Queens' Play by Dorothy Dunnett
There was a solemn procession to the Palace to hear a case on the King’s Bed of Justice which gave Brusquet his only real chance of the visit. After a morning of well-rehearsed speeches by the advocates and the King’s procureur-general—‘Levez-vous: le roi l’entend’—and an equally well-rehearsed judgment thick with classical and flattering allusions, a private burlesque of the whole thing was performed extempore by the King’s fool in the empty chamber for the benefit of the royal ladies in their box.
They laughed, but not quite enough. The King changed his clothes, made appearances diligently, patiently and with charm, and entertained himself and his Court in privacy with the music of Thady Boy Ballagh, his breath sweet as a rose chafer and his lyrics strenuously unexceptionable. Thady Boy was working quite hard.
O’LiamRoe was amused. As rumours of the long evenings of romances eruditos and romances artísticos reached him, he was heard on occasion to express a left-handed pride that the sweetest finger that ever slid upon a fingerboard here should be Irish. At length the King left to make his State Entry to Dieppe, and then, by Fécamp and Havre, back to the River Seine for the water journey south.
Five Kings had wintered on the shores of the Loire, as it flowed wide and sandy through central France from Orléans to the Atlantic with castle and palace, town and village and vineyard, mill and fishery and hunting lodge on its mild chalky banks. For twelve hundred years pilgrims had gone by river and river bank to Tours, one of the holiest shrines in Europe after Rome; and the Gallo-Romans had built their villas there, and the Plantagenets for a while had made it English until their overthrow, when a grateful France had replaced them with Scots.
But it was a long time since a Douglas had ruled in Touraine. The Kings of France had developed a taste for the country and made it their centre. They governed from Blois and Amboise and Plessis and came back there from their wars to plant their booty and rear their children and try out their notions of modern building. The Chancellors, the Treasurers, the Admirals and the Constables built their houses there too; park and chase and garden were laid out; and even when, latterly, Henri’s father had turned aside to use Paris and Fontainebleau more and more, the well-worn journey was still made: Rouen, Mantes, St. Germain, Fontainebleau, Corbeil and Melun; overland to Gien like a migration of guinea fowl, cart, mule, horse and litter, the packs of servants and gentlemen, the endless baggage train, the men at arms, the filles publiques whose prescience about morning moves was both marked and relied upon.
And from Gien, through Châteauneuf, Orléans, Amboise, Blois, the barges floated them home. Pleasant, equable, healthy and full of red deer, the valley of the Loire was a place where many an unwanted embassy had grazed its knees and barked its knuckles and gone home unhappily neither satisfied nor affronted. The Court of France was going there to spend Christmas.
It started off, but amoeba-like, before it arrived its one cell had split into two. Louis, the King’s two-year-old son, died at Mantes. The royal household and the officials involved stayed or returned. The staff, the grooms and the younger element of the Court, among whom was the Irish party, continued to St. Germain-en-Laye.
As guide and conductor, vice Lord d’Aubigny, of Phelim O’LiamRoe’s trio, Robin Stewart had sensed, long before then, that the mignons were out for Thady Boy’s blood. O’LiamRoe as a garrulous and discredited foreigner they ignored. But Condé and de Genstan and St. André and d’Enghien, with their friends, had taken cool note of undue diligence among the monarchs. Stewart, who had discovered Thady Boy before anybody, watched sardonically as d’Enghien, young, witty, ambitious, lightly unfaithful even to the fortunate succession of friends who maintained him, decided calmly to teach his prize a small lesson. Thady Boy Ballagh was to be given, rumour affably reported, a good bob with the bag.
The bag was the quintain, a wooden Saracen on a post, to be charged on horseback and hit three times with a lance. A poor hit, because of its pivoting arrangements, gave the rider a crippling clout on the ear. It was a popular spectator sport.
How Thady Boy was brought to compete, Stewart never knew. But on a mild grey afternoon in October The O’LiamRoe and the Archer and every idle sophisticate on the premises turned their backs on the newly renovated castle of St. Germain, on its wide terraces above the flat panorama of the Seine, and strolled off to the tilting ground to see the courses.
