Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘When you were an outlaw and an excommunicate you were a Scot, and now you are a Frenchman? Perhaps you are right. At least I see,’ said Bishop Reid, glancing at the girl on M. de Sevigny’s arm, ‘that you are a happy man.’

  Lymond bowed and glanced, smiling, at the dark head beside him as the Commissioners passed. The number of guests waiting now was only a handful. They stood side by side, he and Catherine, and she curtseyed and smiled as they said, over and over, the same things. Her mother, placing a ringed hand on Lymond’s shoulder, had already announced her departure to bed, and hinted that Catherine, her duty done, should do the same. ‘In a very few weeks you will be contracted. The child must not lose her looks!’

  Her colour higher than usual, Catherine smiled at her mother and did not wince, as she might have done. Tonight, they were to sleep in the Hôtel d’Hercule. Tonight, she thought, her head full of his love songs, she might not sleep alone; or at all.

  The last guest left, and they looked at one another. ‘Pleasant communications and merie conceits, and in everie mans countenance a loving jocundnesse. And on every woman’s also, I trust,’ Lymond said. ‘A last cup of wine? And then I have to wait a moment for de La Rochefoucauld. He called upstairs to reassure Allendale. They are taking his uncle to Onzain, and the old man seems to think he’ll be dropped in an oubliette.’

  He had signed to a servant, one of the many who now moved softly about, opening windows and clearing the debris. But when the tray came, Catherine refused the offered goblet. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I shall go upstairs. I shall be in the way, and they are occupied. Perhaps someone could bring me wine later.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. A trace of colour showed itself, also, on his pale skin. He emptied the cup he had been given and lifting another, took her hand and led her to the door. ‘I might bring it myself.’

  ‘And your lute?’ Catherine said. ‘I should like you to play to me.’

  ‘I was not,’ said Lymond, ‘proposing to waste time with a lute.’

  He watched her go and then, turning back, proceeded automatically with the last duties of such an evening. He spoke to the Count of La Rochefoucauld, to his maîtres d’hôtel and to his ushers and then, descending to the kitchens, to the principal staff. The singers were still there because he had asked them to stay. There was nothing new to talk over, except by way of post mortem, because, God knew, he had rehearsed them enough in the preceding days; but they were loath to go, and he did not wish to hurry them. He drank while he was with them a great deal, but was still able to guide, control, and even help half-carry them, high as tilers, to the courtyard, where his groom harnessed a cart and set off with them.

  The wax lights in the gallery were already snuffed when he re-entered the house, but the wall sconces had been left alight on the staircase and up the further flight to the next floor where his rooms lay, and those of Madame la Maréchale, and of young Austin, and of Catherine.

  Someone had put Jerott to bed and Adam had volunteered to stay until morning to look after him. None of his principal guests would have cause to be sorry for themselves on rising—the results of thorough planning practised, of necessity, in Russia. But this evening had had an importance much beyond the entertaining Güzel had done for him at Vorobiovo.

  Or that he had done for Güzel. Compared with that, Catherine, grande dame de maison though she might be, was formless clay. Some of her gifts he now knew, and some he would have to find and foster. He had done it often enough, but never before for himself that he remembered.

  That tonight should see the start of the process was by Catherine’s decision, not his. He had laid down for himself the rules to follow, and he had obeyed them. The theme of the music tonight had been so arranged not for her sake, but to make as deep an impression as possible. He had wanted the young Queen to remember it. The young Queen who had not been invited, but whose curiosity had been excited by so many innocent means that he knew she could not resist it. What happened now remained to be seen.

  What happened now …

  To Adam Blacklock, at his door with Jerott snoring behind him, it was like a nightmare recurrence of tragedy: of the time when he stood thus in a Dumbarton tavern, and watched Lymond come walking like this to his chamber, though not with the sash of St Michael on his pearled doublet, and his eyes darkened, smoky blue in his pale, brilliant face. Adam stepped forward. ‘Francis?’

  ‘Yes?’ He was slow in turning and reluctant, Adam knew, to be stopped. Then he said, ‘Adam? How is Jerott?’

