Checkmate (64 page)

The gates were not locked, and he pushed them open and walked through the garden.

The orchard which lay between himself and the house was of cherry trees, their flowers white as burned ash in the moonlight. And behind them, touched all at once into ghost-life, was the celestial globe over the doorway, with two pensive winged figures guarding it.

The sphere, joining his past with his present. The words of the tomb; the half-caught echo of old enchantments and vows long forgotten:

By these same I swear, by Earth, Sea, Sky and the twin brood of Latona and Janus the double-facing, and the might of the nether gods and grim Pluto’s shrine: this let our Father hear, who seals treaties with his thunderbolt. I touch the altars, I take to witness the fires and the gods between us.…

The house was in darkness, save for a single light in a dormer, high over his head.

He tried the tooled wooden door under the sphere, and it was not locked against him, any more than had been the gates. He thought he heard, for a moment, a whisper over his shoulder; but did not look round.

Only, quite softly and steadily did he push the door open and enter the house where he had been born.

There was no sound in the Hôtel des Sphères, nor any light in the wainscotted hall, or the parlour which led from it.

The scent of the small room was pleasing. Moonlight limned in grey the story of Psyche on the finely arched window, and alighting within, touched upon nymphs and garlands and roses, and upon lines of silver, glittering by the chimney-piece:

Míkál … Güzel … Where are the links of the chain, glimmering there: joining us to the past? The perfume was pleasing because it was familiar to him. The other presences, in the silence, were older.

No one stirred. If there had been servants, there would be candlelight; the door would have been locked: a cresset left on the stair for the mistress or master.

For the mistress; for this must be the house of Isabelle Roset. The house whose direction her sister had had no chance to give him before dying, blind in a smoke-filled farm kitchen in Fleuvy-le-Martel. Perhaps hers was the voice in his thoughts, saying
Climb …

Dabit Deus his quoque finem. Seek me in the broken hearts and by the crumbling tombs.…

‘I do not believe in God,’ Piero Strozzi had said, ‘but I respect His dignity. I shall not visit Him in His house with my presence.’ And so had catarrh …

Help me to seek.

One knows, when all one’s life one has walked in dangerous places, when the silence is that of ambush and when the silence is that of emptiness.

This was emptiness. The little staircase, roundly carved, gave upon a passage, and of all the doors in the passage, only one showed a line of light under it.

If one believes in God, but has learned not to pray, one offers only, in silence, one’s apologies, and then asks the spirit to do what it can.

Francis Crawford laid on the door the beautiful hand of his father, and pressed the latch, and opened it. And as he did so the candle within flickered and went out.

Inside, the quiet and the darkness were absolute. He stood in the doorway listening, and allowing his eyes, like a cat’s, to enlarge again. Slowly, a window opposite grew into his sight, indigo against Indian blackness. And a little flare of light in the sky showed him, glimmering for a moment, the shape of a bed, and tumbled sheets, and a shadow lying upon it.

He had no weapon, except perhaps surprise. Where the candle had been, there must be a flaxbox. He moved noiselessly into the room, guiding himself by his fingertips. A chest; a tall hutch-press; an iron stand with a laver; a chair; a stool, with a candle upon it. Then he felt the box with the tinder and paper, and lifting it, cupped his hands and made a little flame.

What had seemed orderly was an ill-kept chamber, its dusty floor strewn with a man’s clothes, rudely discarded. The coverlet drooped to the floor and a pillow, deeply indented, lay there beside it. On the bed, the stained sheets were rammed to the foot of the mattress, one of them torn in half. And upon the mattress, grotesque and naked in the writhing light of the guttering flame, lay the muscular body of Leonard Bailey, lustily spreadeagled in untimely and partnerless death.

The flame burned his fingers and vanished. He did not relight it. He did not want to see again that oxlike body of the powerful old man who had hated him: who had hated all the Crawfords; had spurned their generosity and had spent all his years contriving to ruin them. That gross, elderly body, reaped in the excess of its ardour; dead through no human agency, deprived of life by nothing except its own violence.

