Checkmate (5 page)

‘And antagonize the parents? There would be no evidence,’ said Lymond. ‘All the blowpipes would long since have been thrown in the river. It is for you, messieurs, to hunt not children, but those among you who still wish to shame your city and kill its defenders. I shall not report this to His Majesty, in case he should conclude that the premier town in this kingdom is a dunghill upon which the blood of loyal men should not be squandered.’

Behind his gore-drenched handkerchief, Danny Hislop dispatched a thought, hopefully, to wherever Adam Blacklock might be. ‘One hundred thousand more, interest-free, my boy. And if someone actually kills M. de Sevigny, they’ll make an outright gift of their wives into the bargain.’

On the way along the Grand’ Rue he had a second thought, and delivered it aloud, to his commander. ‘I thought you said you saw one of the children.’

‘He shall,’ said Lymond, ‘ben lyk the lytel bee That seketh the blosme on the tre And souketh on the primerole. You want me to look for him?’

‘It would seem obvious,’ Danny said. From experience, this kind of talk made him wary.

‘It would seem obvious,’ Lymond agreed peaceably, ‘if I ever expected to know him again. Can you dispose of your swaddling band, or do I
have to introduce the top of your head and your chin to the wife of the Governor?’

They had arrived. Danny, inhaling, removed his handkerchief. The idea had been conveyed to him, he noticed, that M. de Sevigny had observed one of the murdering brats, but not closely enough to identify him.

He distrusted, for some reason, that implication.

He went further. He was perfectly sure that his lordship had lied to him.

Danny Hislop had been warned about the Governor’s wife, and when he saw her waiting with her staff and her ladies in the upper courtyard of the Hôtel de Gouvernement he believed every word of it.

The Governor, rich, gallant and lifelong friend of the monarch, was in Picardy, fighting Lord Grey and King Philip with the Constable’s army. His wife, Madame la Maréchale de St André, was a woman of the Court and unlikely therefore to repine over or even notice the absence of her brilliant husband; particularly if the stories Adam told about her were true.

That the other stories were also true was more than borne out by her manner. Madame la Maréchale resented the presence of Mr Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny as a guest under her roof. A magnificent tolerance invested the painted face within the black-tinted hair. The rest of her statuesque presence appeared covered with jewels. Her gable headdress, her honeycomb sleeves, her glistening skirts were stitched with aiglets and cabuchons, and a medallion the size of a plate reposed on the gathered cambric of her bosom.

Then Lymond walked up the stairs from the street and Danny, following behind, saw Madame’s eyes rest on the Persian coat, and the size and quite matchless splendour of his lordship’s jewels and lastly, on his face, which was as urbane as her own. And to himself:
Blessed shall ye be when men shall hate you
, said Danny Hislop; and delighted, settled to witness a conflict.

It did not come. It appeared that, if driven to it, M. de Sevigny could conduct and sustain a soothing conversation which comprised not only an exchange of news but also some skilful anecdotes and even, entrancingly, a little fresh scandal now and then.

Madame la Maréchale, listening, allowed her defences to dwindle. After dinner she dismissed her women, her clerk and her chaplain, and appeared prepared to sit alone in her visitors’ company without digging trenches beforehand. The names of Condé and d’Enghien and the Vidame of Chartres which had appeared with mysterious frequency in her previous discourse tended to disappear, to the disappointment of
Danny, who was hoping for further details of his commander’s disgusting past.

Of his peccadilloes in Russia, Danny had made a complete study in person. But even Adam had not been with Lymond during that stay six years since at the French court. Rumour agreed on some aspects: that he had been drunk most of the time; that he had performed some service for the Crown and had been taken up by the courtiers as a result.

Adam had reminded him that the French court was notorious for licence, and had hinted that Lymond’s offences in Madame la Maréchale’s eyes were partly to do with her husband. Her husband, Danny gathered, had not been offended: rather the contrary. The same appeared to be true of Messrs the Vidame, the Marquis d’Enghien and the Prince of Condé.

Added to what Danny knew for a certainty of Lymond’s more orthodox conquests, it made an impressive tally. He stared into space, his nose in a handkerchief, thinking of a Tartar girl he had promised himself to stop thinking of.

Marguerite de St André had forgotten he was there at ail. The golden-haired commander whose drunken wildness had once so attracted Jacques had learned manners. He was quite charming and also, clearly, of inordinate wealth. She smiled at him: the particular smile, for the first time, that made the most of her eyes and hid her bad teeth and said, ‘And when is your next deputation? In half an hour? I cannot believe that, sitting here, you are conducting our defence against invading armies.’

‘You will believe it when the couriers start arriving,’ said Lymond pleasantly and stood up. ‘All my orders were given before I came here. Then, when your leading burghers have had a chance to confer, I hope they will look for military guidance to Mr Hislop.…’

He made a small, unexpected turn towards Danny who sat up, radiating alertness.

