in a new light: not as his companions, his victims, in some deliberate essay in decadence, but as ministers to his art.” Is this a ruse or is it true to some extent? Is Lymond just “using” his art or is he a true artist?
Dorothy Dunnett was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries; King Hereafter, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text
Books by Dorothy Dunnett
THE LYMOND CHRONICLES
The Game of Kings
Queens’ Play
The Disorderly Knights
Pawn in Frankincense
The Ringed Castle
Checkmate
King Hereafter
The Photogenic Soprano (Dolly and the Singing Bird)
Murder in the Round (Dolly and the Cookie Bird)
Match for a Murderer (Dolly and the Doctor Bird)
Murder in Focus (Dolly and the Starry Bird)
Dolly and the Nanny Bird
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise
Send a Fax to the Kasbah (Moroccan Traffic)
THE HOUSE OF NICCOLÒ
Niccolò Rising
The Spring of the Ram
Race of Scorpions
Scales of Gold
The Unicorn Hunt
To Lie with Lions
Caprice and Rondo
Gemini
The Scottish Highlands (with Alastair Dunnett)
The Dorothy Dunnett Companion Volume I (by Elspeth Morrison)
The Dorothy Dunnett Companion Volume II (by Elspeth Morrison)