He did not want to see that again; or the little kid slippers fallen aside, or the fragile clothes laid on the coffer, with the glint of stiff silver tissue beneath them. The signs, not of a molestation, but of a reckoning formally appointed and now paid to the limit. A tribute to Janus, God of Gates, to prevent that other, deferred payment to Charon.

It was necessary, in any case, to go on. He did, finally, light a candle in order to pass from room to room along the passage. They were all empty. In the silence his own fitful breathing entered his awareness. It was not how he wanted to sound, but if he could hold everything else under his control, that did not matter. He walked downstairs, and through the dark empty chambers and passages, and at last, pushed open the door of the kitchen.

Inside it was warm. The great fire, sunk in its embers, still burned rosily on the glimmering brass and latten and copper: on the golden scrubbed wood of Madame Roset’s racks and aumbries and table.

Before the fire, barefoot in her torn shift, Philippa lay, her hair spilled on the tiles, her fingers loose, her face invisible. And protected by her outflung arms were two scrolls of yellowed paper.

She was breathing. He knelt where his shadow did not fall on her, and laid two fingers on her wrist. Her pulse was fast and shallow: she was, he thought deeply unconscious. So it must all be done now, and quickly.

It was done then, in a ceaseless flow of quiet movement: the fire made up and water set heating; the shutters closed and the room set in order. He brought a mattress with towels laid upon it and eased it beneath her, touching her as little as possible. Then he drew the ruined shift from her bare body and bathed her, helpless as a young bird, with warm water.

There was room in him for no living trace of desire. He dried her skin and slipped over her hands the sleeves of his own warm lawn shirt. The towels he spread in front of the fire, and in their place on the mattress he laid his borrowed cloak, drawing her within its folds. Lastly, with his small comb he patiently stroked the damp tangle of her brown hair until it lay as it should, a shining scarf over her shoulders. Towards the end she stirred and he moved back at once, and waited. She opened her eyes.

She opened them on his face, at first only half conscious. Then memory came; and awareness. She lay without moving, looking at him; and he received the look where he knelt, without speaking.

Time ceased. At some station within the long, uncounted interval he rose, and bringing a pan poured out some warm milk and gave it to her. He watched her as she drank it, leaning slowly on one elbow and at the end received the cup from her and let her rest, her lids closed, while he remained without moving beside her. From time to time, when she opened her eyes, their gaze blended and held, lightless and still; the surface of the place, fathoms below, of their communication.

He had put a powder of his own in the milk. Perhaps she knew it. At least she sank into sleep without resistance: when he was sure she did not need him he rose and washed the pan and the cup she had used; put away the dried towels; made up the fire and then, taking a candle, went upstairs to the bedroom where Bailey lay.

Let every godly man close the mouth of his stomach, lest he be disturbed.

That night he ruled every organ of his body. He opened the door on the rankness within and set his hand to what had to be done. He cleansed and clothed the thick and stiffening body, restoring the room and replacing foul sheets with fresh ones. He removed every trace of Philippa’s presence from the dark bedroom; brought down and burned the stained cloth and salvaged the clothes she could still wear, laying them by her side for when she wakened. He found and took away an emerald pendant he knew to be hers. Then he searched for the boxes of money.

They were near the kitchen, in a locked cellar, whose key he found in Bailey’s chamber. They were too heavy to move, so he locked the cellar again and kept the key of it. He also systematically examined the house, until assured that no paper remained which could injure his family. The scrolls from the floor of the kitchen were already in the
breast of his doublet together with one other missive: a letter in Philippa’s writing which he had not burned.

There were mules in the small stable at the back of the orchard, and saddles. Soon the streets would be cleared of the last celebrants, the wedding party dispersed, the bride and groom bedded, if no more than bedded, beneath the glorious emblems, for ever one, of France and of Scotland.

He returned to the kitchen, and waited; and presently Philippa opened her eyes.

He spoke, then, the only thought which made words unavoidable.

‘Come, my wife,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘We are going to Sevigny.’

Kings may mourn the death of a favourite, but his disappearance is viewed as an insult.

By dinnertime on the day appointed for his annulment, it was common knowledge that the comte de Sevigny had left Court without leave or apology, and that Madame his lady had vanished also.

