by Checkmate
‘… You are looking,’ said Jerott Blyth, appearing vaguely in front of him, ‘at the spoils of nine cultures. The more threatening objects came from the Dame de Doubtance’s house in Lyon. Lord Culter will remember the chair.’
Lord Culter did remember the chair, a tall spired object in which the old witch had seated herself while claiming to tell him his fortune. To his knowledge, Sybilla had never heard of the Dame de Doubtance. It did not prevent her from giving the chair all her attention. She had become rather pale again. ‘You’re a merchant now. Did you collect these for my brother?’ Richard said. He had a very clear recollection of Jerott Blyth who was at present, he saw, slightly intoxicated.
‘He doesn’t need my help,’ Jerott said. ‘Every piece in harmony with the room and its neighbour: nothing on display for reasons of ostentation alone. Unlike my bitch of a wife.’
‘I think,’ Sybilla said, ‘I see Adam Blacklock. How very nice. You are well? I thought you intended to stay with the Muscovy Company.’
Lean, brown and diffident, with the remembered halt in his walk, the artist bent over her hand. ‘Hullo, Lady Culter. I did. Just as Jerott here meant to remain a Knight of St John, and then thought he would become a merchant. We all finish by working for Francis. Which reminds me. Jerott, come and settle an argument. George Seton says all the Knights of St John have turned Lutheran.’
‘It’s Sandilands,’ said Jerott Blyth, changing colour. ‘Just because one man in Scotland turns his coat in order to fill his own pockets …’
‘Yes. Well, come and tell George Seton,’ Adam said, drawing him gently off. Sybilla watched him go.
‘The Blyth boy?’ said a high-pitched voice in her ear. Bishop Reid of Orkney had returned to chat. ‘I remember the family well, before they left for France. He was a well-set-up youngster. I had a word with Daniel Hislop. He has turned out remarkably well. A cynic, but a cynic with a head on his shoulders. I knew his father.’
‘The Bishop?’ Sybilla said, with composure.
He caught it, despite his deafness and the noise in the room, and laughed. ‘The Bishop? Yes, it is not a mishap so uncommon that the Church can afford to ignore it. Our friend Beaton’s uncle had … how many? Nine children? And Bishop Hepburn had ten, all, I am assured, by different mothers. Hislop has no need to feel shame. But I came to congratulate you on the skill of our host. He has assembled here not only the full number of those Scottish students I know best, but a cousin of my dear Will Lubias, all the way from Dieppe. We have been speaking of Honey Plums, and Arbroath Oslins, and wallflowers, yellow and bloody. As I remember, you at Midculter are also conducting a romance with horticulture?’
‘We are not so prolific as you with our Bon-Chréstiens,’ Sybilla said. ‘I’m glad you think Francis efficient, but I shouldn’t read too much into it. He was also proficient with Russians in London. The conducted tours of King Arthur’s Round Table, I am told, were a sensation.’
‘He is a man of energy,’ Bishop Reid said. ‘And will use that energy, for good or ill as we know, wherever he may be. Do I please you with the moderation of my language? A gentle bedewing instead of a glutting rain?’
Many years had passed since, as President of the Court of Session, the Bishop of Orkney had arraigned her son Francis for treason, and his language then had not been moderate. He had only been pursuing his duty, and she had come to understand and to be reconciled to it, as he had come in the end to respect, she thought, the man he had tried.
Sybilla said, ‘Yes, you please me. The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment. Richard, I think you should write that down while we all understand it. Tell me, what has stopped?’
‘The music,’ said Richard Crawford. ‘There was some music in the next gallery. It seems to have halted.’
‘They’ve come to the end of the pieces they know,’ offered Danny Hislop, mystically appearing in the Bishops company again. ‘Good evening, Lady Culter. We met in Edinburgh. If you say Favouzat, cavouzat, they may start playing again.’
Beneath Danny Hislop’s sparse sandy curls operated one of the brightest brains to grace Lymond’s company; but all the same, Sybilla had not reared three children for nothing. ‘Favouzat, cavouzat,’ she repeated promptly, her blue, limpid gaze on the little man.
