Checkmate (71 page)

That took a little while to answer. Then Philippa lifted her head and said, ‘No. Marthe, if there is a way out of this, will you leave me to find it?’

‘After what you have done?’ Marthe said. ‘What did you think you were achieving when you marched into that house like Joan of Arc going to the faggots? Saving his honour? The world could learn tomorrow he was the illegitimate son of Gavin Crawford and do no more than crack its jaw yawning. Saving his life? He won’t go to Russia, he won’t turn his own hand against himself now, that is certain. He will merely die, starved and strangled like a dog on a chain, unable to live with you or away from you. Could you not see it? With all your vaunted care for his life and his name, did you not visualize what would happen?’

‘No,’ Philippa said; and her voice, even to herself, was unrecognizable. ‘I didn’t see it. Whatever punishment you think that merits, I am suffering it.’ Then after a long moment she said, ‘He is not the child of Gavin Crawford, and neither are you. Your father is Gavin’s father, the first Francis Crawford. Your mother was Béatris and his was Sybilla. He is a child of incest.’

Marthe said, ‘Look at me.’

Long accustomed to bastardy, she should have found nothing of great moment in that news. But her eyes, when Philippa looked at her, were open and black as she had sometimes seen those of Francis in great pain, although she was smiling. She said, ‘So he is not my full brother. How obstinate … how obstinate can an old woman get? So the world would not have yawned. But even so, do you think now that he would not have preferred a quick death to this?’

Then as Philippa did not answer, Marthe said, ‘A raped woman should go on her knees if her husband will accept her. You talk of suffering.
None of this is Bailey’s fault, or Sybilla’s, or the chiding hand of the One. It is yours. There is no schoolgirl since the spheres were created who has made such a drama out of losing her chastity. You claim to love him. After all he has done for you, can you not grit your teeth and take him, even if you loathe his sex, and all he stands for?’

Philippa, her head high, did not flinch from the angry face above her. She said, ‘Do you not think he would prefer a quick death to that?’

‘Dissemble then,’ Marthe said. ‘Kiaya Khatún must have taught you something. Give him what you would have brought to please Suleiman, had he called you.’

Philippa said, ‘There is no artifice of Güzel’s that Francis does not know. What do you think it would mean to him, to find me using them?’

‘Then kill him as you are doing,’ Marthe said. ‘But it is not a quick death you are offering. Have you not learned from your sensitive swain, there in Paris? Such scruples seldom injure the owner. It is the men like Francis who will allow themselves to be dragged through the market-place before they will relinquish the code they have chosen to live by.’

She said softly, ‘If I owed what you owed to Francis I should go to bed with my farm manager, with Austin Grey, with any functioning male animal of my acquaintance until I knew I could give my husband a love so well simulated he would never question it. I would do it, because I am of his blood. And I tell you, he would do it for you.’

‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘The voice that suggests that is not to be listened to.… The Dame de Doubtance was more than an obstinate old woman, wasn’t she, Marthe? She ordained that a man of destiny should be born; and when her daughter Béatris produced only a sickly boy, turned her eyes elsewhere for the perfect match for the first Francis Crawford. She found it in Sybilla. But when Sybilla’s son came, the stars told her he was not for her grand-daughter.’

‘No,’ Marthe said. ‘It was you he was to marry. She told me. When he lay in Blois after the fire she spoke the name over and over so that his mind would remember it.’ She paused. ‘She said he was my brother.’

There was sweat on the fair skin.
You should have died with the dog
, the harsh voice had said, speaking through her lips in Lyon.

‘But is your half brother. Marthe, he would never have been for you,’ Philippa said. ‘Gaultier was a nonentity. She took him, and used him, and let him destroy himself. But you are her grand-daughter. Why did she tie you to us? Why did she make you her messenger? It has brought you nothing but misery.’

‘Perhaps,’ Marthe said, ‘so that there will be someone here when you have gone.’

*

She left soon after that, and Nicholas’s servant, returning with refreshments for the Countess’s guest, found the grotto empty, and the
light of Jupiter’s fountain playing on empty marble, denuded of pen and of papers.

Back in the château Philippa had already locked her letters away and after calling her servants and delivering to them, quietly, a series of long and explicit orders, went to find Nicholas Applegarth in his cabinet.

