Checkmate (30 page)

And because that was not how he prayed Philippa would come to him, Austin lifted his sword and with his free hand flung the reins of Lymond’s horse in the other man’s face. Then Lord Grey’s nephew turned into almost certain death, and head up, faced the armed men surrounding him.

‘Let him through,’ Lymond said, and his voice, to Jerott, listening, was suddenly threadbare with tiredness. ‘He may as well fail to kill Frenchmen in Picardy as fail to kill Frenchmen in … Paris. Tell them to let him go free.’

They did not trouble to watch Austin Grey ride off alone over the marshes, to follow the few who had lived through that ambush. They crowded round Lymond’s horse, awaiting his commendation, which he gave them; and then obeyed Hislop’s orders and formed ranks ready for
marching, having stripped the Englishmen of all their bodies could offer. Jerott, leaning over to cut Lymond’s bonds said, ‘Jesus Christ, your … The wire’s made a mess of your wrists. Are you all right?’ His face was red with anxiety.

‘Perfectly,’ Lymond said. ‘I am also filled with gratitude. Apart from risking the lives of two trained companies and four principal officers you have contrived to nullify an elaborate scheme which would have sent the entire Spanish army to Lorraine instead of to Calais. It only remains for us all to be caught on our way back to Compiègne, and you will be able to wallow in the fruits of unbridled, emasculated, inadmissible, un-military bloody romanticism.’

‘Such as,’ said Adam Blacklock unfairly, ‘the motive which took you back to Flavy-le-Martel in the first place? The trouble with you, M. le comte de Sevigny, is that you’re too god-damned autocratic. From now on, you will kindly remember that a good military tactician requires the support of a team. We are your team.’

There was a pause. Then Lymond looked at Archie, and before his gaze passed on to the rest, even Archie found himself flinching.

‘Why? You must have other interests?’
said Francis Crawford.

They made no answer because, after forty-eight hours of vigil on the sodden plateau for his sake, no possible answer existed. Only Archie Abernethy quietly took over his reins and said, ‘Oh, Mary Mother. Let us get you home.’

In the interests of the Duke de Guise’s winter campaign, the incident of M. de Sevigny’s brief capture and escape was not made public. As it happened, the Duke de Guise himself was unaware of the full implications of the event, which were known only to Lymond, his rescuers, and to Piero Strozzi, whom Francis Crawford went to see immediately on his return to Compiègne.

He made no excuses. ‘I may have wrecked the Calais campaign. I fed Willie Grey a cropful of spurious information about the forthcoming French attack on the Pale and was rescued before I could be forced to confess otherwise. It may be all right. They were already suspicious of me before we left. But if you want to tell de Guise, I shan’t stop you.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘This,’ said Lymond, and tossed over a roll of paper. ‘I wrote it down so that you would know what to expect if by any chance Grey and the Spaniards take it all seriously.’

Piero Strozzi lifted the roll and read through it. Then retying it, he held it out in his ringed, powerful hand towards the man who had written it. ‘Take it,’ he said, ‘and destroy it. With that information you might fool Alva. You would certainly fool King Philip. But Lord Grey and the Duke of Savoy are thinking men. A spy who claimed to have just come from Calais should never have made all these blunders. Did you talk about alternative targets?’

‘No,’ said Lymond. ‘But I became very scathing whenever they mentioned Arlon or Luxembourg. That is where our feint ought to be.’

Piero Strozzi eyed him. ‘You came to me,’ he said. ‘But you have no real fears that they will act on the information you have sold them, and neither have I. Our prime objective remains Calais. We shall take a few extra precautions, that is all. And I see no need why this little history should travel beyond these four walls. Tête-Dieu, I told le Guisard that I was releasing two companies to try with your own men to rescue you for fear you told Grey too much about Calais. I didn’t know they would pull you out before you had told enough. What was the bribe? Russia?’

‘Obviously,’ Lymond said.

‘Obviously. But in that case, mon gars, why mislead them? Russia is where you wanted to rule.’

Lymond lifted his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I didn’t mislead them,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I went back to Flavy specifically so that the English would capture me.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Piero Strozzi with undoubted cheerfulness. ‘It would pay me, would it not, for Douai? On the other hand you would not have come to me and told me this. Nor, of course, would you be prepared to risk your skin with the army at Calais. You are prepared to risk your skin with the army at Calais?’

‘If I must,’ said Lymond gravely. ‘There is also the matter of my divorce. I plan to acquire it before I betray you.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Strozzi. ‘This marriage to Catherine d’Albon. I advised it.’

‘You did not, strictly speaking, advise marriage,’ Lymond said. ‘And what you did advise had nothing to do with Russia. But don’t hesitate to continue.’

‘The King agrees,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘His grace was impressed by our joint venture as apple-sellers. He has therefore decreed—he will tell you himself—that if Calais is taken, your marriage to St André’s daughter may, if you wish, be contracted at Easter.’

