Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett
By dint of the same leverage, they released themselves, one by one, as the group of men neared the top of the ruelle. Eight full barrels, naturally, would have occasioned a profound maceration. Eight empty barrels were not very pleasant: they knocked every man off his feet and then kicked him belabouring down all the stairs and into the arms of the soldiers.
Lymond watched them judicially, calling out strikes and setting off each barrel at the required angle. Towards the end he found some boules and bounced them down as well: they hailed upon barrels and footpads and trilled, with ringing reproach, on the rising helmets of the pikemen beyond them.
‘As Snailes do wast within the shel
And unto slime do run
As one before his tyme that fel
And never saw the sunne …
‘Whoops! That was Adam,’ said Francis Crawford, watching open-eyed the progress of his latest invention. ‘Serve him bloody well right. Syne Sweirness, at the secound bidding, Came lyk a sow out of a midding. Am I running about; are you running about so that the fat officers of the Christian Crown of France can lie in the Hôtel de Gouvernement, taking advantage of the wife of the Maréchal? Mind you,’ and he chose a spot at the top of the steps and sat down, surveying the scene with continuing interest, ‘no one could say that we hadn’t brought ourselves now to the attention of this majestic metropolis.’
Philippa sat down as well rather weakly, and watched. The barrels, trundling down, had done their worst with the miscreants and were now cutting swathes through the rescue team. The boules, flashing in the new torchlight, ricocheted still from step to wall to other less fortunate targets. She saw Adam, getting up, fend off another just before it capsized him and Danny Hislop, behind, caper hurriedly. She further realized that what she was seeing was not the effect of miscalculation.
Perched beside her, a clutch of gaming balls in his lap, Francis Crawford was making his own strictures felt with all the artistry of a practising juggler. Danny, sweetly struck on a fine point of balance, disappeared as she made her discovery and the sergeant, a man of some presence, flung his arms up and tumbled back, shouting. Restored at a stroke, Philippa cheered and jumped to her feet, seizing a boule as she did so. She aimed, and shied.
Melodiously, Lymond supported her: ‘And eek the buttokes of hem faren as it were the hyndre part of a she-ape in the full of the moone.’ His voice was husky with laughter. ‘Go on. The one with the beard. He’s an Anglophobe if ever I saw one.’
The one with the beard disappeared. Behind him, in slow succession disappeared also the Prévôt des Marchands and the column of officials and magistrates who had been mounting the ruelle behind him.
Whooping, Lymond sprang to his feet and in his face was child and man; Kuzúm and Francis Crawford; triumph and mischief and a ridiculous, thoughtless delight that made her seize his hands and fling them apart and say, ‘Francis! Francis, you fool. This is what you should be!’
A cock crew, far away, disturbed by the uproar.
And as in that grotesque shrouded room, the air deadened. The noise below her sank into dumbness; the colours faded; the brightness dwindled and perished in ashes.
‘What a very uncomfortable remark,’ Lymond said. His face, from wholly blank, became blankly benignant. He said, ‘Perhaps I should. I’m afraid I am more like Abraham. A godly man, you remember, but the denial of his wife … was such a fact as no godly man ought to imitate.’
He stopped. His fingers, courteous prisoners, remained suspended inside her grasp, clearly desiring freedom but unwilling to impose it.
Philippa opened her hands and released him; and as if she had once more restored him his tongue he went on, with gentle apology. ‘But I am no godly man. I’m only a commander of some experience, who knows how to ask a tired army to throw its heart into a citadel and follow it. Forgive me.’
He straightened. ‘Here is Archie. And, good God, the Schiatti cousins, a bouquet in one hand and a bell in the other. They will see you safely home.’ He smiled at her. ‘Clever child. Even for a Somerville, my dear, it was an irresistible performance.’
