by Checkmate
‘Such as the fact that you are keeping her in France while I am fighting for the opposite side,’ observed Austin.
‘I am not,’ said Crawford acidly, ‘keeping her in France in my present situation. Tu me verrois secher sous le poids de mes fers/Comme un troupeau que voit un berger de travers. She may promptly depart for Scotland. There is still a slight hitch. The French bought my loyalty with an awe-bond. Unless I fight for them for a year, my marriage to Philippa will not be annulled.’
For a moment, such was his dislike of the conversation, it seemed to Austin that the arrogant, unprincipled man opposite him was asking him to abet an attempt at escape. He said, ‘The fact that you have been captured in French service could hardly …’ and broke off suddenly.
‘… be held against me? Unfortunately, the fact that I have turned informer most certainly would. There is really only one thing they can do in retaliation, and that is to make sure that wherever I go, I can never legitimately marry. A pity. My mistress, they tell me, has sold her favours elsewhere, but the Tsar had made me another and most attractive offer. You have not, I take it, any intimate acquaintance with Russian womanhood?’
Austin Grey made no effort to answer. Instead he said, ‘I think this discussion has ceased to serve any useful purpose. I have to report to my uncle.’
‘Because,’ said Crawford, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘you ought to remember that Philippa has been trained in Turkey and will expect certain standards if you mean to make an impression, whether as her first client or her bigamous husband. I could provide some instruction.’
Austin walked to the door.
‘Or a demonstration?’ said the other man wistfully. ‘You can’t be keeping all these randy English contented in Ham without some help from a hot-house. I’m afraid my keepers have locked you in and gone off. Perhaps they are consoling themselves. Have you ever killed anyone. Austin?’
‘No.’ said Austin. He ceased hammering on the door and swung round, his colour hot in each cheek. ‘I am an easy object for all your mockery. I have never killed a man or taken a woman, or betrayed my nation or those who are paying me …’ He controlled himself, hard. He said, ‘I have waited a long time for Philippa. I can wait still.’
‘You can,’ said Crawford reminiscently, ‘but I fear the Schiatti cousins won’t, whose willingness be the touchstone and trial of their fidelity. I should hurry … They may sell her by inch of candle if you don’t get her home soon, and simply no one can outbid a banker.’
At last, at last the idiot keepers came to the door and Austin left swiftly without speaking, his head high, controlling his nausea. An effusion, gently derisive, tainted the close air behind him.
‘And from the sword (Lord) save my soule
By thy myght and power …’
The door of the prison chamber shut and locked. The voice, lower keyed, persisted floridly.
‘And keep my Soule, thy darling deare,
From dogs that would devour …’
Austin was out of hearing. Alone, Francis Crawford continued, lightly, stubbornly with his amusement.
‘And from the Lion’s mouth that would
Me all in sunder shiver
And from the hornes … of Unicornes
They were watching him through the Judas-grille.
‘Oh, Christ!’ said Francis Crawford on a sudden, harsh breath. His voice split on it, curiously. He flung himself off the table and snatching up the quill pen hurled it with violence this time straight for the opening.
The peep-hole door rattled shut. He subsided with force on a field-chest, his face driven into the arch of his fingers, and might have slept, for all anyone saw to the contrary.
*
Three days later, they moved him under stiff guard from Ham to le Catelet, on his way north-east to safer detention at Brussels. Until Mr Crawford’s disclosures were shown to be genuine, my lord Grey was not fool enough to allow Mr Crawford to abscond to Russia or anywhere else.
Austin Grey, Marquis of Allendale, captained the troop that took Lymond to le Catelet, past the reedy ponds and the sky-blue stitchery of the willows; the huddles of russet roofs round their spire, the apples shining like green coins in their flourish of green, the small birds swooping dark on the sky, their bodies glinting pale and short in the sun.
The prisoner ignored his surroundings. But Austin, his imagination already in the dark cell which Philippa’s husband must occupy, saw every faint detail of the journey: the verdigris grain on a dry, long-culled meadow; the stagnant pool, high and still, with lily stems twined in its cloudy green depths and the yellow petals of beech arriving and sinking, pensive leaded memorials, to their dissolution.
