Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Marguerite de St André, standing with the comtesse de Laval at the back of the big, candlelit room, was aware of noise penetrating the thick old walls. Next door was the Church of St Benoît le Bétourné with its twisted High Altar which had once given the whole street its nickname. Opposite was the high, galleried frontage of the double College of Marmoutier and Plessis, and all around, arm in arm with the other tall houses, the rest of the scattered colleges of the University.

  One would put down the disturbance perhaps to the students, except that the college streets were mostly barred off at night for this reason. And in any case, the students were allies: they were aware, as no one else, of the abuses of the old order. They realized, as she had not until Claude had explained it to her, and her friend the Prince of Condé, and, discreetly, so many of those who held high positions at Court, that she could place no reliance on confession and a Catholic penance to save her. To obtain salvation, she must be one of the Elect. And, stricken with humility, the Maréchale de St André was from time to time much aware of her need for salvation. Worried, she moved forward to receive the bread and the wine with Claude, murmuring the incantation: C’est la communication du corps et du sang du Seigneur; then returned to her place for the psalms, and the prayers for the King and the Church and the prosperity of the kingdom.

  The preacher had contrived a few words with his elders. If no help had arrived by the end of the service, he would put a choice to the congregation. Either they could wait for the law and give themselves up to justice; or the more active among them could force a path into the street, and fight their way through the crowd with their weapons.

  He hoped, to the conclusion of the Aaronic benediction, that it would not be necessary to do this, but he was disappointed. Against a steady increase in the quantity of sound filtering through from the rue St Jacques, he asked for the attention of his congregation and told them, his voice calm, what was happening. Then he led them in prayers for guidance.

  The children wept, and some of the women. The men talked. As he had expected, all those with swords were willing to attempt an escape, and most of the unarmed volunteered also to go with them. There was no possibility of leading out the women, or the old. In the open, no gallantry would protect them.

  Shortly after that, the first group of men, swords drawn, dashed from the doors of the meeting-house.

  Outside was cool air and a long, empty street, bathed in the flickering light of two bonfires. Certainly, the windows were thronged with calling people. But it must have looked as if a quick man, turning right or left, could run into a pend or a sidestreet, or through a garden, or across to the cemetery or into the cloisters of St Benoît itself.

  They reached the road running and scattered. Before they had taken three steps, a curtain of driving rock swept the street, thudding on flesh and knocking on bone or dashing to shards on the causeway. Three men lay in the road. One, his head broken open, staggered from doorway to doorway. A fourth and fifth, slashed and limping, threw themselves into neighbouring gardens where hands grasped and held them.

  The next group standing within the doorway of the Hôtel Bétourné saw it all. They waited only a moment, then in their turn ran out into that storm of rubble.

  By the third foray, the stones were finished. They threw pikes for a while, which stuck in a man’s flesh and quivered, like harpoons in a sharkskin. When these were done, the inhabitants of the rue St Jacques, oblivious to the shouts of the sergeants, seized axes and halberds and swarmed downstairs into the roadway. Tardily, the soldiers at either end of the street began to move round the overturned wains and run towards the seat of the fighting.

  There were still between sixty and seventy women and children inside the Hôtel Bétourné including the comtesse de Laval and the Maréchale de St André, when the pastor pulled the doors shut and locked them against the carnage outside. Alight with religious frenzy, with fear, with unreasoning blood-lust, the God-fearing people of Paris set upon the Calvinists trapped in the street, and did not use stones this time to attack them. One man died, kicked to death in the church cloisters. The others, spinning from fist to fist, were lashed with belts and beaten with cart-whips and chopped at with axes. The horses of the Huissiers, plunging amongst them, made little difference, nor did the strong arms of the sergeants and the archers. There were not enough of them. And blocking the light of the bonfires, they rendered Catholic and Calvinist quite indistinguishable.

  The crowd swayed against the Hôtel Bétourné and commanded, screaming, that the heretics should come out. The door panels shuddered to the blows of bodies and fists. A torch, flung through the smashed windows, lay ablaze on the cloth of the altar table. The women, weeping, scrambled to smother it. ‘Mon Dieu, donne la main à ta servante,’ prayed Madame la Maréchale de St André. ‘Je te recommande mon âme.’