The door opened.
‘Hercules?’ said Danny tremulously. ‘Isosceles? The Triangle? The Angel Apostate?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Richard Crawford dryly, and dropped to one knee. The rest of the company, ceasing to talk, turned variously and then sank likewise into obeisance.
In the doorway to the next gallery stood his young brother, fair and quiet in nacré velvet, with the black sash of St Michael knotted slanting from shoulder to waist and the Little Order glinting upon it. Beyond him glimmered the arched and gemmed headgear of his house-guests: the profile of the Maréchale de St André, and the lovely, composed face of a young woman: Catherine, Richard supposed. The heiress. And a beauty.
But although she was to marry Francis Crawford, Catherine d’Albon entered behind him. For by Lymond’s side as he moved into the long, scented gallery was his monarch, the fifteen-year-old Queen of Scotland.
‘… My mother, the Dowager Lady Culter,’ Lymond said. ‘And my elder brother, the Earl. Her grace honours us for a short time only.’ Below the sash and pinned by another decoration he was wearing a small doeskin glove, its cuff covered with jewels.
‘We met my lord Culter the other day,’ the Queen said. ‘You have recovered, Lady Culter, from your mishap? Our mother writes lovingly of all your family, and we remember well your kindness in Scotland. There was a riddle you taught us, but it does not translate well into French.’
‘I am glad to hear it. I believe it was my son,’ said Sybilla, ‘who was responsible. But it was long ago.’
‘Indeed. You see my glove, how it is small. But still,’ said the Queen, ‘your son defends us. It is gentle of you to spare us his presence.’
‘It is my privilege, your grace,’ said Sybilla steadily; and sank in a perfect curtsey as the Queen, with Lymond escorting her, moved to the next group of her countrymen.
Then—‘We meet at last,’ said the handsome, scented lady who had entered the room behind Francis. ‘We know the requirements of royalty: Francis is unable to divide his attention, so I shall take it upon myself to introduce myself and my daughter. I am Marguerite de St André, Lady Culter, and this is my only child Catherine.’
Her lustrous eye, as she spoke, was upon Richard, and Richard, approaching after his mother, decorously kissed the Maréchale’s hand and then, gravely, her cheek.
Catherine d’Albon offered, guardedly, only her hand, but was drawn by Sybilla into a little embrace, as loving as it was gentle. ‘You are used, of course,’ Sybilla said, ‘to being told that you are beautiful, and I knew, if Francis had chosen you, that you must be so. I also know, if he has chosen you, that you are clever and honest and kind.… Richard and I wish to thank you for accepting him.’
The Maréchale, a student only by hearsay of Scottish sentimentality, was shocked to see in her daughter’s composed face the signs of undoubted emotion. She said, affably, ‘He is a gallant creature: all France knows of it, and I believe they will make a famous couple. Of course, we are all very fond of the little wife. It is not always that a first contract can be broken so easily.’
‘Philippa isn’t here?’ said Sybilla, a little distractedly. Behind the young Queen, she noticed, had entered the four young attendants called Mary and virtually all of her suite who were Scottish.
‘No. It would not have been discreet. She has engaged herself elsewhere, I understand, for the evening. You know that the Queen herself was not invited? It is an escapade. The maids of honour wished so much to go, since their relatives are among the Commissioners. I am told that she simply sent word to M. le comte this afternoon that he was to fetch her. Even the rest of the Court is not aware.’
‘Christ,’ said Danny His
lop, behind Richard, but not very loudly. And when Richard, by no means a stupid man, turned and glanced at him he added, brightly, ‘It’s going to play merry hell with his table plan.’
But, it seemed, the matter was taken care of; and when, her slow progress ended, the Queen of Scots reached the end of the gallery, the double doors opened before her on another room, a vision of paintings and delicate, open-work plaster in which supper was laid, quite differently from any supper she had seen before, on garlanded damask, with confections spun glistening high among the candles. And creams and curds and sugared flowers and sherbets and little birds and thin, woven bread rolls, and before every plate a stem of green crystal, with a pink salted rose in its sheath.
