Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  She said, ‘I am not here to watch you disgrace me. I am here because all the Scots who placed themselves here under your protection are dead or dying. Do you hear me? Robert Reid is dead. Gilbert Cassinis is dead. George Leslie is near his end, and so is James Fleming—of poison, with all their servants. You tossed them a warning, and left them.’

  She stood, her pitiless stare raking him. ‘Is that your whole measure? To shirk what is difficult? To escape to safety, like a strawberry-preacher, when your friends are in danger? My gentleman: if you run from me now, I will brand you and your sister in France, in Scotland, in Midculter and out of it for what you were: rotten stock.’

  She spat the words at her son. Archie said, on a breath, ‘Careful. Oh, careful, ma’am.’

  Jerott said nothing, but regardless of cramp crouched on his heels, the sweat pouring through his dark hair, watching Francis.

  The coverlet now would not have been still. His heartbeats ran, light as a watchmaker’s wheel in the shallow pulse in his throat, as faint as the fluttering stir of his breathing. His eyes on Sybilla were large and sculptured: it was difficult to believe that for so many days they had been sealed, or that they had ever been spared both sight and suffering.

  Sybilla said, ‘Do you ever keep your bond? You gave me an oath.’

  On Jerott’s arm, against his knee there was no movement.

  ‘You don’t remember?’ Sybilla said. ‘No. I don’t suppose you do. You begged a favour of me, and once it was granted you had no reason to remember your promise. I will remind you. You said, “I will promise anything. I will do anything you wish, to the end of my life, if you will tell me the name of the house that you know of.” ’

  What that meant, Jerott did not know. What he saw was total recollection pour, flooding, drowning into the distant face below him, so that Marthe pressed her hand suddenly to her mouth and Richard, stretching forward, took his mother hard by the arm and said, ‘Enough. Oh, enough.’

  ‘That is what my two younger children said,’ Sybilla said. ‘And ran away.’ And to Francis, from whom her eyes had never moved. ‘Now do you remember?’

  His chest lifted, and lifted again with the effort. ‘Yes,’ he said. Across the room, Archie shut his mouth tight.

  ‘And did you mean to honour your promise?’ Sybilla said.

  The silence this time was terrible, for he had to gather his breath, as one might try to scrape bucket-water from the almost-dry bed of a river. Then, ‘Yes,’ he said once again.

  ‘Then I tell you,’ Sybilla said, ‘that you have no leave to die. Nor have you leave to desert the race you belong to. I want your word that from this moment, you live. You live until no device of priest or leech will hold the web of your body together. And when you walk from this room, you turn your back on France and your face towards the place of your life’s work. I want your oath that you will come back to Scotland.’

  She halted, but there was no mercy in the blue stare. ‘Do I have it?’

  Jerott did not see the fight to reply, for his own head was twisted away from it. He heard Sybilla say, ‘It is not enough. I must have your spoken word, Francis.’

  There was a space, during which, of the five men and women standing or kneeling about Francis Crawford, only one watched him. Then Lymond said clearly, ‘On my honour, I promise it.’

  Sybilla saw the change in his face before Jerott did. She cried out, and instantly Richard flung open the door. Air, light and movement broke into the room, disrupting the tension. Marthe’s husband, set aside by many hands, saw Nostradamus had already gained his place, kneeling, with eau de vie and strong, massaging fingers.

  Jerott moved back, his limbs shaking, and watched the man on the floor, the busy heads crowded about him.

  His eyes were shut and he was unconscious, but in a manner subtly changed from the death-stupor from which they had roused him. Where there had been peace, now there was endurance.

  ‘He will awake,’ said Nostradamus. ‘You took a great risk, but he will awake, if that is what you want for him.’

  It was then that Jerott turned, and caught sight of Sybilla.

  Richard got to her first. She relinquished her full weight, choking, against him. Then Nostradamus with surprising agility made for her, and speaking in a low voice swept her, with Richard beside him, from the chamber.

  The door closed.

  Archie had gone to stand at the foot of the low pallet where the hospitallers, gently working, were still occupied in bringing Lymond to safety. The other bed, drenched and blackened, stood vacant, its tapers darkened: a monument perhaps, but no longer a bier. Marthe said, her face streaked and silvered with tears, ‘I could not have done that. I fear nothing and no one. I respect nothing and no one. But I could not have done that.’