To him she said, ‘I have decided to go home to England. I have some correspondence to entrust to you, which I shall explain to you shortly, and I shall also ask you to send me the money which Francis has told you about. I shall need an escort to Paris. After that, I hope to have Lord Allendale’s company.’

The kind face of Nicholas Applegarth had become very stern. ‘And Francis?’ he said.

‘It is Francis I am thinking of,’ Philippa said.

Since Bailey’s death no man had been set to guard her, for the enemy was now within, and not outside the gates of Sevigny.

The day she left, she wrote the letter that had to be written, and sent it this time with Archie as her courier. Then she set out north for Austin, and England.

Between Sevigny and Amiens lay the better part of two hundred miles, and since he had been told not to hurry, and had besides a call to make on the way, Archie Abernethy took a week to cover it, during which time no letters bearing his own seal reached François de Sevigny.

By the third week in August, when Archie entered the town of Amiens and sought a guide to take him to the French camp, the King and his court had been established for ten days in the Episcopal Palace and all its encircling buildings to the south and west of the Cathedral, spilling down into the low town beside the church of St Germaine and the belfry. With the King was the Dauphin, the King of Navarre, the Duke of Lorraine and the Duke of Montpensier, newly ransomed from Spanish captivity, as well as two children, the sons of the Duke de Guise and his brother, with their governors and gentlemen.

The rest of the court together with all the King’s principal commanders was outside Amiens, in the camp now spread for many miles along the banks of the Somme. And facing it, with fifteen miles of flat ground between them, was the camp of Philip of Spain, with the King’s standard flying over the royal pavilion, and sixty thousand soldiers entrenched there under Savoy, Alva and Egmont, the last fresh from his triumph at Gravelines.

In size and quality, there was little to choose between the two armies. Both were well armed and supplied with munitions. Both were plagued with immense numbers of mercenaries, who had been known, on occasion, to refuse to fight one another. France had the better leadership, but Spain had the support of the English fleet, still harrying the coasts and immobilizing valuable men in the French coastal fortresses.

On the other hand, the Spanish army lay within the French frontiers, and on land which had been laid waste for miles to deny them food and forage. Up to the moment of Archie’s arrival, every clash between the two forces had been occasioned by the Spaniards’ hunger. Dourlans, which was well stocked, was saved by the extra thousand men raced there beforehand by Danny Hislop. But an attack threatened on Montreuil on the Boulogne road, where Hoddim had placed reinforcements. It was clear that the worse his condition, the sooner King Philip’s
army would be inclined to turn a foraging feint into a true assault in one direction or another. So, day and night, the French camp was held to the alert, with a reconnoitring routine which continued, irrespective of the alarms and counter-attacks which sent them out, in numbers up to six thousand during most nights and often in daytime.

When the sun was at its zenith, however, most leaders lay under their stifling canvas and slept, while the heat haze veiled the blackened Picardy plains and only the great infrastructure of the two vast concourses of men continued to throb with activity.

There was nothing wrong, all the same, with the defence system. Archie counted four challenges before he found himself ranging the tents, identifying them as he passed from the standards and escutcheons, and the livery of those busy about them.

The pavilion of the Duke de Guise and that of his brother d’Aumale were empty, the sides looped up to allow air to enter. Inside both there were carpets and furnishings which would not have disgraced any palace.

Each of the cluster of tents about the flowered chaplet of Sevigny was closed and quiet, evidence of a dawn foray or a night expedition. Archie, dismounting, saw around him grooms and bodyservants he knew belonging to Jerott Blyth and Hislop, and then a patched saddle he recognized from a great deal further back, owned by Alec Guthrie.

His grooved face softened for the first time since he had left the Loire, and he hesitated. Then someone said, ‘Monsieur?’ and it was a page in Lymond’s livery scrambling up from a patch of shadow. Beside him was the silent central pavilion, its silken fringes and swags hanging heavy and still in the noon-heat.

Archie said, ‘I have personal business with the Marshal. Will you tell him Abernethy is here to see him, from Sevigny?’

They were refusing him in whispers when Francis Crawford’s voice from within said sharply, ‘Amiel! Let him in, please!’ And Archie, passing inside, found himself in the suffocating dusk of the master-tent.

