Checkmate (47 page)

‘Do we have anything to build with?’ said Catherine d’Albon.

‘Yes,’ said Lymond. ‘There are my good intentions. And there is your wit, and your kindness, and your beauty.’

‘What do you know of them, Mr Crawford?’ said Catherine d’Albon.

For the first time in an interview which had fallen out not at all as he expected, Francis Crawford hesitated. Then walking towards her he raised her hand, and kissed it, and leading her back to her chair, seated her, and placed himself thoughtfully on the little rug at her feet. He said, ‘If you wish pretty phrases, and true ones, I should say that your beauty I can see and your wit I am coming to know in this meeting. Your kindness, clearly, I do not yet qualify for. But I should be honoured if you would allow me to try.’

‘As you say,’ she said, ‘you are able to make polite speeches when brought to it. Why are you divorcing Mistress Philippa?’

His eyes were blue: a dense and brilliant cornflower, and his hair was leaf-gold under the flattering light. He said, ‘Doesn’t she want to marry the worthy youth Allendale? I don’t know her plans, but I rather thought that was her intention. I am divorcing her, lady, because our marriage has never been more than a formal one. I don’t bed with children.’

‘Rumour says,’ said Catherine d’Albon, ‘that you did. Or are the Knights of St John all mistaken?’

‘You know too much,’ said Francis Crawford slowly. ‘Shall I amend it? I don’t bed with young girls who are virgins, unless they ask me, and unless I am married to them.’

‘I see,’ said Catherine d’Albon. ‘You must be asked?’

‘And married,’ said Francis Crawford.

‘That is easy,’ she said; and for the first time he saw her lips tilt in a smile which recalled nothing at all of her mother. ‘If you ask me, I expect I shall marry you. But as for what comes after that, who can forecast?’

‘Nostradamus,’ said Lymond. ‘And I myself for that matter. In fact, I
would be willing to take a small wager.’ He looked at her, the levity fading. ‘If you have doubts, Catherine, there is no need to go on with it all.’

‘I have doubts,’ said Catherine d’Albon. ‘But they appertain to myself, not to you, No. It is a match. How could I fare better?’

She felt his recoil as if it were physical. Then he said, with a kind of suppressed anger, ‘I know it should be different. It will be, if you will give me time. I promised you happiness; and I meant it.’

‘But you have no expectations,’ said Catherine d’Albon, ‘of receiving any from me?’

His self-possession, unlike hers, was in place again. ‘I should like you to try,’ Lymond answered with gravity. ‘I shall tell you, from time to time, how you are succeeding. Meanwhile, I suggest we summon your mother. There is a common belief that left behind locked doors, I don’t stop to ask anyone anything.’

She rose. ‘You mean,’ Catherine d’Albon said, ‘I have agreed to marry a libertine?’

‘Everyone marries libertines,’ Lymond said comfortably, rising and taking her elbow. ‘But not everyone knows it beforehand.’

*

News of the impending marriage, discreetly disseminated, produced a number of different reactions.

Her grace the Queen of Scotland was extremely displeased.

The Prince of Condé, a fairly regular recipient of the Maréchale de St André’s favours, was a little put out and began instead, belatedly, to pay a good deal of attention to her daughter. A number of other noblemen followed suit.

Piero Strozzi, who heard the news out of town, was delighted, and added spice to the general interest by inquiring of all those he met as to how
son petit François
had got the branch budding so promptly. Jerott Blyth, offended by Lymond’s lack of frankness, quarrelled with Adam Blacklock and stalked off to the Hôtel d’Hercule, to be told that M. de Sevigny was absent on business. Danny Hislop, calling later, was told the same story.

Madame la Maréchale de St André, who had better means of judging its accuracy, called and was admitted, but left without having arranged, as she had hoped, for the necessary meeting between herself, her daughter, and M. de Sevigny’s family. His mother, M. de Sevigny said, was still recovering from her journey.

