Checkmate (46 page)

‘And what then,’ said Philippa, ‘are they paying you to do that they can’t manage themselves? Challenge him face to face?’ The floorboards outside the doorway creaked. Bailey’s men were still standing there.

‘I fancy,’ said Leonard Bailey, ‘any man of birth might be excused from challenging M. le comte de Sevigny face to face in a very short time. No. I have been asked to investigate the circumstances of your husband’s progeniture and collect all possible evidence which will reflect against himself and his mother with the object, in the end, of making it public.’

‘By whom?’ Philippa said. ‘Or could I guess?’ Coming from Bailey’s house in England, once, she had been followed. She remembered the livery the soldiers wore, and the look on Lymond’s face when she had told him. Of all the powerful enemies Francis had made, one family had the most cause to hate him, and herself. Long ago in Scotland, Lymond had exposed the renegade Earl of Lennox to ridicule and later, in France, had discredited both him and his expatriate brother. And over and over, through the years, had stood between Margaret Lennox, the Earl’s half-royal wife, and the lands, the power, the kingdoms she coveted. Margaret Lennox who, rumour said, had once appeared on the long list of Lymond’s mistresses.

There was money there, enough to give even this shocking old man satisfaction.

But he was not going to answer, or to give away anything at the moment. He smiled, his pores sweating a little from the warmth of the fire and said, ‘Perhaps you could. The Crawfords always picked clever girls.’

‘And they know the truth, your employers?’

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘They undertook to pay me for the duration of my researches, and so far, I have not been in a hurry. They do not, for example, know where this house is. But of course, I know the truth and I have all the evidence. It remains only to choose a time to hand it over. The arrival in France of Richard Crawford and Sybilla herself makes the present moment seem singularly appropriate.’

‘Then your payment from all quarters would cease, and Mr Crawford would kill you,’ said Philippa.

‘Oh, he would try to kill me before that,’ Bailey said. ‘As soon as you leave here and tell him of this conversation, he would never rest, would he, until I was done for? That is why I have written some very special instructions to go with those papers I showed you. If your husband or anyone else touches me—if I suffer injury, or die by violence, or even if Madame Roset is concealed from me—Sybilla’s confessions will be opened and published in London and Paris.’

Philippa stared at the flushed face. ‘But, Mr Bailey … if you sell to the Lennoxes, Mr Crawford has nothing to lose. Do you think you could possibly escape him?’

‘They have paid for my bodyguards,’ he said. ‘And promised protection in England. He can’t go to England. He’s in French employment.’

Philippa laughed. It was a little sawtoothed, but she was glad she could manage it at all. ‘Mr Bailey,’ she said. ‘I’ll remind you again. You are pitching yourself against the best-known professional in Europe. If he wants to kill you, he will have it done. What are the Lennoxes paying you?’

He had dropped her sleeves, shifting uneasily on his stool. He did not appear even to have noticed that she had guessed who his employers were. He said, ‘I have ten pounds a month so long as I am in France, and a written bond for six thousand more when I hand over the proofs, quite complete.’

‘I shall give you ten thousand pounds for them now,’ Philippa said.

His eyes shone, and then he dropped his wrinkled lids over them. ‘And have your husband send to kill me tomorrow?’

‘Hardly,’ Philippa said. ‘If, as you say, your death will make everything public. In fact, whatever we arrange, Mr Crawford need know nothing of it. Your pension from him will continue, and you will tell the Countess of Lennox that you cannot help her. Then you will be both rich and safe, so long as you keep perfectly silent. Otherwise you are a dead man, Master Bailey, no matter what the Lennoxes promise.’

She looked at him, without drawing back, and without, she hoped, showing fear or contempt or any of the black rage burning within her. ‘You will have to choose, Master Bailey, which of us to trust. But I can tell you that I should put your chances very low of ever seeing the six thousand pounds the Lennoxes may have promised you. The present Queen of England, we now know, is childless, and her sister has no love for the Lennoxes. When Elizabeth comes to the throne, that family will need all their wealth to keep themselves out of prison.’

He was interested. He said, ‘You could bring me ten thousand pounds without your husband knowing of it?’

‘I have my own resources,’ Philippa said. ‘Give my bankers three days.’

