Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘I’ve cut the string. Didn’t you know? If anyone wants to stop Mr Crawford from doing anything, they should now apply to Catherine d’Albon.’

  *

  She called on Austin. His arm, strapped under his doublet, was still useless. He had tried to tolerate it unsupported when he learned she was to visit him, but had been forced, sick with pain, to replace the bandaging. He had no cause for complaint: he had begun the quarrel. And Philippa had explained to him the reason for her visit to de Sevigny’s room.

  He had little news to give her, beyond that he was being well cared for at a prescribed level, Philippa gathered, which fell tidily half-way between the generous and the patronizing. It was a relief that Lymond was absent. Before that, the house had been filled with secretaries and couriers and advisers. And since the reception, the number of fellow countrymen calling had trebled, even though de Sevigny had seen very few of them. He asked, hesitatingly, ‘Was the evening very … flamboyantly Scottish?’

  ‘No. He avoided that,’ Philippa said. ‘But he has a popular reputation, and I expect people like Orkney and Erskine have sounded him out and vouchsafed some sort of general cachet of approval. Being sought after is no novelty.’

  ‘No. I suppose not,’ Austin said. He glanced at his hands and added, ‘The marriage with Mistress d’Albon is then to go on?’

  ‘She hasn’t changed her mind,’ Philippa said. ‘And neither, of course, has he.’

  ‘Philippa,’ said Austin Grey. ‘If something were to go wrong and you have need of a friend … only a friend, will you think of coming to me?’

  He knew nothing. He merely loved her, and intuition told him she was in trouble.

  Her eyes bright with tears, Philippa Crawford walked forward and touching the empty sleeve at his side, kissed him on the cheek. Then she left quickly.

  *

  Waiting for her in the Château was Gino Schiatti with a packet. Inside, heavily sealed, was the pair of folded documents which Leonard Bailey had deposited at his banker’s shop on the day that she had visited him.

  Master Schiatti, who had just to his surprise received a very warm kiss, showed her, a little flushed, how to slit the seal with the minimum of disturbance and left, on the reassurance that the packet—or one very like it—would be returned to him within twenty-four hours, or even earlier. He received another kiss which led him to wonder, hopefully, if the English bastard at the Hôtel d’Hercule was dying.

  Alone in her room, Philippa unfolded the papers. And then, laying them down, to the detriment of her paint, her powder, her dress and her hair, she wept aloud, with wet, incoherent sobs like an imbecile. For the papers had nothing written upon them at all.

  With native cunning, Leonard Bailey had not confided Sybilla’s affirmations to his banker in Paris, but had simply made of the bureau a decoy. These were blank. The true papers had been hidden elsewhere.

  And although, in due course, she sat up and blew her nose, and rinsed her face and restored, so far as possible, all the vista of equanimity laced with severity required by her present duties, she knew that the reverse she had just suffered was a major one.

  Someone in authority must hold Bailey’s documents, but to find him now at short notice was virtually impossible. There remained only one gleam of hope. Perhaps Bailey had lied. Perhaps no second copy existed. Perhaps it was the original which had gone, not to a Paris bank but to England.

  She would know, when she received Henry Sidney’s reply.

  And meantime, time was running out.

  ‘Collect all the money you have,’ Leonard Bailey had said. ‘And I shall tell you the price. If there is one.’

  Chapter 4

  Mort conspirée viendra en plein effet

  Charge donnée et voyage de mort

  Eleu, crée, receu, par siens deffait,

  Sang d’innocence devant soy par remort.

  Painted, portly, bellicose as puffins in ungainly flight from their feeding-ground, the Court rose from Paris and settled, pecking, in a fresh set of burrows at Fontainebleau.

  Built to rival the gilded palace of Nero, the blue-roofed château of Gilles le Breton lay in its park like a scarab, encircling harmonious courtyards fit for the muster of armies, and enclosed all about by the noble forest teeming with game which had first determined its building. Behind the palace, beyond the Basse-Cour and the Convent of Mathurins which enclosed it, was the town, once a village, which had grown to serve the court with its inns and its tradesmen, and in which domestics and guards and officials, decorators, artists and architects could all find lodging. There, also, were the private houses of the officers of state and the wealthier noblemen: La Rochefoucauld and La Roche-sur-Yon; the Cardinal de Bourbon and the House of Guise and all its offspring.

