Checkmate (48 page)

He had called her innocent, for this he believed was her nature. But the brown eyes watching him now were those of a clever young woman, versed in diplomacy. She said, ‘He won’t go back to Scotland, Lord Grey. And if he did, how do you know which side he would take?’

‘I hoped you would tell me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton.

‘No. I don’t know. He may not know himself.’

‘Ah. There,’ said Lord Grey, ‘if I may say so, I think you are wrong. These are profound issues. A man of intelligence will not fail to have considered them. Discuss it with him.’

‘No. That is for you to do. You forget,’ Philippa said. ‘I am not his confidante: only the subject of an act of propriety, shortly to be excised.’ She rose. ‘If Austin asks me to marry him, do you truly think you could find it supportable? I swear that whatever happens, at least Mr Crawford will never suborn him.’

Within the brushed and silvery beard, he smiled at her. ‘I believe you. I see it may be a good match. I shall not stand in your way,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. And in the same kindly mood took the packet she gave him; and agreed, patting her arm, to send it to London with the envoy arranging his ransom. He wondered, examining the very firm seal, why she was writing to Henry Sidney, but he didn’t break it. It might, after all, be to do with her dowry.

He stood at his window and watched her depart. She looked preoccupied.

She was preoccupied. She had just asked Lord Grey for leave to marry his nephew. But as she saw it, the time was coming nearer and nearer when she might have to wed one of four bankers.

*

The youth with the scarred cheek who alternated with Osias followed her home and she made it easy for him, wryly conscious of the fact that, like two fortune-tellers at a fair, she and his master were playing the same game. Except that these men were paid by Lymond for the straightforward purpose of protecting her, while her duplicity was rather more complicated. She returned anxiously to her boiling pots, but found that no message had come to her from Bailey or the Schiatti cousins; and
the men watching the Hôtel des Sphères reported that the old man and his four henchmen were still inside, and there had been no unwonted activity.

One could not be certain, with all the passing traffic of a large and busy household, that no other messages slipped in and out. One could only hope that Bailey’s own men would handle the important matters.

A note came from Richard, brief and friendly. The Commissioners were coming to kiss the hand of their juvenile monarch, and he looked forward to seeing her. Sybilla would not be there.

She hadn’t called to see Sybilla yet. Had it been possible, she would have been missing from Queen Mary’s reception as well; but the inquiries about her health last time had been too many and too embarrassing to perpetuate. Her task was not to draw attention but to present an appearance of unruffled serenity.

By the day of the ceremony, the strain of maintaining unruffled serenity had put her off her food and sowed a doubt in her mind as to whether she was going to be capable of attending anyway. The presence of Richard presented no unsurmountable problems. He knew from Kate, presumably, that she was in France for her divorce, and at Court through Queen Mary’s persuasion. She had always been able to handle Richard, and most of the other Commissioners were familiar to her as well, from her frequent sojourns in Lymond’s absence at Midculter.

What frightened her was the knowledge that now she must face and deceive Lymond himself.

Since her far-off moment of self-discovery in Lyon she had seen him only twice. Once when, lying to her, he had told her at Saint-Germain that he was the son of Gavin Crawford. And once through the long, dizzy evening at the Hôtel de Ville which had ended in that explosion of violence and loathing in which he had flung at Marthe the name of his mistress.

Since then, he had endured the reunion at Dieppe described by Archie as
vexing;
and the brief prostration afterwards which had seemed so easy to account for, but was not.

Since then, she had found out at last the nature of the canker he lived with; the scourge which accounted for everything he had ever said or done. And worse, she knew that at any given moment it might be broadcast to all the world, unless she herself could prevent it. And all this, by whatever means, must be kept from him.

The last time they met, she had rushed from the house like a schoolgirl. Dressed today by the Cardinal’s decree in stiff blue velvet to offset the Queen’s impressive cloth of silver she stood with the rest, and begged the mute gods of the Masque to uphold her as she watched the Commissioners enter, two by two, while trumpets like golden-voiced drakes quarrelled together.

And there was Richard, brown and heavy and grave, and a glimpse of fair hair, picked out by the low winter sun. Then the half-brothers entered, almost together.