He had stopped smiling at last. He got up, and taking a turn, stood again in front of the fireplace.
(Come into our dwelling, in the perfume of the cedars.)
He said, ‘It is all very well, madam, but it is a matter of staking one’s life and one’s money on the word of a schoolgirl. I am not going to decide such matters in a moment.’

‘How long does it take,’ Philippa said, ‘to decide whether you want ten thousand pounds in your hands directly or not?’

He walked up and down again, the stiff folds of his coat swinging and buffeting the delicate furniture. ‘It would suit you to know now, hey? Well, it would suit me to ponder the business. There’s no hurry from my point of view, mistress. Every week I stay is twice paid for. And Sybilla and her dear son will be here, won’t they, at least until the royal wedding?’

Philippa got up and said, ‘What, then?’

He walked forward and took her arm, just above the elbow. He was a big man, taller than she was, and broad with it even in age. His flat fingers, the joints bunched and reddened, moved a little, smoothing the silk on her sleeve. ‘You make a good case,’ he said. ‘Considering the Crawfords are no business of yours, and that piece of misbegotten trash is just divorcing you. Why spend your savings on them?’

‘I can’t think,’ Philippa said. ‘My mother always said I had more money than I knew what to do with.’

‘Aye,’ he said. He did not let her go. ‘They have all the old arts of enticement, that family. So my sister Honoria found out, and her son Gavin, although the Crawfords never bewitched me, among them. Is there anything you would not do, Mistress Philippa, for Francis Crawford?’

Courage, Kate always said. Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it. She did not shake her arm free. She merely said, ‘The offer is ten thousand pounds, Mr Bailey. Nothing more.’

Kate, Kate … This time it isn’t bluff. She felt his other hand rise and settle, first on her arm, then, sliding up, on the bare skin of her neck … and over … and down. Then the broad padded mass of his doublet closed upon her, hard as a bolster, and his breath steamed on her face as his open mouth descended quickly.

If she used the flat of her hand, or her knee, or the heel of her shoe, he would throw her out, and do what the Lennoxes wanted. She got her head free then, and snapped at him. ‘If you indulge yourself now, Master Bailey, you will not have your money, for I will not send for it.’ And, as the pressure continued: ‘It’s your life you are risking,’ said Philippa clearly. ‘If you go on, I shall make it known to Mr Crawford, whatever the consequences.’

‘Ah,’ he said. He disengaged very slowly and stood breathing thickly. ‘I remember. You said there would be no divorce if he mounted you. So … is it possible? You jib because you have a maidenhead still to barter?’

‘You should take a beginner’s course in almost any well-run seraglio,’ said Philippa shortly. ‘It would adjust certain gaucheries in your language.’

He ignored that. ‘A virgin under this monarchy, and with a fortune!… I cannot believe it!’ said Leonard Bailey; and in his voice, quite plainly, was a puzzled excitement. ‘What milksop lovers have you had, that you have reached twenty without a single passage, a single conclusive joust in some antechamber, or grotto, or window embrasure? I have known no man born who could not achieve his business with a woman at court, if he felt like it.’

‘Perhaps my approach is too subtle for them,’ Philippa said. ‘Master Bailey, with ten thousand pounds, you can buy all the court ladies you want, and the window embrasures to put them in.’

He smiled. His nostrils spread, and his lips; and you could see that his mind had shifted, for the moment, from the promptings of his appetites. She waited, holding her breath, and staring at him.

‘But that would not hurt the Crawfords,’ he said. ‘No. Go home, Madame de Sevigny. Collect all the money you have. Wait. And, in my own time, I shall tell you the price. If there is one.’

She was free. She tempted fate by using no more arguments. ‘It is your life, Master Bailey,’ she said. ‘I should advise you to put off no time in safeguarding it.’

The men still stood on guard outside the door as she passed through. She supposed Bailey called them his servants. There were two more in the hall waiting, he said, to escort her over the snow to her lodging. Which was shrewd of him. For that way she could not linger and watch who left the house with the papers.

She hoped Madame Roset would be safe. She should be. He wanted to stay in that house, and she was a witness: he needed her. And there was no way of removing her, that she could think of.

He squeezed her fingers and kissed them, taking his leave, and she walked from the house with her keepers, the three sets of prints tumbling and gouging the smooth, sparkling white of the garden. The bodyguard answered no questions, but stood while the gatehouse porter, scolding, brought servants running to guide her over the swept, slippery flags of the Hôtel de Guise courtyard.

As she entered the doors she saw them still there outside, watching.

