The Ringed Castle: Fifth in the Legendary Lymond Chronicles

by Dorothy Dunnett

The Voevoda, as Master Daniel had also pointed out, had neither sent flowers to the young woman nor visited her, although he had dispatched a messenger the following morning to inquire how she was. Master Daniel, who found this inadequate, was properly caustic. The Voevoda himself had not accompanied Master Nepeja to any of his engagements that day, but had elected to spend it in contemplation, sitting deep in thought (or slumber? or post-revels exhaustion?) at the big desk in his room.

  Danny Hislop, already staggered by intimations of unheard-of levity, made the most of the Voevoda’s changed plans for his day and put the reason down also to lassitude. He perceived his blunder the following morning when he was called to the same desk with d’Harcourt, to hear the outcome of the Voevoda’s day of silent retreat. It was, as he might have guessed, alarming and it did, as he might have guessed, entail a monstrous amount of work for Masters Hislop and d’Harcourt thus putting an end, as Danny expressed it, to his nice fineness and breathing desire towards effeminate and superfluous pleasures, not to mention Ludo’s visits to Smithfield.

  The matter, as they might have guessed, was inevitably the business of Russia.

  Through all the banquets and the routine engagements, the Voevoda’s work for the Tsar had continued, and since the treaty had been concluded, and they were free to engage men and seek expert advice, Lymond had been fully occupied. Now, with the help of Hislop and d’Harcourt, all that he had already done in this field was drawn together and intensified, so that in the short time still remaining in London his self-imposed task should be completed.

  The Tsar had wanted men from every profession to advise him. This was not possible. But from those men who came forward, Lymond chose the likeliest, with the help of Dimmock and his colleagues. And in those trades where no men could be hired, he sought the best man he could find, and picked his brains mercilessly. He gathered books. John Dee, unearthing from his mountainous desk the plans, rejected, for a National Library, found for him the standard works, and men who, briefly, could explain or annotate them, however crudely. He sought advice on buildings and transport; on roads and law-giving; on finance and farming. He commissioned books and papers; he found those members of the Muscovy Company who were on the Privy Council and questioned them. He did what it was Nepeja’s place to do and what, unlearned and unable to communicate, the Ambassador had never contemplated.

  And on top of that, with all the standing and authority he possessed, he set himself to force through the annulment of his marriage.

  Of that, Danny Hislop was not made aware. Hislop only knew that leisure, always short, was now quite circumscribed. That as the ships were loaded and the lists came in of all the armour and weapons Dimmock found for them, he and d’Harcourt were set to make lists in their turn; to work out where and how to use this windfall; where to store it; how to allocate it; whom to train.

  They sat with Lymond at his desk and worked, as they had done at the beginning in Russia, but this time not for the army alone. They saw illumined before them area by area the other regions in which Muscovy was backwrd or vulnerable and, together, discussed the solutions. Adam Blacklock, now a paid employee of the Muscovy Company, found himself being drawn in spite of himself to watch the solid weight of informed power moving slowly, as in a forge, against the obstinate and primaeval mass which was the present condition of Russia.

  On a task such as this, Lymond was always easy to work with. The caustic disciplines and the violence were for the field, not for the study. There he was quiet, carrying other minds with him; his own thinking heavily concentrated and naturally lucid in exposition: he was not, as Philippa had once called him, magisterial. On the other hand, he did not invite to work with him any but those who were capable of it.

  After a week of it, broken certainly by many interviews and absences, Danny Hislop rose at the end of a day’s work, yawned uncontrollably twenty times, stretched himself, and said, ‘What in God’s name, dear Ludo, made you decide to abandon the life of fourscore winters and sail back to Russia? Not only will you have to work like a coining-wedge: you will have to fight Tartars as well.’ And gazing at Lymond, who was standing reading a paper, Danny said, ‘You realize we haven’t had any food? We know you don’t mind dissolving to a rat-trap of brass wire like the Bishop of Sisteron, but Ludo needs food to make his sore arm get well.’

  ‘I am thinning you down for the Primrose,’ said Lymond, still reading. ‘Have we missed a meal?’