Lymond’s voice, close to him, said, ‘Why are you here?’ and Archie, sun-dazzled, looked round for him.

He had been resting, his shirt open to the waist, on the high-backed campaign bed, and was just swinging his feet to the ground when Archie saw him. Between the points of the lawn, Lymond’s throat and body were burnished with sweat; his hair was bronzed with it, and his brow and cheekbones showed, bright as oil in the twilight. Archie said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Mistress Philippa. I’ve brought you a letter.’

There was a little pause. Lymond said, ‘Why? Why
do you
bring it?’

So Archie said quietly, ‘I am holding it out to you.’

‘Then you can probably guess,’ Francis Crawford said, ‘why I am not taking it. Put it into my hands. Sit down. Tell me why it should be you who carries the letter. And, if you know, what is in it.’

Archie put the letter in his open hand, but did not sit down. ‘We heard of the headaches from Mistress Marthe,’ he said. ‘But not about this. Is it happening all the …?’

‘It is not continuous. So Marthe called at Sevigny? Why?’

Archie said, ‘You could buff the bristles off a sow’s erse wi’ my gullet. Have you no drink in the place?’

‘Not within reach,’ Lymond said. He raised his voice. ‘Amiel! A flask of wine and a cup for Mr Abernethy.’

‘That is, two cups,’ amended Archie.

Lymond placed his elbows on his knees and rested his brow on the heels of his hands. Footsteps passed and repassed on the dry grass accompanied by subdued voices and eventually, the clink of pewter. Archie, standing at the tent door, intercepted a curious Amiel with a laden tray and bringing it in, poured two cups of wine and placed them both by the bed. Lymond said, ‘It is worse having to wait, Archie, than being told at once. What has happened?’

And Archie said, ‘Mistress Philippa has gone home to England.’

The hands protecting Lymond’s face hardened. Archie, with all his senses concentrated on the other man, saw that he was breathing with strict punctuality: short, hard breaths due as much, probably, to the pressures of pain as anything more. Then Lymond said, ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. It’ll be in the letter,’ Archie said.

‘But I can’t read the letter,’ said Francis Crawford.

In a little while he said, ‘You were right to bring the wine,’ and when Archie touched his hands with the cup, took it in both palms and raised it to his lips.

His hands were streaming with sweat. Archie said, ‘Can you not get some air into the place? It would give a pain in the heid to a penny-loaf. Or d’you mean to tell me no one knows about this yet?’

The cup was empty. ‘Not yet,’ said Lymond. ‘It hasn’t happened in public. But I take someone with me … Amiel … someone … whenever I do go out. What did Marthe say to Philippa? Do you know that?’

‘No … They spoke in the gardens. For only half an hour, Mr Applegarth said. Mistress Marthe was staying in the old House de Doubtance in Blois. It seems she means to reopen it for business. Mr Applegarth said she spoke of bringing her stock there from Lyon and Paris.’

‘If she knew of the headaches … Of course,’ Lymond said. ‘Jerott called on Marthe when he was in Paris.’

Archie did not know what that implied, but the silence that followed spoke loud enough. The little man said, ‘You’ll be able to read it in a couple of hours. Or even one, surely.’

‘I know … I think I know what will be in it,’ Lymond said. ‘How … was she going home? Did Mr Applegarth say?’

‘By way of Paris. She was to ask Lord Allendale to take her,’ Archie said. And added harshly, while Lymond was still looking at him with open, unseeing eyes, ‘I didn’t think it altogether suitable. I took the liberty on my way here of asking Mr Blacklock to intercept her and go with them. That was two days ago.’

‘So that they will have left the country by now? I see. You came very
slowly, Archie. I suppose she asked you to.… I’m glad you sent Adam.’ He stopped, and said, ‘You must be hot and tired. God knows it isn’t your problem, or shouldn’t be. Go and call on Alec and Jerott. If I lie flat, I shall be functional presently.’

It was obvious now that he didn’t want company. Archie left, silent-footed, and crossed the grass to parry Jerott’s questions, and to tell him what news of his wife was worth mentioning.

*

Alone then, Francis Crawford opened his letter, and lay with it in his hands through the long hours so that its grey lines, its indistinct phrases, its capital letters were staging-posts in the slow return to him of his vision.