Her grace of Scotland, said Célie, had sent for her.

It was, as one had guessed, a matter of the dressmaker’s continued shortcomings. Philippa did what she could, through the raging pain in her head, to rectify it.

The headache lingered a while but did not approach, she was glad to find, a degree of virulence which might incapacitate her.

For that, you had to expose your sensibilities to attack for very much
longer; and take no one into your confidence: least of all those already nearer to you than you wanted.

She was busy all day but at night found herself too tired to sleep. When she finally closed her eyes before dawn, she was awakened almost at once by the noise of somebody frantically sobbing. It was not until she felt Célie’s brusque arms around her that she realized that it was herself.

Conducted by the glittering red and blue tabards of the Lyon Court, the procession of the nine Scottish Commissioners for the Queen of Scots’ wedding wound into Paris some three days afterwards, impeccably escorted by François de Sevigny, brother to one of the Commissioners, and by Claude d’Aumale, brother to the great Duke of Guise himself.

All the way from Dieppe, the names of de Guise and of Sevigny had filled the air, through the speeches and the noise of the hackbuts and cannon. Lymond had sent for the
Tapkana
, his specially built canopied sledges, and the first part of their journey was spent Russian-style running over the flat snowy chalkfields, with pennants streaming and bells ringing in the crisp air.

He was not averse, his brother noticed, to reminding the populace who he was. Even d’Aumale’s jewelled hats and furred cloaks drew fewer eyes than the Voevoda Bolshoia in his black fox fur hat, balancing on his light sleigh, reins in hand. Along with everything else, Richard Crawford concluded, Lymond had come to enjoy adulation.

Except once, long ago, over an estrangement with his wife Mariotta, Lord Culter had never been jealous of the young brother he had seen grow from babyhood. Until the moment Francis had left home at sixteen, a prisoner of war to the English, Richard knew him solely as a blond and delicate boy, interested only, it seemed, in reading and music, whose apparent fragility concealed a will of steel, and a turn of phrase which could wound like a sword-cut.

Most of all, he remembered the hatred which lay between Francis and Gavin, his father. It was on the violent, heavy-witted older man that Francis had practised his verbal play, to no benefit to himself. Some of the floggings Sybilla prevented, for of course, Francis was always her favourite, and the favourite too of Eloise his sister.

But he had failed often enough to weather the storm, and had had to stand by while his books burned, or his lute lay in splinters. It was to be expected that when he became in turn a leader of men, Francis should prove hard on others; should observe no laws; should fight, regardless of method, for victory.

Hence had come the misunderstandings which had led Richard once to hunt down his brother in order to deliver him to the justice he thought
he deserved. Later, learning to know him, a friendship had grown: odd, irregular; at times surprisingly deep. And at times marred, it seemed wantonly, by Lymond’s excesses and his own lack of trust towards Richard which again and again had caused his older brother anger and misery.

No one in Scotland was ignorant of Lymond’s growing stature: in France, in Malta, in his embassy for France to Turkey. It had seemed possible that he might outgrow his wildness: that the virtues he did possess, and the depth and constancy of his relationship with Sybilla might bring him at last to safe harbour.

But then, Francis had not come home after Turkey, and the tales of his doings there and in Africa were not slow in coming to Scotland. There followed Russia, and his brief visit home where it became finally clear that he had changed: that all the ground gained during those painful years had been lost. And most distressing of all, that the sheet anchor had gone: that he had made up his mind to break for all time with his mother.

It was this discovery which had led Richard last year to attack him: a futile reaction, and one he would never have been driven to make but for all the years of growing attachment between. For what Francis was doing to Sybilla, Richard believed there was no forgiveness.

He had hoped, after that bitter encounter at Dieppe, that the schism, painful but wholesome, would now be complete on Sybilla’s side as it was on Lymond’s, to see her through the coming difficult weeks. And certainly, the bloodless formality of the relationship Francis had since maintained with them made it easy for her to keep her distance, and her thoughts to herself.

But although she could dissimulate, Richard was wiser than once he had been. He watched her when Lymond was there, moving cordially among his eminent countrymen, agreeably talkative, encouraging Beaton or Rothes or Cassillis or Seton to tell him about their troubles in Scotland; amusing young Fleming, who still worshipped him; impressing, you could see, the Bishop of Orkney who once, for God’s sake, had tried him in Edinburgh for an outlaw.