  ‘Asleep. Francis … There is someone in your room.’

  A valet de chambre, with an extra stick of candles, came out of a doorway and, when Lymond glanced at him, said, ‘When my lord count is ready.’

  ‘I shan’t need you. Go to bed,’ Lymond said. And as an afterthought, ‘Where is Mr Abernethy?’

  ‘In bed, my lord. You said …’

  ‘Yes, I know. Adam, you should follow his example. Thank you for warning me, but I have been held up, that’s all.’

  The servant was barely out of earshot. ‘I brought her some wine,’ Adam said. ‘You took your time coming up. She’s probably asleep.’

  ‘How very indiscreet of everybody,’ Lymond said. ‘But thank you for advising me. Did you think I would scream?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he had said to the naked child in his rooms, that night in Dumbarton. And going in, had induced her to serve him all that night as his desires inclined, crude as old Cranmer’s vase de necessité.

  The eyes of both men met. Then, as Adam said nothing, Lymond walked past and entering, closed behind him the door to his chambers.

  Inside, waiting for him, was Philippa Somerville.

  Chapter 2

  Le grand credit, d’or d’argent l’abondance

  Areuglera par libide l’honneur.

  He stopped as if he had walked into glass; thus affording Philippa much satisfaction.

  She sat in her russet gown on his bed, her ankles crossed and Adam’s empty wine glass in her hands, and said, ‘Catherine is still waiting for you, in a blue velvet robe de nuit with clasps on it. She put on a white one at first, but her mother made her change it. You can go to her when I have finished with you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Lymond. He came several steps into the room and stood looking at her guardedly. ‘At least she isn’t sitting on my bed.’

  ‘No,’ said Philippa. ‘It isn’t that kind of conversation. In fact, after tonight, it won’t be that kind of conversation again. A great many inferior people, Mr Crawford, have helped you over the years in your well-publicized career of adversity, but you mustn’t be surprised if the circle begins to diminish. To go by what happened this evening, the man who has finally emerged from it all isn’t worth helping.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. In the few moments she had been speaking he had flushed and paled again. The verbal attack, when all his senses had been prepared for something different, had set him adrift, it was clear, for a moment. When he moved, she could smell the wine on his breath. He said, resting his fingers on the chimneypiece. ‘So you think I am cruel to Sybilla?’

  ‘My dear man,’ Philippa said. ‘It seems to me that you have no spirit left but the spirit of resentment. In a few years, there’ll be nothing to choose between you and Leonard Bailey. Tonight, Sybilla came in good faith as your guest, and you broke her down publicly. Justify that.’

  ‘A drunken whim,’ Lymond said. He had taken his hand from the carving. ‘Probably unjustifiable, as you say. I shall apologize for it, if you like.’

  ‘You were sober when you arranged it,’ Philippa said. ‘And “probably unjustifiable”? What would justify it? If she had whipped you daily instead of protecting you all your childhood? Would you have let her off if she had confided in you, as you grew up, that you were a bastard? Or will you never really let her off because she cared more for her lover than she did for any child he might leave her with? Have you ever tried to analyse her motives or yours, or are you still st
anding outside your grandfather’s door, kicking it?’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Philippa,’ he said, after a little check, as of a man suddenly winded. When he sank, his hands gripping his elbows, into a wainscot chair, it was with such economy that the golden eye of the Calais medallion shone without interruption. ‘How did you find out?’ he asked.

  ‘I guessed.’ If it was a half-lie, he was not to realize it. ‘The seal on the death certificate. I saw the first baron’s arms on it, although you broke it so quickly. I found out that Sevigny had been leased by him for many years, before much later you bought it. And if you were his son, it accounted for your likeness to Marthe. I have told Sybilla, by the way, how to reach Marthe. She wanted to speak to her.’

  He allowed the spate of words to pass over his head, sitting compressed and unmoving, his eyes on the table below him. Then he said, his voice kept, with evident care, still quiet and ordinary, ‘Did you tell Sybilla that you knew the truth?’

