Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Because of the weight of the shrine, they moved slowly. The priests sang, and the censer-smells lingered. There on the left was the rue des Marmousets, and the cleared space of the house of the pâtissier, who had made pies from the flesh of those barbered to death by his neighbour. Next door, imagine, to Notre-Dame, rising foursquare, sprigged and buttoned above her, with its band of crowned and gaily conversing stone monarchs.

  Which brought her back to Queen Mary at Compiègne, saying, ‘I believe my Scotsman Mr Crawford will show some of these princes how we wage war. How long must it be since last he saw me?’

  They had gone into the matter. It had been six years previously, when Mr Crawford of Lymond had served her with some effectiveness, and had accepted her glove as his guerdon.

  ‘Then I must have been eight. One changes in six years,’ had said Mary complacently, and had waited. But he had not come to pay his duty. And next, he had been sent to Lyon, and recalled almost immediately.

  He had arrived five days ago, and had been lodged in the Hôtel de Rochepôt, a house of the imprisoned Constable’s. The King had brought him out of there. The King had sent him yesterday to the Hôtel St André in the rue d’Orleans, where the Maréchale and her daughter, just back from Lyon, had welcomed him. Mary Fleming waited until they were established inside the Cathedral and the vicissitudes of the Corpus Christi were under way, and then said, testing her theory, ‘Your grace, I don’t see Mr Crawford?’

  At the time, a rebuking glance was her answer. But a little later, pacing together: ‘Mr Crawford apparently could not spare the time to be present,’ said Mary of Scotland to Mary Fleming negligently. She paused. ‘I am not wholly in favour of this scheme to unite him to Mademoiselle d’Albon. It mocks the Church. He is married already, to a bright, well-favoured girl. I met her on her way south to Lyon.’

  ‘They say he wants a divorce,’ Mary Fleming said. ‘They say his wife will leave for England soon, and won’t oppose it.’

  The Queen turned. ‘Do you think he will want to marry Catherine d’Albon?’ said Mary.

  ‘I think it would be politic to hope for it,’ said Fleming cautiously. ‘If he is so fine a commander, the King will wish to keep him beside him.’

  ‘I see you think he should marry her,’ said her mistress. ‘I do not. I think it unsuitable. She has manners, breeding, education I grant you, but he will marry her not for these but her fortune. His present wife has no flaw. I say that the situation may quite equally be met by Mr Crawford remaining attached to his wife, and resident here, where he may continue to serve His Majesty. These things are not hard to arrange.’

  There was a guarded silence. Then, ‘Your grace …’ began Fleming warningly.

  Queen Mary smiled: an illuminating, mischievous smile which dispatched, for the moment, the strain and discontent from her features. ‘You need have no fear. These matters can be brought about with perfect discretion.

  ‘What are you afraid of? He will enjoy our favour, his wife can surely have no objection, and he will be married, and therefore free of the intrigue which surrounds a divorced man. Nothing could be more suitable.’

  So she had thought of that. There were some people at court, notably of the Constable’s party, who would be happy to see the Queen of Scotland tied to one of her own noblemen, instead of to the Dauphin of France. Mary Fleming looked up. Ahead, Queen Catherine, sackcloth raised, was stepping with care into her litter. Holding back her black curtain was Catherine, the Maréchale’s daughter, who was not auburn-haired but who had, none the less, a great many fine gifts to offer.

  Mary Fleming said, ‘They say that he has not … That the charms of his wife do not interest him.’

  ‘Respect,’ said Mary of Scotland, ‘is all one requires, surely, in wedlock. Do you suggest that he might find a fondness for Catherine d’Albon?’

  It was the question which had launched the discussion, and was harder to sidestep a second time. From the wisdom of fourteen years old: ‘Perhaps,’ said Mary Fleming sanctimoniously, ‘he is married to his profession?’

  ‘Then,’ said Queen Mary of Scotland, ‘it is time he was shown better ways of spending his leisure. After, that is, our city of Paris has been made safe for our people. Remind me to send for him.’

  Mary Fleming, with gravity, dropped a curtsey.

