Queens' Play by Dorothy Dunnett
They saw the white face of Laurens de Genstan look up, and St. André himself pausing, a foot on the stone to keep steady. The rope jerked, and the mighty bass bell of St. Lomer bawled out over the sleeping vale of the Loire. The rope swung, and again the bell spoke. St. André, close enough to be deafened, looked up frantically, and then down at his partner. Then he pronounced a stream of curses, heard rarely on land or sea, but properly suited to a position halfway up a cable lashed to the hand rope of a church bell. The choice was simple. They could lose the race, or climb the bell rope for all Blois to hear.
The Marshal de St. André did not even hesitate. Fist over fist he sped up the rope, and de Genstan after him; and as the great tocsin boomed and bellowed over the country, the remaining lights of Blois sprang to life until town and palace on their two hills sparkled in the black night like an oasis of pleasure, a queer winter revelry of some antique city of vice. With pikes rattling the town guard answered the alarm. Streaming with them, nightcapped, sheeted, quilted, the citizenry sank through the streets to St. Lomer like fussing aphids set awash in a flowerpot. The château blazed.
The belfry was empty, but for the silent tenor Marie and the great moving mouth of the bass bell, lumbering to a halt. On the floor, the penultimate paper gave them their key word, and their final clue. To win, they had to reach the château, and the Archer on duty outside the King’s suite.
A wooden platform had been built out, extending the size of the bell chamber, and a small handrope railed it. A metal post, strutted into the stone, held one end of the cable which rose upwards before their eyes, shining in the new light, above the ravine separating the church of St. Lomer from the château on its rock. Two-thirds of the way along, arms scissoring, legs swaying, an angular figure was moving, suspended above the vault. A second was already over, climbing the crowded wall, busying himself, distantly and mysteriously, on the far side. Three yards, or four, and Stewart would have landed also.
St. André reached the platform and ducked under the rail. As on the far side Stewart struggled off the cable to the blessed safety of the château wall, the Marshal de St. André bent, found a grip, and swung off into space.
Short of murder, the cable could not now be cut. And there was a chance—a slim but real chance—of snatching the lead in that crowded courtyard where, as he could see, the huddle of bobbing heads had not parted even to let Thady Boy and Robin Stewart through. St. André was three arm spans from the church wall, and de Genstan was just stopping to grip the wire when a roar of acclaim—a double roar—reached his ears. Hung in black space, arms cracking, palms hard on the rope, he looked to his right.
On the wall of the château a queer, misshapen bulk had appeared. On its flanking harness holstered torches spluttered and burned. Under its knees and haunches a wooden platform was bound. Between its heavy ears, black and gross in the wild, smoking darkness, were two rolling eyes and a lip that curled back, showing long teeth and an open throat that lanced the cheers, the screaming, the laughter, the remembered beats of the great bell, with an ear-splitting bray. Tosh’s donkey, untied and in full working array, was about to make its solo celebrated cable-swoop on the church of St. Lomer. With all the power of his shoulders St. André set himself, grimly, to race back to the safety of the church.
It was Tosh’s donkey’s finest moment. With a whine and a hiss she left the wall and, torches streaming, tail flying, ears laid back and braying fit to drive back the waters of the Loire, whizzed over the abyss on smoking timber to plunge, hot, hairy and kicking, into the crowded belfry of St. Lomer.
What St. André said was never recorded. What the donkey said rang from wall to wall and spire to spire and house to house of Blois. Robin Stewart, watching filthy, exhausted and triumphant from the walls of the château, cried tears of laughter at the sound until he found himself swung off his feet and riding shoulder-high side by side with his friend through courtiers, colleagues, well-wishers, failed competitors, over the courtyard to the castle.
John Stewart, Lord d’Aubigny, on duty in the King’s cabinet, came out at the noise, already sufficiently irritated by his overdue Archer. But the scene in the wide guardroom had in it such a flamboyant smell of success that his lordship paused. His Archer and the Court’s darling, Master Ballagh, in a state only describable as revolting, led a vociferous and excited crowd, struggling to tack up on the beautiful woodwork a paper which Robin Stewart had just finished writing, in his round, difficult hand, to the ollave’s dictation.