And, knowing their parentage now, you could see Sybilla in both her sons; but more clearly still, the legendary presence of the first baron Crawford of Culter: blurred through two generations in the square, brown-haired person of Richard; and undiluted in Francis, the love-child.

Richard, seeking her as soon as he stepped through the door caught her eye and smiled, before filing forward to make his salute to the Queen.

Francis Crawford looked only at the Chair of State, and if the arc of his gaze included the demoiselles of honour, he gave no indication of it whatever.

It was beyond Philippa to look anywhere else in those first moments. He had become a romantic figure in the country, they said. The pale, pleated taffetas with their exquisite needlework and the channel of cabochon emeralds on the short, reversed cloak confirmed the suspicion that he was living up to it. His manners during the presentations were of a courtly perfection verging on the caricature. When he chose to assume the high style, as when he chose to be vulgar, he could always equal or outdo the professionals.

Of the illness at Dieppe there was no trace, unless it were in the weight of his gaze, modishly languorous. But when, stepping back, he did allow his eye to be caught and bowed delightfully to his countess, every nerve from his mouth to his fingertips was unquestionably within his control.

He was not alone in that form of dexterity. Into her answering curtsey Philippa put a matched degree of suavity and slightly more distance: Richard, she saw, grinned; and Lord James Stewart, also observing, was watching her critically. Then the speeches began and ended, and Lymond rejoined his compatriots and she was left with the Provost of Edinburgh, whose royal ancestors had bequeathed him a certain amount of conceit which she suffered, because he was brother to one of the four little Maries. But she had always thought George Seton facile, and now the charm barely covered the drift of his questions.

Of course, her interest for them all lay in her marriage. But she was thankful instead of wary when at last Richard came and displaced him. ‘Dearest Philippa, you would take away the breath of any right-minded man who was not talking politics. You must come to see Sybilla. She misses you.’

Kind as of old, but greyer and a good deal more adroit, he was studying her as he was speaking. She leaned forward and kissed him. ‘Of course I shall come soon. Is she well, Richard? And Mariotta at home, and the family?’

‘Come to the Hôtel de l’Ange and you shall hear,’ Richard said. ‘Yes, we are well, and Kuzúm is flourishing. Kate has been looking every day for your letters. We thought you were coming home before now. But after this, of course I see what is keeping you. I hear the royal marriage would founder without you.’

‘I hope not,’ Philippa said, ‘or you would all have to go home. What did the Queen say?’

‘She asked,’ Richard said, ‘if I thought my brother really intended to marry the Marshal de St André’s daughter. You know, of course, about that?’

‘Yes,’ said Philippa firmly. ‘I think it’s a splendid idea.’

‘So do I,’ Richard said. ‘I told her grace that he might not marry the girl if she lost the use of her limbs or her dowry; but I couldn’t think of anything else that would deter him. You must be mortally glad to be free of the whole business at last. Is he always tiresome, or has he attempted at least to be civil to you?’

It sounded innocuous. Late in life, Richard had begun to master the game played so well by his younger brother. But Philippa, who had Lymond for her fencing-master, saw suddenly through it. He had been told of her attachment, and was probing it.

In the seraglio, one learned the trappings, at least, of a golden diplomacy. ‘Not in the least,’ Philippa said. ‘But
le mal preveu ne donne pas grand coup
, as they say. Perhaps he will mend his manners now that the Bishops are here, and God will come with feet of wool, surprise him asleep, and waken him with an iron arm. Archie won’t like it at all.’ Who had hinted at the state of her feelings for Lymond? Jerott, maybe. She knew Jerott had called on Sybilla.

But it was not Jerott. Lymond had seen what was happening; and softer footed than God, was standing behind Richard Crawford, speaking gently. ‘Everything she says is a lie, and the arm of iron which pushed me into Catherine d’Albon’s embraces did not belong, I would have you know, to the Deity.’

He stared straight at Philippa. ‘I tried to convince my furious friends you had a weakness for me.’

Damn him. Damn him for letting her down—in what drunken access of fury? And damn him for insisting now, belatedly, on redeeming it. Philippa said, ‘If I had, I grew out of it early. Like the Etrurian mule who ate hemlock, any poor ass seduced by a Crawford——’ She broke off abruptly, remembering.