  Then quite simply, a miracle happened. The shattered windows blazed and burned with a flickering and unearthly brilliance. The blows on the door ceased. The screaming altered. And there rang out the voice of their deliverer, in a thunder of arquebus shot that made every other noise puny and caused the uproar outside to falter, to stagger and perish.

  ‘I command you,’ said that scathing, peremptory voice, ‘to cease Satan’s work and stand back as you look for redemption. Will God rejoice that we send him blackened souls in place of penitent lambs who have seen their unwisdom? Will the strong arms here, who defend you day and night from the enemy, be given fresh heart from your actions tonight, or will the dawn find them sick at heart and weary, in no case to protect you? Be not led astray, men of Paris, by the dark angels who whisper of revenge, of slaughter, of retribution. The church sees your trouble; the law acts upon it. Give your case to the law, who will take these men and women and deal with them justly. Captain!’

  ‘Your Eminence …’

  ‘Enter the meeting place. Take these Calvinists with you. Link them with bands and make of your men a living corridor through which they may march to the Petit Châtelet. Save your fellow men from sin, and the souls of these unfortunates for redemption.’

  ‘Your Eminence.’

  Then the doors opened, and the Maréchale saw the speaker.

  Even in the uncertain darkness, you could not mistake the scarlet robes of the Cardinal of Lorraine, or the coat of arms on the velvet housings of his mule; or the red velvet hoquetons of the twelve men with torches and hackbuts behind him.

  No one in Paris had ever been known to ignore Charles de Guise, brother of the Duke, uncle of the child Queen Mary and, next the King—and, some said, before him—the most powerful man in the kingdom.

  As he rode forward the crowd withdrew, weapons dropping. At his sweeping signal the soldiers arrived, hurrying, in their place; picking up the injured and dead and ushering the rest, whole or limping, weeping or silent, back into the Hôtel Bétourné. There, with two of the Cardinal’s servants to help, they were tied, two by two, in a column of degradation together.

  The preacher was last, and with him, Claude de Laval and the Maréchale de St André with their servants. Dry-eyed, Marguerite de St André had no need to ask why the Cardinal had singled them out for this special attention. The husband of Claude Laval was nephew to the captured Constable of France, the Cardinal’s most inveterate enemy. The disgrace of Claude was a blow at the Constable, as her disgrace would be the ruin of her husband, also a prisoner. And a triumph for Charles de Guise and his brother.

  He had come to gloat. Madame la Maréchale watched him pass through the meeting-house in a sweep of red robes, and caught a glimpse of the fair skin and shallow hat with its long swaying strings. His clothes smelt of incense. He stopped, his very bearing a reprimand, beside her.

  ‘There are two litters outside the door,’ said the pleasant voice of Francis Crawford from under the Cardinal’s shadowy brim. ‘The pastor and Madame la Comtesse will go in the first, and Madame la Maréchale and her chamber valet in the second. If anyone speaks to you, you hold the curtains closed and yo
u do not reply. Geoffrey and Clément will help you.’

  Geoffrey and Clément, she realized, were the velvet-clad bodyguard. One of them turned and smiled, wet-eyed into her eyes. It was Catherine, her own daughter.

  And then, almost immediately it seemed, she saw Claude’s started face looking at her from between the blazoned curtains of a splendid litter, its poles picked out in gold and the coat of arms of the house of Guise collaring the nodding plumes of its framework.

  It moved off, and another took its place, into which she climbed with her servant. Then, drawing the curtains close, she felt it raised on the shoulders of the Cardinal’s bodyguard. As it crossed the street she heard the voice so like the Cardinal’s behind her, conveying to the murmuring people his blessing. And on top of that, the rumble of many horses’ hooves, arriving from the direction of the Petit Pont and the Châtelet. The procureur du roi and his men, to protect the march of the long train of prisoners.