Catherine d’Albon began to spend a good deal of time in Lymond’s company. Her dramatic good looks, daily enhanced, became breathtaking. So her mirror informed her, and her mother, and the comte de Sevigny’s eyes, sometimes, resting on her. But so far, he had done no more than kiss her hand.

I don’t bed with virgins unless they ask me, and unless I am married to them
.

There was time enough, in spite of what her mother might say.

Jerott discovered that Lymond was in fact in residence in the Hôtel d’Hercule but failed a second time to get himself admitted, upon which he walked instead to the rue de la Huchette and sent his name in to Lymond’s mother.

Sybilla received him. She remembered him as the fiery, black-haired young Knight of St John who had concerned himself so passionately about Francis’s affairs in Malta and Scotland. She saw now the same young man in the guise of a Lyon merchant, and married to the girl of whose existence her older son Richard knew nothing.

She said, ‘You wish to talk to me about your wife; about Francis; and perhaps about this wedding of his, which everyone seems to be speaking of.’

She had always been a splendid person: bright as a silver penny. Jerott said, ‘Have you seen him? I’ve been shown the door twice. Did you know about this marriage arrangement?’

It was typical Jerott Blyth, if not the overture which courtesy perhaps demanded after an interval of five and a half years. Sybilla, amusement in her tired eyes, said, ‘We travelled south together, but he didn’t speak of it. Don’t you approve? I know of nothing against it.’

‘It depends what his plans are,’ said Jerott. ‘If you want my view, he should have stayed in Russia.’

‘Why?’ Sybilla said. Her tone expressed kindly interest.

‘It was good for him. It would have kept him away from Marthe. And that poor lass would be married long since to her Austin.’

‘You speak of Philippa. Is she in love with Austin Grey, Jerott?’ said Sybilla. ‘I hear he is a prisoner with Francis.’

‘She would have been,’ said Jerott bluntly. ‘As it is, she has to get Francis out of her system first. He held on to that marriage far too long, and she’s paying the penalty, not milord of Sevigny. You know she wanted to trace Marthe’s birth?’

‘Yes. I knew that,’ Sybilla said. After a space she added, ‘And has she succeeded?’

‘Not while she was in Lyon,’ Jerott said. ‘If she found out anything since, I don’t know about it.’ Now it had come to the point he hesitated, his face rather red.

‘She is not a child of mine, Jerott,’ said Lady Culter quietly. ‘Nor can I tell you anything about her that you don’t know already. But whatever irregularity there has been, I think it would be best if Richard knew nothing of it. So far as Marthe herself is concerned, I have a favour to ask you. I should like to meet her.’

He had not expected that. He gazed at her miserably. ‘She would hurt you,’ he said.

‘She resents me? Or Francis? Or both of us?’

‘She resents the birds in the trees,’ said Jerott bitterly. He pulled himself together. ‘They are very alike. In times of dispute it’s best not to get between them.’

‘What are they disputing about?’ Sybilla asked. ‘The new marriage?’

‘In a way. Marthe is set on a union between Francis and Philippa.’

‘Is she? Why is that?’ Sybilla said.

‘Revenge, perhaps. She won’t say.’ The flush on his splendid, jutting profile deepened. ‘You know the life he has led, Lady Culter. He is ten years older; he has a son, and a mistress in Russia. Even the girl he is marrying——’ He broke off.

Sybilla sat, fragile and composed, watching him. ‘If it affects Francis, you may tell me,’ she said. ‘If it concerns Catherine, not.’

‘In Lyon,’ Jerott said, ‘he was her mother’s lover.’

Sybilla dropped her eyes. ‘I see,’ was all she said. There was a long silence. Then she said, ‘I should still, in spite of all this, like to meet your wife. Do you think, Jerott, you could arrange it?’

But, of course, he couldn’t. And so, at last, he had to tell her the reason.

*

Alone among Francis Crawford’s friends, his wife made no effort, on his arrival in Paris, to see either him or his mother.

Fresh from the Hôtel des Sphères, she knew she could not face Sybilla just yet; or be sure of concealing her knowledge from Lymond. Instead she bestowed on him, from a distance, the kind of protective attention which, through Osias, he had conferred on her; and for the same reason. Leonard Bailey had not so far, to her knowledge, made any move since their interview. When he did, she wanted to hear about it.