  Those who could find no harbour there were forced to travel the forest to Moret-sur-Loing, a pleasant small riverside town with a castle, in which the Crown housed its official guests on occasion, and where its permanent foreign ambassadors were also expected to stay. There the nine Commissioners from Scotland were lodged, and divided their time, in chilly March weather, between Moret and Fontainebleau itself.

  The Royal family and all those dear to its heart were housed in the windowed white geometry of the palace itself, with squared gardens and fountains and lake water to look upon. They included the brothers de Guise of whom, in the nature of things, Philippa saw a good deal. It was the Duke and the Cardinal who arranged all the wedding ceremonial, including placing in hand the six silver-sailed ships of gold tissue and crimson velvet suggested by Signor Primaticcio in the wake of which she could foresee, with a cynicism born of experience, a long tunnel of hopeless catastrophes.

  She saw them also at the succession of informal entertainments for the growing numbers of wedding guests already gathering. And she saw them when, supervised by Cardinal Charles, the Scottish Commissioners embarked upon the series of conclaves to discuss and ratify the marriage agreement between their child Queen and the fourteen-year-old Dauphin.

  They brought the bridegroom in from the hunting field for some of the meetings. Standing behind the young Queen, Philippa saw the nine Commissioners each in his own way covertly watch him: this pallid snub-nosed boy with the heavy head and perpetual catarrh who slept, or sat groaning with earache, or would run out when released in an access of useless energy and seizing a horse, ride himself into a collapse, and the palfrey to death.

  One listened then to the interminable voices, the Scots and the French, pondering all the matters at issue: the dowry Mary was to be given; the pension she was to receive and the lands; and the repetition in three tongues of the terms of the treaty made in Haddington those ten years before, by which her highness contracted, agreed and obliged herself that she and her heirs-successors should observe and keep the Freedoms, Liberties and Privileges of the realm of Scotland and the laws of the same siclike and in the same manner as in all King’s times of Scotland of before; and to provide that if she died without issue, the righteous blood of the Crown of Scotland should succeed without any impediment.

  Then one looked at the slim back and auburn hair and pale, pointed face of Maria Dei gratia regina Scotorum, and wondered how Cardinal Charles had so trained and shaped and moulded a volatile, emotional fifteen-year-old that she, too, was more attentive to paper and ink, to legal concession and legal commitment than to flesh and blood. But then, Philippa reminded herself, the manner of ruling comes easily to the young, and is a balm to their pride, until they learn better.

  The articles drew towards their final drafting. Towards the third week of March, attending the Queen on her retiral, Philippa caught the ring of Piero Strozzi’s ebullient speech somewhere in the long, painted galleries, in competition with another assured voice, equally unmistakable. Francis was back.

  He brought the Commissioners to their assignation next morning. She heard him speaking, with a little unwonted emphasis, outside the room, and knew she had been given a warning. Then he walked in with the rest
.

  As always, the fair hair, brushed and orderly now, asserted itself among the others. But this time his eyes also came to her instantly, open and dark as they had been on that night in his chamber. She had not known until now, in her isolation, that after closing the door he had not walked away from it.

  Later, she received a smile and a bow, but both were formal. He looked tired but moved and spoke firmly, as if brought back to tone by air and exercise. Where he had been she had not yet discovered, except for the fact that he had spent four days on horseback. He was helpful but noncommittal in conference. From John Erskine, with whom she had formed a pleasant acquaintance, she heard after a week of such meetings that on the journeys to and from Moret he would go further.

  ‘We pick his brains,’ Erskine said, ‘and he is not unwilling, I think, to advise us. He believes—and I think we are all agreed on it—that the next key figure in Scotland will be Arran, the present heir to the crown. Unhappily, if we identify him too closely now with the Reformed party, the Queen Dowager may well bequeath the Regency to Lennox. Elder, his secretary, is here. Perhaps you have seen him.’

