Checkmate (20 page)

His hat loose in his hand, Lymond returned the look pensively. ‘I rather thought that you did,’ he said. ‘But tonight I think that French would capture it better:

‘It was written by a Catholic against Lutherans, but it applies very well the other way also.’ He looked from one to the other of his protégées. ‘The City is armed: it is nervous after Saint-Quentin; and any country which has suffered a reverse of fortune instantly turns on its nonconformists. Don’t attend such gatherings again, madame, mademoiselle, until the climate is safer.’

The Maréchale said, ‘How can we thank you?’ with a throb in her voice. ‘You too.… You too, M. de Sevigny, are a Calvinist?’

‘Don’t answer,’ said Catherine.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘I happen to agree with More, that no man shall be blamed for reasoning in the maintenance of his own religion. But that has little bearing on tonight’s episode. Half the violence was caused by crowd-madness, and half, as I have said, by fear of the enemy.’

‘Who are of the same religion as themselves,’ Catherine said. ‘Is it true that the Christian King is making a new alliance with the Ottoman Turks, who are Mohammedans?’

‘He is hoping for one,’ Lymond said. ‘Of course, to be cynical is the natural state of a courtier. For the other thing, you would have to look at the Hôtel Bétourné tonight, for example.’

‘You find that gratifying? But then,’ said Catherine, ‘should such meetings not continue? And should women of rank not attend them, to affirm their faith in public if necessary; and if necessary die for it?’

‘Of course,’ said Lymond placidly, ‘there is no missionary as persuasive as death. The Church knows that already. The Church would meet martyrdom by inviting the Inquisition to Paris. The Crown and the people might very well meet it by massacre. Bloodless reformation requires a very delicate sense of statesmanship and timing, and rarely receives it. Praying, on the other hand, can be done at any time.’

He smiled suddenly; and Madame la Maréchale, her eyes half-closed with fatigue, smiled vaguely back. Catherine d’Albon said, ‘What prayers do you suggest?’

‘In English?’ Lymond said. ‘I don’t know. What about one from Geneva?’

She wondered for a moment whether he would break into song, as he had on the wild journey home, with her mother’s chamber valet. But he merely put his hand on the doorlatch and spoke the words gently, and without the cynicism he had spoken of:

She had followed it all, her lips moving. ‘And from the horns …’

‘… of Unicorns, Lord safely you deliver. Sleep well. Good night,’ he said; and left, without sound, for the stairs to his apartments.

‘Good night,’ said Catherine d’Albon. A single tear, bright in the candlelight, slid down her face and caught her mother’s startled attention. It was followed by another; and then by a stream which bathed her face as she stood there in silence.

The Maréchale said nothing whatever. Only she looked at her weeping daughter and saw her long, glossy hair and pure profile and slender waist, set off by the incongruous garments. Then, retreating silently, Marguerite de St André reached her room and steadily walked to her looking glass.

She was too proud to weep. Instead, she called her daughter’s maid and told her to see to her mistress, for she wanted her in her best looks by morning.

Of the four hundred Calvinists who met to worship that night in the Hôtel Bétourné, half escaped, including the comtesse de Laval and the pastor. Of the rest, five were chosen as an example and condemned to death by burning. Those who remained prisoner, preserved from severe injury by the arrival of M. Martine and his escort, were eventually released, upon the intercession of the Protestant Churches in Switzerland and the Protestant Princes in Germany.

The name of Madame la Maréchale de St André was not connected with the episode, especially as it became known about Paris that the lady was confined to her room with an illness. The comtesse de Laval did not take to her bed but on the contrary entered the public eye for quite another reason: her husband the Seigneur d’Andelot, captain-general of the French infantry, contrived to escape from his captors after Saint-Quentin, and a few days after the Bétourné incident he and his wife were reunited.

In Paris, having been refused permission for the third time to join the army in the field, the comte de Sevigny completed the task of enrolling and conveying to Laon the largest company of troops the crown of France had ever raised since the present reign started. He also devised ways of supplying, regulating and supporting the French-occupied fortresses still scattered round the disaster area of Saint-Quentin. Two of these, Le Catelet and the citadel of Ham, fell to the enemy.

By the time they were taken, it was clear even to the victorious Spanish and English that by choosing to stay in the area, they had forfeited wholly and for ever their chances of attacking Paris. Their infantry, unpaid for months, was deserting, most of it to the French army. Their English components, restive over news of Scottish attacks on their homeland, might well find good reason to leave also. And among the troops who remained, lethal quarrels were breaking out daily.

Against which the French army, already large, was swelling hourly. The Duke de Nevers at Compiègne had ten thousand French infantry gathered, and five thousand cavalry and six thousand Switzers, with a regiment of Germans expected presently. M. de Thermes had come with four thousand more Switzers from Piedmont, leaving eight thousand in
Lyon as he marched north, to reinforce the defence M. de Sevigny had already left there. Danny Hislop, released from his watching brief, came north and joined Jerott and his wife in the Hôtel de Séjour.

