Checkmate (3 page)

‘Paris, sir?’ said Austin Grey, his eyes on his uncle. Obstinate, old-fashioned, over-meticulous to a degree, Lord Grey was a figure of melancholy fun to his valet, his secretary and all those between wars who served him.

In battle, it was a different matter. He had a flair for it: a military instinct revered by the English high command and also by their allies the Spaniards, to whom he was now seconded.

‘Naturally, Paris,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. ‘After Picardy is overrun, who is there to stop us? The Constable, in his dotage? The princes of the blood, St André and the rest of their decadent chivalry? Who is there? Even Piero Strozzi is on his way back to Italy.’

‘And Mr Crawford to Lyon,’ said Austin. ‘Is that such a bad thing for us, sir? It must have weakened the Constable’s forces.’

‘It might have,’ said Lord Grey testily, ‘if he had taken any troops to Lyon with him. All he has are some officers of the Bureau of Finance and
a group of his own captains. They’ll be mustering Switzers on the spot, I shouldn’t wonder, and withdrawing Piedmont troops into the bargain. He’s no fool. It’s what I should do. And it’ll leave the Constable a full army here in the north to attack us with. As you know,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton, ‘I can’t stand the fellow. But I wish to God he were fighting for us instead of against us. Or that he wasn’t fighting at all.’

He glared at his nephew, who had failed to kill Francis Crawford of Lymond, and Austin Grey sustained his gaze without moving.

At Lymond’s hands he had risked the loss of more than his time and his patience. He had enjoyed a grim satisfaction in attempting to repay him, painfully, in that brief moment of fighting at Douai.

But he had not sought to kill him.

One could not say that to Lord Grey. One could not say that in honour one could not bring oneself to slay Francis Crawford, then or at any time in the future, no matter how much one disliked him.

One could not say that one deeply loved, and wished to marry, Francis Crawford’s exquisite wife.

That a Royal deputation was coming was known to every burgher in Lyon by the last week in July, but only the doughty Scottish merchant called Jerott Blyth knew who was to lead it, for Francis Crawford sent him a letter.

Once, Jerott had fought under Lymond, when his band of mercenaries had first made their mark throughout Europe. He still exchanged news and heard from his former colleagues occasionally. He knew, for example, from Adam Blacklock what Lymond had done and said on his return from Douai, when his captains had succeeded, with Strozzi’s help, in preventing him from leaving France.

Jerott Blyth was a tough and even a foolhardy man, but he was glad he had not been there. He was content to receive his instructions by letter and to carry them out in the pleasant place where he had chosen to settle, in the Presqu’île, the flat pendant of land on the breast of the south-flowing Rhône which was the heart of commercial Lyon.

To his north lay the streams of the Saône and the Rhône, the cords of the pendant here united. From Marseille up the Rhône to the Presqu’île there came the wine, the crystal, the oil, the vats of silk and the ostrich feathers, the gold, the carpets, the almonds, the sugar, the balms and the spices of Venice, Africa and the Orient. Through the river-passes to the north and the west, trade and conquering peoples flowed over the Alps and into Italy as well as into Germany, Flanders and Paris. Long after the Romans had founded it, Lyon remained the crossroads of the world: the springboard of every Transalpine campaign; the station in every traveller’s journey from the Mediterranean to the Court in the north.

And so Lyon was larger than Paris, and, fed by the rich blood of its immigrants, grew richer and still more brilliant. It gave to the world silks and poetry, the finest banking system Europe possessed, and the most distinguished collection of printing houses. And from its wealth, it came in time to pay the penalty. Four French Kings, coated in silver-etched armour, had hurled themselves into warfare on the bankers’ orders
loyally proffered by Lyon, and the burghers were in no doubt at this moment as to why a Russian general with French and Scottish titles should be riding from Compiègne to address them. But none the less, on this Sunday, August 15th, they gathered outside the Hôtel de Ville on the Presqu’île and waited for the welcoming party to appear on the bridge with their visitors.

And Jerott Blyth, standing with them in his expensive high-collared cloak and paned pourpoint wondered why, successfully settled in this handsome city, he troubled to further the career of someone who was, after all, no longer his commander. And why, gazing over the river to the tree-cloudy hill of la Fourvière palisaded with the tall, crowded homes of the bankers, the administrators, the clergy, he should find his gloved fingers clenched, his pulse hurrying.

He had nothing to fear. He was beyond the age, now, of being hectored. He was even now, in a sense, part of the family.

To his left, darkly curving, was the rue Mercière, the richest street in the city, in which stood his great house of Gaultier, which had come to him with his wife.

There were some, he knew, who believed he had married Marthe for the house, or for her inheritance from the two people, now dead, who had lived in it. She had never troubled to conceal her illegitimacy. It still angered him that, set against her looks, her quick wits, her business acumen, it should be held to matter.