They rode in silence through it all: a small, swift unit of fifteen men in plate armour, bearing the red bands of England and inviting no attention from the French-held forts of Péronne and of Guise just over either horizon. The only unarmed man, engulfed in their midst, was their eminent prisoner, soberly dressed for better concealment, with his hands bound and the famous hair hidden.
Crawford had not wished to leave Ham. So much had been subtly apparent both to Austin Grey and his uncle with whom the prisoner had been called to a short, unsatisfactory interview the day before their departure. Lord Grey had pointed out briskly that there were some odd discrepancies between the garrison numbers Mr Crawford had given him and those reports which Lord Grey’s spies were delivering. Furthermore, Mr Crawford’s account of the plan for the taking of Calais appeared to be based on an odd misconception. The Ruisbank fort was not where Mr Crawford’s plan showed it.
M. de Sevigny had displayed anger when doubted. But he had not, although he spoke with great vigour, entirely cleared their minds of all suspicion. Lord Grey of Wilton had decided that the safest course was to send him to Brussels. They would look extremely foolish if the attack after all were to be directed against himself at Ham, and Crawford were to saunter out, sneering. It would be in character. Whereas at Brussels …
He had not told Austin, because the boy, he well knew, was a milksop. But in Brussels there were ways, denied to him as a gentleman, of checking whether an informant was lying. No doubt Mr Crawford, a man of the world, was aware of them. It would more than explain his present lack of enthusiasm for the journey.
It had not been a silent cavalcade on leaving Ham. Austin Grey, with his prisoner’s reins in his grasp, had dropped from his manner all but the meaningless requirements of courtesy. Lymond was bent, on the other hand, on provoking him.
‘Why let me have it all my own way? Talk, Tancred,’ he said lazily over the hoofbeats. ‘Or are you afraid your uncle’s men will accuse you of fraternizing? But surely they know you have a mind above bribes, even when your less weak-bellied uncle is sending me to have my bones pulled and my hands broken at Brussels? After all, I have only one thing you want, and you wouldn’t find it any harder to get than any other fool with his eye on a married woman. Toutes serez, êtes ou fûtes/De fait ou de volonté, putes.’
He laughed at the expression on Austin’s face and was going on when Austin called his lieutenant to him and transferring Lymond’s reins to his charge, rode off to the head of the troop.
They travelled without speech after that, and no marauding band of French traversed their path; no scout from Guise or Péronne saw them vanish and rode back to try, however tardily, to rouse his fellows.
Instead, as they crossed the broad plateau between the river Somme and the Escaut, fifty men rose out of the ground where for two days they had been waiting, strung across the only possible pathway to Brussels.
Austin Grey knew who they were before he saw the white fleur de lis on the ensign, or the other standard they carried of blue and silver and red, which was quite clearly not a French blazon.
Lymond also knew. Even at that distance, he could recognize the men whom he himself had led into battle, and the four men once his own henchmen: Blyth and Blacklock; Hislop and Abernethy.
The shock of surprise drew the blo
od from his skin: even Austin saw it, rounding on Lymond in that first, furious second. What he missed was the suffusion of anger that followed it: an anger terrifying because it could find no expression.
Afterwards, Francis Crawford found that in those first moments all the force of his fury had turned, senselessly, towards trying to burst the immutable wire of his bonds. At the time, he sat bound on his horse, his reins gripped in Austin Grey’s hands, and said, ‘You may think you can ride over them, but they’ve got crossbows. Your men aren’t going to like that. Or swords ripping upwards as they pass. And there are trees ahead: that, of course, will be where the horsemen are. You may want to ride on, dear boy, but your men are going to think differently.…’
It was doubtful if all of it reached the ears of Austin Grey and his men, but some of it did. It no more than endorsed their own opinion. Austin had ordered them to gallop at the line of footsoldiers, but the line of footsoldiers looked far too formidable. Instead, the escort from Ham slowed, hesitated, broke gallop, and swerving, bore to the right.