  *

  Five days after that, on a Saturday at the start of September, Jerott Blyth and his wife entered Paris. They were met by Archie Abernethy, and led to the Porte Montmartre where part of the old Séjour du Roi had been made habitable for them. Then, briefly refreshed, the one-time merchant of Lyon set out, together with Archie, to find Francis Crawford and report to him.

  It was a week now since Saint-Quentin had surrendered, and as yet no combined army from England and Spain threatened Paris.

  One understood their hesitation. Even as far south as Orléans, word had filtered through of the reception the King’s new commander in Paris had prepared for the enemy. Of the 70,000 armed troops who had entered the city; the cannon brought in by river; the new fortifications; the stores of food and weapons and powder; the novel traps and ingenious devices built for him.

  Of course, further help would be coming. Eight thousand workmen, Jerott had been told, had dug the trenches outside the walls to hold the 22,000 new German and Swiss levies. The Duke de Guise and his Italian troops were approaching; M. de Thermes was expected daily from Piedmont. He listened, and wondered indeed why more help was needed. In ten days, it seemed to him, Paris had become a defensible city.

  It had never been that before. To Marthe, new to the town, he had talked of it, as it might be a honey-bee straddling the river, its body an island, with the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at its tail and as its head the Sainte Chapelle and the old Palais and gardens.

  Outspread on either bank, you would say, were the wings, outlined with walls and with river-filled fosses. On the left, the University quarter flowed over its confines and into the Pré aux Clercs, where the religious houses lay in their vineyards, and students wandered, and cows plodded out to their grazing. And on the right stood the Town, with its streets of artisans, its quays, its markets, its churches, its mansions. With its tiltyards and Town House and prisons and palaces: the Louvre, rebuilding; the royal Hôtel des Tourelles and the other great houses in the St Anthony quarter belonging to the Constable, to the King’s mistress en titre, to the de Guise family with whom the Scottish Queen their niece was living.

  The unpaved streets which were drains, and the lanes, fenced at either end, which had become refuse-dumps. The plaques, the shrines, the fountains. The holy statues, Huguenot-broken, encased in iron grilles with flowers wilting before them. The gardens, with vine-arbours and pear trees and strawberries; the taverns and the private houses with their bright painted sign-boards; the bridges over the Seine, three joining the right wing and two joining the left with their mills and tradesmen and houses. Beneath which, they said, few men dared to look after dark, for under the piles lived all the evil women and cut-throats in Paris.

  Marthe had not been interested. Without her presence, Lymond was not prepared to accept her husband back as an officer. That she knew, and freely used as a weapon against Jerrott. But she had left Lyon, to Jerott’s guarded astonishment. She had come to Paris, and he did not believe this time, after that foul masquerade, that it could be to follow her step-brother. Her business was trading, and the finest sight for a man-at-arms or a dealer has always been a city abandoned.

  Everyone was ready to tell them where Lymond was. They found him in the end at the Arsenal, between the Bastille and the river. He came out of the Tour de Billy with the Master of the Artillery and two échevins and, it turned out, was on his way to a converted wine store in the rue de la Vannerie, and thence to a stable-yard near the Tournelles, to supervise some unpredictable experiment.

  No one explained. Archie, it seemed of intent, had told Jerott nothing.

  There was about it all an air of orderly, intensive creation w
hich was acutely familiar. From Lymond, Jerrott Blyth received no kind of boisterous welcome: the exchange, and the introductions, resembled those due to a captain just back from furlough. Then the King’s commander in Paris continued with his round of appointments, with Jerott and Archie striding after.

  In due course, they shed the Master of the Artillery and one of the échevins; picked up first the Maître des Arlbalétriers and then the Prévôt Général des Monnaies et Maréchaussées and finally dropped them all to have supper at the home of the Prévôt of Paris, who had to leave half-way through, to deal with rumours of an impending clash in the University quarter.

  From there, surprisingly, they called at the lodging of the Venetian Ambassador, where Jerott was ceremonially introduced and offered a glass of very good Candian wine, which he accepted with silent gratitude. He had been travelling since soon after daybreak. He gathered from Archie that Francis, exchanging pleasantries with Signor Soranzo, had been up and about even earlier. He thought Archie, whose seamed and sun-darkened face rarely altered, was for the first time showing all the weight of his years. But it was better, said Abernethy philosophically, than the first three or four days back in Paris, when they worked day and night like a coo-clink.