The Duke de Guise left Rome with d’Aumale his brother and Marshal Strozzi and set sail for France with seven ensigns and all those gentlemen who had been fighting with him in Italy. Behind him the Pope, bereft, drew to a hurried conclusion this war waged, he let it be known, owing to misinformation received by him about King Philip and the Duke of Alva his commander, both of whom he now knew to be his obedient sons and excellently disposed towards him.

He received, with gratitude, the return by King Philip of all the states of the Church seized during the campaign, and the Duke of Alva rode into Rome amid celebrations which only ceased when, through an oversight, possibly, of the Pope’s immediate superior, the river Tiber flooded, and Rome was inundated to a depth of six feet, including the wine cellars.

The Duke de Guise was indisposed on his voyage to France, and wrote that he would come north to Paris by litter as soon as he was able to travel.

The King of France replied that the Duke was on no account to make himself unwell by hurrying, adding that never was master so pleased with his servant as he with the Duke. He then resumed hunting with his new and charming companion, pursued by couriers from Compiègne, Laon, Amiens, Abbeville and Lyon and accompanied by M. de Vigne, the French Ambassador to Turkey, newly back with advice from the Sultan Suleiman.

The Ambassador, in common with all ambassadors in France, was accustomed to transacting his business on horseback, but not to obtaining decisions with what turned out to be the present velocity. The situation in Turkey was complex. The powerful Suleiman, whose pirate raids in the Mediterranean had been of such assistance in harassing the Spaniards in Italy, was disgruntled. The French, for instance, kept making peace with the Pope without consulting him. He was considering, the Sultan said, invading Hungary and Germany himself in the summer, and if the most Christian King would kindly refrain from concluding his campaign in Italy, the Sultan might be able to spare the Ottoman fleet to support him. He sent a gold cup and a small vase of balsam as, one might say, drink money.

With Spain on her doorstep, it was understood, France had no desire to reopen the Italian war, which had been a crazy venture of the de Guise family in the first place. In the event, no one had to lose face by saying so, for the King’s new fair-haired commander merely said, ‘You’ll get the fleet in any case. My information is that Suleiman is not in good health, and the sons have begun fighting over the succession again. Hungary is in no danger. He won’t risk leaving Topkapi.’

‘The Knights of Malta will not be pleased,’ M. de Vigne had ventured.
The Knights of St John, sworn to slaughter the infidel, owed the very island they possessed to the King of Spain. He added, ‘Your grace will remember the sad tidings. The Grand Master Claude de la Sengle has departed this world.’

The new fair-haired general, a good seven years younger than Henri, for God’s sake, had answered courteously. ‘His grace, as you know, is profoundly moved by the news. But the Knights of St John will require a permit for grain. And if Parisot de la Valette succeeds as Grand Master, France has nothing to fear.’

They were in the middle of a close run, and the Ambassador to Turkey could only gasp obsequiously in reply, and observe the King smiling at his commander. The man, he now recalled, had been for a brief period a French envoy to Turkey, and had fought on Malta. There was a Knight of St John, they said, presently on his staff.

He had heard what M. de Sevigny had achieved in Lyon and Paris. At the kill, he saw how the King kept the man by his side, and held him by the arm, and joked with him. And after the kill, the King read the last batch of dispatches, which all reflected the single conclusion: the threat to Paris was over. So M. de Vigne became witness to a moving and extraordinary ceremony: when the King of France placed his hands on the comte de Sevigny’s shoulders, and requiring him to kneel, with borrowed sword and gilt spur created him a knight of the royal Order of St Michael.

And that, thought M. de Vigne, was going to shake a few birds from the tree-tops. It was the premier order of chivalry, granted to the great of the civilized world: to kings and princes and generals. There were only 36 Knights of the Order of St Michael. The late King James of Scotland had been one. And Charles V, the great Emperor, now retired to his monastery in Spain, whose son Philip was conducting this war with such lack of confidence. And of course, the de Guise family. The Cardinal of Lorraine was its Chancellor.

Returning to Paris in the wake of the hunting party and watching the King dismount at the Tourelles, his hand on the comte de Sevigny’s shoulder, M. de Vigne began, in his head, to plan a number of letters. This was a man to be cultivated, and he knew who would be glad to have warning of it.

During the supper that followed, sumptuous as befitted the ending of a national emergency and the honouring of its manipulators, Francis Crawford asked for and received permission at last to leave Paris, and take up with the army his proper employment.

‘That is,’ said the King, his soft, wine-moistened lips smiling within the silken black beard, ‘we shall expect regular news of you at Saint-Germain. I have told you we are leaving also. The air in Paris is bad. Her grace the Queen is unwell. My daughter of Scotland has been abed coughing these three days, and asking, I understand, why her subjects take no trouble to visit her. I tell her Paris must come before Scotland.’

The Cardinal of Lorraine was not present. ‘And the crown of France
before her princes,’ said Queen Catherine kindly. It was true, she did not look well. The white skin of which she was so proud had a sallow tint round the nose and the mouth: the prominent eyes, damp with the force of her coughing, were downcast.