He smiled again, turning to leave her. Assured, experienced, equal to any minor contretemps, however embarrassing, he had saved her from blundering further. Sitting motionless on the steps she watched him stroll down to address Adam and Danny and give them their orders; to dispose of the men they had caught; to seek out the injured; to visit and arrest the three merchants whose names the boy Paul had given them. His voice carried to her, propounding, instructing; replying. Despite his rough hair and clothes his authority, his command of himself and of others had never been more in evidence. She had been a fool, of the kind she and Kate had no patience with.
She had been artless, and addled, and excitable. She had demanded his friendship, and at his instance had lightly abjured what might follow: Latreia, the superior worship of adoration, and Douleia, the inferior worship of honour or reverence. He had given her friendship and hoped perhaps against hope to receive in return nothing more.
But the wine had been too strong for her, as it had for the others; and like the others she had stepped from the safe shores of friendship. She stood now in another country, whose sun burned and whose air was too rare for her breathing. And she stood there alone, with the words of a warning for company:
Tant que je vive …
Long as I live, my heart will never vary
For no one else, however fair or good
Brave, resolute or rich, of gentle blood.
My choice is made, and I will have no other.
*
Four hours after that, at six o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, August 17th, a royal courier swept with his train down the Gourguillon and hammered at the Hôtel de Gouvernement portals. He was admitted at once, and after a long delay, was brought to speak to the King’s chief envoy, M. de Sevigny.
At eight o’clock the Consulat were notified that their presence was required by M. Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny. By nine, the Crown officials were with him. By that time he had also seen the captain of the city guard, and had given orders to his own officers, his men at arms and his servants. And before anyone, had spoken to Madame la Maréchale de St André, going with measured pace about her dispositions, a little more erect, a little less superbly groomed than was usual.
At noon, in his first free five minutes that morning, Adam Blacklock dropped exhausted into a settle and heard tolling round him the bronze bells of Lyon, mourning the news which had laid low the city. The news of a defeat in the north such as no French army had suffered since Agincourt.
On St Lawrence’s Day, with twenty-four thousand men and the chivalry of his country behind him, the Constable of France had set out for Saint-Quentin, besieged by the troops of King Philip.
Old-fashioned and cross-grained and headstrong, the Constable had compounded, it seemed, blunder on blunder. He had tried to send a relief force through the marshes. The saga that followed was painful: a tale of sunk boats and labouring marches, of mistaken paths and faulty spy-work and a childish stubbornness beyond anyone’s crediting. The results, spreading outwards in shock through the nation, were such as to reduce men to silence.
Only four hundred and fifty men had managed to enter Saint-Quentin. The rest had been cut to pieces by Count Egmont, the lieutenant-general of the King of Spain’s cavalry.
They said twelve thousand had been killed, and in one day the manhood of the best houses in France either dead or wounded or prisoner. Among the missing were Guthrie and Hoddim, the two Scottish captains turned off by M. de Sevigny. Among the dead were the Counts of Villars and Enghien. Among the wounded and captured, the Constable himself and his son; the Dukes of Montpensier and Longueville, François de La Rochefoucauld and Jean d’Albon, Maréchal de St André, Governor of the King’s city of Lyon.
Two French leaders had escaped. The Duke of Nevers and the Prince of Condé remained near Saint-Quentin to reform and make fresh levies. But the thousand men in Saint-Quentin, under A
What had to be done now was obvious, even if the King had not sent to command it. Until help came, Lyon must rely on its present small force under Adam himself backed by Hislop. And Lymond must go to Paris, where the court, fled from Compiègne, was to entrench itself.
For in the absence of captains and Constable, of de Guise and Strozzi in Italy, of de Thermes and Brissac in Piedmont, there was no one left to save France, if the King of Spain marched upon Paris.
Adam thought, his face sombre, of Fergie Hoddim and Alec Guthrie. And of the contrivance which had sent Lymond away from the King’s eye in the first place, and which now looked like bringing him the rôle of saviour of France which the Constable and the Duke de Guise had both coveted. To stand at the side of this monarch as he had stood by the Tsar. And to face, in the oddest upshot of all, an English army under Lord Grey of Wilton.
