Checkmate (80 page)

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Thank you, Adam, for what you did.’

He bowed his head a little. She gave him a small smile and then moved slowly out of his sight, with the light of the candles.

*

Upon them, in the first week of October came Sybilla, with Jerott and Archie, on her way home at last to Midculter.

They were within sight of the tall rose-red chimneys of Flaw Valleys, the short cavalcade bobbing behind them of servants and laden baggage mules in the familiar housings and liveries of azure and silver, when Sybilla put her hand on Jerott’s arm and said, ‘Help me down. I think she is coming.’

So she was standing, with Jerott beside her on the dusty slope of the hill, when the long-haired girl flying towards them came nearer, and slowing, walked until she was close enough for the travellers to see that this was indeed Philippa. Then Sybilla spread her hands and called, her clear voice spanning the distance between them, ‘He is safe.… He is safe.’ And the next moment, Philippa was there, and she was holding her.

*

One phrase upon which, as it turned out, the welcome of three wayfarers could be fuelled until at length, restored and refreshed, Sybilla could sit in Kate’s parlour and looking at the sober faces about her say, ‘You have been forbearing enough. Ask your questions. Jerott will have told you that Mr Guthrie and Mr Hoddim have gone to the keep at St Mary’s. Master Hislop is to sail later. My two sons are also in France.’

‘Together?’ said Adam.

‘Together,’ said Sybilla. She turned her wise eyes. ‘Philippa. You gave your husband a brevet to absent himself from his responsibilities. I have cancelled it.’

Adam looked at Jerott and then at Archie but neither, it seemed, was willing to meet his eyes. Philippa said, ‘He was ill.’

‘He was dying,’ said Jerott Blyth, his hollow eyes still on his hands. ‘Lady Culter persuaded him not to give up.’

‘In September?’ said Philippa. ‘On a Monday? On a Monday in September?’

Archie was looking at her. ‘Yes,’ said Sybilla. ‘It reached you, then. And you think me wrong, perhaps, as Jerott does. But it seemed to me that he has work to do which was not finished yet. Once, he made me a promise to do anything, to the end of his life, that I asked him. I held him to it.’

‘And?’ said Adam. Philippa was staring, her pupils enormous, at Lady Culter.

‘I made him promise to live,’ Sybilla said. ‘And to come back to Scotland.’

‘I think,’ said Philippa, ‘you have made it very hard for him.’

Kate said, ‘Philippa, you have been waiting for four weeks with your heart in your eyes, to hear whether he is alive.’

‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘Do you think I want this for myself?’

‘He is one of many good men,’ Sybilla said. ‘Would you put him first? Or if he has work to do, should he not do it? He is not blind: they say because of a blow on the head. But I think that, for some reason, he no longer needs his headaches.’

‘Or doesn’t care enough,’ Philippa said, without timbre. ‘Lady Culter, why can’t he stay in France?’

Jerott said, ‘The de Guises can’t afford to keep him in France. He went out of his way to become a popular idol. You saw him.’

‘He had, I think, a reason,’ Sybilla said. ‘And then when the reason no longer mattered, it was too late. The effect stands. He cannot stay in France. And Russia is closed to him. The Tsar has changed to other favourites and the woman he lived with is dead.’

‘Güzel?’
said Philippa. After a moment she said, ‘Does he know?’

‘My God, he knows,’ said Jerott Blyth. ‘It drove him to …’

‘… I don’t think,’ said the soft voice of Archie, cutting across, ‘that yon incident has any bearing. Mr Blacklock won’t have heard about the Commissioners.’

‘They’re landing in Montrose,’ said Adam. ‘Aren’t they?’

‘Some of them,’ Jerott said. ‘Four of them won’t land anywhere any more. Someone, somewhere must have got to know that Queen Mary’s secret bond had become known to us. They tried to poison all the Commissioners at Dieppe, as they were sailing.’

‘Who? Not Richard?’ said Kate.

‘No. Francis is keeping Richard with him, for safety. Orkney and Cassillis are dead; Rothes and Fleming probably dying. And most of their servants. Nothing can be proved and no one accused, but four men have gone who won’t trouble France any longer.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Kate said. ‘Were they so dangerous that France had to poison them?’

Adam said, ‘The fewer leaders we have, the better France will be suited. But there is a second reason. Will you add yet another state secret to all those with which Francis must have entrusted you? The Queen of Scotland has signed three bonds, arranged with her uncles of Guise, by which Scotland is to belong to France if she dies childless. The Commissioners were told of it by Francis. To make it public would have meant civil war, or an annihilating struggle with France. So they took Lymond’s advice, which was to do nothing meantime. He also warned them to hold their tongues, for their lives.’