Honneur
Espérance
Noblesse
Renommée
Justice
Diligence
Equité
Vérité
Amour
Libéralité
Obédience
Intelligence
Sapience
His lordship of Aubigny smiled, and moved forward to congratulate them.
Much later, when the wine was finished and the songs were wavering, Robin Stewart, half-clean in borrowed clothes, went back to duty, still a little tending to pant, a stressful ache in his larynx and throat base and a shrunken cabbage inside his ribs.
All the rest of him was happy. He had attempted to analyze the night’s events with Thady Boy, but the ollave had cut him short. ‘You did a good thing or two this night, Robin Stewart. A few small exploits more, and you have this Court eating out of the palm of your hand … do you never want to see your fingers again.’
He had been embarrassed. ‘If the King ever hears of it. According to d’Aubigny he’s been out the whole night, and came in the back way only just now with his nose white; and the Constable behind him with his nose red. The lady didn’t suit him tonight, I jalouse.’
‘He’ll hear of it.’ Thady, trailing his recovered doublet, was at the guardroom door. Stewart suddenly wanted to stop him. ‘Ballagh, listen …’
Patiently the fat man turned. ‘I have been making terrible free with the Robin, so you had better put your tongue to Thady Boy.’
Full of drink and success and his new, frail, fledgling trust, the Archer stood over him. ‘Leave O’LiamRoe. Leave him,’ he said. ‘Yon serena was gey funny, and he fairly needed the lesson, but it isn’t enough. Leave him. He’s no good. They’ll spoil you, the lot of them—och, it’s recognition, I know, of a sort: the kind I once thought I was desperate to have. But it’ll wreck you, body and mind. Better find an honest master and do an honest day’s work; and if success comes, you can be proud of it.’
His friend Thady Boy was able, at least, to put something of its proper value on this newborn and unwonted solicitude. After a second he said, ‘The O’LiamRoe and I will part soon enough in Ireland. We talked of this once before. If you dislike the Court so much, why not leave?’
Stewart’s unpractised, eager emotion carried him forward too quickly. ‘And come to Ireland with you?’
There was a pause. Then, relaxing, Stewart heard what he had wanted to hear. ‘If you wish to,’ said Thady Boy slowly, and bearing Stewart’s inarticulate pleasure with patience, won his way at last out of the room. Presently he lost the last of his escorts and was able to make his way straight to Jenny Fleming’s pretty room.
She was not in bed; not even surprised, it seemed, to see him, although it was nearly dawn and the paint on her face, over the feathered bedrohe, was cracked and moist. ‘Francis …? I gather you have sounded the tocsin and ruined the sleep of every living person in Blois. Margaret will be beating her breast.’
He stood stock-still inside the door, his doublet thrown over one burst and filthy shoulder. ‘Pray tell me, Lady Fleming … Why is no one on duty outside the Queen’s door?’
Jenny Fleming never shirked an issue; she enjoyed it. Backing up the velvet steps to the great bed, she perched on the end. ‘Do I need to tell you?’
His eyes and voice remained bleak. ‘No. The King has been here, and probably the Constable. Is the child always unguarded when the King comes?’
Mary’s room adjoined
‘But not always. What happened tonight?’
‘Happened?’ Her fair lashes rose like stars with the stretching of her brows. Then as Lymond’s stare stayed immovable, she laughed. ‘The Duchesse de Valentinois surprised the King leaving my room. She accused the King of being unfaithful, and the King was hurt to the quick at the lady’s lack of faith. “Madame, il n’y a là aucun mal. Je n’ai fait que bavarder”.’
Her laughter, light as it was, had the finest edge to it. ‘Are you wondering if he cut her off after fifteen years? If so, you are wrong. He apologized.’
‘And Diane?’
‘Accused the Constable of procuring. There was a considerable scene, with some high language, at the end of which the Duchess and the Constable were not on speaking terms. The King promised not to see me again. He also promised’—she laughed—‘not to tell the Duke or the Cardinal of Lorraine.’