Five minutes’ rest was all Adam could afford, and he was already on his feet when yet another summons came from de Sevigny, brought this time by Danny, curtly efficient, with none of his usual ebullience. He did not know what Lymond wanted, or who was with him on this occasion. Adam shut the windows against the beat of the bells, and went off soberly.
In the event there was no one there at all but Lymond himself, seated as he had been all morning at his desk in front of the tall latticed windows, the motionless heart of the hurricane. Round him, the scattered benches and stools were now vacant. And against the wall, neatly stacked, were the leather bags, the boxes, the coffers ready strapped for the journey to Paris. His desk was empty, and the extra candles extinguished. Embedded, flinty and pure as a cameo against the dark boards of his chair-back Lymond said, ‘Shut the door. I have four questions to ask you.’
Three of them concerned recent orders and, thank God, he had excellent answers. The fourth stemmed from the impending visit of Catherine, heiress of the captured St André, who would require to return north with her mother.
Five minutes sufficed to dispose of it all. Adam rose. There was nothing more to be said. It was a moment of crisis, and war their métier. He was half-way to the door when Lymond spoke again. ‘By the way. Who brought me home early this morning?’
So there was something more to be said. His voice neutral: ‘Archie,’ he answered. ‘Helped by your friend Macé Bonhomme the printer. There were no spectators. Archie sent a message ahead and Danny and I opened the door to the three of you.’
‘Thank you. Where is Archie?’ said Lymond.
‘He called back ten minutes ago. Do you want to see him?’ asked Adam.
From the square below came all the clatter and cursing and stamping of a body of men saddling up for an expedition. The tolling bells, near and far, slipped through the hubbub. Two of Lymond’s household, tapping, were permitted to enter and began, without wasting time, to carry out all the baggage. Lymond looked at the hour glass. He said, ‘I can give him five minutes.’
Adam went out. By the time he found Archie Abernethy and pushed his way back through the turmoil, the last of Lymond’s luggage was out and Adam saw that the hour glass was empty. In civil warning: ‘Watch out,’ he observed to his colleague, and closing the door, left Archie to Lymond’s cold mercy.
Had he stayed, he would have heard Lymond say nothing.
Instead it was Archie who stood inside the door, lips tight and naked head glaring and said, ‘Ye senseless bluidy tup-heidit madman!’ with venom.
Seated still at his desk, his hands loose on the smooth oak before him, Francis Crawford did not answer; nor did he interrupt the long tirade that followed. Only when it was finished did he say, without lifting his eyes, ‘You make your point. Who else was at Macé Bonhomme’s?’
Archie Abernethy, without looking, sat down on the stool just beside him. ‘Of course. Ye were blind …’
‘Of course. You know how much I drank better than I do. Who else was at Macé Bonhomme’s?’
‘A barber-surgeon,’ said Archie. ‘A short, brosy chiel’ with grey whiskers staying wi’ Macé. They cried him Michel. And Macé himself, that was all. Twa men of by-ordnar’ discretion. If ye expect to ride post to Paris, I expect to ride with ye.’
There was a very long pause. ‘Hence the cuirass and spurs,’ remarked Lymond. ‘I wondered. And what about Mistress Philippa?’
‘I thought you knew,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘She left Lyon early this morning. To go to Sevigny, I rather fancy. She didna need me, so the Schiatti sent her off with a nice puckle of pikemen, and twa of their weel-pitten-on nephews.’
In the shadow, the Captain-General’s eyes were inimical. He said, ‘You told me you were her man.’
‘I am,’ said Archie Abernethy shortly and got up. He walked to the desk. ‘There’s your riding jacket. And there, if you have some water, is a physic I got for the headache. And that’—and removing a crumpled paper from his pouch, he tossed it between Francis Crawford’s unoccupied hands—‘is what you had in your fist when we found you. I took it away. It’s not what you want every burgher to gab about.’
He did not need to read it again but he did, stretching the blood-stiffened folds, until the writing of thirty years since was quite legible.
The record of death of a human being called Francis Crawford.