By the time you read this
, because they were expected, were the first words he found he could guess at. Then
I wrote to you once before;
and
peace for you
. And then, later, a single sentence, clearer written than all the others:
Ail I wrote then is true still
.

The words of love with which she ended were badly written and blurred, so that he had to wait a long time to read them. But by then he knew why she had gone, and what she meant by her message, for he recalled very well the letter of which she reminded him, and all the things she had said in it.

There is nothing of me that does not belong to you
.

More than your death I fear mine, because you would be left here to mourn for me. More than your love I want peace for you, so better your need of me died than that it should become unendurable
.

One of them had to make the sacrifice. One of them had to suffer the guilt of it.

The first she had done. The return to Sevigny, now so far beyond his powers, did not need to be faced, nor need he inflict the wound of absenting himself. She had made the sacrifice, and even the guilt, if he wished, need not burden him.

With a valour beyond words Philippa had restored to him the free will he had lost, that evening in Paris. She had left him the gift of his life, to keep or cut off as he wanted.

*

The wind changed, and the chronic fever of Queen Mary of England showed signs of worsening. Both events seemed to the English fleet to constitute an excellent reason for lifting their blockade of the north coast of France for the present, particularly as of recent weeks they had had mixed successes. The climate seemed favourable, at last, for the Commissioners of the Three Estates of Scotland to start for home on their long-delayed passage.

They had already taken their leave of the monarch before his
departure to Reims. Since then, with no court to attend but that of their own Queen-Dauphine in Paris, their stay had seemed even more purposeless. The hint of restriction which had crept into their treatment had vanished with the departure of the Cardinal of Lorraine also for the frontier, thereby further depriving of credence the curious letter sent by the new Marshal of France to his brother.

Despite Lymond’s warning, there had been no sign during all these weeks that anyone at the French court was aware of a leakage of state information about the future of Scotland. France, having recovered from celebrating its royal wedding, appeared to have dismissed the Scottish question with the greatest facility from its communal mind, and to be concentrating all its money and energies on concluding the present war with as much prestige and property as possible.

Whatever influence the Commissioners might possess, it would be better wielded in Scotland than in France, it was now apparent. So, at last, the gathering together of gifts and gear and coffers began, and of all the party which had left Scotland with such high hopes seven months before, the only one who lingered, and would fain have stayed, was the Dowager Lady Culter.

Until, that is, one day she returned from an outing to the Hôtel de l’Ange to find Austin Grey gone with all his possessions, and a sealed note awaiting her in her room, closed with the signet of Sevigny.

Inside, Philippa had scrawled:
It is over. The blame belongs to me, not to Francis. I have asked Austin to take me to Flaw Valleys
.

Perhaps you would find it possible to leave France soon, with Richard. It may be that we shall need one another
.

Lady Culter told her son Richard, since the news was bound to be bandied about, but could not begin to answer his questions. Only, after that, she found she longed very much to go home again.

Just before the Commissioners left, they were given a gracious reception by the Queen-Dauphine at the Tourelles, followed by a final convocation by the Council. They were there subjected to a long harangue by the Chancellor, in which he invited them yet again to deliver the Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of Scotland to the Dauphin their monarch.

When they replied, yet again, that such a matter was not entertained within their commission the Chancellor required them to give under their hands their personal consent to the demand, and an undertaking to present it to the Scots Parliament.

This request they refused, as being neither reasonable to desire nor lawful for them to grant. Then, with a smiling hauteur on both sides, the Commissioners for Scotland parted at last from their hosts, and setting out for Dieppe, took ship for the country which was their own, and had some honesty in it.

*

On the Picardy plain, the army of King Philip decided to move to better foraging territory, and the Duke of Alva with six hundred cavalry issued at dawn to reconnoitre a possible site.

While there, he had a sharp encounter with a French force of pistoliers and hackbutters under the Marshal de Sevigny, at the end of which both forces disengaged to return to camp, with the damage heavily on the Spanish side.

It followed a cavalry sweep of Lymond’s own which had lasted half the night, and which was only one of the succession of small expert forays he had conducted ever since the work of settling the great camp had been completed. The only difference now was that he had no need to observe the other half of his self-imposed régime which dictated that, by taking proper sleep, food and medical help where it would be beneficial, he could display what self-respect and maturity he had left, and cause no one to grieve over his negligence.