‘And,’ said Lymond, ‘where were you all this time?’
‘Here,’ said Jenny simply. ‘At the keyhole, listening.’ She rose lightly and, drifting down the steps in a shiver of satin, came close and caught his two wrists. She clicked her tongue. ‘What a state to come visiting in. It was rather silly, and very amusing. Margaret will laugh. No, perhaps she won’t. But in point of fact, it doesn’t matter. The maîtresse en titre was a little late. Whether he likes it or not the King will have to admit, I fear, that he did a little more than gossip.’
And holding his hands, she laid one over the other to her heart. ‘Feel it beat strongly, my dear. It rings out like your tocsin for a son or a daughter of France.’
The violence of his disengagement staggered her. Strong wine and stretched muscles disregarded, Lymond strode to the window and stayed there, gripping his anger hard until he could speak.
‘ “A girl of spirit need never lack children,” as was said on another celebrated occasion. You are with child by the King of France. It will be born when?’
Straight-backed she eyed him. ‘In May.’
‘Do you imagine, after what happened tonight, that the King will install you instead of Diane?’
The red hair fell streaming over her silken robe, and her brown Stewart eyes shone. ‘I think,’ said Jenny Stewart, Lady Fleming, ‘you are forgetting who I am.’
Fat, battered and dirty, a hireling, an adventurer, a guest in her room, he showed not one shred of the mercy he had shown to a Scots Archer.
‘You are a bastard,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘Your son will be a bastard. Who is the Duchess? A cousin of the Queen. The wealthiest woman in France. The finest huntress in Europe. The patron of every high official at the Court. The ruler of Henri’s lightest action for fifteen long years. The virtual ruler of France for three years. Her boudoir is the political axis of the kingdom; the Cardinal dines daily at her table; the children of France are her creation by training, if not by bearing. Her position is known, recognized, assured, accepted in public, long accepted by the Queen, free of scandal, stable, built into the King’s daily routine. There is no woman alive, were she Guinevra herself, who could eject her now.’
She stood by the bedpost listening to him, her eyes sparkling with anger, and one blue-veined arm caressed the ebony. ‘Will you take a wager?’ said Jenny.
Levelly, Lymond answered. ‘You will be sent back to Scotland with a pension, my lady. That is your fortune. But first, nothing can now stop a scandal. And every name the bourgeoisie of France chooses to call you will attach itself, in double measure, to the Queen.’
‘Nonsense.’ For Jenny, her voice was sharp. ‘We are not touching on hay parties and inn wenches and simple fun in a close, my dear. Things are arranged a little differently at Court.’
‘Do you think,’ said Lymond softly in a voice which recalled, suddenly, many things—‘Do you think I don’t know exactly how they are arranged?’
There was a long silence, and it was Jenny’s gaze which dropped first. He said, ‘How often are the pages and the maids of honour dismissed?’
‘Once or twice a week. She couldn’t possibly come to harm.’ She paused, and said sulkily, ‘It won’t happen again, in any case. He won’t come back here.’
‘—You will go to him. By all means, if you want to. You can hardly do any more harm. Within the unguarded doors, what could be tampered with?’
She was already a good deal exasperated. ‘They were locked. And the Constable—’
‘I heard you. Every locksmith in the kingdom knows how to make false keys. Do you keep drugs here?’
‘No.’
‘Drink of any kind?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Lymond, and flinging from the window, caught her by her two shoulders. ‘Think. You want Mary to die; and you can get access secretly to her room and to the cabinet. What harm might you do?’
Jenny’s eyes flamed back at him. ‘Nothing. She’s perfectly safe; has been always. Do you think we shouldn’t hear …?’
‘No,’ said Lymond brutally. ‘I don’t. Think. What could be done with that arsenic?’
From below his fingers she dropped to sit, her hair fallen, her back straight as a rod in spite of all she had been through. She had never looked more a King’s daughter than now, when her face told its own story.
‘I suppose … there are … the sweets: the cotignac,’ she said.
