Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘You hate them, don’t you?’ Lymond said. ‘How uncouth do you think you appeared to Güzel? Don’t crack the bowl. That would be very childish of you.’

  And when, her eyes cold, she returned the soup with a thud to the fireplace he added, dryly, ‘Peut-il naître de cette Agar autres enfants que des Ismaëlites et bâtards?’

  ‘But for Sybilla …’ said Marthe harshly.

  ‘… I should not be here. I asked you. Where are you going?’

  She returned, and stood by her chair. ‘To Blois, with Master Nostradamus. He says your convalescence does not now require him. Do you remember the night of the fire?’

  ‘I prefer not to remember it,’ Lymond said. In his voice, pleasantly concealed, was a warning.

  She ignored it. ‘Archie told us what you had described to him of the fire in the Hôtel Moûtier. Nostradamus gave us the drugs for the candles. But when you woke, you were not speaking to Oonagh, were you? You were speaking in French.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Lymond said.

  ‘You were speaking the words addressed by Aucassin to Nicolette. You spoke them also six years ago, after the fire, when my … grandmother took you into the House of Doubtance and hid you from the King’s men who were hunting you. Do you remember that?’

  ‘What are you asking?’ Lymond said. ‘Do I still think the Dame de Doubtance is there, watching us from her grave? The answer is yes, I do. And unfortunately, it now seems that I am condemned to spend the rest of my life under her patronage. I find your family, my dear Marthe, much more disturbing than mine.’

  ‘You spoke to her?’ Marthe said, her eyes alight. ‘You spoke to her on the night of the fire? What did she say?’

  He looked at her, his head deep among his cushions, and answered calmly.

  ‘I geid the gait wes nevir gane

  I fand the thing was nevir fund

  I saw under ane tree bowane

  A lowes man lyand bund.

  ‘She called me back, that was all.’

  ‘It was not, then, Sybilla’s voice,’ Marthe said. She was smiling. ‘It is not yet finished, then. I thought not. How could it be? How could it be, after all I have done?’

  ‘There is no end,’ Lymond said. ‘There is no rest. There is no answer. But surely, you are now free of me?’

  Beside him, on a low table stood a chess set she remembered. The heavy pieces of rock crystal and silver stood, darkly glimmering below the light of the window, and the fire, seeking them, had placed within each a small tongue of living flame.

  She said, ‘There are not many pieces now left on the board. Who is your opponent?’

  ‘Myself. Who else?’ Lymond said. ‘Shall we meet again?’

  ‘No one can tell me,’ Marthe said. She was very pale. She walked forward and knelt, swiftly, as she had done before, at the side of his chair, her hand on its arm, her fair, upturned face just below his. ‘How do you take leave, for all time, of a brother?’

  ‘You wish him well,’ Lymond said, ‘if that is what is in your mind. And you accept from him his understanding, and his pity, and his fellowship as he is driven, as you are, through the world.’ He had not moved.

  But, her blue eyes on his face, she did not rise.

  ‘Lord, is there nothing in the cup for me?

  While you were drinking, I was singing to you.’

  The detachment had gone from his face, but not the strength. He shook his head; and rising, Marthe turned and walked from the room.

  *

  ‘And good riddance,’ saiod Archie grimly, from the door of his tent.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Danny Hislop. ‘A long sea voyage with Jerott spewing drunk on every deck is not my idea of an adequate quid pro quo. Why the hell has Marthe gone to Blois anyway?’

  ‘To set up business there. The Dame de Doubtance left some things she didn’t know about, and she wants to look at them.’

  ‘Jerott said that house was empty,’ Danny said.

  ‘I know. There was a wee closet,’ Archie said. ‘I was telling her, when we were talking on the night of the fire. Mr Crawford was hidden in it. The old lady used it for valuables.’

  ‘Including Mr Crawford,’ Danny said. He stared at Archie. ‘Why should our dear sister rush off so abruptly to look for a problematical room full of valuables? If they’ve stayed undiscovered for five years, they won’t suddenly disappear now.’

  ‘She’s keen on money,’ said Archie grimly. ‘The uncle was an usurer.’