  ‘We have missed two meals,’ said Danny Hislop with precision. ‘And God knows how many drinks. I haven’t been working at all well. Hislops need lubrication.’ And thank God, for his stomach was rumbling, the Voevoda gave the order for food and wine to be brought, and, when he caught Adam glaring at him, Danny merely glared back. It was his hard luck, as he told the Voevoda later, that while Ludo, helped occasionally by Adam, was merely putting Russia to rights, he, Danny, was also organizing all the rigorous arrangements to make sure that Ambassador Peter Vannes did not arrive at the English Court with a bundle of dangerous papers under his arm.

  Vannes had not yet arrived. It seemed possible, despite the Voevoda’s conviction, that he never would, before Lymond and Danny and Ludo had to set sail for Russia. In which case, to preserve Mistress Philippa from unpleasant repercussions, someone else should be deputed to help stop those papers arriving. Adam Blacklock, for instance.

  But Lymond was still adamant: he wished neither Blacklock or d’Harcourt to be told of the matter, and he was not prepared to be chivvied about it.

  Danny did not pursue it. Ludo d’Harcourt, returned dazzled from Blackfriars, had given him hope that, against all expectation, the Voevoda was about to become human.

  That had proved a fallacy, as d’Harcourt had also discovered. The damage at Blackfriars had been generously, even royally made good. But after it, the Voevoda had withdrawn behind a barrier as distinct as it was deliberate. There was no more playacting.

  And Adam Blacklock, whose business was charts, and who had no right to be eavesdropping when Best and Buckland called and brought Jenkinson with them, or when Ludo and Danny, undressing, exchanged some terrible reminiscence of Novgorod or Ochakov, noticed it too, and noticed more than that.

  It was only by accident that, calling at the Voevoda’s room late one evening, Adam saw by the half-empty cup standing among the books on his table that Lymond had been drinking as he worked.

  The flask was put away and he was not unsteady on his feet or in any way affected that Adam could see: he was long past the time when he could not judge, to the thousandth part of a litre, just how far he wished to go, and then stop. But it was now so far from his habit that it gave Adam pause.

  He mentioned it, stupidly, to the others. ‘He doesn’t want to go back to Russia?’ Danny speculated, horrified.

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Ludo d’Harcourt impatiently. ‘You can see he is counting the days.’

  And although d’Harcourt was not usually, Adam thought, the most perspicacious member of the small party, in this instance he believed he was right. For Francis Crawford, the days of his life left in London could not possibly pass soon enough.

  *

  The bluebells Ludo had given her died before Philippa got down to Greenwich, but she took the tulips Sir Henry Sidney brought her, grown from the bulbs she had given him, begged by the French Ambassador from his colleagues in Turkey and Venice. And Austin, calling at Greenwich, had brought her sweetmeats and had been too distressed to examine the lump on her head.

  Except when she combed her hair, she had forgotten about it. Recollection of the incident itself still made her want to laugh at inconvenient moments, and, in respect of its effect on Mr Crawford, gave her much satisfaction. He was improving. He was making, indeed, unforeseen strides. She only hoped that Kiaya Khátún would not undo the good work when she got him.

  She was kept busy at Greenwich, for the Queen’s cold made all the extra Masses a trial, and her toothache refused to yield to treatment. So when the festivities began
, the Queen remained indoors out of public view while King Philip took his sister and cousin to fire off hackbuts and hunt in the sunshine. Or so they claimed. From the Queen’s lonely irritability, Philippa doubted if she believed it. And thought, privately, that it was less a matter of dalliance than a family conclave, from which his wife’s emotional ear had been excluded. King Philip’s affliction, they said, still troubled him on occasion. About its nature, no one had been quite specific.

  She worked hard, too, in order to free Jane to see her Count of Feria. Don Gomez was well born and wealthy and eighteen years older than Jane Dormer. He was also a Jesuit, which meant that he believed that consummate prudence, allied with moderate saintliness, was better than greater saintliness and mere prudence, which made it interesting to conjecture whether the betrothal, when it came, was likely to be protracted or short. The difference in age, Philippa supposed, would be overcome, Jane being very mature for her years, although she could not imagine the Count of Feria in a bright orange coat and a death’s head. She made up her mind to find out how old Mr Crawford was.