  The chair was comfortable and he was sorry they had to leave, which they did shortly, exchanging greetings on the way with various sergeants, Cinquanteniers and Dixeniers who seemed to know Francis by sight. It struck Jerott that, rare in blue-blooded campaigns, Francis was taking particular trouble to involve the City. Men and money the burghers had already agreed to provide: he knew the Queen had gone herself to the Parliament of Paris and had obtained from them three hundred thousand francs for King Henri, and a promise to pay twenty-five thousand infantry for two months, and raise a defence garrison of seventy-four thousand. Since then, nursed by Lymond, it seemed that the City had continued to offer co-operation instead of the customary uneasy alliance, soon perverted, withdrawn, or transformed on three rousing speeches into revolt.

  Their last call, in darkness, was to the ramparts. Accompanied this time by a group of officials from the Arsenal, a pair of gunners and an Italian engineer called Batiste, they walked out through the Porte Saint-Denis and, crossing the water by torchlight, took up a position by the Priory of Saint-Lazarus.

  They were to see an artillery demonstration, Jerott was told, about which the citizens had been warned before couvre-feu. Against the last pale staining of sunset he could see pricks of light in the tall, turreted portals of the gate, Porte de deuil, Porte de joie, and its heroic St George and the dragon. Men, small and black, moved along the ramparts on either side among the angular barrels of the artillery.

  Jerott felt unsafe, on the flat ground below. It was an unusual position from which to judge the success of a bombardment. He felt even more unsafe when abruptly, a marigold of bright fire blossomed high in the firmament and was followed by the flat clap of sound from a cannon.

  Since no one else ran, he remained where he was, controlling a wince as a second, third and fourth explosion followed almost at once, and then a string of others on either side of him. The night filled with spangled grey smoke, and with whorls of flame which burst in the air, and lay and shuddered below in the ditch water.

  He counted eighty cannon, and then eighty more salvoes as they were recharged and fired almost immediately. Wheeling birds filled the sky, and every child, dog, goose, sheep, goat and chicken in Paris and out of it gave tongue, but unlike the proving of Jean Maugué’s bombard, no bloody cloud of arms, legs and heads had risen to heaven: Priés pour l’âme de Jean Maugué, qui nouvellement est allé de vie à trespas entre le Ciel et la terre, au service du Roi notre Sire.

  Lymond appeared to be pleased. The voices of his companions, thin in the deafening silence, were raised in praise and ejaculation. There was more talk, and people began to disperse. Lymond, appearing, said, ‘Having achieved the condition of una miseria di speranza piena, I think we may consider the day’s business concluded. Has thow, Foly, ane wyfe at hame? If Archie calls to tell her you are well, will you spare me a moment at the Hôtel St André? I shall entertain you with a gloss on my cannon.’

  It was the invitation, seven hours too late, that Jerott had been waiting for. If he sat down now to talk about anything, he would most likely fall asleep. He hesitated. A set of fingers closed on his elbow and a voice he recognized as Archie’s said, ‘Go and hae your clack. I’ll tell Mistress Marthe you’ll come later.’

  One of Archie’s more powerful hints. Removing his arm and rubbing it, Jerott said, ‘All right. Thank you. Did you say the Hôtel St André?’

  Undisturbed, Lymond answered him. ‘The home of the Maréchale and her nubile daughter. It’s quite near you, on the other side of the Porte de Montmartre. As in the poem. C’est du vin de Montmartre Qui en boit pinte, en pisse quarte.’

  They were on their way there already, with the Watch walking beside them. Archie had vanished. Since the atmosphere seemed fairly emancipated Jerott said, ‘And the Marshal is still a prisoner? Doesn’t that present certain interesting problems?’

  ‘I don’t know about problems,’ Lymond said. ‘It certainly presents certain interesting opportunities: the air is heady with alacritas. But recalling our rank, we are behaving ourselves with unimpeachable purity.