  ‘But that isn’t sister’s style,’ Danny said. ‘Sister’s style is cool and calm and deliberate. So …’

  ‘The doctor’s gone with her,’ said Archie gloomily.

  ‘Who? Nostradamus?’ Danny said. ‘I thought he was needed …’

  ‘Well, he isna,’ said Archie. ‘Mr Crawford hasna had a megrim since Dourlans, and that’s because of a bang on the heid from a billet, and no thanks to Master Nostradamus. Astrologer! He wouldna so much as keek at the lines on my loof,’ said Archie bitterly. ‘That’s no way to give a man confidence in his future. I offered him my recipe book, even.’

  ‘He probably doesn’t keep elephants,’ said Danny absently. ‘Archie, did Lady Culter know where Marthe was going, and why?’

  ‘No. She left for the coast yesterday,’ Archie said, surprised, ‘because the litter would take longer than we would. I thought you knew. We’re all ready to go except Mr Crawford and his brother, and they’ll follow as soon as Mr Crawford is able. Why?’

  ‘Archie, my man,’ said Danny, ‘I’ve changed my mind. You’re all going, but I’m sailing later as well. There is a little errand I want to run before I leave this banquet of delight, this beadroll of glory, this fair and flourishing country of France. Keep Jerott happy.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Archie. ‘Shall I tell him right away you’re at Blois with his wife, or wait until he sets foot in Scotland?’ And ducked as Danny, cursing, swiped at him.

  *

  About that time, the last of the heat left the fields, and the days began and ended with mist. Finally the rains came, dissolving the two camps and the scarred land between them into mud. In Spain, far from the great theatre of his victories and his blundering son, at half-past two before dawn on a still day in the third week of September Charles V, once King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, ruler of Sicily and the Low Countries, conquerer of Peru and of Mexico, gave up his soul to his God.

  Of the brave party of Scots who had come to France seven months before to represent the realm of their Queen at her wedding, four living men sailed from Dieppe with the herald court and their depleted retinue. With them went a fifth, to his burial. And behind, in Dieppe and in Paris, they left one man in the crypt of St Jacques; and two others dying.

  Lord Culter did not travel with them, although his mother was taken on board with the help of Archie Abernethy, who in his time had served all the Crawfords. There sailed also, without leave from their camp, three captains who had not come from Scotland in February. M. de Fors, Lieutenant-Governor of the castle of Dieppe and Admiral of the fleet leaving for Scotland, did not regard it as his business to inform anyone of the circumstance.

  At Amiens, two days after they sailed, the Marshal de Sevigny presented himself, with his brother, at the levée hour at the Episcopal Palace.

  He had told Alec Guthrie that he was in no danger. Until he saw the manner of his return to Court, Richard would hardly have accepted it. But even on the short walk to the Cathedral they excited attention. Men called to them. The Archers and the gentlemen of the household greeted the comte de Sevigny in ways which conspicuously lapsed from the formal. And in the Audience Chamber the elect, awaiting admission, were openly boisterous.

  Watching his brother among them, Culter could pick out the mignons de couchette—the Vidame de Chartres, the Prince of Condé, the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon—whose interest in Francis Crawford over the years had not been impersonal. And those with whom, presumably, he had shared his campaigns: de Nevers, Saxony, Ferrara
, and d’Estrée, the gaunt Gascon whose guns never blew up, or needed vinegar. And the brothers de Guise, the Duke, the Cardinal, the Duke d’Aumale and the rest who did not advance upon him as the others did, but waited, smiling, to congratulate him on his recovery and to suggest, with amusement, the means by which he might add substance to the fair vehicle his body, so cherished by many.

  But for that, and M. le comte’s extreme delicacy of complexion, one would have said it was a court occasion like any other. And when the doors were thrown open and the King was seen, in his shirt, rising from his prie-Dieu, the open pleasure with which he turned and greeted his returned commander had a significance readily apparent in that court of small, shifting allegiances. ‘Ah, M. Tête de Fer, you have returned to us, fragrant with Tartar musk and peonies, I note, in place of reeking of Egyptiacum. I have been surrounded by invalids—M. de Guise, M. de Ferrara, M. de Bouillon there. You have infected my army.’