  ‘I’ve not only seen him,’ Philippa said tartly. ‘I fall over him every time I walk through the door to the Presence Chamber.’ She added, quelling the twitching nerves of her stomach, ‘Do you think both religions can co-exist under Arran?’

  ‘I hope so. Under Lord Lennox, of course,’ Erskine said, ‘the whole country would be Papist, and moved to it by burnings. It also remains to be seen how tolerant the Queen Dowager will remain after this wedding. With the might of France legally behind her, she may feel differently towards heretics like ourselves. Your husband also says——’

  ‘He has a theory that if France and Spain end their war, they may make some sort of Holy Alliance together. What is true,’ Philippa said, ‘is that the King of France has borrowed a great deal of gold from the clergy, and they may want to see something soon for their money. Also, it would be nice for the de Guises to have a niece who is Catholic Queen of three countries, provided England can be overrun satisfactorily. I’m glad your expatriates are being useful to you. I thought Francis was remaining aloof from his countrymen.’

  ‘You will find,’ said John Erskine, ‘that he has changed his policy in a number of things since he came back from Thionville——’ He stopped.

  ‘Thionville? You might as well go on,’ Philippa said. ‘If anyone has overheard us, we are due for the gibbet already. It’s a town on the Moselle, isn’t it, on the eastern frontier with the Archbishoprics and Champagne?’

  ‘It is one of the strongest held by Spain, and threatens all that region of France. It has already stood up to at least three assaults, but the Governor of Metz thinks that if the King will raise some German levies, he can take it. Mr Crawford has just been to see him, with Signor Strozzi. I have not, of course, heard the details, but it will form the main part of the French spring campaign, to open, I imagine, after the wedding.’

  ‘And Francis is arranging it?’ Philippa said.

  ‘If you were to ask the Duke de Guise, he would answer you differently,’ Erskine said. ‘But from what I hear, there is very little that our friend is excluding, at the moment, from his daily round. D’Aumale tells me that he has been given rooms in the palace.’

  Philippa knew that. Since his return from Thionville, Madame Marguerite had seen to it that he honoured his promise to visit her. From the other royal apartments also, one would hear of an evening the remote strains of Du fond de ma pensée and Ne veuillez pas ô Sire; and laughter. M. de Sevigny had become of the magic circle with whom the King steamed daily in his suite of hot baths. Even Mary had asked him to come and play for her, and Philippa had watched while the two sat and conversed. She did not know what the topic was, but she did observe that Monseigneur mon oncle was not altogether pleased when he arrived and discovered them. That evening, the Queen was invited to retire rather early.

  For themselves, they never talked, save for a commonplace exchange in public. Yet she saw him every day, or heard him spoken of. She knew, without turning round, when he had entered a room: she could pick out his voice, or his music, or his laughter from any concourse. He had spoken of the few meetings still left to them. He could not have foreseen that they would have to share the same house, however vast, in the weeks before their parting.

  It tired her beyond reason: the more that she observed for the first time the ceaseless, invisible care with which he treated their relationship. He avoided what meetings he could, and made the rest simple. She tried very hard, seeing his glance on her, to seem calm, but knew she did not always succeed. And even on his face sometimes, or in his manner, she caught a shadow of strain, so well disguised that she could not be sure of it, until Archie’s angry black gaze told her that she had guessed correctly.

  Once, she saw him leave the room abruptly half-way through a recital of indifferent music. No one else, she thought, observed it: the singer, undeterred, continued hooting mournfully: The fruit of all the service that I serve …

  The tone, there was no doubt, was excruciating. The following day he was occupied as usual, she was told; and spent the morning in conclave with the Duke de Nevers and the King’s leading Treasury officials.

  The wedding drew nearer. No saving letter arrived from London. No message, no sign came from Leonard Bailey to warn her which way his concupiscence would lead him: towards herself, or to the Countess of Lennox through Elder. For the first time since the evening at the Hôtel d’Hercule, she was thrown together with Sybilla at a formal dinner for the Commissioners and for foreign ambassadors, held in the monumental ballroom with its ten painted window bays and caissoned ceiling, its bronze satyrs and white and gold stucco and statues and swirling frescoes of nymphs and heroes and goddesses.