So she learned, before the Scots Commissioners had been two hours in Paris, that there had been no reconciliation between Lymond and his family. She knew when he first called on Catherine, and the growing number of meetings that followed. She knew that on his visits to the Hôtel de l’Ange he did not present himself to Sybilla, but performed his duties towards the nine other Scottish delegates on the well-worn treadmill of ceremonies, sight-seeing and conviviality: at the Louvre, the Bastille, the Palais de Justice, les Tournelles, the Church of Notre Dame, the Abbey of Saint-Denis and its treasures.

She used, as Sybilla had, the best intermediary she could find; and asked Archie Abernethy to meet her.

From him, she learned of the brief illness at Madame Bouchard’s house in Dieppe.

‘And Lord James and Mr Erskine?’ she asked when he paused. ‘What did they make of it?’

‘It would seem nothing out of the way. He had had a hundred-mile ride, and a long day and a good evening’s drinking before it.’

‘… But?’ said Philippa.

‘But he was postit for six hours till the pain eased; and weak for about as long after it. Barring him and me, no one knew of it. They’re strong men for the Reform party, John Erskine and the Queen’s bastard brother,’ said Archie. ‘They must hae been blithe tae get the chance tae speak wi’ him.’

‘What did they say?’ Philippa said.

‘He didna confide in me, but I think I can guess without having a nosebleed. He also said that the meeting with his ma was more vexing than he expected.’

‘Hence the nerve-storm,’ said Philippa.

‘Maybe. He was already pitched unco high leaving Paris, from some event in the Séjour du Roi, I should fancy. Master Blyth wouldna say what it was.’

‘I know what it was. And now, Archie?’

‘There’s a truce, for the moment, with the family. He has himself well in hand. It’s just a matter of wearing out the few weeks to the wedding.’

‘With or without help from Catherine d’Albon,’ said Philippa reflectively. She paused, and as Archie said nothing, she finished what she had to say. ‘If you need him, Nostradamus is in Paris.’

‘You’ve seen him?’ said Archie. His voice had sharpened.

‘In passing,’ said Philippa smoothly. ‘Which reminds me. Archie, what happened on your last night in Lyon? Master Nostradamus said I should ask Mr Crawford.’

‘Did he indeed?’ said Archie Abernethy. He paused. ‘Well, I wouldna ask him the now or you’ll get a right nippit answer.… Ye ken Master Blyth’s lady’s banged out the house and left him for good? Leastways, she hasna come back again.’

‘No, but I’m not surprised,’ Philippa said. ‘I don’t need to ask what Master Blyth is doing. Is anyone looking for her?’

‘Mr Hislop. He likes a problem,’ said Archie. ‘I’m told Lady Culter wants to speak with her.’

‘Oh,’ said Philippa. She felt her nose growing red. After a moment she said, ‘Do you think that’s a good idea? Marthe won’t let Lymond down publicly, I’d swear, however much she attacks him in private.’

Archie didn’t say anything. She wondered how much he knew, or suspected. Enough, certainly, to know that it was a question of Lymond’s birth and Sybilla’s honesty. He had no means of discovering anything else. Her face must have reflected her thoughts for Archie’s voice, striking through them, said suddenly, ‘I take it you have no good news to give him then?’

And recognizing the question for what it was, Philippa said, ‘He knows all there is to know, and none of it is good. Archie, he isn’t lacking in character. In the end, he has to learn to support it. I am sure he will.’

The wise eyes, unflinching, stared into hers. ‘There is a man in him that could support it,’ Archie said. ‘True enough. But it is maybe a man the world could do without. I don’t know. I wasna in Russia.’

It had been tempting on a scale positively Biblical to confide in Archie, and it was with some wistfulness that Philippa watched him leave after that interview. But for all practical purposes, he and Francis Crawford must be considered a single person, and on one matter she had made up her mind on the day she left the rue de la Cerisaye.