  Jolting, the litter continued. The noise retreated. The running feet of a boy or two and the whine of a beggar pursued them still for a while, and then stopped as one of the bodyguard issued sharp orders. Shortly after that, she and her servant were plunged into darkness as the torches outside were extinguished. The motion continued for a little longer. Then abruptly, the palinquin was set down and the curtains drawn back on cool air and darkness.

  ‘If any be afflicted,’ said Francis Crawford, ‘let hym praye; and if any be mery, let hym syng Psalmes. We’ve hidden the robes and the doublets at the back door of the Collège du Plessis, and I hope the clyping bursars get hanged for it. Madame, can you walk? Mademoiselle and your man here will help you. Mr Blyth and Archie are looking after the Comtesse and the preacher.’

  They were behind the church of St Hilary’s, and Catherine, in a tunic and breech hose of her father’s, was standing beside M. de Sevigny, dressed in riding clothes, waiting for her. Even as she got out of the litter, it was taken away. The other had already gone, and the rest of the spurious bodyguard. Before she could speak, Lymond said, ‘If you please, we must hurry. There’s a Dizainier and some troops coming uphill from the rue St Jacques.’

  ‘There is another,’ Catherine said; and her mother marvelled at the steadiness of her voice. ‘Coming down from the St Geneviève crossroads. They must be looking for escaped Huguenots.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said M. de Sevigny. He was standing, his hands on his hips, looking up at an extremely high wall. ‘Do you think they have rebuilt that recently? Ah, well. Faith, without Hope and Charitie Avalit nocht, my Sonne, said he.’

  God then performed a series of miracles. M. de Sevigny stepped from her valet’s back straight into the flank of a vertical wall, climbed it in three moves and disappeared over it. From the other side, almost at once, came the noise of many feet, frenziedly running. The Dizainier and his men climbing the slope from the rue St Jacques heard it also. Someone shouted. There was a rattle of arms, and then the slap of more feet as the whole party set off, pursuing. An instant later the troops from St Geneviève could be heard joining them.

  M. de Sevigny reappeared, quietly, through a postern. ‘I thought from the smell they still kept goats there,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Now, mesdames, you must run as fast as the goats did. Va, va te cacher que le chat ne te voie.’

  One realized, running, that it was not a miracle: that there had been footholds on that wall, and that he had known about them. One further realized, as he led the way through all the twisting alleys about the Clos Bruneau, that he was not merely avoiding pursuit, but was making for one particular building. It was not until they reached it, in the darkness, that she recognized the low arcades on the corner of the rue Jean de Beauvais and knew what it was he had been aiming for.

  She was familiar with the main entrance with its arched, studded door and wreathed busts of dead poets. He passed these, however, and stopped instead at a plain wooden gate with a grille, across which he drew the hilt of his poniard, gently, in a muted rattle of sound. He repeated it, at deliberate intervals until, without prior warning, a voice on the other side said, ‘This is the Collège de St Barbe, full of those who have stout right arms to protect their Christian sleep on a night such as this. State your business.’

  The porter was an elderly man. The Maréchale could see the gleam of white hair on the other side of the grille, and a bony hand clutching a blanket. Lymond approached until he, also, was close to the grille. He had pulled his cap off. He said, ‘They told me you were still here, mon compére. Have you beaten anyone else for filling your best boots with horse-glue?’

  There was a pause. And then the hand left the blanket and gripped the bars of the grille, while an unshaven face peered closer still. ‘The Master of Culter!’ The peering eyes moved in her direction, and then on to Catherine, her long hair round her shoulders. ‘And still my wild young friend, entangled in escapades. Who is after you? The father or the husband?’

  ‘The friends of the Cardinal of Lorraine, Joseph,’ said Lymond.

  The old eyes opened and then steadied. ‘You were at the Calvinist gathering?’

  ‘They are searching the streets,’ Lymond said. ‘We need refuge until we can reach the river and cross it. But it need not be here.’

  ‘It was always here before,’ said the man Joseph. ‘Why not now?’ And, unlocking the gate, he pulled it open and held it for herself and the three others to pass through.

  They were there for an hour only, and she could not speak to her rescuer because he disappeared almost immediately. She could hear his voice occasionally, and other voices raised in protest or laughter. The porter had not used his proper title. It was to be supposed that they did not know his present station.