In the middle of the long principal board stood the chair of state, and to this her host directly led her. ‘This evening, Madam, you are at home with your countrymen. Pray do them and me the honour of presiding over us.’
So she took her place beside him, and looked under her long lashes at all her unknown subjects, while the Bishop said grace, and the chaplet proper of Sevigny made a nimbus of the bright canopy over her.
*
‘What are they talking about?’ said the Provost of Edinburgh irritably, to his step-sister Mary Seton.
‘You, probably,’ said the maid of honour and smiled, for the fourth time, at Fleming’s older brother.
*
‘They are, as you see, somewhat subdued,’ said the comte de Sevigny to his guest of honour. ‘Brought on by respect for the crown, and a certain natural diffidence. It poses a problem. If we contrive to bring each man to his nature, then he will be happy; but he will no longer be quiet. Do I have your grace’s permission?’
‘For what?’ she said. The flecked hazel eyes regarded him, as in after years perhaps she would regard her chancellor, her treasurer, the president of her council of Scotland. ‘Is there any king living with the right to deny his subjects happiness?’
‘There are tribes today,’ Lymond said, ‘who find happiness in lust and cannibalism and the worship of idols. Doesn’t that open up a whole familiar pattern of argument over the purpose of kingship? I shall spare you all of it. These are baked crabs, and these are primrose cakes, made of honey and almonds and saffron. The primroses are real: I shouldn’t advise you to eat them. And the liquid is Russian, and called Gorelka.’
‘It looks like water,’ said the Queen of Scotland. ‘Surely, if his subjects’ souls are in danger, it is the duty of a monarch to correct them?’
It did not taste like water. Mr Crawford said, ‘But then he will make them unhappy.’
‘In this world, yes,’ said his Queen, ejecting a primrose.
‘It is this world,’ said Mr Crawford tranquilly, ‘that we are discussing. In any case, who decides whether their souls are in danger?’
‘The Church,’ said Queen Mary indistinctly. ‘Who will advise the monarch.’
‘And if,’ Lymond said, ‘there are two churches? If one tribal witchdoctor says you may make a meal of your grandmother, and the other says burning is holier?’
‘You are talking,’ said Mary, ‘of savages. To civilized nations, there is only one church, and a Pontiff to whom we turn for guidance. And if you question that, Mr Crawford, it is blasphemy.’
‘I know I’m talking of savages,’ Lymond said. ‘Have savages no right to be happy? Presumably, also, savages have souls. So what is a savage monarch to do for them?’
She did not balk at it. More than the food or the vodka, the lure of the argument pulled her attention. She laid down her cup and her knife. ‘If he is a king, and is offered conflicting advice from his ministers, then he must seek the truth himself. He must find others outside the tribe who will enlighten him. This is the work of our missionary priests, Mr Crawford.’
‘He should take the word, then, of the first man he meets? All religions, Madam, have their missionaries.’
‘Then he must speak to many men, and weigh what they say. If he is King, he must have judgement.’
‘Not necessarily. But if he is King long enough, he will usually attain judgement. For example, you have reached a sound conclusion and one day, I trust, will have sufficient judgement to apply it. These are anchovies. May I give you some? There will be an entertainment for you shortly.’
She gazed at him over the anchovies. ‘You lecture me, Mr Crawford?’
‘I,’ said the comte de Sevigny, ‘am attempting to offer you foodstuffs. It is you, your grace, who insists on conversing of cannibalism: chacun a sa marotte. You are going to live on an olive a day, like the Stoics?’
‘Did they?’ said Mary.
‘I have it on the best authority. You know what they say. Feed a horse or a poet too well and neither will ever do anything. Lord James, your royal kinswoman requires nourishment. Forbid her to talk, and while she eats discourse to her on the duties of kingship.’
‘No!’ said Mary.
‘A masque on the glorious union soon to take place between France and Scotland?’ Lymond said hopefully.
She glanced at him sideways, her expression commendably close to the gracious. ‘You have prepared one, Mr Crawford?’