‘I had a warning through Willie Grey,’ Philippa said. ‘I passed it to Francis, but I didn’t know what it was. I think Lord Seton perhaps was indiscreet.’

‘I see,’ said Sybilla. ‘A friend of England, and a friend of the Lennoxes. It isn’t unlikely. Do you agree, Philippa, that the world has need of her men of judgement? We cannot belong to ourselves, or to one person only.’

Adam said, ‘When is Francis coming?’

‘He and Richard should sail in a few days.’

‘And ride to Midculter?’ said Philippa.

‘To his own house of St Mary’s,’ Sybilla said. ‘I need not tell you. Unless matters change, you should not meet.’

She left with Jerott next day, leaving Archie, as so often before, at Flaw Valleys, and carrying with her Kuzúm, her cherished grandson. To Philippa, and to Kate, it was as if the windows had darkened.

Before they left, Philippa found Jerott alone and asked him for news of his wife.

‘I thought you knew,’ Jerott said. ‘She’s gone to her house in Blois. We are tied, I suppose, but the marriage is over. It should never have happened. She drove you out of Sevigny. But for that …’

‘What would it have changed?’ Philippa said. ‘And she didn’t drive me, Jerott. I left to save Francis from trying to join me. She came to Sevigny to persuade me to take him back.’

Jerott said, ‘He chose you, and it seems you are not made as other women. He was true to you—do you know that? Everything he did, good or bad, was for your sake only.’

‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘I know. I gave him his release and his mother
has snapped shut the fetters again. What am I to do? I cannot even go myself without leaving him to bear the burden of it.’

There were no tears in her empty face. All the rage in Jerott died, and the contempt, and the bitter anxiety.

You don’t know what love is, either of you. And God help us and you, if you ever find out
.

He said, ‘I believe it is out of our hands, and his as well. I think we must wait till he comes. Then perhaps we shall be shown what to do.’

*

On the fourth of October Francis Crawford of Lymond, comte de Sevigny, Chevalier of the Order, left France to return as he had promised to his own country.

Before he sailed he was received by his young Queen in Paris, and laid before her the guerdon she had given him long ago, when he saved her from death. He said, ‘I have to leave, your grace, to look after the affairs of my family. I return you the glove, for my allegiance henceforth is to Scotland.’

Seated before him in her small cap and her stiff, high-necked gown she was not at all pleased. ‘The two countries are the same, M. de Sevigny. It is we and our marriage who have made this possible. We do not understand why you have to leave. Is it to follow Mme la comtesse, who left us so abruptly?’

He did not reply to that. Instead, ‘What causes you to think, madame, that the two countries are one?’ Lymond said. ‘Does it seem so from here? It is not the common impression in Scotland.’

‘Among the heretics, perhaps not,’ Mary said. ‘But my people want union. They begged for it, at Haddington. They have accepted naturalization. They have agreed that my children should rule them. They have made Monseigneur my husband their King. Do the Three Estates count for nothing?’

‘They have agreed,’ Lymond said, ‘that the Dauphin should be King during your lifetime. But after your death, which please God will be long distant, there is no man in Scotland, of the established church or the new one, who would agree to the rule of a Frenchman.’

‘I do not believe it,’ said Mary. ‘Would the faithful suffer a king or a regent who professed heresy? Would they consent to be ruled by a heretic queen from over their borders? These are the alternatives, M. de Sevigny. I am surprised you do not see them.’

‘If a Brazilian dancer came to you in his paint,’ Lymond said, ‘and proved to you that he was a true Catholic, and appointed a judge in his country, would you allow him to condemn and burn your heretic brother?’

‘You are saying,’ Mary said, ‘that the ties of the blood are more important than the state of the soul?’

‘I am saying,’ Lymond said, ‘that the bond of race is a deep one, and of a dimension which gives it nobility. I am saying that the salvation of each man’s soul lies within himself, and is not a matter which concerns even his brother.’

‘So,’ said Mary, ‘you would condemn the human race to hell, for want of enlightenment?’

‘Why not?’ said Francis Crawford. ‘It has nothing to fear, surely, from hell.’