  ‘In any case, the d’Albon girl is at odds with her mother. She will court whom she must; she will marry where she has to; but none of the arts taught to young girls by duchesses can conceal the fact that she despises us. You, too. Archie mentioned you were coming. She thinks you have broken Catholic faith with your Order, le bouclier de la foy, le fort de la Chrestienté et le fleau des infideles, to serve Mammon in drapery. Here we are.’

  ‘I suppose I have,’ Jerott said. They were speaking in English. A pair of oak doors made their appearance in the lamplight whose panels, beneath the coat of arms of the d’Albon family, gave a stirring account of the siege of Troy, at which the Marshal de St André would no doubt have been present, had the event not occurred prematurely. They opened on Lymond’s approach.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Francis Crawford, leading the way across a magnificent tiled courtyard, past a fountain and up a flight of steps to a door which also opened before he could touch it. ‘Your troubles arise from the tenets you insist on adhering to, not the ones you depart from. If we cross to this staircase we should avoid … I beg your pardon.’

  A tall young woman with unbound black hair who had been standing turning the pages of a book in the room they were traversing turned fully round and remarked in French, ‘Please do not apologize. My mother the Maréchale is out, but you may still avoid me should you wish simply to pass through the door. Unless I can offer you and your friend some refreshments?’

  She despised him, Francis had said; and that much was clear. What he had not said of Catherine d’Albon was that she was beautiful. Strong-limbed and slender with a clear, high colour, she had slate-grey eyes pure as ice-water under level black brows, and the long, straight fall of her hair on the loose brocade robe she was wearing was hazed like boiled silk in the candlelight.

  At the end of such a day’s work as Lymond had devised and carried out, he was immune, understandably, to any possible impact from either her looks or her anger. Jerott heard himself being introduced; heard the damning grace with which, giving it just enough attention, Lymond refused the offer of food and asked after the health of the Maréchale.

  ‘She will come back later this evening. She asked me, should you return, to beg you to excuse her. Since it seems M. de Sevigny requires neither food nor entertainment at her hands, the constant presence of his hostess may not be entirely necessary.’

  ‘You see?’ said M. de Sevigny, opening his unfortunately metal-soiled hands. ‘I am like Time, Li tens, qui s’en vait nuit et jor, Senz repos prendre, et senz sejor. How can I expect my friends to forgive me?’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry. You haven’t got any,’ said Jerott, and smiled hazily at Mademoiselle d’A
lbon who smiled reluctantly back. Lymond made no effort to continue the conversation, but bowed and stood aside to let Jerott mount the circular staircase which led to his apartments.

  Their luxury was what one might have expected, given the scale of the rest of the building. Recalling the girl’s eyes following them both up the stair Jerott said suddenly, his hands in scented water, ‘What did you mean? That she would court whom she must?’

  ‘Don’t let’s go into all that: it’s too tedious,’ said Lymond, and dropping his towel on a tray, walked across to where the table of wines glowed by the fireplace. ‘I am not going to marry Catherine d’Albon, and that is all that need concern anyone. Are you, do you think, of sober habit on this trying campaign of non-aggression?’

  He looked up and Jerott, meeting his inquiry, felt the colour rising under his skin. He said shortly, ‘Have you ever known me drunk in the field?’

  ‘Sometimes the bedchamber is the field,’ Lymond said. ‘I am offering you one glass, out of moral parsimony. As a skin bottel in the smoke So are you parcht and dride. Yet will you not out of your hart Let my commandement slide. What news of Lyon?’ He sat down, a cup of Pedro Ximénès in his palm.

  Jerott sat down too, in a tapestry chair with cord fringes, and a lugged back which held his head between the ears like a pillow. He said, ‘The troops from Piedmont should be coming into Lyon about now. Danny means to come north as soon as they settle. Adam will wait until the Duke de Guise and Strozzi arrive. By the way … there seems to be a prevalent idea that the Italian army is about to march in to help Paris any day now. When I was in Lyon, de Guise and Strozzi were in Rome still. They won’t be here for a month.’

  ‘I know. The Piedmont troops will take ten days to march here at the minimum: St Laurent’s Swiss and Colonel Rekrod’s levies will take longer. And the 40,000 loyal French from the provinces will require another four weeks I fancy to muster. So, like me, you cannot sally forth yet and avenge Alec and Fergie.’