  It put her, as usual, off her food and made her want to escape later on to the gardens. There she found Bishop Reid of Orkney and Lady Culter contemplating the Michelangelo Hercules at the edge of the pond, with the fountain spray unregarded soaking their garments. ‘For an atheist,’ Sybilla said, eyeing it, ‘Signor Strozzi is blessed with quite excessive good taste. You ought to ask him to tell you about his collection of antique books and weaponry. I believe the Queen has her eye on them.’

  ‘The weapons?’ Philippa said, joining her after a small hesitation.

  ‘Well of course, perhaps; but I don’t think she’d need them,’ Sybilla said. ‘Stekit to deid on ground lay mony man: she has her own methods. Bishop Reid and I were having a comfortable discussion over how we are ever going to enjoy other people’s gardens if we don’t continue to teach children the classics. Also, we agree that those are Bears’-ears.’

  Philippa surveyed the flower plot gravely. ‘And, undoubtedly, Affodyll Daffadilly,’ she said. ‘And do I detect a seedling or two of Love-lies-bleeding?’

  The heavy, black-capped head of Robert Reid with its grizzled beard was tilted towards her. ‘Amaranthus caudatus,’ he said loudly. ‘You are an atavist. You are a snivelling follower of those Cambridge lackwits who think Adam spoke English and we can do no better.…’

  ‘Philippa,’ said Lady Culter blandly, ‘is one of Roger Ascham’s favourite pupils. We all know every onion in Beauly can reel off the Georgics but it can all become a little excessive, as the elephant said when he fell in love with the herb-wench. I hear Lord James has been refused the Earldom of Moray. A second Lombardy.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ the Bishop said.

  ‘I thought not. The Queen said it was a secular title, and Lord James is supposed, of course, to be Prior of St Andrews. I hope he received the news meekly.’

  ‘I suppose James might receive the Second Coming meekly,’ said Bishop Reid, his hearing suddenly recovered, ‘but I doubt it. I have to go indoors.’

  ‘Then Philippa and I will walk along and see the Atlases in the Pine Grotto,’ Sybilla said. ‘There is no doubt about it: the spectacle of large gentlemen striving to uphold vast blocks of monumental masonry do
es wonders for the digestion.’ Then as, parting from the Bishop, they walked side by side through the pine garden, she said in quite a different tone, ‘I shall not keep you long. I have no right to keep you at all. I only wanted to beg you to contrive that Francis is taken to see a doctor.’

  Philippa ceased walking. ‘I know he isn’t well,’ she said. ‘But I doubt if a doctor can help him. He has already been told the cause of it. They say he has a chronic inability to suffer reverses.’

  It was not very kind. It was better than saying, Go and see Nostradamus. Get him to tell you what he treated your son for.

  Sybilla, who had halted also, began walking again. ‘You cannot possibly take anyone’s part in this but his,’ she said. ‘I spoke to Marthe: perhaps Mr Hislop has told you. The wisest advice anyone could give Francis now is to turn his back on us all, and marry Catherine d’Albon. Do you think he will?’

  ‘I think so,’ Philippa said. They had reached the blockish ranks of grey sandstone giants and stepping inside the vault of the grotto she sank down on the marble beside one of the two little fountains whose trapped light, released in fine spray, illuminated the crystalline walls and the frescoes embedded within them. He slept in the château, and not in Catherine d’Albon’s bed, where once it had seemed so desirable to direct him. Nor, she knew very well, would he bring himself to go there now, before the obligations of marriage made it necessary. She said aloud, ‘He finds the time of waiting troublesome, I think. We all do. But it will soon be over.’

  ‘I asked,’ Sybilla said, ‘because I have seen him like this before … once; when he elected to take everyone else’s business in hand and return it to them correctly aligned, like an artist with a child’s drawing.’

  She stopped talking. Standing by the murmuring spray, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped together under her cloak she said nothing more for a long time and Philippa, waiting, finally said gently, ‘What happened?’