This followed a night-long search prosecuted by Richard his brother, and another fruitless essay, different in the quality of its concern, by the four men to whom Lymond was closest.

Called upon in her chamber by Adam, Sybilla Lady Culter took a long time to answer his query and then gave him, steadfastly, the reply which she was to repeat later to Danny Hislop. She knew of no house in the Petit Arsenal district, and had given no address to her son Francis.

Euphemia, brutally questioned by the stricter member of the Culter family, was rather more garrulous. The protestations of Euphemia together with the puzzled and querulous cries of the Schiatti cousins brought to light one other fragment of information. When the comtesse de Sevigny left, followed later by her husband, she had already withdrawn and sent ahead of her all the wealth she possessed banked in Paris.

It was agreed, in a harsh, one-sided interview between Sybilla and Richard, that Austin, isolated in his room in the masterless Hôtel d’Hercule, should be told nothing meantime, except that the signing of the annulment papers had been deferred. The King of France, summoning the Earl of Culter to the Louvre during a break in the wedding celebrations, questioned him sharply about the possible reasons for M. de Sevigny’s absence, and on being satisfied of his brother’s total ignorance, remarked tartly that he would be content therefore if M. de Culter would favour the rest of the festivities with his presence, so that the Queen his daughter might not be deprived at one stroke of quite all of her Scottish supporters.

The King was cross. The attitude of the other courtiers tended to echo that of Piero Strozzi, back at court for his daughter’s wedding: a mixture of irritation, admiration and envy. The Queen of France said nothing;
nor did her demoiselle d’honneur Catherine d’Albon, although it could be seen that she had been weeping.

And the six brothers de Guise said remarkably little either, although the Cardinal was both short and stinging in his rebuke to the Duke of Nemours who in his presence made light of the matter. To place his private affairs before those of the King at such a time was an insult to France and to Scotland, not to mention an affront to the Cardinal Legate, whose interest to annul this marriage had been solicited with such untiring vigour by M. de Sevigny. He hoped, said the Cardinal of Lorraine, to hear that the gentleman was unwell. It was the only excuse, he believed, which would serve him.

Strangely enough, after her first astonishment and annoyance, the bride herself, it seemed, had not been wholly displeased. Richard, reprimanded by his hosts and conscious of the requirements of his assignation, returned, finally to the ranks of his fellow Commissioners who received him with sympathy below which lay, he could feel, the flatness of disappointment.

Archie vanished.

Servants, returning to a house in the rue de la Cerisaye after a night abroad in celebration of the Dauphin’s wedding, paid for by their mistress’s guest, were alarmed to find the door unlocked and the English gentleman dead in his bed. A physician, called in hastily, pronounced the death to be a natural one. The only disarrangement in the house or purlieus was the bursting open of the lock of the stables and the theft of a horse and saddle. Arrangements were made for the gentleman’s burial and the agent, notified, undertook to do what he could to trace the absent Madame Roset. The matter, of little importance, did not come to the ears of the Court.

The Countess of Lennox’s secretary, having attended assiduously all the wedding celebrations, composed a great deal of eulogistic verse and made himself as pleasant and as conspicuous as possible in the Queen of Scotland’s circle, grew tired of waiting for a message from an unknown address about a gentleman who had disappeared anyway, and decided that, rather than go home empty-handed, he should attempt a little research on his own account. After waiting therefore for a day on which all the Commissioners and their kinsmen were occupied, Master Elder left the modest lodging he had been allotted and walked through the fine spring weather to the Hôtel d’Hercule, where he asked politely to see the Marquis of Allendale.

On the same morning, a liveried groom arrived at the Hôtel de l’Ange with a packet for the Dowager Lady Culter. It contained two enclosures. One, a letter sealed with the Sevigny crest, was addressed to the Most Christian King of France, and she laid it aside. The other, a single sheet of paper, was a message to herself from Nicholas Applegarth.

They are both here, and safe, although very tired. The enclosed packet, which I am to beg you to pass to his Majesty, contains a surrender of all
your son’s offices and holdings, other than his house and lands in this Seigneurie. Neither M. le comte nor his wife will be returning to court
.