Far from being technical, the talk in Stewart’s vicinity was largely about someone’s new boots, straying lightly now and then into the recent boudoir history of the combatants. But whatever they sounded like, they were soldiers judging soldiers. There was some wit on the changes which other times and other alliances had brought to the quintain itself: instead of the Turk there hung a crude painted barrel with eyes, nose, chin and a string midriff to mark the points of high scoring.
It rocked slightly in the light wind, causing a moment’s alarm to those in the plot, who had gone to a great deal of trouble to struggle it off and fill it up to the brim with cold water.
And of course, the first rider selected by blind fate to try his three stabs at the wood was Thady Boy Ballagh, hatless and gently fuddled on what appeared to be the highest peak of a very tall horse.
There were a hundred paces of a run up to the barrier. At the far end the barrel gaudily swayed; the circle of judges and spectators was suspiciously wide. Thady Boy stuck his heels into the tall horse; along the fence the hoofbeats redoubled; beyond the fence the stout post with its burden lay in wait.
The squat, black figure reached it, raised its lance, aimed and thrust. So far from scoring, the mark was not even over the belt. The lance nocked into the wood, with a thud which could be heard, and came out fast as Thady Boy ducked to dodge the swing of the pivot. A great and derisive cheer rose into the clear air of the St. Germain plateau, and Jean de Bourbon, sieur d’Enghien, flushed. No icy douche had soaked Thady Boy from the gash. The barrel, inexplicably, was dry.
Three times Thady Boy Ballagh ran the prescribed course, and the mignons applauded the cheerful constancy of his incompetence and rallied Condé and his brother in the same merciless breath on the collapse of their scheme. Since no other entertainment offered, the tilt continued. D’Enghien himself trotted up as Thady Boy came back, and spurred into the first course.
Slender and dark, with his pretty lashes and red, Bourbon lips, the sieur d’Enghien was an expert jouster. The lance, aimed true and straight, transfixed the very nose on the staves. There was a thud, a hiss, a light puff of steam, and from the stab in the wood a trembling arc of hot water started to play on the noble rider below.
They made him run the three prescribed courses before cutting down and examining the barrel. It had been floored midway and top-filled from a copper; Thady Boy, he remembered, had aimed consistently low.
Music, seeping out from the lounging throng of his friends, told Jean de Bourbon where to find his ingenious prize. His fur weeping, his boots full of water, d’Enghien for a moment looked like sinking his teeth, like the Archbishop of Pisa, in his neighbour. On second thoughts he bent, arm on elegant knee, and said, ‘For that, my dear, I shall want my revenge.’
Thady Boy looked up. Garlanded with young men, he sat squat on the grass, boots crossed, expression pure as a halcyon hatching an egg. ‘¿Con que la lavaré, La tez de la mi cara …?’ he sang, and smiled at the unfolded hair and the sleek, wet painted face. ‘… That depends on the sport.’
They all stayed five days at St. Germain, and St. Germain would as soon have suffered a plague. From the quintain they passed to rovers, played with hackbuts until someone’s page came out at dusk to complain of the noise. They reverted, all contrition, to their bows and resumed silently at dawn, with whistles tied to their barbs. The graveyard screech that unfurled every sleeper was a deathless victory for Thady Boy.
They roamed the neighbourhood. Sightseeing in Paris, they stopped at the Pineapple and ordered the first ten men they met to eat pork and mustard in their gloves. De Genstan left the Pineapple on
On the last day at St. Germain, Thady Boy put himself in Stewart’s hands for a visit to the menagerie. Lymond handling a disciple had all the address of a surgeon.
With Thady went Piedar Dooly and The O’LiamRoe who, like Maximilian’s pelican, followed him everywhere except into the royal presence and who, in private, uproarious sessions in Gaelic, was evolving a brilliantly bigoted new philosophy to meet the occasion.
It was a mild, damp day, with a haze over the valley, beading the cobwebs, and with grit and bladdered leaves underfoot. Stewart led the way, his starched collar limp on his cuirass, and the three Irishmen followed through the castle park to the Porte au Pecq. The kennels by the Parc des Loges were empty; the famous pack of black and white hounds had gone south. The Falconry too was denuded.