  He sat down and thrust out a foot. The Duke de Guise, receiving a silken pile from the hands of a gentleman of the chamber, began to draw on the royal hose. The triple tuck of a little tabor, playing a pavane with two recorders in the back of the room, barely disturbed the murmuring quiet.

  Belle qui tiens ma vie

  Captive dans tes yeulx

  Qui m’as l’âme ravie

  D’un soubzris gracieux,

  Viens tost me secourir

  Ou me fauldra mourir …

  ‘I have had,’ the King said, ‘to prohibit skirmishes after your little exploit, or we should have found ourselves, so eager for glory are my commanders, in the thick of a general engagement. So you have lost no opportunities by your absence. Indeed, affairs have moved. The bridge which you destroyed with such superbité may now prove an inconvenience when dispatching our emissaries to Cercamp for peace talks.’ He put down the other foot and stood up. M. d’Aumale, holding the royal pourpoint, moved forward.

  ‘I must beg your grace’s pardon,’ Lymond said. ‘The next bridge I destroy I shall leave fitted with spriggs and spelkin nails, fit for rebuilding. So there is a truce to be made?’

  ‘It seems so,’ said the King. He slid his arm through the second ribboned sleeve and waited while the garment was smoothed about him. The fire, scented with rosemary, threw its gentle light on the red and chestnut and gold of the Cordoban hangings and the pavane entered its second verse:

  Approche donc ma belle,

  Approche toy mon bien,

  Ne me sois plus rebelle

  Puisque mon coeur est tien

  Pour mon mal appaiser

  Donne moi un baiser.

  ‘Col de Dieu, you play better than that, mon ami. If you will not take the cremorne, and I know you will not,’ said the King, ‘have them give you a lute and let us have some music worthy of the name. Yes, I shall soon be disposing of my troublesome Blacksmiths, and the Bishop of Ely and the Earl of Arundel are on their way from England for peace talks. You know them both, as I remember. I shall look to you to give me advice.’ He pressed his feet into his velvet slippers and leaned forward to choose his rings.

  ‘May one ask what the terms are likely to be?’ Lymond said. He received the lute someone brought him and walking a step or two, adjusted his weight against a gilt and marquetry table and began, his head bent, to tune it softly.

  ‘We shall dictate them,’ said the Cardinal of Lorraine, smiling. The firelight, burning on the vermilion robes, lit the golden hair and beard and the kind, light grey eyes. ‘The Duke of Savoy, naturally, wishes Piedmont and Nice and Savoy returned to him. The King of Spain wishes to have restored Thionville and the other great towns which have been captured from him. And the English want back Calais and Guînes and the rest of the Pale. They will not receive them, but they have no redress: money is far too short with King Philip. He will return to Spain, the Duke of Savoy to his own business. The Duke of Alva, they tell me, is already licking Flemish boots in the hope of being given the Regency. The war which opened so inauspiciously for us last August with the sad defeat of Saint-Quentin is ending in victory.’

  No one dissented. The lute, in an extremely low voice, dictated a brilliant account of a melody Richard Crawford recognized instantly.

  Margot labourez les vignes

  Vignes, vignes, vignolet

  Margot labourez les vignes bient tost.

  De Nevers said, ‘Perhaps M. de Sevigny has not heard. Fray Carlo de Santo-Hieronimo is dead. King Philip’s father. The Queen of England, it seems, is sinking. Even Cardinal Pole has a double quartain ague and is not likely, they say, to survive. As his grace has said, there has been a mortal sickness abroad these past weeks which touches us all.’

  ‘And if God were to call the Queen to her account, King Philip would have a new bride to seek,’ Lymond said. ‘A versatile commodity, death; except for those suffering it. My brother’s colleagues at Dieppe were also among the unfortunate.’

  As if unrelated to the musician, the song of the lute continued to dance:

  En revenant de Lorraine

  Margot recontray trois capitaines,

  Vignes, vignes, vignolet.