‘… whose nature, unlike the mastiff, is to be tenderly nosed,’ Lymond finished. A little fan had been shaken from table to floor by his movement. The Governor’s wife saw his eyes become aware of it. He paused, and then sinking to one knee collected it between his ringed hands and rose, with infinite slowness, admiring it. Then he looked up and smiled at the Maréchale.

His eyes were a brilliant blue; the disliked chameleon face illuminated with sweetness and warmth and vivid intelligence. His hands, enclosing the fan, were classical in their purity. The Maréchale returned the look, her lips parting.

Lymond said, ‘I wish it were not so, but I fear my deputation is arriving.’

She had hoped that the confusion of sound in the street had escaped his attention. Carrying his eyes with her she rose, and passing Danny Hislop walked to the window, where she unlatched and drew inwards one of the five slender casements. Danny got up and stood, grinning sourly, beside her.

A handcart perched in the street guarded by a group of armed men wearing sleeve badges. On the cobbles beside it, newly unloaded, were lodged half a dozen deep wooden boxes and a group of arguing servants. Some of them, Danny saw, wore the Governor’s livery. The rest showed the same badge as the men at arms: a badge he could not place, although he had seen it quite recently. Madame la Maréchale, looking over her shoulder, said, ‘M. de Sevigny. You bank with the House of Schiatti. Are you expecting document boxes?’

Lymond came and stood beside her. Then, drawing open the neighbouring window, he watched without speaking as the skirmishing voices below came clearly upwards. ‘They seem to be indicating,’ said Madame de St André after a moment, ‘that the coffers are to be delivered to you personally. My staff, naturally, are not accustomed to allow other servants into the house.’

‘I am causing you trouble,’ Lymond said. ‘I apologize. I did ask M. Schiatti to send me some papers. There are rather more of them than I anticipated. Perhaps it would suffice if one of the carriers was allowed to enter and speak to me personally. The child, perhaps. Don’t you think he is charming?’

Danny looked at the child. He was not particularly charming, being bent double with a cloth and a leather harness wrapped round his head, complaining viciously about the size of the box two others were lowering on to his back. But he was certainly the youngest of all the Schiatti servants and the filthy hands were agile enough, and the language sufficiently foul, to suggest why Lymond wanted to see him.

Marguerite de St Andre’s thoughts were in another direction. She said, ‘He is dirty.’

Francis Crawford closed the window and turned, so near that they shared breath between them. Then he smiled, and lifting his hands, took hers lightly in them. ‘But mine are clean, and it pleases me to keep them so,’ said the King’s Captain-General. ‘You will have him sent up for a moment?’

And as she smiled and inclined her head, he dropped one hand and led her with the other to the door.

Danny watched it close, awestruck, behind her. He said. ‘A wool seller kens a wool buyer. You do know what in hell you are doing?’

With some trouble, Lymond stopped laughing. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. He sank into a chair and still smiling, gazed at the flower-painted beams of the ceiling. ‘If they force me to stay in France they will have to put up, won’t they, with the consequences? In any case, you’re the one who likes mature gentlewomen. L’échange de deux fantasies et le contact de deux épidermes. When I’ve trained her, you may put in a bid if you want to.’

‘Was that the boy?’ Danny said, switching subjects. With Lymond in this mood, it was useless. ‘The boy on the bridge?’

The door opened. ‘I told you,’ Lymond said, and rose, taking his time, while the Governor’s wife entered the chamber behind him. ‘I shouldn’t
recognize him again.’ And he turned, as the child from the street shot in and halted. Lymond said, ‘You were right. He is really appallingly dirty.’ His voice had not quite recovered.

Danny Hislop stalked to the door, shut it, and held a chair for the Maréchale de St André, well out of blowpipe collimation. The child scowled under its thicket of wadding. Its breeches and sleeveless green livery jacket were several sizes too large for it, but the grimy arms were muscular enough under the rolled-up sleeves and its hands, gripped behind its back, were quite capable of wielding a weapon. He might well have one concealed in the turban-like headdress. He most certainly, thought Danny, had lice. The boy, red-faced under the triple scrutiny, said thinly, ‘De la part de M. Schiatti, huit coffres-forts pour M. de Sevigny,’ and facing Danny, unclasped his hands, bowed sketchily, and gripped his hands once more, defensively.

In tranquil French, Lymond intervened. ‘Unlikely though it may seem, I am François, comte de Sevigny. What is your name?’

The urchin turned quickly and eyed him. ‘Je m’appelle Annibal, monseigneur.’

‘Ah,’ said Lymond, ‘I must introduce you to an elephant-keeper I know. And how long have you been in M. Schiatti’s employment?’