While there was hope of settling the matter in any other way, Lymond should not be told of Bailey’s threat to his family. The misconduct he had uncovered was far more serious than any Archie could have envisaged. Misconduct of such a kind that, whatever strength of character Francis Crawford might possess, he was at this moment barely keeping his balance in face of it.

If affairs went according to plan, she would not need his help in any case. If they did not, she at least would not be blinded by passion into taking some action which would throw secrecy to the winds and Sybilla into the hands of her persecutors.

It made no difference why Sybilla, of all civilized women, had so abominably betrayed her marriage. Or why she had chosen to set down in black and white the name of the man who had begotten her two younger children. It was done, and it was for those who loved her to protect her and her family from the consequences.

But not—whatever happened, not by trusting Leonard Bailey. He might sell Sybilla’s papers to her. He might sell to the Lennoxes. Most likely of all, he would cheat, to wring from the situation the maximum money and the maximum injury to the Crawfords.

The obvious course was to move quickly, and cheat before he did.

So Philippa, from the moment she left the Hôtel des Sphères, put her intelligence, her imagination, her considerable energy to work with one end in view: the tracking down of the two sets of papers containing Sybilla’s confession.

There were copies in France, and in London. In whose hands? Someone empowered to reveal the contents if Bailey met an unnatural end. Someone, then, with authority.

What sort of agent would Leonard Bailey trust, sufficiently moral or sufficiently wealthy to be immune from bribery? She did not know the name of Bailey’s bankers, but she did know Francis Crawford’s, who paid to Bailey each month the fee he had claimed for his silence.

She sent a page to invite the Schiatti cousins to supper.

In twenty-four hours she had the name of Leonard Bailey’s bankers in Paris and London and the information, extracted she understood by alcohol rather than violence, that a package, with instructions and password, had been confided by Mr Bailey to their Paris house recently. She also had, drawn upon her own funds in France, the sum of ten thousand pounds in Venetian ducats.

She had a day and night watch set upon the Hôtel des Sphères, operated by a number of cheerful gentlemen of questionable reputation, found for her by some good friends in the stables. This served a number of purposes. If, for example, she could stop Bailey sending out instructions, she could postpone if not prevent any little hitch occurring, such as Bailey deciding to sell the papers to Lady Lennox. Or Mr Crawford receiving a similar offer, and half or wholly killing Master Bailey so that the whole mechanism of publication was set in motion.

She attended a long, polite discussion on procedure between the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Queen, the King’s sister and his mistress, and then arranged for the Schiatti cousins to attend a contest of jeu de paume. During the ensuing tête-à-tête she related a highly credible tissue of falsehoods which brought her, to her momentary shame, instant promises of manly succour.

Gino Schiatti, the older and wealthier, was going to borrow the Paris documents for her. Marco Schiatti, the better scribe, was going to write a persuasive letter to someone in London, which she proposed to enclose in a still more persuasive letter of her own to Sir Henry Sidney. In this, she did not intend to mention Lymond’s name or to lie; but merely to say that the loan of the papers was a matter of life and death to a friend of Diccon Chancellor’s.

An excellent method of transmitting both letters to London occurred to her.

The Commissioners arrived in Paris, and she saw Archie.

In the interests of Master Bailey’s health she absented herself from an excruciating reception for the King and Queen of Navarre, newly arrived for the royal wedding, at which the comte de Sevigny was expected to be in attendance.

She paid a visit to the Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld, and at last obtained permission to see Lord Grey of Wilton, the captured English commander.

*

To the thirteenth baron Grey of Wilton had fallen none of the galling luxury daily enjoyed by his nephew Austin, under the régime of the Hôtel d’Hercule.

Not that he lacked either food or common necessities. For a nobleman of his rank, on parole to a brother-in-law of the Prince of Condé, such
treatment would be unthinkable. Besides, since the Queen of England had displayed such a loving concern for him, he was worth a thumping good sum of money.