Ahead of them, another line of men rose from the ground. And behind, yet another.
‘Christ,’ said Francis Crawford with interest. ‘They’ve got out two companies. You’re in a box, Austin. Your uncle will be cross, but we shall tell your mother all about ransoms. And you can learn how to bed an unmarried girl, Turkish fashion. I’ll show you, on Philippa.’
Austin Grey heard it as he thundered over the rough ground, dragging the other horse with him. His troop had split up, against all his orders. One by one, as they left him, the French bolts whined through the air and picked them off. He had tried to tell them. The French wanted Lymond. If they kept close to him, they would come to no harm.
And now he himself and only a handful of others were still gathered round Crawford, keeping the prisoner’s body between themselves and the crossbows and archers. Silent weapons, not to rouse the near-by garrisons. It had all been planned, all thought out; all most carefully executed.
A man fell on his right, and another. Two had over-ridden the French and reached safety, or had been allowed to escape since there was only one man they wanted. And it now seemed likely that they would free Francis Crawford. That he would return, malicious, triumphant to the fleshpots, to lead the French armies against whatever target they had now chosen—a target which was unlikely to be Calais. To …
‘I’ll show you, on Philippa,’ said that lascivious, bantering voice, and Grey turned, his blade in his hands as the enemy came rushing towards him, their steel out, their hands outspread for his bridle.
Francis Crawford watched the younger man’s sword coming towards him. With Austin’s hand hard on the hilt it flashed down to his heart, and then faltered.
‘You bloody virgin!’ said Lymond; and bringing his eyes up, hard and cold, added something further.
Austin had only to lean on the sword. He had only to let it follow its course and his honour and Philippa’s would be avenged; his uncle’s enemy slain, his nation preserved, his heritage vindicated. And Philippa, tied for ever to this one, hated man, would be at liberty.
And because that was not how he prayed Philippa would come to him, Austin lifted his sword and with his free hand flung the reins of Lymond’s horse in the other man’s face. Then Lord Grey’s nephew turned into almost certain death, and head up, faced the armed men surrounding him.
‘Let him through,’ Lymond said, and his voice, to Jerott, listening, was suddenly threadbare with tiredness. ‘He may as well fail to kill Frenchmen in Picardy as fail to kill Frenchmen in … Paris. Tell them to let him go free.’
They did not trouble to watch Austin Grey ride off alone over the marshes, to follow the few who had lived through that ambush. They crowded round Lymond’s horse, awaiting his commendation, which he gave them; and then obeyed Hislop’s orders and formed ranks ready for marching, having stripped the Englishmen of all their bodies could offer. Jerott, leaning over to cut Lymond’s bonds said, ‘Jesus Christ, your … The wire’s made a mess of your wrists. Are you all right?’ His face was red with anxiety.
‘Perfectly,’ Lymond said. ‘I am also filled with gratitude. Apart from risking the lives of two trained companies and four principal officers you have contrived to nullify an elaborate scheme which would have sent the entire Spanish army to Lorraine instead of to Calais. It only remains for us all to be caught on our way back to Compiègne, and you will be able to wallow in the fruits of unbridled, emasculated, inadmissible, un-military bloody romanticism.’
‘Such as,’ said Adam Blacklock unfairly, ‘the motive which took you back to Flavy-le-Martel in the first place? The trouble with you, M. le comte de Sevigny, is that you’re too god-damned autocratic. From now on, you will kindly remember that a good military tactician requires the support of a team. We are your team.’
There was a pause. Then Lymond looked at Archie, and before his gaze passed on to the rest, even Archie found himself flinching.
‘Why? You must have other interests?’ said Francis Crawford.
They made no answer because, after forty-eight hours of vigil on the sodden plateau for his sake, no possible answer existed. Only Archie Abernethy quietly took over his reins and said, ‘Oh, Mary Mother. Let us get you home.’
Chapter 8
A l’ennemy, l’ennemy foy promise
Ne se tiendra.