  ‘No. Not in words,’ Philippa said. ‘Not in any other way I could help. But of course, she has been left in no doubt that you know it. She is being quite adequately punished, so far as I can see, without your assistance. She also asked, by the way, if your marriage to Catherine was one of convenience only. I said that on your side, it was.’

  He let his arms loose then. They lay, the embroidery glittering, on the table. He said, ‘You must remember. You wanted me to marry Catherine.’

  ‘She is in love with you,’ Philippa said.

  ‘It is not usually,’ he said unwisely, ‘an impediment to successful matrimony.’

  The click as she set down her glass rang through the quiet room. Springing from the bed she walked to the shuttered window and back; then stood before the low fire looking at him. ‘Successful matrimony?’ she said. ‘You told me once you loved someone else.’

  ‘Did I?’ he said. ‘Ah, in Lyon. I remember. But it is no one, I promise you, who will interfere with my marriage to Catherine.’

  He seemed able, in spite of the wine, to keep his voice perfectly normal. She found she resented that. ‘How many of those songs tonight were yours?’ Philippa said.

  The light lay on his rings, and the curve of his lowered lashes, and the gold and green of St Michael, killing the dragon. Presently he said, ‘Some, of course. But the purpose of the evening was political.’

  ‘I am well aware of that,’ said Philippa grimly. ‘If you are made to leave France, what will happen to Catherine?’

  Again, he did not answer at once. Then he said, ‘While armies need captains, I am not likely to be asked to leave France.’

  She said, ‘That is not, I think, an honest answer. And since the purpose of the evening was political, the songs were not for Catherine either. Although, it seems, they brought you their reward. You’re right, of course,’ Philippa said. ‘I did help to bring this marriage about. And now it appears you are cheating her.’

  And still, he kept his head, and his temper. ‘It does not seem,’ he said, ‘very different from your marriage to Austin.’

  ‘No,’ said Philippa. Then, because she had demanded honesty herself, she set her teeth and said, ‘But I have told Austin that if I marry him, he must accept the fact that my interest, too, is given elsewhere.’

  His hands moved together and clasped themselves, lightly. ‘And you have told him, of course, the name of the fortunate man?’ His voice had changed, a little.

  Philippa’s face muscles trembled. She stilled them. ‘I thought it fair. Do you think I was proud of it? I didn’t think he would still want to marry me.’

  He stood up, with his own very studied grace. ‘But he does. And you arrive uninvited at my house——’

  ‘Uninvited!’ Her voice scraped. ‘Now that is——’

  ‘… You arrive without warning at my house and hear what you were not intended to hear: a number of things which are painful in the extreme, because they all have a bearing on my possession of Catherine. You——’

  ‘I pushed you——’

  ‘Please allow me to finish,’ he said. ‘You asked me to analyse my motives. Look at your own, Philippa. This visit tonight hasn’t been about Sybilla, except in so far as you wanted to punish me. It hasn’t been about Catherine either: if Austin will forgive you anything, why should …’

  He stopped in mid-sentence. Sick with miserable anger, Philippa glared at him, her lips shut, waiting. And incredibly, all the hostility melted out of his face. His hands loosened. And he gave a laugh.

  ‘The wine speaking,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon. It appears that I am in no position to lecture you on that particular subject. Come.’ His smile was unforced: and sweet as she rarely saw it. ‘I shall find someone to see you home.’

  ‘And that,’ said Philippa, ‘is a little capricious, isn’t it? You were going to inform me why I was here.’ She was still very flushed.

  ‘Scorpio,’ Lymond said, ‘does not caper. He stings. We are damned, as the man says, of nature: so conceaved and borne as a serpent is a serpent, and a tode a tode, and a snake a snake by nature …’ He looked at her again, a little wryly. ‘And you, I suppose, are the Crab. It doesn’t matter. If you want to bite, bite.’

  Her colour burning she said, ‘I pushed you into Catherine’s arms. Jealousy is one motive you really can’t accuse me of.’

  There was a short silence, but not an unkind one. Then Lymond said, ‘Brought face to face with reality, it can make a difference.’ Then as she didn’t speak, he said, ‘I was on my way to her room when you stopped me. You know that, Philippa.’