The connection with Lymond she had never publicized. Until last week, when the letter to Jerott from Francis himself had referred to it. ‘Your former service with me is no doubt common knowledge. Since the resemblance between Marthe and myself will cause comment, you might refer to her now as my step-sister. Any antecedents you care to invent on this score, I shall be happy to substantiate.’

It had, in fact, been difficult to persuade Marthe to agree to this, but he had succeeded and the reaction among their neighbours had varied, as he had expected, from austere disbelief to jocularity.

There was no doubt that Lymond would never have dreamed of advertising the link except from necessity. The resemblance between himself and Jerott’s wife could have been no greater if they had been of one birth, brother and sister.

As it chanced, neither Lymond nor Marthe knew the reason, and neither cared. One assumed that Lymond’s late father, a foot-loose nobleman, had sired Marthe and left her in France, where four years ago, Francis had come across her, on his way to Turkey.

At the end of that voyage he, Jerott, had married her. But Francis had not seen her since, nor had he corresponded with her. Whatever its antecedents the link, so lately formed, had proved a tenuous one. Once, to be sure, he had got the impression they hated one another.

Then the man on his left said, ‘There they are!’ and Jerott saw the flashing of halberds and morions and the flutter of flags between the tall
houses on either side of the bridge. The Delegation had spent the previous night outside the walls of Saint-Just and had come fresh this morning down the steep path of the Gourguillon, where a Pope had once lost his tiara, and along the crowded right bank of the Saône.

Escorting it would be the twelve members of Lyon’s Consulat but not the Governor, the Marshal de St André. The Marshal was on campaign in Picardy. The Governor’s lodging, in an elegant square on the other side of this bridge, was where Lymond would henceforth be staying.

Jerott Blyth had been relieved to hear it. Any visit Lymond paid to the Hôtel Gaultier would consequently be a brief one. A young priest standing beside him said, ‘I’m told you fought, sir, under his lordship of Sevigny. In Scotland, is he of good family?’

The usual question. ‘He is the second son of a very old Scottish house,’ Jerott said, watching the bridge. ‘He has a Scottish property at Lymond and a French estate at Sevigny, on the Loire. His brother, Crawford of Culter, has the title.’

‘Ah!’ said the monk. He looked impressed. ‘I have heard of Lord Crawford of Culter.’

And the usual answer. ‘You will have heard of the first baron,’ Jerott said. ‘This is three generations away. This Mr Crawford has only fought occasionally in France and has just spent two years in Russia.’

Which in some degree, he supposed, must have altered him. On that point, Adam’s letters had not been informative. The mounted procession, feathered caps bobbing, was coming closer. He had not far off a hundred men at arms with him, Jerott calculated; and God knew how many servants, as well as a jogging group in black skirts: the finance officers. Then the Consulat and the chief burghers. Then Adam Blacklock, lean and unexpectedly scarred, riding next to a small, fresh-faced person unknown to him. Then …

Then Francis Crawford of Lymond, comte de Sevigny. At Douai, before he killed Strozzi’s men, he had played the part, Adam said, of a red-headed student counter-tenor.

Now he was not playing a rôle. Jerott wondered what the Douaisiens would have made of this fair, slender man with the sculptured face and wide, watchful eyes, and the lyre marks of satire and also of arrogance about the long mouth. Lymond rode under the personal banner of his house, and wore for his entry a high-throated doublet and surcoat of floating Persian tissue whose stuff drew comment like the chatter of looms from all the watching weavers, and whose jewels, luminous in the sunlight, cast their bloom as through a wine glass, citrine and azure and amethyst; to gratify bankers and make merchants fall silent, appraising them.

Then the Captain-General dismounted and Jerott found himself, all too soon, summoned to his place in the introductions. Face to face: ‘My God,’ said Francis Crawford in English, smiling cordially and shaking his hand. ‘Caffa and purled lace and pinking, and a butt on him like one
of Shah Mahmút the Ghazněrides’ elephants. How is Marthe?’ To his escort he added blandly, in French, ‘Forgive me. Mr Blyth and I are old acquaintances.’

‘Don’t apologize. M. le Prévôt speaks English,’ said Jerott coldly.

‘So he does,’ said Lymond thoughtfully. ‘Remind me to tell him that the Shah Mahmút the Ghazněrides kept very small elephants. And Marthe, you that in love find lucke and habundance? May I call on her?’

‘If you wish. That is, we shall be honoured,’ said Jerott quickly. Francis could always tie him in knots.

Lymond, his mouth twitching, moved on. His two captains, Adam Blacklock and Daniel Hislop watched him go and turned their gaze with one accord upon Jerott Blyth, left staring after him.

‘This man Jerott,’ said Danny Hislop accusingly. ‘You said he was middle-aged.’ Jerott turned.

‘I didn’t,’ said Adam Blacklock indignantly. ‘I said he was stinking rich and cut his old allies dead in the street. I did not say he was middle-aged.’

Vivid, black-haired and muscular, with passions far from middle-aged lodged between the flat belly and lean hips on which he had just been insulted, Jerott Blyth looked at the two men and, for the first time, his face lost its apprehension.