The child’s brown eyes shot round the room and, disarming in his smudged visage, returned to the Persian doublet. ‘Three years, monseigneur. My mother is one of his sauce cooks.’

‘I see,’ said Lymond, and lifting Madame la Maréchale’s fan chose a chair and sat down on it, spreading the delicate leaves in his fingers. ‘So you came with M. Schiatti from the Hôtel Schiatti in Amboise?’

‘You are correct, monseigneur,’ said the boy Annibal. A thread of impudence for the first time reached Danny’s critical ears through the nervousness in the child’s answers.

‘But,’ said Lymond looking up, ‘M. Schiatti has no château in Amboise.’

Danny winced. He wondered why his lordship had claimed to be unable to identify the boy on the bridge. Then he recalled something he had heard rumoured. Once, Lymond had questioned a child and lived to regret it. This time, knave that he was, the child had a fraction of Danny’s sympathy.

The boy stared at his tormentor and said shrilly and with confidence, ‘You are mistaken, monseigneur. M. Schiatti possesses a château at Amboise.’

Double bluff. Danny Hislop glanced at Madame la Maréchale and hurriedly away again. Her forbearance, her polite expression declared, was not without boundaries. ‘Indeed,’ said Lymond. ‘I should like to hear where, and of what quality.’

Feet apart, the boy thrust his turbanned head forth like a turkey-cock. ‘If you do not know, monseigneur, I must tell you that I do not believe you to be M. Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny. If you know, then I
wish you to tell me by what right you question one of M. Schiatti’s loyal servants? I am the son of a poor kitchen woman, delivering boxes. It does a great gentleman no credit to tease me.’

‘Were you on the bridge this afternoon?’ said Danny Hislop.

The boy turned quickly. ‘No, Monsieur le Bec. I did not make you fall off your horse. Perhaps you should question your harness-maker.’

‘Be quiet!’ Madame la Maréchale had realized what was afoot. She sat up. ‘Were you among those murdering children? Then we shall soon have the truth out of you. Mr Hislop, ring for my steward. Then I should be glad if you would remove the child to the window embrasure. He offends the nostrils.’

The child’s mouth opened. ‘He does, rather,’ said Lymond; and closing the pretty fan, tossed it to the boy before Danny could shift him. ‘Annibal,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘You have made Madame unwell. You will oblige me by fanning her.’

The fan was worth a great deal of money. Annibal allowed it to fall within six inches of the floor before he condescended to catch it, watched with well-bred impassivity by Marguerite de St André. Then, one-handed, he flicked the fragile fan open and stood holding it. ‘To me,’ he said, ‘she does not look faint.’

‘Then you may close the fan,’ said Lymond, ‘as skilfully as you have opened it.’

Below the dirt, the young skin of the boy Annibal went scarlet. He pursed his lips, his eyes on the speaker, and then smiling with a flash of small teeth, he lifted his hand and caused the leaves of the fan to pour shut in a brief courtly gesture. ‘Attrapé,’ he said apologetically.

‘Attrape indeed,’ agreed Lymond. ‘With a double
e
and no proper shame that I can discover. Pull his headgear off, Hislop.’

‘What?’ said Danny; and Madame la Maréchale, rising, made sharply to stop him. But since an order was an order, Danny Hislop did put out one fastidious hand, and grasp the end of the soiled, greasy linen and unseat, with a single rough gesture, the whole of the brazen child’s headgear.

A quantity of matted brown hair, thus released, tumbled down the child’s back and over its jacket where it lay, damp and nastily odoriferous.

‘Attrapée. With two e’s,’ said Danny. His eyes were unfocused.

‘It’s a girl!’ exclaimed Madame la Maréchale.

The boy Annibal and Francis Crawford stood, silently regarding one another. Then Lymond walked softly forward and taking the child’s grimy hand, raised it to his lips in formal salutation. ‘It is a gentlewoman,’ he said, ‘of the title of Philippa Crawford of Lymond, comtesse de Sevigny. Madame la Maréchale de St André, may I beg leave to present to you the lady I am divorcing?’

Danny choked. Madame la Maréchale, to do credit to her breeding and initiative, walked forwards, not back, and stood gazing at the long-haired child in the green jacket two sizes too big for it whose liquid brown
eyes, one now saw, bore wiped-off traces of fine cosmetics, and whose straggling hair still held a pin with a diamond in it.

The Governor’s wife drew a breath, but how she meant to deal with an unprecedented situation was never to be recorded. Francis Crawford’s lady removed her hand, wiped it, and said to him bluntly, ‘And what do you expect Madame la Maréchale to say to that? There’s no occasion for both of us to be childish.’

When he could speak: ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Lymond. ‘I had some idea it would spare you a flogging. Madame la Maréchale——’

‘I think,’ said his wife, interrupting him, ‘I had better make my own apology. Mr Hislop, how are you?’