  Catherine, sitting in her incongruous clothes with her arm around her, was also listening: since they sat down she had not spoken to her mother. A stubborn girl, who had been too well bred to disobey, but who had made it plain from the outset that this marriage was not to her liking. One wondered what rumours might have come north from Lyon, but one did not ask why. The Maréchale de St André, shivering, said ‘You knew we were in danger? How did M. de Sevigny learn Claude and I were there?’

  The dark eyes, so like those of Jacques her father, turned and studied her. ‘I told him,’ said Catherine d’Albon. ‘He could do nothing openly. So he broke into the Hôtel de Cluny and stole the Cardinal’s robes, and the livery.’

  ‘Under the nose of Charles de Guise?’ It was the act of a madman.

  ‘No,’ said her daughter. ‘That was the point. He said that it could be taken as certain that this evening the Cardinal would be asleep at his other house over the river. And so he must be. There was only his household, either asleep or out Huguenot-baiting. Mr Blyth said they had to tie up three men. When they are discovered, they will perhaps start searching not only the streets, but the houses.’

  ‘He risks his life,’ said the Maréchale de St André, huskily.

  There was a small, impatient silence. ‘I think,’ said Catherine d’Albon, ‘that he permits himself an extravagance after the labours of the last weeks. We were told, if we wished, to serve ourselves from the pot by the fire. Would you like some spiced wine? It would warm you.’

  It was true: there was a sharpness in the September night air, and she was cold with anxiety. She said, accepting a rough pewter mug of steaming wine, ‘They will find Claude. And the preacher.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Catherine. ‘They are with the man he calls Jerott Blyth, and the little man with the broken nose. It seems they have friends all round the district, at the Sign of the Elephant, and the Sign of St Sebastien, and the Sign of La Corne de Cerf.’

  ‘The printers?’ said Madame la Maréchale, and subsided into thought. Of course. This was the quarter of the printers, the first to become disaffected, the most advanced in any new tide of thought.

  ‘Yes. They will hide them,’ said Catherine, ‘and will see them safely home in the morning. M. de Sevigny cannot remain out of touch with his
command overnight. He must return, and he seems sure that he can take us with him.’

  ‘With the bridges closed, and the streets being searched?’ said her mother. The wine had made her warmer. She rose and refilled her mug from the ladle and then served Catherine and, kindly, her valet. It was not his fault that death by faggot lay before all of them. She thought of it, staring into the red heart of the small fire lit to warm them. She did not think she would be very brave. They said that if they had nothing against you, they were sometimes willing to strangle you before the flames took a proper hold. If one recanted, one would be sure of it. She found, delving with the ladle, that there was at least another cupful in the pot.

  She was not, therefore, too severe on M. de Sevigny when he finally returned, his arms full of clothes, and persuaded them all to dress up as peasants. There was no mirror, so she slapped the white gathered cap on her head and pulled at the drawstrings. The valet, whose job it was, helped her out of her silk skirts and into a rough cotton gown with an apron. Catherine, in a gown very like it, soaked a handkerchief and, bringing it to her, helped her to wipe off the careful cosmetics.

  The water was refreshing. It was like a masquerade. Madame la Maréchale remembered an occasion when she had dressed up at court as a milkmaid, although her dress was of satin, and she had had little slippers sewn with cabochon rubies instead of these difficult wooden clogs M. de Sevigny had brought her. She stumbled, trying to walk in them, but her valet had a good grasp of her arm, and M. de Sevigny would doubtless come to help him.

  She had remembered the milkmaid dress because it had brought her such good fortune. The present King, masked, had commanded her to be his partner that evening, and not only at the dance. She watched for her newest conquest to reappear and smiled at him when he did, dressed in a shapeless felt hat and a frayed shirt and hose with a jacket.

  She did not know when she smiled that Catherine was watching her, or that, unconstricted by buckram, her opulent flesh billowed within the cheap garments. Or that her face, yellowed and pitted under its pigments, might yet have retained a kind of lined nobility, except that without its wired superstructure of headgear, the tight skull and big jaw were ludicrous.