  It was the Queen, concerned about Philippa’s situation, who told her that further representations were being made from all quarters about her divorce, and Austin at last began to look cheerful, and a number of other young men, who had become her regular escorts, began to be a little less manageable as the rumour went round. While extremely tired of her condition, half maid and half matron like the Medioxes, Philippa was aware that the matter was still far from simple.

  Cardinal Pole, the Papal Legate and supreme authority on such matters was still at his palace in Canterbury, suspended in space between his recalcitrant monarch and his even more obdurate Pope. It was said that the Pope intended to revoke the Cardinal’s Legation, to deprive him of the means of doing injury to God and to himself, as he put it. The French, who had still not broken the truce in order to come to the Pope’s aid, were now wholly out of favour, and the Constable’s son still awaited his divorce.

  His Holiness, who had borne the fatigues of Holy Week with incredible vigour, filled the air with thunderous grievances: Flemings and Spaniards took root like weeds, unlike the French, who flew off and would not remain were they tied and bound. All Italy, he warned the Venetian Ambassador, would be dispatched and Venice remain as the salad. But England, he bellowed, would remain at peace despite Philip, since the English were not quite so easy to cook, and the King of France possessed Scotland, a scourge for the English, who, being almost savages and poor, would go joyfully for gain into England. … Would to God, said the Pope, referring to the unwell King Philip, would to God that misguided youth would do as he ought: he has excited the great he-goats who might bite him in earnest.

  And in the Pontiff’s gracious reply to Queen Mary’s letter of appeal and contrition: We would willingly separate the Queen’s cause from her—we know not whether to call him husband, cousin or nephew—and to have her as a daughter. She should not allow herself to be induced to do aught to our detriment, or that of the French King, or we will spare neither relatives nor friends, but include in our maledictions and anathemas all who shall desert the cause of God.

  And King Philip, who never now discussed matters of religion, save to urge less severity in order not to upset the Queen’s people, weathered a stormy interview with his Queen with his usual coldblooded calm, and laid before her the results of his consultations with scholars, universities and theologians on the propriety of disarming this frantic Prince, the Vicar of Rome. It is lawful for a vassal, said the scholars, and even more for a son, to anticipate the attack which he sees is being prepared against him by his spiritual Father and by his Prince.

  Thus the princes of Christendom, rising from their knees to hurry to their writing-desks, that Easter.

  Overwhelmed with debt, surrounded by inexpert and detested commanders, with his provinces mortgaged and his revenues alienated King Philip awaited the return of Ruy Gomez with money, and a response to the humble message Ruy Gomez had borne to his father the Emperor, begging him to leave his retirement in Spain: The success of my enterprise will depend on it … I am sure that if the world hears he has done as I ask, my enemies will take an entirely different view of the situation and will reconsider their plans.… Beg him to send me his opinion about the war, and where I had better attack and open the campaign to gain the greatest advantages.… And while waiting, King Philip issued a letter to the nobles of England. In it, he declared that His Holiness the Pope, having seized an unjust pretext to break with him, had invaded the Kingdom of Naples, having concluded a league with the King of France and the Duke of Ferrara, and having called the Turkish fleet to assist him.

  He himself, declared King Philip, had decided to raise a powerful army to create a diversion in France this summer, and, this being the first campaign in which he had taken part, he was anxious that it should go well. Since he was unable to finance it wholly from his own resources and those of Spain, he requested the bishops, the leading nobles and the high officers of state of England ‘as you are animated by the greatest zeal for our service and the general good of the Spanish kingdom’, to lend him as much money as they possibly could. And, promising ample security for repayment at the earliest possible date, he signed it, as it was written, in Spanish.

  The air was not filled with the murmur of Englishmen, obediently counting their gold. And Philippa, traitorously, had cause to be glad that the four ships now lying above London Bridge were already freighted with their cargo of arms, destined for another country entirely.