  ‘You have done it,’ Jerott said. ‘It is easy to do it, out of hatred. But you are right. I know of no one else on earth who could have done it out of love.

  ‘It was a miracle, and it partook of the first property of miracles. It should never have been performed.’

  Chapter 9

  Celui qu’aura tant d’honneur et caresses

  A son entree de la Gaule Belgique:

  Un temps apres fera tant de rudesses,

  Et sera contre à la fleur tant bellique.

  For three days, Francis Crawford was helped to establish his hold upon life, and his door was locked to all but his doctors.

  On the fourth day the King entered, his hand on the Dauphin’s shoulder, and later the Duke de Guise and his brother the Cardinal. The King spoke of the truce. The brothers de Guise spoke of the disease which had so tragically cheated the Scottish Commissioners of their happy homecoming; and the Cardinal prayed a little.

  After that, the sickroom saw no guests until next day, when Sybilla asked leave to visit her son, and Nostradamus, considering, granted it.

  This time, there was no one else in his room.

  They had replaced the burned bed with a better one. Through its light damask hangings the sun lay tawny upon the carved headboard against which, cushioned in pillows, Lymond’s fair head and shoulders were resting. In the rosy light his skin was lucent as mother of pearl; his hair burnished, his robe lightly folded over the bandaging. Only he was perfectly still, and the trenches round his eyes might have been quarried there.

  She shut the door, and walked to the bed. His gaze on her did not move, or his lips, or his hands lying loosely before him. She could not tell if his impassivity covered thought, or if there was nothing there but a shell, only a few days from death, and still soaked in the tides of its river.

  It was clear that he was not going to speak first so, approaching the end of the bed, Sybilla lifted her hand to touch the garlanded pillar and said, ‘You did not have me shown from the door.’

  He did not answer. It was, after all, self-evident. Sybilla said, ‘I thought perhaps you might remember what happened here five days ago.’

  ‘I do remember,’ said Francis Crawford.

  The wooden acanthus leaves cut into the palm of her hand. She said, harshly, ‘How much do you remember?’

  ‘I remember swearing your oath,’ Lymond said. ‘I shall repeat it, if you like.’

  Bodily, the shell was all that was there. But within it a collected mind stood, facing her. Sybilla said, her voice grating again, ‘I know, of course, you would rather be dead.’

  He gave it a little thought. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you want to be here in this room either.’

  She could not speak. After a moment he added, ‘You called us both rotten stock. Afterwards, I thought perhaps you didn’t mean it.’

  Her fingers slid from the pillar and sought, with her other hand, the support of the bed. She said, ‘I have no proof of goodwill. I came so that you could attack me, if you wanted.’

  ‘But you loved my father,’ he said. ‘And Eloise’s, of course. What was he like?’

  ‘Like you,’ Sybilla said.

  ‘And worth all this?’ Lymo
nd said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sybilla. ‘Don’t you, of all people, know what love can do?’

  He did not want to pursue that. The silence lasted a long time. Then Sybilla said, ‘Whatever touched your honour, four days ago, has been set right with those who heard it. I wanted you to know that, at least.’

  ‘Including my unwillingness to accept responsibility?’ Lymond said.

  ‘Your right to die? They accept that already. It is I,’ said Sybilla, ‘who do not.’

  There was another long silence. Then Lymond said, ‘That night … It must have been hard for you. Almost as hard as it was for Philippa. You know about that?’

  Of all things, she had not expected that. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I sometimes wonder,’ said Francis Crawford, ‘if I only exist to be sacrificed to.’

  Her heart beating strongly, she watched him. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But if you accept sacrifices, you must respond with acts of reparation.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. He looked very tired, but not so implacably distant as when she had first seen him. ‘In Scotland, for my father’s sake?’

  ‘In Scotland,’ she agreed. She said, daringly, ‘Marthe thinks that the attacks of blindness may be cured.’

  ‘It seems,’ said Lymond, ‘that concussion may have effected that already. If so, I can fight again.’