James Stewart and Erskine of Dun, one noticed, were less communicative. Rumour had it that they had already had a brief encounter with Lymond on his first day in Dieppe; and had caught him, perhaps, in the same temper that he had displayed in the house of Jean Ango. At any rate, the magic had failed to work in this instance.

In which case why, of all the company, did Sybilla choose to spend most of her time with these two?

Because, his observation told him, she saw, as he did, that something lay between them and Francis. And because, as ever, the matter of Francis occupied her still, to the exclusion of virtually everything else.

After that, everything he saw confirmed it. The rejection he had hoped for had not taken place. Thrust into her son’s daily company Sybilla
faced, in the weeks ahead, a test of endurance far harder to bear than his desertion.

After Berwick, after Dieppe, one was not fool enough to go to Francis, cap in hand, and plead yet again for a reconciliation. On Lymond’s part the separation was quite clearly final, and had been before he left Scotland. What Richard needed to know were his reasons. And then, to the best of his powers, to convince his mother that Francis would never return to her.

To be private with anyone in the midst of such pageantry was not easy; and less so if every obstacle is placed in your way by your quarry. It was not until Rouen that Richard found his brother alone; and then only by dint of following him into his bedchamber when he walked in, divesting himself of his elaborate surcoat and proceeding swiftly to change it for some plainer clothes, brought him by Archie.

It appeared he had an appointment with a sculptor called Hérisson, and was not willing to linger. Neither did Archie show any sign of budging. Richard closed the door and said, ‘Perhaps you can give me an answer while you are dressing. What is the source of the trouble between you and Sybilla?’

‘Ask her,’ Lymond said. Archie, unfolding garments from a coffer, did not look round.

‘I have. She says I am not to concern myself with it. It seems to me, in view of her age and frailty, that I must concern myself with it.’

‘Is this supposed to be something new?’ Lymond said. He picked up a shirt and slid into it. ‘You seem to have charged often enough at that particular target to be fit to stop a bull by his horns in full fury.’

‘Is it to do with Eloise?’ said Richard bluntly.

Lymond’s full attention was being given, briefly, to the knotting of his shirt-cords. ‘Did Sybilla say it is?’ he said. He looked for his doublet armhole, found it, and slinging the garment on, began to fasten it.

‘No.’ Richard, harassed, turned to look at Archie and Archie’s black eyes, unwinking, outfaced him. Richard said, ‘I don’t want to hear your miserable secrets. But for Sybilla’s sake I want some answers. I once accused you of wanting your sister dead. I did you, perhaps, an injustice. The fact remains that she told me …’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lymond said. ‘Unless you wish to follow me into the street, I am afraid we must abandon our gossip. So full of fruyte and rethorikly pykit. Gloves. And no, the other hat. Money?’

Richard said, ‘She told me one night that she had no wish to go on living, and that if she did, it could only harm you. She was thirteen years old.… Can you not stand still, and look me in the face, and give me an answer?’

‘No,’ said Lymond. He had gone now, fully dressed, to the door of this room where he turned, Archie behind him. ‘If you are asking, did Eloise make no effort to avoid the explosion which killed her, the answer is probably yes. If you are also asking, was I her lover, the answer is no.
After all,’ said Lymond, ‘that would be incest.’ And with a click, the door closed finally after him.

That night, Richard retired early and drank himself grimly insensible while Lymond, with faultless bonhomie, was adorning his third Hôtel de Ville banquet. He did not know that Sybilla, who had also excused herself, took the occasion to trap Archie Abernethy at last in her room and confront him with an inquiry. ‘I believe, since Richard is incapable for the first time in fifteen months, that my two sons have had an encounter?’

‘I wouldn’t know, my lady,’ said Archie.

‘But you do know about Mlle Marthe,’ Sybilla said. She had never uttered that name to him, or to either son, until that moment.

Archie’s lined face did not change, but his black eyes were not without pity. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Ye’ll ken, she was wed to Master Blyth.’

Sybilla said, ‘I know you are attached to my son, and must therefore regard me as an enemy. But I should like you to tell me. Does Francis mean Richard to meet her?’

He knew her and respected her, and had nursed her grandchild as his own, but he was also a man who spoke his mind, and sharply if need be. ‘Lady Culter,’ said Archie Abernethy, ‘only a man who hated you would do such a thing.’