Eight-year-old, sweet-loving Mary. The Duchess de Valentinois had forbidden her sweetmeats and Janet, Lady Fleming, had made them for her; giggling together over a midnight fire: the Queen, the small maids of honour, James and Jenny. From Chastain, the apothecary, they had the cinnamon and the sugar—four pounds of it, at ten sols a pound. Nothing was too much trouble. Jacques Alexander had supplied the boxes. The kitchens, secretly, had provided the fruit. Peeled, quartered and cored, the quinces had been boiled and strained and pounded in a stone mortar with the sugar and spice, all the children beating in turn; and then the paste was boxed and, after a little, cut into strips.
They had done all that a long time ago. The boxes, stacked in Jenny’s garde-robe, full of thick fingers dusted sugary white, had become fewer and fewer, until less than half a dozen were now left.
With Jenny silent beside him, Lymond pulled out box after box, piling them opened on the floor. All looked innocent and all looked alike. From the last one he lifted some of the sweetmeat, marked the lid, and closed it. Then he left the room and Jenny could hear his voice, two doors away, and one of the loyal grooms, Geoffrey de Sainct, answering. Her son James, whom she had sent away earlier in the night, suddenly appeared, sleepy-eyed from next door, and she made him go back. Then Lymond returned.
‘Put the boxes away in your own coffer, and lock it. Tomorrow, search everything in these rooms and tell me if anything has been disturbed. We shall know shortly if the cotignac was touched.’
‘How?’ Her face, drained of its vivid daytime colour, was still pretty and positive.
‘The old lapdog has been given some. You needn’t weep for him.’ The hostile, soft voice made not the slightest concession. ‘He deserves an end to his misery.’ He paused. ‘You realize, of course, that the Queen’s life is in danger; that poison is known to be missing; and that every morsel she has eaten since she came to Blois has been protected, tested and passed as safe first, except for your cotignac? Do you expect your love child to inherit the throne?’
Roused, she answered with asperity. ‘If we are to be serious, we still needn’t be silly. If you think something has gone wrong, then do what you can to put it right. I shall help as far as I can. But to be frank, I think this commotion is a little foolish. You have no shadow of proof that the cotignac or anything else has been touched.…’ Her voice soften
He had not even listened; had only paused, half turned to the door, to run his eyes for the last time over her possessions: the table, the bed, the coffer, the shelves, the prie-dieu, the chairs. Between his eyes, a thin line of sleeplessness showed.
Jenny said again, ‘Francis? I am going to need help. I don’t want to quarrel.’
‘Are we quarrelling?’ said Lymond.
‘We were insulting one another like brother and sister.’ She paused. ‘I must go to bed, my dear. Am I forgiven?’ She had laid her hand, still endearingly young, on his steady arm. Now she slid her fingers up, and drawing him gently downwards, kissed him full on the mouth.
Under hers, his lips were taut and wholly inexpressive. But her own kiss was warm and loving, and she held him lightly, so that he breathed in her natural freshness, her costly scents and her human harmlessness.
She had thought, if she had thought at all, that he was tired enough to respond. But his fingers opened and he stepped smoothly back, boredom and a jaded, forbearing courtesy dry as meal on his face. ‘I ceased discriminating a long time ago. Good night, Lady Fleming,’ said Lymond; and in the precise pressure on her name and her title she glimpsed at last the chasm that lay and always would lie between them. Then the door closed at his back.
Behind him, as he crossed the courtyard, the night sky was already aware of the dawn. Beside the black coil of the staircase, the guardroom windows were lit, and opposite, men’s voices stirred from the chapel. The guards, appointed at every door, paid no attention. Thady Boy’s nocturnal habits were nothing new; and ignorance, at this Court, was often best.
He climbed the staircase to his own wing automatically and blundered once, blindly, crossing a passage. Robin Stewart had remembered it with pleassure; Jenny Fleming as yet knew nothing about it; but Lymond had lived that evening with the memory of Oonagh O’Dwyer’s serenade and the knowledge that there awaited him in his room neither sleep nor peace but the Prince of Barrow.