  The King’s cap was set on his head and, as he stood, his sash, his chain and his Order added, followed by his furred surcoat. He said, ‘I made sure, M. de Sevigny, that every Scotsman with a complaining tongue in his throat would come running to you: I am glad to hear that your door has been closed to them. No one regrets the unfortunate sickness of your poor countrymen more than I do. M. de Culter your brother will, I am sure, tell you what trouble we have taken to trace the disease and to help the poor sufferers. My daughter your Queen has been quite overset by it. I hope they will have a happier landfall in their own country, those that now return. He turned, and receiving a silver goblet of hippocras drank half, quickly, and then touched his lips with the silk napkin offered him by the Cardinal.

  ‘But these are sad affairs, and we must rejoice. The summer is over and we are here in good health, to begin all the pleasures of winter. You shall see, you Russian Scotsman, what we mean in France by the chase. M. de Nemours will challenge you again to ride up the Palais de Justice steps and down them as well: you will beat M. le Vidame at jeu de paume and caress us with your lute and teach the Dauphin—here he is, eager to learn—how to sledge and to slide in the snows, as you did in Muscovy. Do you not long for the winter?’

  Ils m’ont salué vilaine

  Margot je suis leurs fievres quartaines,

  Vignes, vignes, vignolet:

  Margot labourez les vignes bient tost …

  … said the gay lute; and stopped. ‘Forgive me, your grace, but I shall not be at court,’ Lymond said.

  The King put down his cup, the black eyes glancing at Culter’s impassive face and then back to his Marshal again.

  ‘A few days: I can understand. You must recover your strength: you have family business no doubt to discuss. But I require,’ said the tres-hault, tres-puissant, tres-vertueux et magnanime Prince Henry, in a voice which did not match the last of his attributes, ‘that you should be present for the banquet of the Order on Thursday. And that, M. de Sevigny, is a command.’

  Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny laid down the lute. Then walking forward, he knelt very slowly at the King’s feet and lifted his head to speak to him.

  ‘Once before, sire, I asked you to accept my honours and you refused them, for France, you said, had need of my services. That time is over. You may hunt without my aid, and M. de Nemours may ride up and down the steps of the Palais de Justice with other companions. I contracted to stay in France for a year, and I have done so. I beg now to be allowed to leave the light of your presence.’

  Outside in the courtyard a group of bored noblemen were playing a game of cheval fondu. The noise rattled the leaded panes in the windows. Someone spoke in a low voice outside the door.

  The King said, ‘What do you lack? I have treated you en naturel françois. There is no privilege you have not received from us. Is this to be our recompense?’ H
e gave no sign that M. Crawford should rise.

  Lymond said, ‘You have honoured me far above my deserts. You will appoint a Marshal of France and a Chevalier of the Order without difficulty ten times more worthy. My collar and my bâton are both here in the hands of your officers and I now resign the sash into your keeping.’

  He slipped it over his head as he spoke and held it between his hands, the green and gold of the Little Order sparkling on it. The King said, ‘You have misread the rules of this Order. It is one you resign with your life.’

  ‘Then my life is in your hands,’ Lymond said.

  In a slow glimmer of vermilion, the Cardinal of Lorraine moved forward a trifle. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘M. le Maréchal should be permitted to stand. His Majesty will recall that he is speaking to a sick man. And perhaps, sire, you would allow me to ask M. de Sevigny what employment he has in mind, that exceeds in honour and consequence that of a liegeman to the Most Christian King of France?’

  If it had been possible to continue kneeling, thought Richard grimly, no doubt Francis would have done so. But instead he rose, his manner a little more studied than usual, and said, ‘M. le Cardinal is thoughtful.’ To the King he said, ‘I go, sire, to no other master. My family affairs call me home to Scotland, and I hope to sail there shortly with Lord Culter and, once there, to live privately on my estate.’

  No one, in a matter as crucial as this, risked interfering except the family whom it touched most closely. The Duke de Guise gave an easy laugh. ‘Sire: may I interpret the Marshal’s wishes to you? He desires to command your Majesty’s army in Scotland, and knows no other way to set about it.’

  Lymond said, ‘I wish to command neither the King’s army, monseigneur, nor that of the Queen Dowager your sister. My mother, as you have seen, is no longer young, and I have been many years from home. She has asked me to come back and I have agreed.’