In the interests of the Duke de Guise’s winter campaign, the incident of M. de Sevigny’s brief capture and escape was not made public. As it happened, the Duke de Guise himself was unaware of the full implications of the event, which were known only to Lymond, his rescuers, and to Piero Strozzi, whom Francis Crawford went to see immediately on his return to Compiègne.
He made no excuses. ‘I may have wrecked the Calais campaign. I fed Willie Grey a cropful of spurious information about the forthcoming French attack on the Pale and was rescued before I could be forced to confess otherwise. It may be all right. They were already suspicious of me before we left. But if you want to tell de Guise, I shan’t stop you.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘This,’ said Lymond, and tossed over a roll of paper. ‘I wrote it down so that you would know what to expect if by any chance Grey and the Spaniards take it all seriously.’
Piero Strozzi lifted the roll and read through it. Then retying it, he held it out in his ringed, powerful hand towards the man who had written it. ‘Take it,’ he said, ‘and destroy it. With that information you might fool Alva. You would certainly fool King Philip. But Lord Grey and the Duke of Savoy are thinking men. A spy who claimed to have just come from Calais should never have made all these blunders. Did you talk about alternative targets?’
‘No,’ said Lymond. ‘But I became very scathing whenever they mentioned Arlon or Luxembourg. That is where our feint ought to be.’
Piero Strozzi eyed him. ‘You came to me,’ he said. ‘But you have no real fears that they will act on the information you have sold them, and neither have I. Our prime objective remains Calais. We shall take a few extra precautions, that is all. And I see no need why this little history should travel beyond these four walls. Tête-Dieu, I told le Guisard that I was releasing two companies to try with your own men to rescue you for fear you told Grey too much about Calais. I didn’t know they would pull you out before you had told enough. What was the bribe? Russia?’
‘Obviously,’ Lymond said.
‘Obviously. But in that case, mon gars, why mislead them? Russia is where you wanted to rule.’
Lymond lifted his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I didn’t mislead them,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I went back to Flavy specifically so that the English would capture me.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Piero Strozzi with undoubted cheerfulness. ‘It would pay me, would it not, for Douai? On the other hand you would not have come to me and told me this. Nor, of course, would you be prepared to risk your skin with the army at Calais. You are prepared to risk your skin with the army at Calais?’
&
nbsp; ‘If I must,’ said Lymond gravely. ‘There is also the matter of my divorce. I plan to acquire it before I betray you.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Strozzi. ‘This marriage to Catherine d’Albon. I advised it.’
‘You did not, strictly speaking, advise marriage,’ Lymond said. ‘And what you did advise had nothing to do with Russia. But don’t hesitate to continue.’
‘The King agrees,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘His grace was impressed by our joint venture as apple-sellers. He has therefore decreed—he will tell you himself—that if Calais is taken, your marriage to St André’s daughter may, if you wish, be contracted at Easter.’
‘Preceded by my divorce?’ said the comte de Sevigny guardedly. His face had changed, Strozzi noticed with interest. The wench was handsome, and wealthy and, in spite of everything, rumour said, still a virgin.
‘Preceded,’ agreed Piero Strozzi, ‘by your God-damned divorce, four months early. And not before time. I’m told every man at court is after your wife as it is. If I weren’t so busy I’d be one of them. It’s time that charming girl had a wholesome, kind-hearted young man to be husband to her.’
‘That’s what Austin Grey thinks, but he’s busy as well. Really,’ said Lymond, ‘the only person to be lucky in all this is Cathin d’Albon.’
*
It was the opinion expressed, and indeed held, by Catherine d’Albon’s mother when the Queen summoned her to discuss her daughter’s future. ‘Not,’ said Queen Catherine, the wide, shallow eyes filled with intelligent sensibility, ‘that plans could be made known until our gallant lords return from the battlefield. But messages might be passed when next you write to your husband the Marshal. We miss him, as we miss our old friend the Constable. God grant that they will both soon be freed, and peace sent us.’
It was the Duke de Guise’s great fear. The news which seeped back to Paris and Saint-Germain and Poissy indicated that before any of France’s distinguished prisoners found freedom, the Guisard’s troops would mark the autumn, willy-nilly, with a string of successful engagements.