Part II
Sur le milieu du grand monde la rose
Pour nouveaux faits sang public épandu
A dire vray on aura bouche close
Lors au besoin viendra tard l’attendu.
Chapter 1
La cité obsesse aux murs hommes et femmes
Ennemis hors le chef prestz à soy rendres
Vent sera fort encontre les gens-darmes:
Chassés seront par chaux, poussiere et cendre.
‘I told you,’ said the Queen of Scotland, her head bowed, her hands clasped in worship. ‘The carpet is muddy. And Catherine d’Albon does not have her feet bare.’
Her voice, although not shrill for her age, was quite distinct enough to vanquish the organs. Catherine d’Albon glanced round. Black sackcloth, there was no doubt, set off brunette hair. It was best of all, naturally, with auburn.
‘Your grace, she has a dispensation from Monseigneur your uncle,’ Mary Fleming said in an undertone. ‘Because of her hurried journey to and from Lyon, and grief for her father.’ The other maids of honour prayed with assiduity.
‘Her father?’ said Mary Queen of Scotland. ‘The Marshal de St André is only a prisoner. He was taken when the Constable was taken. Monseigneur my uncle says that but for the mistakes of the Constable, Saint-Quentin would never have fallen. The King says that those who failed to execute his orders have brought the army low, and in future he will act alone as God inspires him. Until, of course, Monseigneur my other uncle returns from Italy.’
She scowled forbiddingly at the members of her little suite, wrinkling the white skin and picking out particularly the four Scottish maidens called Mary. ‘You are not afraid that the King of Spain will march into Paris? He would never dare. The Queen Regent my mother will send such armies into England that no English troops can be spared to fight for a foreigner. And God is on our side. He looks down on us today. The noblest blood in France walks barefoot in penitence from the Sainte Chapelle to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, bearing the relics of the Passion on their shoulders. How can King Philip, who makes war on the Pope, expect to conquer us?’
No one answered her. A twilight of smoky crimson and violet enclosed them. The tented glass, sixty feet high, soared above them, densely diapered in blue and cramoisy, exotic as tissues from India. The King, the Cardinal, the Bishop had completed their business high in the shining gold tribune and the Reliquary was raised to its place on men’s shoulders. Jewels glowed; silver-gilt sparkled; incense thickened. In a series of angular movements, the noblesse of France dropped to its stiff knees in reverence.
Mary Fleming not
If the King of Spain marched from Saint-Quentin to Paris, there were few with as much to lose as Mary of Scotland. Then the wedding, so long planned by messeigneurs her uncles between herself and the Dauphin, would never take place. She would never be Queen of France. Nor would she be sent back to Scotland, to make trouble for Spain. More likely she would be taken to Spain, Mary thought, and married to King Philip’s idiot child. Or to King Philip himself, if his English Queen died. And thus in one stroke he would join Scotland, England and Spain in one monarchy.
Small wonder she would not believe that Paris could be in danger. Mary Fleming looked at the thin, auburn-haired imperious mistress before her and drawing on the lessons of nine years of service realized that, as usual, she had mistaken her courage. Cousin Mary knew of the danger. Cousin Mary was sick with fears for the future. But to display it, or allow her entourage to display it, would be less than royal.
The shrine passed, containing the Crown of Thorns, the Sponge and the Lancehead. The courtiers stood, in a crackle of stretched bones and sackcloth. The procession formed, with the cross borne before it. The twelve stone Apostles watched it pass with blank eyes, smooth and calm in their beauty. Against the tall smoking fires of the stained glass the empty tribune was now hardly tangible. Ultramarine and bistre and viridian, the rose-window hung over the interlaced carvings, the painted pillars and fine fretted arches running with angels; and shone bright and jade green and wholesome as the apple trees of Compiègne.
Compiègne. Where once before, Mary had displayed a passing fretfulness, and for the same reason. Mary Fleming carried her thought down the forty-four steps of the staircase and through the cemetery and out of the Palais and along the narrow streets to the Parvis of Notre-Dame, where no one could talk because all Paris was watching, and even the mills on the bridge stilled their throbbing and clattering.