‘No,’ said Lymond with regret. ‘What we have for you are love songs. They need not keep you from eating. Simply recognize the singers, now and then, with a wave of the hand, and allow Mr Hislop, there, to join in the choruses.’
She laughed; and through all the company, the volume of talk rose a little, and then rose again as, nerves assuaged and stomachs full, each man began to come, as Lymond had undertaken, to his natural self.
‘I am sad,’ said the Bishop of Orkney to Lord James Stewart as the tables were gently drawn and the floor cleared and the candied ginger passed from place to place. ‘I am sad because we live, you and I, on two sides of one river. And whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hart we both covet.’
‘There is a remedy,’ said the Queen’s half-brother.
‘Is there? I doubt it,’ said Reid of Orkney. ‘There might have been, in the past. But this hart is ten years too young, I fear, for his destiny.’
*
The entertainment, which came with the sweetmeats, consisted of feats of skill, performed by jugglers, dancers, acrobats and illusionists. All were dark or yellowskinned and none of them spoke any language that George Buchanan tried them with. Each act was executed in its proper order and without any visible flaw. None of them had been seen before. The guests stood, with the inclusion of the Queen of Scotland, to applaud their last exit.
The dancers did not perform a symbolic masque, and the consort of players was in tune. The singers entered unseen and Piero Strozzi jumped to his feet at the first surge of tight-pleated sound; at the low, throbbing band of the bass, and the counter-tenor planing, slow and bird-high through the harmony.
‘Hunno! Oswald! Andreas!’ Piero Strozzi yelled at his host, through the busy hum of a party astonished to be enjoying itself. ‘Fou enragé, you have sent for Les Amis de Rabelais?’
And ‘—Why not?’ murmured the Earl of Culter to Adam Blacklock, sitting beside de Nicolay behind him. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard better.’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Adam; and glanced across the handsome room to where he had last seen Jerott Blyth. He added, ‘And not one to mention in Austin Grey’s hearing. Francis once used Les Amis in order to try and leave France.’
‘And now, final irony, he is patronizing them. Where is Allendale?’ Richard said.
‘In the house somewhere, I believe. It isn’t the kind of celebration a sensitive prisoner would intrude upon. If Philippa were here, it might have been different.’
‘But she is here,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay behind him.
Adam stared and Richard, swinging round, examined the cartographer coldly.
‘You have failed, my lord, to allow for local deviation,’ said the little man blandly. ‘She came in five minutes ago, with Signor Strozzi. You will see, if you look, that the company has expanded itself in othe
r directions also.’
Adam peered across the gentle, candlelit width of the salon. ‘The Prince of Condé,’ he suddenly said. ‘And el Vandomillo … the King of Navarre his brother. Christ.’
‘I also see,’ said the cartographer, ‘the Sieur d’Andelot and his wife and Monseigneur de La Roche-sur-Yon. And, I believe, M. de La Rochefoucauld. The Bourbons are here in strength. Who can have invited them?’
‘I did,’ said Piero Strozzi, coming and dropping with a thud on the cushion beside them. ‘This of your brother’s is too good a party, my lord, to keep to oneself. I sent out one or two discreet messengers. Mon petit François, I am sure, will bear me no ill will for it.’
‘You invited them without Lymond knowing?’ said Danny Hislop. He wriggled into the circle. ‘Can I be there when he hears about it?’
‘He cannot fail to know. We are not all blind,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay cheerfully. ‘But with the Queen of Scotland at his right hand and the King’s sister—you observed, of course, Madame Marguerite?—seated at his left, there is little he can do but appear delighted by it. At least, mon cher, you were obliging enough to refrain from increasing our numbers until the food was finished.’
‘It was not perhaps so discerning,’ said Richard coolly, ‘to compel his wife to celebrate the occasion. How did you induce her to come?’
‘Why, by telling her that mon petit François had sent for her,’ the Marshal said cheerfully. ‘There was a moment of, shall we say, incredulity when they met, but both parties rose to the occasion. She is being looked after by a number of attentive gentlemen from her own court and, of course, by the next incumbent, the charming Mademoiselle d’Albon.’