Then Adam put his hand on his arm, and laughed, and introduced the short, sandy-haired man called Danny Hislop, and together they went into the Hôtel de Ville after Lymond.

*

Jerott’s golden-haired wife watched them go. Unknown to him, Marthe had stood for an hour in the crowd facing the church of Saint-Nizier to obtain a sight, her first for three years, of the Scotsman who so resembled her.

Conscious of her own singular beauty she had wondered if he had lost his own looks, but this was not so. Indeed, he had come into them in an odd way; the pastel colours subtly enlivened by the snows of Muscovy; or what he had found there.

The thought did not please her. She watched him dismount and, her lips tightening, saw him speak to her husband and Jerott, flushed, answer him. Then Jerott was joined by two other men and the three followed her brother to the entrance of the Hôtel de Ville.

In the archway, Francis Crawford paused and turned. The crowd, readily sycophantic, raised some applause for him. He smiled, acknowledging it and, turning his gaze unerringly to where Marthe stood, performed for her lightly a complete Court salutation, his hand on his heart. Then, amusement on his face, he continued on his way leaving behind him Jerott, red with embarrassment, and the smaller of the two captains staring in her direction, his roomy mouth fallen open.

Other heads, craning, had recognized the woman dealer from the
Hôtel Gaultier. Marthe turned and, without hurrying, strolled through the dispersing crowd to the rue de la Piatière behind her.

So, riding by without a glance, Lymond had still noticed her. And telling her so, delivered a warning.
You must do better than this
, that charming greeting conveyed,
if you wish, my dear Marthe, to study me
. It was useful to be reminded that she, too, had tended always to underrate Francis Crawford.

It was not a mistake she intended to repeat. In a few moments, walking north, she had reached her meeting place.

The road was full, as usual, of carts coming through the Porte de la Lanterne, and a clutter of stalls, and knots of gossiping people on their way to and from market. Sitting on the steps of the Cross was a small, weather-worn person with a broken nose, working with a knife at a piece of wood. A group of children surrounded him.

As she approached, he stood up and said something in idiomatic French with a strong Scottish accent, handing the piece of wood as he did so to one of the children. It seemed to be a puppet of some sort. They ran off, laughing and shouting, and the man turned and came towards her.

Close to, his face was not prepossessing: the grizzled beard more grey than black, and the skin seamed with scars and stiffened with suns hotter than those in Scotland or France. Marthe said, ‘You keep your word, Mr Abernethy. Is Mr Crawford’s wife coming to Lyon?’

Archie Abernethy, a veteran of more skirmishes than Marthe could have imagined, stopped, cocked his mahogany cranium and said, ‘Aye so, Mistress Blyth; and good day to ye. But ye didna tell me Mr Crawford would be here at the same time, now. Or is that a coincidence?’

The long-lashed blue eyes held his, peacefully. ‘Does it matter? I told your mistress that a visit would be rewarding. When she died, the Dame de Doubtance left many papers. Mr Crawford may have no interest in his family history, but his wife, I am told, is a tireless investigator. She shall have free access to all the documents. Whether Mr Crawford is here or not, surely, will make no difference.’

Through a gate in the wall was the small churchyard of Saint-Pierre, with shade under the trees, and some white marble benches. Jerott Blyth’s wife, turning, entered and seated herself. ‘Unless, of course, Mistress Philippa is still afraid of him?’

Arms folded, the little man stood and considered her. ‘You could say she doesna relish the notion of meeting him. He would be in Russia now but for his wife handing him over to the French ship that captured him.’

‘Why? I didn’t know that!’ said Marthe sharply.

In a liquid gesture, Mr Abernethy expressed helpless ignorance. ‘She didna want him to go back to Russia.’

‘I wonder why?’ Marthe said. ‘She hasn’t changed her mind about the divorce?’

‘Fegs, no,’ said Archie. ‘Ye havena seen her since the English court got
hold of her. She’s had suitors like a pierhead has wulks ever since she left home, and since she came here we’re fair palsified with them.’

‘So Philippa is already in Lyon?’ said Marthe softly.

He stared back at her owlishly. ‘Aye. At Mr Crawford’s bankers, the Schiatti,’ he said. ‘We had lodgings, but they took a fancy to her, and invited us to stay. We came properly escorted, with a safe conduct.’

‘The Schiatti,’ said Marthe thoughtfully. There were two middle-aged brothers, both with sons.

‘Aye,’ said Archie Abernethy. He cleared his throat. ‘You have no objection, then, to this hunt through the Doubtance papers?’

‘I?’ said Jerott’s wife, and raised her arched eyebrows at him in a stare which recalled, unpleasantly, her masculine counterpart. ‘The facts of my birth are beyond either redemption or further embarrassment, Mr Abernethy. If Mistress Philippa finds satisfaction in laying bare the truth about her husband’s origins, it is not for me to dissuade her.… Do you know, I wonder, his purpose in coming here?’