  ‘You can still go,’ she said stiffly.

  He gave a very faint smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. And then, gently, ‘It was a natural reaction. Piero’s fault, and mine. It won’t happen again, and soon you will be home. Don’t worry.’

  She had been led into behaving like a female. And she was being dismissed as a female. But she had charge of his good name, although he might not know it; and she had work to do, although, like a fool she had lost sight of it. Philippa said curtly, ‘Hanged with clooth of gold, and nat with sarge. I apologize, but you needn’t be so forgiving about it: your behaviour did you no credit. Which reminds me. After you left me, how did you spend your last evening in Lyon?’

  He was lifting her cloak when that reached him. He set it down and turned. After a long scrutiny: ‘Hanged with serge next time, I think,’ Lymond said pleasantly. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Nostradamus suggested it,’ Philippa said.

  There was a silence this time of some weight. Then, ‘Nostradamus? How interfering of him,’ Lymond said. ‘Not having my present resources, I passed the night at a house of entertainment. You don’t want the details, I take it.’

  She fixed on him, without a qualm, the lucent stare which had so distressed the eunuchs. ‘Nostradamus is to tell me the truth if you avoid answering. He said you’d avoid answering. He was right.’

  ‘And you, of course, instantly assume my conduct was execrable. Whose eyes continually burn with the unquenchable flames of the deadly cockatrice, whose teeth are like to the venomous toshes of the ramping lion——’

  ‘… and whose whole man, body and soul, go always up and down, musing of mischief. What happened?’ said Philippa relentlessly.

  And he answered her lightly. ‘A piece of foolishness. The mouse instead of the mountain of gold. You will be disappointed. I left the house with a headache, and a drunken fall in the street knocked me senseless. Archie conveyed me to a printer called Macé Bonhomme, and Nostradamus tended me there. Such things are not supposed to happen to leaders of armies, so nothing has been said about it.’

  It tallied with what she had overheard in Marthe’s house. Philippa said, ‘Like the headaches you had in London?’

  ‘Fortunately,’ he said, ‘not at all of that order. They are common, according to Nostradamus, in individuals with a chronic inability to suffer reverses. He is hoping, I am sure, that someone will keep a matronly eye on me.’

  And that, set
beside what she knew, was a little too specious.

  He had turned round, as he had in Lyon, and put his hands out of sight on the edge of the table behind him. Philippa said, ‘I should like the truth. I haven’t had it yet.’

  The truth. The truth is that …

  ‘But I am not your business now,’ he said calmly. The train of thought vanished.

  Philippa said, ‘Perhaps you are not the best judge of that.’

  ‘And you are?’ he said. ‘You should have let me go to Catherine.’ And then moved to sudden anger perhaps by the wine, ‘Everything I do seems to be exposed, like a bloody carcass picked over by …’

  ‘… jackals,’ she said. ‘You have me followed. You interfere with my affairs. I am not allowed to say to you, I am not your business.’ She paused, and then said very firmly, ‘Do you tell me? Or do I ask Nostradamus?’

  ‘I shall tell you,’ he said. ‘Why make an occasion out of it? I devised a somewhat arbitrary way out of my own difficulties that evening; and Archie stopped me. The headaches are an extension of the kind I had in London. At the height of each attack, I am blind.’

  All the servants by now were in bed, and even the quayside must be empty. Outside the room there was no sound at all; and inside only the thud of her heart, jarring the air, the tapestries, the bedhangings; and her view of him watching her, braced a little to recoil, in case she moved towards him.

  Then the innermost sense reached her of what he was saying.

  In the only voice to which she had access, a reedy one, she said, ‘You tried to …? How?’

  ‘In the time-honoured fashion,’ he said. ‘My cuffs are too tight to gratify you with a view.’

  Her eyes, wide open, remained on his: brown eyes, like Kate’s. And the curl of her nostril deepened, although she did not know it; and the line, like Kate’s across her clear brow.

  Then Philippa turned and reaching the twisted marble pillars of the chimney-piece sank down before them, her back to him; her hair, fire-lined, drifting over her shoulders. She said, ‘Of course. You have always tried to escape.’