‘Preceded by my divorce?’ said the comte de Sevigny guardedly. His face had changed, Strozzi noticed with interest. The wench was handsome, and wealthy and, in spite of everything, rumour said, still a virgin.

‘Preceded,’ agreed Piero Strozzi, ‘by your God-damned divorce, four months early. And not before time. I’m told every man at court is after your wife as it is. If I weren’t so busy I’d be one of them. It’s time that charming girl had a wholesome, kind-hearted young man to be husband to her.’

‘That’s what Austin Grey thinks, but he’s busy as well. Really,’ said Lymond, ‘the only person to be lucky in all this is Cathin d’Albon.’

*

It was the opinion expressed, and indeed held, by Catherine d’Albon’s mother when the Queen summoned her to discuss her daughter’s future. ‘Not,’ said Queen Catherine, the wide, shallow eyes filled with intelligent sensibility, ‘that plans could be made known until our gallant lords return from the battlefield. But messages might be passed when next you write to your husband the Marshal. We miss him, as we miss our old friend the Constable. God grant that they will both soon be freed, and peace sent us.’

It was the Duke de Guise’s great fear. The news which seeped back to Paris and Saint-Germain and Poissy indicated that before any of France’s distinguished prisoners found freedom, the Guisard’s troops would mark the autumn, willy-nilly, with a string of successful engagements.

The nature of these was less easy to distinguish. The Duke de Nevers,
for example, appeared to have moved out to the frontiers of Champagne, while the Duke de Guise with the rest of the army was hovering between the Spanish fortresses of Ham, Saint-Quentin and le Catelet, intercepting supplies and planning, they said, either to attack them or to advance to protect Doullens.

The King of France’s war horses travelled to Senlis; and all the young horses from the Duke de Guise’s stud moved suddenly from Champagne to Nanteuil. The Channel ports in Brittany, Normandy and Picardy became unusually busy. In the middle of November the story went about that the Duke de Guise had assembled twenty thousand horse and foot to take and fortify Chauny, between Compiègne and Ham. Having done that, he intended to garrison all his fortresses for the winter and dismiss the rest, reducing the troops beside Lyon from six thousand to two thousand as well.

Heartened no doubt by these tidings, the lieutenant-general of the Spanish army marched out of Ham, now strongly fortified, and retired briskly to Brussels, burning all he could find as he travelled. The Spanish army, unpaid for several weeks began, as was its habit, to leave for the winter. A rumour spread that the King of France, who still had his troops and an untoward payroll, planned to justify both with a small foray in or near Luxembourg. They said Marshal Strozzi had been there on reconnaissance.

December came. They said the Duke de Guise was stuck at Compiègne with his men dying off daily. He had, however, sent on his artillery so that if need be, it could be carried to Luxemburg. They said that de Nevers was in marching order for Luxemburg, but would pretend in the first instance to be going to victual Marienbourg.

They said that the Duke de Guise was really staying close to Compiègne with the intention of retaking Ham, and then Arras.

They said that the Duke de Nevers and his troops were in Metz, on their way to do battle in Luxembourg, but had been held up where they were by the weather. There was a sardonic joke travelling round, about the Duke de Guise’s real hope being to conquer the English in Calais. Lord Grey, who had gone back to his fortress of Guînes, was not in the way of hearing it. The Duke de Guise finally moved out of Compiègne and towards Guise which, they said, he was going to inspect. The army in Compiègne also showed signs at last of striking camp and marching somewhere.

A report came that the Duke de Nevers and twenty thousand foot had been seen marching towards Picardy. A further report credited the Duke de Guise with having sent five thousand German troops by water to Pontoise and a further twenty thousand towards Amiens, Abbeville and Montreuil. Four days later, it was known that the whole French army was marching north in two divisions, and that in the vanguard was an immense body of cavalry, led by Piero Strozzi in conjunction with Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny.

It was the first concrete news for two months of either man, and it reached the young Queen of Scotland just before Christmas. On
Christmas Day, Philippa Somerville handed over her duties to Fleming, and attaching herself to a Paris-bound party, took herself unannounced to speak to Francis Crawford’s step-sister in Paris.

*

But for its servants, the collection of buildings known as the Séjour du Roi was empty.

Since Jerott’s single crass visit home, he had not returned to his wife Marthe. And since they had joined him in Compiègne, the rooms allotted to Hislop and Blacklock had been empty.

Clever; self-sufficient; occupied with her own business of antiques and the merchanting of less ponderable beauty, Marthe did not miss them. Only on Christmas day, when her courtier friends were long gone to Poissy and her poets and painters and writers were, for once, at home with their children did she find time, for a space, hang spitefully dull on her hands. She worked alone on a spinet someone had brought in disorder, and then having set it to rights, put on cloak and pattens and went out through the town gate to walk through the grass by the river.