His health was therefore well looked after, even to the healing of the unfortunate cut in one foot. Only the comte de La Rochefoucauld, with recent memories of a stringent six months’ captivity in Genap, was a little less accommodating in his hospitality than he might have been.

Philippa, having passed the scrutiny of a porter, a captain of arms, a maître d’hôtel and finally, surprisingly, a quartet of the King’s own bodyguard, still required to pass through two locked doors and satisfy the double guard at the threshold of another before a key was inserted and turned and she was ushered at last into the presence of Austin Grey’s uncle.

‘My goodness,’ said Philippa Somerville appreciatively. ‘They are frightened of you. You’ve got more pikemen than they took Calais with.’

His lordship of Wilton, rising abruptly, gazed at the vision before him and said, with caution, ‘It
is
Philippa Somerville?’

‘It was,’ the vision said, removing with aplomb a mesmerizing cloak of ermine and Anatolian green velvet and handing it to a servant, who left the room, locking the door carefully behind him. She sat down, her extremely costly dress spread about her. ‘Now, as you certainly know, it’s Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, the name of your favourite enemy. I’m sorry you don’t get on better together.’

Lord Grey of Wilton also sat down, without removing his eyes from his visitor. The straight brown hair he rather remembered, although not dressed and knotted in this style. Her face had thinned. Her eyebrows had changed. He had seen paintings at Whitehall Palace with eyes like that. Come to think of it, these were probably painted too. The rubies round her neck were worth a fortune. And she was wearing scent. A smell of pepper and musk, faintly discernible, made the room pleasant.

Lord Grey said dryly, ‘Perhaps for England’s sake it is as well that we do not. Your husband appears to possess an uncanny gift for seducing his enemies.’

The versatile brown eyes gazed at him limpidly. ‘I have a confession to make. Did you know I brought him to France in the first place? I thought it might be cheering to watch France and Spain waste their money on one another. I didn’t, I’m afraid, think of Calais.’

‘No. And you have, of course, remained in France.’ Spare, and cool. It was the way he got the truth out of many a young ensign.

Young ensigns did not say candidly, as this girl did, ‘But I haven’t taken arms against you, truly. It was the only way I could obtain my annulment. And in less than a month I shall be free to leave for England again, if he doesn’t contrive to get rid of me sooner. I beg your pardon?’

‘You should know,’
said Lord Grey, adjusting his sight to the folded paper he had just raised from his desk,
‘that I am tied to the Hexham Saphronia, who combines total chastity with a jackal-like taste for
digging up my family history. With twelve barons Grey to research she should be rendered peacefully harmless, with no sharp quality of heat, either biting the tongue or offending the head. She will also bring you a fortune in dowry.
’ He looked up.

The girl, he was pleased to see, had turned a deep and uniform crimson. ‘He’s sent you a letter,’ she said.

‘Mr Crawford has indeed taken the trouble to write to me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. ‘Soliciting, it appears, my aid in the event of your making a match with my nephew. I have seldom been more astonished.’

‘So have I,’ the girl said. She was still scarlet. ‘That is, it’s true that Austin has mentioned marriage, but nothing has been settled as yet. And in any case … although of course I know he would want your approval

‘He is of full age, and requires no one’s permission to marry. Quite,’ said Lord Grey. He recalled, but did not refer to the succession of powerful families into which Audrey Grey had attempted in vain to marry her son. He continued, gazing at the girl, ‘That is not the point exercising your husband. He appears merely to be anxious that the match should not fail because of what he calls
any undue delicacy surrounding the use of the young lady’s dowry.
’

‘For your ransom?’ said Philippa. Her face had become even brighter. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. He knows Austin better than I expected. But he doesn’t know how anxious … That is, I don’t think Austin would allow the money to interfere with his plans.’

‘Then I,’ said Lord Grey with heavy humour, ‘am tempted to be equally magnanimous. This attachment, then, is of some standing? It explains, of course, Austin’s behaviour on a number of occasions. I am sorry the boy did not see fit to confide in me. If he had, I must admit that I should have put forward several objections. There is, forgive me, some difference in rank. The boy is unworldly. And you yourself, Mistress Philippa, have been married for some years to a man of some notoriety; a Scotsman who has many times fought openly against us, and who has made powerful enemies in England.’