She stood up then, staunchly upright in spite of the seventy years she carried, and said, ‘Forgive me, Mr Abernethy. You see, I have no guide lines left. I can do nothing to help him. You cannot know what it means to me that you are with him.’

There was a pause. Archie did not drop his eyes. Presently he said, ‘His defences are good. But it is his friends that will bring him low, not his enemies, Lady Culter. Keep you out of his way. That’s the best advice I can give you.’

*

At Paris, they were met outside the gates by a hundred gentlemen and a band of Archers of the King’s Guard with pipes and tambours and escorted to the Place de Grève for the City’s welcome; and thence over the river to the Maison de l’Ange, the large residence in the rue de la Huchette which the Crown utilized for its more important guests. There, they were received by the King’s Maréchal des Logis; and there took place the ceremony of the Corps de Ville’s gifts. The Commissioners received the double quarts of hippocras and boxes of dragees and gilded cotignac, the yellow wax flambeaux and the pâtés of Mayenne ham and the double marzipan of Lyon, gilded; and listened to and replied to the speeches. Then, at last, the nine official representatives of her Majesty the Queen Dowager and the Three Estates of the Realm of Scotland were allowed to retire and compose themselves.

Lymond went straight to the Hotel St André.

He knew, by the abandon with which the gates were flung open that his suit was known, and had prospered. Before he reached the top of the steps Marguerite, Maréchale de St André, was waiting there, dressed more splendidly than he had seen her in Lyon, as befitted a noble lady, the mother of a courted heiress. Only her eyes, as he bent to kiss her hand, dwelled on him in a manner less than maternal and her voice, scolding him, was softer than was its wont.

‘Cher ami
, I hear you have been extravagant to the danger of your health. You must not act
à la bizarre
when you are wedded to Cathin. I trust your mother and the Earl are in good health?’

‘You shall meet them before very long. I have your permission, then, to address your daughter?’ said Francis Crawford. ‘I should try to make her content.’

‘I know she will be content,’ said the Maréchale de St André. ‘I am not happy, my dear; but if one should have you, then I should prefer it to be a child of my breeding. She is waiting for you.’

*

How long she had been waiting he could not imagine but she was there, sitting upright and alone in the smallest boudoir, with her black hair shining over her shoulders and her skirts of rosebud velvet spread all about her. Crystals, circling her throat, were her only ornament.

No one accompanied him into the room. He closed the door gently behind him and saw her colour rise as she turned her head, but she kept her perfect composure.

‘A wife, a spaniel, a walnut tree,/The more you beat them, the better they be. I learn,’ said Lymond, ‘that you are willing to undergo unmentionable risks?’

She had risen to curtsey to him. Now, standing, she faced him, unsmiling still. ‘It is my mother’s assent which brings you here,’ she said. ‘I have said nothing yet, M. de Sevigny, for nothing has been said to me.’

‘It is a principle of Archidamidas,’ Lymond said, ‘that he that knows how to speak, knows also when to speak. You know, I think, who and what I am. I have the word of the King that on the day after the Dauphin’s wedding I shall receive the final annulment of my present marriage. When I have my release, may I hope that you will become my wife?’

She had studied her mirror. She knew how the candlelight enhanced the excellent line of her throat, the shape of her cheekbones, the balance and mould of her body. She said, ‘It seems a poor way, Mr Crawford, to ask for a lady’s hand in marriage. Can you not manage a quote or two from the poets? A note of devotion? A fleeting salute on the cheek?’

‘A masquerade?’ he said lightly. ‘Would you think any better of me?’ But his hands were still and he was looking at her.

‘Is happiness a masquerade?’ said Catherine d’Albon. ‘Or do we not speak of it? I am sure my mother did not.’

‘We shall speak of it,’ he said. ‘I trust I may be able to give it to you. Aside from that, I make few demands on those close to me. I shall not encroach on you.’

She said, ‘You are telling me, I think, that you mean to lead your own life.’

‘I hope you will lead yours,’ Lymond said. ‘And that mine, where it touches us both, will not be displeasing to you. But if you hold me in horror, there is no reason why this contract need be completed. And if I have offended you, forgive me.’

There was a little silence. Then, ‘You make no pretence,’ she said quietly; and saw him recognize and accept the bitterness she could not quite keep out of her voice.

Then he said, ‘No. Pretence makes a poor foundation when you are hoping to build.’