Then she lifted them, and it was to be seen that the impression of submissive intelligence was one she was well used to conveying. She said, ‘Then you do not regret, M. de Sevigny, that our selfish affection has brought you honour in France, instead of in Russia? I remember well my uncle of Albany praising the abilities of your grandfather. Our Scottish friends over here have a saying,
Ecosse notre foi; la France notre coeur
, which moves me.’

There was a third part to that statement which none but her Scottish friends, Danny Hislop hoped, were aware of. Seated far down the company, he tried and failed to catch Lymond’s eye.

His mood was sardonic. Short; ugly; sharp as a razor, Danny Hislop the Bishop’s by-blow from Ayrshire had owned no superior before joining Lymond in Moscow and still struggled, from time to time, against the knowledge that in Francis Crawford he had perhaps met his match.

He had watched Lymond, under Jerott’s furious eye, accept yet another of the golden chains intended to keep him in France, and he wondered what game he was playing. There was no doubt that he had been hell-bent on getting to Russia. Chiselled into each of Danny’s eardrums was the precise language Lymond had used when they brought him back from Douai. And now, when you listened to him, the shifty bastard, there was never a damned
fuero
to be heard. Lymond said, ‘How could I have regrets, Madame? Thus poulticed with the gold of pleasure, and with such brave consolations?’

He did not, on the word
consolations
, look at the Queen’s ladies of honour, nor did Catherine d’Albon glance at him. But a little colour, Danny noticed, rose in her well-bred face as she sat, her hands in her lap, and her mistress, replying, smiled dryly. ‘I hear, my lord count, that your wife is leaving for England.’

‘She is travelling north,’ Lymond said. ‘She should pass through Paris in a day or two.’

‘While you are in Picardy. A charming young person,’ said Queen Catherine, ‘for an Englishwoman. I trust her kin will find her another mettlesome husband. And when she has gone, we must see that you have time for gentle companionship. The Maréchale tells me you have hardly spent more than the night hours at the Hôtel St André, and sometimes not even those.’

‘Not from choice, I assure you,’ said the King’s new commander, and this time, looking across, bowed gravely to the Maréchale’s daughter.

The girl acknowledged it with composure but her flush, Danny noted with interest, had become deeper. Pestered beyond endurance for information about Lymond’s intentions, Jerott Blyth had let fall a week ago that Catherine d’Albon did not play a part in them.

It turned out that Lymond had told him so. Danny Hislop, who was
an unstinting admirer of Jerott’s appearance, his wife and his reputation, was still to be overwhelmed by his acumen. Any fool could see that the d’Albon girl and her money were the bargain clause in an invisible contract. And Lymond, being Lymond, would take the girl, he was convinced, whether he settled in France or he didn’t.

The angelic Marthe, of course, the viper-tongued glorious step-sister, didn’t want M. le comte to remarry. Neither did the little man with the broken nose, Archie Abernethy.

Danny Hislop was not entirely at ease about Archie. Danny remembered a dark night at Lyon, and Archie arriving at the Hôtel de Gouvernement in the small hours of the morning with the printer Macé Bonhomme. They had brought Lymond home, impossibly drunk, and with a clean contusion at the back of his head in which no one appeared to be interested. Mr Crawford, said Archie, had now and then lost his footing.

The type of man who could fool an elephant was unlikely to have the same triumph with Daniel Hislop. It seemed odd to Danny that a menagerie trainer should also dabble in soldiering. Seven years ago, they said, Archie had attached himself to Lymond in Rouen, and had divided his time ever since between the Somerville girl and his lordship.

Jerott, when applied to for enlightenment, merely said irritably that he supposed Archie had required a new owner. Adam, when asked the same question in Lyon, had seemed to view the little man as an ancient retainer. It would be interesting to see what skill, if any, he had in the battlefield.

After Russia, campaigning in France, would be like conducting a war in a chicken-dish. Danny looked forward to demonstrating to the moody Mr Blyth what he had missed by his absence from Russia. He regretted that Adam, anchored at Lyon awaiting the Duke de Guise’s arrival, could not be here, equally blessed, to support him. If, as they set off for camp, he noticed Archie Abernethy’s knowing black eyes upon him, Danny Hislop paid no attention.

The Duke de Nevers was in the château of Compiègne; the only senior field commander left when the boiling wrack of Saint-Quentin had seeped away, and with him was the veteran de Thermes from Piedmont, who had left Paris only a day or two ahead of M. de Sevigny, bearing with him the agreed plan of strategy.

To M. de Thermes, the plan was his brain-child, and to carry it out thus no hardship. The Duke de Nevers, after four weeks of complying with a stream of equally ingenious projects, was only too pleased to have Lymond in person to help him.

When angling for power in France, tact was necessary. Tact and unremitting success in battle, in bed and in throneroom; with no wake of disgruntled princes to pacify. So far, it seemed to Danny, Lymond’s grasp of these principles seemed exemplary.

There followed a week during which he was unable to feel patronizing any longer, or even to watch Archie Abernethy, for the simple reason
that he was being run into the ground with hard labour. Eighteen thousand troops were then quartered between Compiègne and the old royal palace at Verbene, and ten thousand more arrivals were imminent.