The sharp air cleared her mind and settled her emotions. Satisfied, she returned to the Séjour du Roi and found Adam Blacklock waiting for her on the threshold.

She showed no surprise. She said, ‘When I am out, the door-keeper grows rather deaf. I apologize. Have you come to break news to me about Jerott? Or has someone found Francis too inconvenient?’

And that took some courage, thought Adam. Or perhaps sheer, bloody, unfeeling arrogance. With Francis, you couldn’t tell, either, to begin with.

He said, ‘They are both alive and unwounded. I only wanted to talk to you. I have business at the Bureau de l’Epargne and thought I might pass the night in my rooms.’

‘Come in,’ said Marthe. And inside, when they were both settled in her parlour: ‘I take it, then, that you are here on Jerott’s behalf. I hope he is sober occasionally?’

On Adam Blacklock’s lean, observing face were the marks of two months of intensely hard work in the saddle. But although he had ridden a long way that day, with one leg which would never be as strong as the other, he was in better training than Jerott to face the bladed tongue, the language sweet and thick as cinnamon quills of the Crawford family. He said, ‘I did come on your husband’s behalf to see you, and also Philippa. Since your brother came back to Compiègne, Jerott has been wholly abstemious.’

She surveyed him, the dense blue eyes smiling. ‘He has found another paramour to chastise him? No. I imagine not. Whatever else poor Jerott lacks, he is loyal. Therefore his sense of responsibility has been jolted. He has had a lesson from Francis? Or …’

She was shrewd. Adam saw the thought strike her; and saw her eyes narrow before she produced it, dressed lightly in mockery. ‘Or has he been forced to rise to the occasion because his commander has dropped below it? Is Francis prostituting his rare endowments again with pipes and satyrs and spears wreathed with ivy?’

‘No,’ said Adam. It was childish to feel any anger. He remembered the door closing along the corridor in the Hôtel de Gouvernement, Lyon, and the stories he had heard repeated with envious laughter here in France of the pipes and satyrs and vine leaves of six years ago. He had heard the sound of the Vidame de Chartres’ voice, not so long since, talking to Lymond.

Adam said, ‘You and Jerott were with Francis at Volos, when his addiction was broken. Do you remember if he had headaches?’

Her eyes were wide open in the fragile face and for once, he could have sworn there was no artifice. Marthe said sharply, ‘Naturally. He had opium cramps. Why? Have they come back again?’

‘According to Archie,’ said Adam. ‘It seems that Francis has been increasingly subject to bouts of intense pain.’

Marthe got up. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Ill-wished by the idols of Themixtitan, whose cement is the blood of small children.’ She did not explain. ‘It dates back to a chess game. I didn’t know its effects were there still. Has he seen doctors?’

‘No. He covers it, when it has to be covered, with alcohol,’ said Adam grimly. ‘He was, however, examined without his knowledge by Nostradamus in Lyon. Archie told us about it.’

Someone tapped on the door and came in to light the wax candles. Marthe, ignoring him, walked up and down in front of the flickering hearth. ‘So what did he say? Whatever is wrong, I am sure with his sense of the picturesque, Francis will succeed in manifesting a
fadeur exquise.
’

The last stand of tapers lit her skin and made it translucent: pure as that of a girl ten years younger. It lit also something else: the fashionable silhouette of a woman standing just inside the open door which led to Marthe’s cabinet. The chamber-groom, catching sight of it first, said, ‘Oh, my lady. Madame returned with a guest. I … We …’

‘You forgot to tell her I was here,’ said Philippa Somerville. ‘You will have to make your peace with her about that afterwards. Marthe, I have been eavesdropping. Do you mind entertaining winged virgins with brazen claws? I think divorced wives should appear among the funeral trophies.’

Jerott said she had changed. It was true, Adam saw. Even since London, Philippa had altered, not so much in face, as in presence. And the spontaneous honesty which had always been there had acquired a disconcerting edge from other, flourishing faculties which seemed to spring up, like dragons’ teeth, to meet each fresh challenge of fortune.

The servant, released by a sign, fled from the room. Marthe said, ‘Mr Blacklock was coming to see you. You’ve saved him the trouble.’ She
held a chair while Philippa sat, her cloak discarded; her furred sleeves folded on the tiled floor. Then Marthe added, seating herself, ‘But you have mentioned something we didn’t know. Is your marriage annulled?’

Philippa sat very straight but not cross-legged, which would have come to her, as it happened, equally easily. ‘Not yet. But the Queen has made it known privately that if the war goes well, Mr Crawford may, if he wishes, marry Catherine d’Albon before his twelve months of service are finished. The Queen of Scotland is furious and even Mademoiselle d’Albon appears faintly stunned. It should be a rather fine match, if they can find a volunteer to go to bed with her mother. You were speaking of Volos?’

‘You heard what we said?’ Marthe said.

‘Yes. I can tell you something else,’ Philippa said. ‘The attacks began again when Mr Crawford came back from Russia to London.’