I am asked that this should be made clear to those whom it may concern. On my own account, I beg you to see that all this is accepted so far as possible without discord or argument, and that above all no one should think it necessary to come to Sevigny
.

I remain, your obedient servant,
NICHOLAS APPLEGARTH
.

With that letter in her hands, she sat unmoving until the Commissioners returned. Then, summoning Richard and the three remaining officers of St Mary’s to her room, she gave it into their keeping.

To Jerott, to Adam and to Danny, it was the first certain indication that, whatever danger Lymond had feared for her, Philippa was safe; and following her, Lymond had come to no harm.

The news that they were together, and were remaining together, was something else. At that point in their reading Adam looked up and met Sybilla’s eyes, his scarred face intent, but he said nothing and neither did Danny, the perpetual talker. It was Jerott who, flushing, said, ‘What has he done? What is he thinking of?’

And Richard who answered, ‘He has merely broken, as always, every promise he ever made, before man or God.’ And then, ‘I shall have to tell Austin.’

He did so later, when the other letter had been delivered to its destination and the resulting repercussions had done nothing to sweeten his temper. The discovery, on arriving at the Hôtel d’Hercules, that Master Elder had already visited the English prisoner and had been admitted without sanction did nothing to make him feel better. Lord Culter had preserved Allendale’s peace of mind, he well knew, at the cost of a falsehood. The impact of the truth would be bad enough, without its gleeful and premature delivery by Seton’s sycophantic Caithness friend.

He had known it was going to be difficult. But the hostile man who faced him upstairs, exhausted with rage and grief and pacing, over and over, the confines of his room, was something he had not expected. Before he could speak, Austin had rounded on him.

‘So much for your promises! The Cardinal Legate has not postponed the signing of the annulment. Philippa has been allowed to run off, and you have permitted your brother to go after her. Perhaps you encouraged him. Perhaps you mean to share her money. If you had told me, I could have paid you more.’

‘That bloody, interfering fool Elder,’ Richard said. ‘We tried to spare you some of this.’ He drew a long breath. ‘Sit down and get some wine inside you. Losing your head isn’t going to help.’

Austin paid no heed whatever. ‘If you had nothing to do with it, why conceal it? Why keep me locked in this house, where I could do nothing about it? Twenty-four hours a day, you said you would guard him, and Philippa as well. And they left … when?’

‘The night of the Queen’s wedding,’ said Richard. He had found wine and throwing it into as large a cup as he could find, brought it to where
Austin stood, braced in a corner, breathing through shut lips rapidly. Richard said quietly, ‘Perhaps we were wrong not to tell you, but there was nothing you could have done. I searched the town myself all night and next day as well, without finding them. As for the guard … we did our best, but it was the night of the wedding.’

‘How clever,’ Austin said. He made no attempt to take the wine.

‘How clever,’ Lord Culter repeated. ‘But then, you know my brother is wily. What successes have you had in your dealings with him? Can you imagine what it feels like for me, to pledge my word to preserve a girl’s honour and have it broken for me by Francis?’

‘You should have locked him in a room, as I am locked,’ Austin said. And then added, ‘But I forget. He is too popular and too powerful for that. He can trap a girl like a bird-catcher and then desecrate her, and the Court will only applaud. Then, I suppose, he will leave her.’ He stopped, and swallowed, and said, ‘Do you even know if she is alive?’

‘Sit down, for Christ’s sake,’ Richard said, ‘and drink that.’ And pushing him at last into a chair he thrust the cup into his hand and said, ‘He hasn’t left her. They are together at Sevigny, and staying there.… Drink it, you fool!’

And as Austin, his face grey, leaned against the back of the chair Richard guided the cup to his lips and said, ‘They have been together now for long enough to make any annulment of the marriage quite impossible. Therefore it is going to stand, and nothing that anyone can do will help it. It is wrong: it is a tragedy; it is a betrayal. I agree with all that. My impulse, too, was to ride off to the Loire and whip him in his own house. But they are legally married. He has not dissolved the union as he threatened to do, so that she could only reach him outside it. And lastly, she loves him.’

Austin said, ‘He is very plausible. I believed him when he gave me his oath.’