  ‘Do you want to?’ she said.

  A faint surprise lingered for a moment on his face. ‘Don’t you want me to?’ he said, without realizing, apparently, that he had not answered her question.

  Sybilla said, ‘If there are swords, then I suppose you must wear yours. But it is you we need.’

  ‘We?’ he said.

  ‘Five hundred thousand people,’ said Sybilla.

  ‘You have a high opinion of my swordsmanship,’ Lymond said. His lips, in the odd hazy light, curled for a moment, it almost seemed, in the way any one of his friends would have recognized, and she most of all. Then she saw that he was indeed smiling a little.

  He said, ‘It seems we are not meant to be estranged,’ and lifting the weight of his arm, held out his hand.

  Then she left the carved wood, and drawn by his fingers, bent to receive his light, firm kiss on her cheek.

  She was still close when he said, ‘I expect Jerott also is wrestling with his conscience. Tell him, from me, that I assume that Archie has already chastised him sufficiently.’

  So, although it was more than she ever dared hope for, it was not the same; and never would be.

  *

  The others, not without misgivings, called to see him next day, and were shown the same self-contained will behind the weakness, or the detachment, that kept him immobile. To his own men he spoke entirely of the future. ‘You have heard, I’m sure, what has happened in Dieppe. If money or effort or influence can find where the blame lies I shall do it; but I am well marked, and so are you. If I cannot defeat this family on their own ground I may however be able to make myself felt in dead man’s shoes.… I am going to Scotland. I know Plummer does not want to leave France, and Jerott’s business is here. What of the rest of you?’

  They had heard, from Jerott, what he had promised. They knew, but were too cautious to count on it, that the disability of his blindness had not so far recurred. Danny Hislop said, ‘It’s a moot point, naturally; but which side would we be fighting for?’

  ‘You mean,’ said Fergie, ‘there are only two sides?’

  ‘It makes it simpler to think so,’ said Alec Guthrie. ‘In fact, I think we are being asked to fight for a nation. Am I right?’

  ‘Not,’ said Danny, ‘the Queen Dowager all over again, dear hearts. She may think she’s the nation, but you should ask Jamie Arran. Or Jamie Stewart, for that matter.’

  ‘I intend to,’ said Lymond. ‘I am told he is coming to see me, with Erskine. We tried once before, if you remember, to give Scotland a strong arm and a voice of reason, but Graham Malett destroyed them. There will be others like him.’

  ‘They’re all in France,’ said Danny positively. ‘Friends, I shall be glad to get out of France.’

  ‘I dare say,’ said Fergie, ‘there’ll be need of a lawyer. What about it, Archie? No elephants.’

  ‘You’ll not have noticed,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘But there havena been any elephants since Stamboul, and I’ve had that many backsides in my face since, that I’ve never missed them. I’ve been in Scotland more lately than any of you. I tell you, there are twenty sides in that fight, never mind two, and when they get tired throwing things at each other, they’ll all turn and stamp on the mediator. You’ll need me tae panse you.’

  ‘Like Danny,’ said Guthrie dryly. ‘I am tired of France. And I’m curious.’

  ‘It’s curiosity,’ said Jerott suddenly, ‘isn’t it, that’s taking you all? Is there a man of belief left among us?’

  There was a little pause. Then, ‘What if there was?’ said Lymond quietly. ‘Are you suggesting it should affect his behaviour?’

  Jerott Blyth went slowly red. He said, ‘Then you don’t want my services?’

  Lymond said, ‘If you please, Jerott, no attitudes. You would leave your business and Marthe?’

  ‘She drove Philippa out of Sevigny,’ Jerott said. ‘Did you know that?’

  The fringed lids dropped over Lymond’s eyes. Then he said, ‘She probably intended to do something rather different. Do you mean to leave Marthe then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jerott.

  Lymond said, with his gaze still on his hands, ‘I can have no one who comes out of pique.’ He lifted his eyes.

  Jerott said, ‘If you never met again, your marriage would stand, in the same way that mine never existed. I won’t come running back. When do we go?’

  ‘Now,’ Lymond said. ‘Before you are stopped, and in the same convoy as the Scottish Commissioners. I shall follow as soon as I can.’