  They were due to sail on May 3rd; and on April 19th the Court returned to Whitehall Palace in London. On the same day the Muscovite Ambassador went to Westminster Abbey to hear Mass, and later to the Lord Abbot’s for dinner. Afterwards, he was invited to tour the reopened monastery and to inspect St Edward’s new shrine. Then, escorted by the Aldermen of the City and the merchants of the Muscovite Company in splendid array, he rode into the park and back to the city. He wore his cloth of gold with raised crimson velvet, and the Voevoda Bolshoia was not with him.

  On April 22nd, the Queen gave a farewell banquet in Westminster for the two Duchesses of Lorraine and Parma, on the eve of their long-awaited departure. Philippa was there, but not the Muscovite Ambassador.

  Ludovic d’Harcourt sent her a note and later called, by appointment, to see how she was. He himself, his cloak covering the empty sleeve of his doublet, was well on the mend. The Voevoda Bolshoia did not call, or send her a note. Philippa, accustomed by now to the minimal courtesies, recalled that with Mr Crawford the proffering of even the minimal courtesies was dependent on the current state of his nerves. She took, since there was no other course, a philosophic view of the matter.

  On April 23rd, the Feast of St George, the Crown held a chapter at Whitehall of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the premier English order of knighthood, and combined with it, in a stroke of inspiration allied to economy, the ceremonial leavetaking of Osep Nepeja, the Muscovite Ambassador.

  After the ceremony, which included a procession by King Philip and his knights in red velvet through the Hall and round the court by the Hall, viewed by the Queen from a window, the Muscovite Ambassador was received in audience upstairs in the Queen’s presence chamber in an audience attended by both Philippa Somerville and the Voevoda Bolshoia.

  The whole Court was there. The room was filled with noblemen, Spanish and English, and their ladies; with Aldermen and Muscovite merchants, conducted hence by the Earl of Shrewsbury in loyal support of the Ambassador. With the ten Knights of the Garter, including Sir William Petre, sweating under the weight of his robes, and Henry Sidney, accompanying his brother-in-law Sussex, newly invested as a Knight of the Order. With Austin Grey, Marquis of Allendale, whose uncle, Lord Grey of Wilton, had also today been elected in absentia.

  It was an occasion for extravagant costume. The Heralds’ tabards outglittered the rich coats of the Royal Guard, ranked with their halberds; the courtiers crowded the spaces amongst them, br
ight as chattering fountains in sunlight. Philippa, entering gravely as the Queen, to the sound of trumpets, moved to her Chair of Estate saw that the merchants, in a frenzy of optimism, had fitted out Master Nepeja with a new garment, jewelled and embroidered and more splendid than any he had exhibited yet. She thought, but could not believe, that there were earrings lost somewhere on each side of the box-cut brown beard.

  She had spent a great deal, it had to be admitted, on her own dress, which had a jewelled petticoat, quite impracticable, and a train of white gauze, lightly wired, cut to fall from her shoulders. Philippa added to it all the accessories it demanded, which were a straight back, a severe hairline and a scowl, and sailed into the room to take her place, standing, by the Queen’s chair. Since she had a point to make, she made it a positive one.

  Nepeja, naturally, was waiting in mid-floor with his sponsors. Last time, it had taken her some searching to disentangle the supercilious face of Mr Crawford, and even then, all she had received, tardily, was the concession of a raised pair of eyebrows. This time, she cast one stately glance round the packed and perfume-soaked room and saw him, instantly, although he was not even looking at her.

  He was not where she had expected him to be, and far from being conspicuous. In front of him, she now saw, was the cheerful bulk of Ludovic d’Harcourt, smiling at her, and the short man with the fluffy hair, whom she had been told was called Daniel Hislop, and Adam Blacklock, familiar from long ago, with the thin pink scar like a pen mark running across his lean face, which no one had been able to explain to her.

  But she saw them all afterwards. What had drawn her eye was the sensation of being looked at; which was odd, because she was used to the considering stares of the Court, as they weighed up your rings and your sempstress and your behaviour, and the look in the Queen’s eye as she addressed you. But where the gaze was which had attracted her she could not now tell. Mr Crawford’s eyes were downcast, and she could see, even at this distance, the graze he had received at the Revels and Masques, standing out against the rest of his profile.