The elephants were not travelling yet. Abernaci, warned beforehand by a call from Stewart, met them with his primitive English at the barred gates, bowing softly in his turban and silks. Not by a flicker of his opaque black eyes did he betray interest in either O’LiamRoe or his ollave. The Keeper’s words were blandly welcoming, and at Stewart’s prompting, he led them inside.
This building was new, a hollow square two storeys high enclosing a courtyard. On the ground floor were the cages, each divided into two compartments by a door operated by chains from above. Upstairs, stores, offices and sleeping quarters gave on to a gallery running round the entire court. The Irish party, looking down from the gallery, were shown the arena where the animals exercised and fought; and at their feet the traps, one for each cage, where the meat was thrown down to the lions and bears and hunting cats far below.
Robin Stewart had seen it already that morning. While The O’LiamRoe, all honey hair and plum-coloured vowels, went off to sink his teeth into zoology, Robin Stewart was waiting edgily by the door with a groom. He established, automatically, what the local butcher wanted for mutton, and whether a keeper’s monthly wage matched his oncosts. He asked if the groom’s wife approved of his work, if he had ever caught anything off the beasts, if he’d been clawed.
The man was reluctantly opening his shirt when O’LiamRoe interrupted. There was an empty lodge just below which he wanted to see. The groom, relieved, scuttled away and Stewart took the Prince down, while Thady Boy remained to watch Abernaci wind the chains.
It was difficult to tell afterwards how the mechanism stuck. Stewart and O’LiamRoe entered the windowless rear half of the cage and Abernaci shut the door from above. There it remained immovable for some considerable time. As every ablebodied man on the premises worked cheerfully with crowbars to release the two men, Thady Boy and Abernaci watched from above. Then, ‘Aweel,’ said Archie, pushing back his turban to scratch his bald head. ‘They’ll be some time at that. Come on away ben where it’s comfy. I hear you’re having a grand time playing Roi Ca’penny at Court.’ And firmly shutting the door of his sanctum, he gave the ollave a broad and confidential wink.
Lymond’s dark face was amused. ‘I am being fattened like a thrush on flour balls and figs.’ He hitched a stool to himself neatly and sat on it. ‘I hear you are going to Blois with the cats and Mary’s little menagerie. Who goes with you?’
‘Two men I can trust. And there’ll be more there. The travelling trainers aye come in when the court arrives. It’s a grand fraternity; ye can trust them. I ken them all. Tosh’ll be there. D’ye mind Tosh?’
Lymond shook his black head. The place was a store. On one side of him was a sink, and at his elbow a high cupboard and table flap loaded with bowls and mortar, spoons, gallipots, balances. Stretching an arm, he took down and opened a stone jar, and sniffed it cautiously. ‘Christ, Archie, you could blow up the whole tedious stewing of them if you wanted to, and establish a Court of Beasts. Who’s Tosh?’
‘Thomas Ouschart’s his name. Tosh they called him when he was a builder’s laddie in Aberdeen, and a good friend you’ll find him at need. He was fairly born in the shape of a ladder; he could lift the whiskers out of a gallant’s beard-box without giving a tweak to his chin. Tosh’d take the meat off your foot.’ Abernaci rocked, incandescent with gossip.
‘He’d to get out of Scotland in a hurry, of course, but you should see him now with his tightrope—a rare act he has, him and his donkey. Gets its horoscope read whiles in Blois by the woman I told you of, that lives at Doubtance by the moneylender’s; but you won’t get him to tell you much about that.’ He broke off, his gaze following Lymond’s, and added in his matter-of-fact voice, ‘I saw your eye on these pots at Rouen. Ye ken that stuff, do ye?’
Carefully Lymond put another stoppered jar back. ‘Yes, Archie. I thought your range was a bit startling when I was being washed in warm water by Sakra-deva’s diamond hand. What drugs do you keep?’
In the withered face, the darting black eyes were steady. ‘All the ones you’re thinking of. If you knew elephants, ye wouldna be surprised.’