  ‘But if you are stopped?’ said Alec Guthrie.

  ‘Assuming that I know what the Commissioners knew? They wouldn’t dare,’ Lymond said. ‘In any case, the secret is out. Some of the Commissioners have survived. All the de Guise family can do is hope that it will be kept quiet to avoid bloodshed.’

  Jerott said, ‘And the poisonings? These were the first men of their niece’s kingdom. Failing proof, do they get off with murder?’

  ‘Failing proof,’ said Fergie Hoddim austerely, ‘a’body: sorner, overlier or Cardinal can get off with murder, and if ye want to suggest otherwise you’ll hae me to contend with. You’re tied, unless you want to do the same back and hang for it. He’s right. Fight them from Scotland.’

  ‘Thank you, Fergie,’ said Lymond. ‘I can’t think how the Court of Session is meeting, on the grass or on the corn, without you. You will be told when and from where the fleet is leaving. I am … conscious that you are all giving up money and position in France for this.’

  ‘We only came in the first place,’ Danny said, open-eyed, ‘because you were coming.’

  And Archie Abernethy said, ‘Then you’ll need someone to pack.’

  ‘To pack,’ Lymond said. ‘But not to come with me. It seems best … I have asked my brother to do that.’

  *

  Later on the same day he was visited by Lord James Stewart and Mr John Erskine of Dun. To them he said simply that he was returning in due course to Scotland, and that meanwhile his men and his mother would travel home, by their leave, with the Commissioners.

  Lord James said, ‘You believe you are next on the list for assassination? Or have you been converted by danger to Calvinism?’

  ‘Does it have to be either?’ said Lymond.

  ‘No,’ said Erskine of Dun. ‘Come naked of creed or of kind or even of purpose, but bring with you what Orkney saw, all those years ago. We are too small a nation to be able to spare saints to Rome or Geneva, or any other refugees seeking to glorify either the flesh or the spirit. There is no one to understand us, except ourselves.’

  ‘That I know,’ said Francis Crawford. />
  *

  Marthe was the last to see him, when he was not in a bed at all but gorgeously robed in a chair near the window, his crossed heels on a cushion, and his eyes dwelling unthinking on the cathedral.

  Marthe said, ‘You have chosen Richard to escort you home, and he has agreed. What can possibly have reconciled you to one another?’

  ‘Remorse,’ said Lymond. ‘Give me lilies in full hands: these gifts at least let me lavish on my descendant’s soul. You know that Jerott is leaving you?’ He turned his head.

  ‘He has, I suppose, a place in the pattern,’ Marthe said. ‘If an inadvertent one, like the asp who, in order not to hear enchantments, stops up its ears with its tail. He wept tears of knightly rage when he heard what had happened at Sevigny. It was hardly worth explaining that Philippa’s departure was quite accidental. I gave her some good advice, but that was not included in it.’

  ‘So that if there is a pattern, you are not entrusted with it,’ Lymond said. ‘It might be as well to remember that.’

  ‘It moves from vessel to vessel,’ Marthe said. ‘You know that very well.’ She paused and then said, ‘Your mother lied to me. She let me think that you and I were the children of Gavin Crawford and the Dame de Doubtance’s daughter. We are only half-related.’

  Lymond said, ‘We do each other nothing but harm. You know that.’

  And Marthe cried at him, suddenly, ‘Did I do you harm at Volos?’

  He did not need to answer. She bore his level gaze for a short time and then said, with a change of direction equally unexpected, ‘You know where she is, don’t you? All the time. She does not write, but Adam does.’

  ‘You know so much,’ Lymond said, ‘that it hardly seems worth continuing the conversation.’

  She had been sitting, still wearing her cloak, in a chair not far from his own. Now she rose, and kneeling quickly by the chimney-piece said, ‘What is this? A bouillon? Shall I bring it?’

  ‘I can control both you and the discussion, Marthe, without bouillon,’ Lymond said. ‘When Jerott has gone, what will you do?’

  She stood up, the bowl in her hands, and looked at him. ‘What have you brought back from Dourlans? Something your uncouth family won’t know how to handle.’