‘… is apt to wake flayed alive,’ Lymond finished. He had himself well in hand. Archie was right as usual. He said blandly, ‘You can’t be expected to recall the fate of each of my mistresses. Even Richard gets muddled up sometimes. Why don’t you call on Austin Grey instead of corresponding with him? You won’t meet me. Like yourself, I seem to be permanently occupied with other people’s errors of judgement.’

He was correct: fear of meeting him was the main reason which had kept her from the Hôtel d’Hercule. But not, as he must suppose, because of the manner of their last meeting. The others had moved away, leaving Lymond and herself for a moment standing together. She said, conscious this time of being under an undiluted and possibly suspicious regard, ‘Tell Austin I haven’t forgotten. I shall call on him presently.’

‘He will be deeply moved, while preserving a gentlemanly fortitude. You could either marry him here,’ Lymond said, ‘or go home with him
two days after the Dauphin’s wedding. In any case, leave instructions for Willie Grey’s ransom. Advise the Queen when you are going. And write to Kate. She thinks I am keeping you in Paris instead of vice versa.’

‘There are times,’ said Philippa shortly, ‘when I feel like the entire Russian army.’

‘There are times,” said Lymond equally shortly, ‘when I wish that you were. It would solve the whole Tartar problem and save Ottoman Turkey for Jesus.’

‘My dear Mr Crawford!
Caelum, non animos mutant, qui trans mare corrunt
. So near dissolution, and still bickering!’

The voice, a sacerdotal one, came from behind her. She recognized it, but would not entertain it. Lymond, on the other hand, not only identified the owner but took steps to deal with him. ‘Why, naturally, my dear Master Elder.
Chi Asino va a Roma, Asino se ne torna
. Have you not preserved your habitual qualities? And how is your sweet charge, and the Countess of Lennox?’

The Countess of Lennox.

An ambitious and powerful woman, who has been the downfall of more than one comely youth in her day
. Such as a fair, haunted child of sixteen, with a French degree and his first major battle behind him.

She had known of the association. She had not known how it began. And looking at the worldly courtier smiling beside her, she wondered if Lymond had forgotten. She turned.

Master John Elder was secretary to Lady Lennox, and her son’s tutor. Philippa knew and disliked him of old. He stood, waxily smiling with a new black cap clapped over his lugubrious ears and a new black robe knocking about his slippered ankles. He said, ‘I come bearing my mistress’s loving greetings to her charming niece, the little Queen so soon to enter matrimony. And my young pupil, I thank you, is well. You know he and the Queen have exchanged verses in Latin?’

‘How delightful,’ said Philippa kindly. ‘And will you stay, Master Elder, for the wedding?’

‘I have been invited,’ he said. ‘Am I not fortunate? The Earl of Lennox is distempered and his dear lady must needs stay and nurse him. But she charged me, did I see you both, to tell you that she trusts you remember her.’

With curses, as she well knew, sending that decorous message. And delivering it, John Elder must be hugging a private pleasure known, he believed, only to himself and to his semi-royal mistress.

For Margaret Lennox was not only the woman who had taken a sixteen-year-old boy and ruined him. She was the woman who, to strike this formidable antagonist and his relatives from the path of her family, had promised Leonard Bailey six thousand pounds for the public proof of Lymond’s base parentage.

Only John Elder did not know, unless Bailey had told him, that she, too, was in the market for the same information. Philippa said, ‘Do you know Paris well, Master Elder?’

He smiled. The lean, Caithness face, untidily bearded, had nothing generous in its lineaments. ‘I know some parts better than others. I visit friends. I was not so fortunate as some, to be educated here. I come of humble parents, Madame de Sevigny. Humble but law abiding. I cannot aspire to the splendid caste of your husband. A lowly priest stands in awe of a descendant of the superb, the stainless, the magnificent Crawfords. I can only draw maps and string some Latin together and nurture my noble young prince, who may surprise you ali one of these days.’

His eyes, bright with malice, flickered from Lymond to herself and back again. He had hoped to hurt. But had he known the real truth, Philippa thought, he would have cut very much deeper. And had he known that she knew it, he could not have resisted the temptation to taunt her.