‘But you knew Gideon,’ the girl said quietly; and under her gaze he felt his colour rising. She said, ‘In any case, as Mr Crawford has so tactfully pointed out, I should expect my money to mend my lack of status. And if he has powerful enemies, Mr Crawford has friends even more powerful. If you have any doubts, speak to Austin, however. I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping both my husbands.’

Lord Grey said, ‘Friends more important than royalty? It isn’t my place to repeat scandal, but you must know of the Lennox feud with your husband. It dates back to ’42. They have land in the north next to Austin’s. And Lady Lennox is the Queen’s cousin.’

‘But I hear the Queen is failing,’ the girl said. After a moment she added, ‘Also, it isn’t my place to repeat scandal either, but in ’42 Lady Lennox surely was in her late twenties, while … Mr Crawford was a prisoner in London.’ She had lost a little of her poise.

‘He fought at Solway. He would be sixteen. Quite old enough,’ said Lord Grey, ‘for that kind of trouble. The initial fault may not have been his. Lady Lennox is an ambitious and powerful woman, who has been the downfall of more than one comely boy in her day. About his subsequent career, however, there is no ambiguity … I would allow to lead my army, Mistress Philippa, a man who had begun life like that. I would not give him any maiden I respected in marriage. I still do not know how you could so defy your upbringing.’

‘It was done to preserve appearances. The mail from Turkey was rather slow,’ the girl said flatly. She was shocked, Grey saw. The platonic marriage, which he had hardly believed in, suddenly appeared to be very likely a fact. Mistress Philippa, worldly as she appeared, was an innocent. Come to think of it, Austin would have chosen no one else. He wondered, as he had wondered so often, how his good-sister had come to give birth to a saintly fool.

He said, ‘Well. You have been far from home and good guidance, but perhaps your mother’s excellent sense has stood you in better stead than would appear. As you say, large changes are possible which may overturn many who today feel most secure. I hear peace is spoken of. That, too, should make your match more acceptable.’

He knew, when she did not contradict him, that there was some truth in it. He kept his ears open. He knew Calais was already being repopulated from the wreck of Saint-Quentin, and that there seemed no prospect now of his own side recrossing the water to take it. King Philip, lumbered with unpaid troops and overdrawn credit, had no wish either, it seemed, to launch a new venture. The war was in abeyance.

But you couldn’t talk of peace without recalling that the Duke de Guise and his brothers flourished on war. And although they might have retired for the moment, that the armies of France were fresh, and well armed and plenished.

Until the Queen of Scots’ marriage, rumour said, no one would lead those armies into action, and talk of truce no doubt would keep both countries pacified. After April, with Scotland in her purse, there was no knowing what France might rush at. He wondered if he could slip a word of warning in his next letter to London.

He further wondered if the girl’s reference to the Lennoxes had been quite fortuitous, or if she had reason to know how much he disliked them. He supposed his private persuasions were fairly well known by this time, although the Queen, fortunately, took no account of them. He added, since she made no rejoinder, ‘Peace. A dangerous thing. It gives the politicians time to get into mischief.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you were a Deputy in Rouen or Toulouse,’ Philippa said. ‘France is exhausted with taxes.’

‘She’ll be taxed whatever happens,’ said Grey of Wilton. ‘Well fed, vigorous men with nothing to do in the house—if they can’t go to war with someone else, they’ll fight each other. Take this new religion, now.
They say it grows. They say it thrives, too, in Scotland.’ He looked at her. There was a gleam in her eye.

‘There are those in Scotland who don’t like French rule,’ Philippa said.

‘There are always, of course, the nationalists and those who want personal power. There are some, too, who have honest beliefs. If there is peace between France and Spain,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton reflectively, ‘and England no longer has a Catholic queen on the throne, I see both France and Spain might think her a tempting morsel. Then our sole bulwark may be those of the Reformed faith, from whatever land they derive.’