‘Such as—?’
‘Belladonna for their coughs, and sweet oils. You had them on you at Rouen. And soap and salt and Aak ka jur Mudar … that’s a narcotic. Bhang, ganja and kuchla when their bowels are upset.’ The wrinkled face filled with compassion. ‘Awful bad with their bowels, some of them can be.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Lymond. ‘What else?’
‘Well. Lime water—that went on Hughie’s back. Opium for a sedative. Resin and beeswax against the flies; arsenic and nux vomica for a tonic … that’s the most of it. You can see it all. There’s big supplies,’ said Abernaci informatively, ‘because elephants is big beasties.’
Below, the banging had become intermittent and joined with occasional noises of rending. Lymond was thoughtful. ‘How many people know of these poisons?’
‘The whole Court, I should think,’ said Abernaci. ‘We had to lock up the hashish and the opium in the end—they were aye daring each other to try it. The worst of the pharmacies hand it out. Bordeaux, Bayonne, Pamplona—they all sell freely. And they get it when the spice ships come in, if only from the seamen and their women. If you’ve money, it’s not hard.’
‘All the same, don’t lock it up any more’ said Lymond. ‘Don’t lock anything up. We want it to be easy.’
‘It is easy,’ said Abernaci simply. ‘Since I checked them this morning, a hundred grains of arsenic have gone.’
In the silence, the brazen blows from below sounded Ogygian: some ritual call to intercession. Then Lymond said, ‘Who has been in? The keepers? The carters, for example?’
Abernaci shook his head. ‘Not the keepers. They’re my own lads. And not the carters; not with the cats ready to travel. They’re excited enough without a wheen of heavy-footed labourers stirring them up. We had the joiners to look at the travelling cages, and the butcher’s cart, and the man with the buckets, and fifteen bushels of hempseed for the canaries; but they all stayed outside, and had one of my men with them forbye. As for the ones we let in … there were your four selves, and the Prince of Condé, to see a bear he’s betting on, and the children—Queen Mary and the Dauphin and the aunt Lady Fleming and her boy, and Pellaquin, a man of mine that looks after the wee Queen’s pets—’
‘Why did they come?’
‘It was about a leveret, a sick leveret that needed a dose. They’re aye giving her wee things. Pellaquin’s about daft with it, because she won’t turn them off when they’re full grown. He’s having a grand time, I can tell you, with a full-sized she-wolf the now … Oh. The Marshal de St. André was with her, and his wife. The leveret was their present. Nobody else … No. I’m telling a lie. George Douglas came to
‘The Queen Mother’s very words. What a pity; they’ve got the gate open. That’s Stewart’s carping tract of sweet Berla-speech, I’ll swear. And that’s the final tally? How very competent, Archie. Unless someone simply wants to put down some mice, we have at least a list of possible culprits.’
Abernaci grinned. At the door he said, ‘Well, look out. It’s tasteless, and there’s just about no known antidote.’
For a moment Lymond, irritated, did not answer. Then he said succinctly, ‘Every crumb the little Queen eats has been tested first, from the time she left Rouen.’
The Keeper snorted. ‘What d’you test it on? Her aunty?’
‘One of your animals. If you’re dead keen, I’ll make it the she-wolf,’ said Lymond. ‘In Brehon Law, they call it setting the charmed morsel for the dog. We want to see them try out that arsenic. Because then, with a little luck, my dear, we shall know who they are.’
They were packing the monkeys in baskets as, returning, the three Irishmen and Robin Stewart passed the little garden of pets. Mary was helping, a piece of bandage on her other hand, and her red hair streaked over her face. The she-wolf was still in its cage, and a bear, together with a wild pig and the female parent of the leveret, wearing a small, gold-chased collar. Its name, Suzanne, was picked out visibly in stones uncommonly like emeralds. The twenty-two lapdogs now whirling in squeak-girt and telepathic unrest in the castle were collared also, Robin Stewart informed them, in precious ore. His grimly ossified face relaxed, however, when the little girl turned, and he answered her questions as readily as acute uneasiness would allow. Robin Stewart was unused to children.