‘Never do that,’ said Richard flatly. Then after a moment he said, ‘You know of course that you are free. Francis signed your release for the Tuesday you should have left France with Philippa. It is my fault, as I have explained, that we kept you here in ignorance since then. I don’t suppose you want to stay. If you will tell me when you want to take ship, I shall ask for a safe-conduct for you for Gravelines.’

‘I don’t know,’ Austin said. He had emptied the cup and the worst of his pallor was leaving him. ‘It would do no harm to have the safe-conduct. But I might stay a little.’ He looked up. ‘Would there be room for me at the Hôtel de l’Ange?’

‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘But is there any need to stay longer? You will only add to the hurt. And it would do nothing but harm to interfere with them.’

‘I should like to know,’ Austin said, ‘if she is happy.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Is it true that your father had a natural daughter who is married to Jerott Blyth?’

There was a small silence. Then Richard said, ‘I have never met Jerott
Blyth’s lady. But at court, of course, there is always gossip. I have been told, yes, that she is extremely like Francis. I have even been told that in Lyon he called her his step-sister. More than that I do not know.… Why do you ask?’

Austin shook his head with a small, irritable movement. ‘Master Elder wanted to meet her. I hoped it would not be embarrassing.’

‘Not to me,’ Richard said. ‘I can’t, then, persuade you to leave France in the next day or two?’

Austin shook his head again. The outburst of violence had gone, leaving him spent with weariness. He said, ‘What if she needs help? You won’t be here for long.’

‘For long enough,’ Richard said. ‘In France, it seems, there is almost no term to the celebrations for a Dauphin’s nuptials. We have been told to count on a further stay of several weeks: more, if the Narrow Straits are still not safe for shipping. And meantime, we shall have news of Philippa in a very short time. Piero Strozzi is riding to Sevigny.’

‘Strozzi!’
said Austin, his voice cracking. ‘But——’

‘If you think it is undesirable,’ said Richard harshly, ‘try arguing with the King and his followers. The more ambitious captains may not want Francis back, but his own men do, and the mercenaries, and the ensigns who fought with him at Calais. The new season’s campaign is just about to open in Champagne and King Henri wants Francis there. Strozzi is being sent to tell him so.’

There was a long pause. Then Austin said, ‘You will tell me what he says when he returns?’

‘He will tell you himself,’ Richard said. ‘I shall bring him to the Hôtel de l’Ange and he will tell all of us. We deserve that much reassurance, at least.’

*

The French King was hunting when Piero Strozzi returned. He had been hunting, in fact, for ten days largely, it was rumoured, to keep out of the way of prying foreign ambassadors while conducting a war with one hand and a peace conference with the other. As a result, it was the middle of May before Strozzi made his report and was able, on his way back through Paris for his equipment, to call on the Hôtel de l’Ange with his bulletin.

He delivered it, nothing abashed, not only to the Crawfords of Culter and Lord Allendale but to Adam and three of the Commissioners who happened to be in the main salon at the time.

‘Well, you are wondering; you ask, did I see him in his asylum of the Muses and I have to say yes, I have seen him. And
quel changement …
quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! Spells, spells has he cast, my enemy and traitor! I take God to record that if the little demoiselle did not look so appealingly, I would have pulled him from his bush of roses with my
sword belt, I burn so with jealousy. But who would blame him? Appetite is the stay of life, and it is not given to a man to love and be wise.’

He paused for breath. Richard said flatly, ‘Is he coming back to the army?’

‘Ah!
Chi mi! Qu’io no pensara di partime!
I lie,’ said Piero Strozzi cheerfully. ‘At times I hoped very much he was able to leave me. It is not comfortable, when you are a great leader, as I am, and a veteran of many famous wars, to have a second Démétrius appear and sit at your master’s right hand. No, he is not returning. He is not planning to throw himself into the King’s arms and cry misericordia. He does not wish to take his wife to Lanarkshire, the Paradise of Scotland. He intends to remain where he is, multiplying the fornications and impurities before the idol of Aphrodite like the Agregentines, who gave themselves up to delight as if every day was to be their last. I beg you, Lord Allendale,’ said Piero Strozzi, ‘do you know of any other young maids from Hexham?’