*

He saw that day many people in Paris, from Mary Fleming to Madame de Valentinois; from the King’s sister to Madame la Maréchale de St André. He saw Nicolas de Nicolay and, last of all, the Queen of France, who made him sit by her, the goitrous eyes smiling, and said, ‘You are to leave for Scotland? I hear a curious rumour, that a number of other Scottish gentlemen have also broken camp at Amiens for that purpose. I suppose now our sister of Scotland may expect many stout arms to help her in Edinburgh?’

The blue eyes of M. de Sevigny, turned upon her, were perfectly calm. ‘I return for family reasons,’ he said. ‘With peace now certain, I trust there will be no need for armies.’

‘And if there were?’ Catherine de Médicis said. ‘Perhaps we might tempt you back to France.’

Lymond smiled. ‘I have been told that might be unwise.’

‘By whom? By the King?’ said Queen Catherine. ‘You must not listen to the threats of underlings. I hear my Nostradamus healed you well.’

‘I was grateful,’ Lymond said, ‘for his services.’

‘I see, however, little value from them in other directions. He was unable to save your unlucky compatriots.’

‘There is a saying,’ Lymond said,
‘Mal sur mal ne font pas santé
. There is no purpose served in having a few deaths followed by many. But the results of this blow will be felt in France and in Scotland. Sometimes, when there is good warning of the obstacle, the ship may be steered round it.’

‘You are more hopeful, M. de Sevigny, than I should be. I shall watch you,’ said the Queen. ‘You were well thought of by my late cousin … by both my cousins. The Marshal Strozzi in his will left me his library. I have set aside from it three manuscripts I wish you to take to Scotland. Perhaps, if you will not keep the guerdon of the Reine-Dauphine my daughter, you will accept a gift of simple goodwill from me?’

‘I am honoured,’ said Lymond.

‘It is no more than you deserve. We shall miss you. Now you may take your leave. I shall ask Mistress d’Albon to guide you.’

He bowed at the doors, and when they were closed, stood until Catherine d’Albon joined him. ‘You are leaving,’ she said.

She had not changed, except perhaps in a firming of the contours of her face, and a little exaggeration in her colouring which had not been there before.

Lymond said, ‘I am riding to Dieppe with my brother. We should be there on Tuesday.’

‘You should take longer,’ she said, ‘They say you have been gravely ill. I can see it.’

‘We go slowly,’ said Lymond. He did not avoid her eyes. ‘If I had come to you that night in the Hôtel d’Hercule, none of this would have happened.’

‘One thinks these things,’ Catherine said. ‘If you had not spoken harshly to your mother, Madame de Sevigny would not have gone to your room. If you had not wanted a divorce, you would not have stayed in France.… Why did you accept your marriage in the end, and then break it? They say you are fickle.’

‘And you are not. You withdrew because of Philippa, am I not right? Then you might like to know that if you made a sacrifice, it was not in vain.’

‘Then you are going to join her?’ Catherine said.

‘No,’ Lymond said. ‘I don’t expect to see her again. But I shall never marry again, nor I think will she. I hope you will find one day what we had. Even if it lasts only an hour, it is worth it.’

‘I am glad then,’ said Catherine, ‘that there was nothing between us, rather than mediocrity.’

And from the homes … of Unicornes …

‘There was kindness,’ he said. ‘And that was a great deal.’ Then he kissed her hand and left, to find his brother.

*

The journey to Dieppe, as he had said, was slow, because he was not strong. He did not speak much as they travelled and in the evenings he retired early to his tavern room, although this was difficult, as everywhere they went he was recognized. He wrote, Richard saw, a great many letters, some of them to familiar addresses: to Lord Grey at Onzain; to Nicholas Applegarth at Sevigny. To Gravelines, on behalf of a man called Harry Palmer, who had died. Nearly every day, also, there was a call to make, or several, upon friends on the way. For a total of many years now, one realized, France had been Lymond’s home.

And the weather was kindly on this last journey north: the trees hardly tinged yet with russet, and meadowsweet and white columbine in the meadows where sun-gilded cattle grazed.

In place of the bitter wildness of winter, the mellow ripeness of autumn moved past them. In the townships there were full blown roses still, and vines on the trellis, and white geese, and sunflowers, and the pallid blue velvet of cabbages. Ploughed fields, and slender stemmed trees with their
leaves embroidered sharp on the skyline. The latticed pattern of wood stacks, and the slow stride and swift trot of water. Crows, and hay barns, and a bank of bracken like chiffon against the low sun. A farm with a dovecote, and hens and dogs and hives and sheets on a line; the weeping arrows of willows. An orchard of apples, jade as the rose window of the Sainte Chapelle, past which he had escaped on his way to the Hôtel des Sphères.