Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  *

  She spent an hour with Austin, in a small suite of rooms within the vast, marbled mansion over the river that a grateful crown had bestowed on her husband.

  She had been there already, with Adam. The rooms were guarded, but not stringently so, and Austin was attended by his own men, and allowed visitors. The negotiations for his ransom and freedom had, it seemed, progressed not at all through Lymond’s absence. Of what had occurred on the night of the banquet Austin had never spoken, nor had Marthe been mentioned.

  All that had ever concerned him had been her welfare. Used to the habit of banter, conditioned to the attacking wit of Kate’s carping tongue, she had never drunk at this well: known the peace of a deep and loving solicitude, offered with a delicacy which hardly made itself known.

  She had not so far been permitted to visit his uncle Lord Grey, held in La Rochefoucauld’s house elsewhere in Paris. From other sources however she had learned enough of what happened at Guînes to explain Austin’s pallor, and the sleeplessness of which he did not complain. He had watched his country brought low: he had shared his uncle’s despairing surrender: he was the captive of a man whom he had seen in his most outrageous and despicable moments and whose callousness towards Kate and herself she supposed he would never condone.

  But he did not discuss Francis Crawford. He brought no slightest form of bias to the long exchanges in which she learned all she had yearned to know; about the harvest and their friends and their neighbours; about the skirmishing on the Border, and what rumour said of the Dowager, and what he knew of Mary Tudor’s wellbeing, and all the circle she had left in London. He received letters. He knew and told her, today, that his mother had been advised of his capture, and that Kate her mother had ridden to comfort her.

  She knew, for Kate had written her too, saying nothing, this time, of the long wait for her daughter’s homecoming; for she would know that Sybilla, in France, would be her ambassadress. Philippa said, ‘You would hear: they are all in Dieppe. Their dispatches came in today. Including one from Mr Crawford himself, asking leave to marry Catherine d’Albon.’

  She did not have the energy, at that moment, to soften it; and the sense of it reached him as he bent, serving her himself, to place a glass of sweet wine at her elbow.

  His hand, arrested, knocked the glass and tipped it fully over. The wine streamed, stickily golden, over the table and with an exclamation he knelt, his handkerchief out, and tried to collect it. Philippa drew back unharmed and glanced round, concerned, for something with which to help him.

  When she looked back he was kneeling still, with one hand closed, gripping the table. The other spanned his averted face lightly, thumb and fingertip closing his eyelids. With a pang of pure distress verging on horror, she saw there were tears shining under his lashes.

  One could not degrade him by touching him. Her heart hammering, Philippa dragged a square of dry linen from her sleeve and paused with that half-offered also.

  But she had forgotten he was not a coward. The breakdown lasted only a moment. Then he turned, his eyes inescapably bright, and said, facing her, ‘I seem to be drenching you in two ways at once. I am sorry. I was taken aback.’ He looked down and releasing the wine-sodden kerchief said, ‘I shall send someone in to take care of this. Will you excuse me, Philippa?’

  Another man had wept, long ago, all through a cold Turkish night; but not for her sake.

  Her eyes stretched open, Philippa Somerville sat and watched the wine drip from the table-edge.

  There were, sensibly, two courses open to her. She could leave before he came back, which with another man would be kind, but in his case would only prove her mistrust of his savoir-faire.

  Or she could stay and watch him sacrifice his pride in order to restore the situation. In helping him, she would almost certainly provoke an offer of marriage. It was what, if you looked at it squarely, she probably wished to produce when, just now, she made that flat announcement. But she had not, of course, taken the trouble to examine her motives. She had acted … very probably acted … out of jealousy.

  Which was not fair to Austin. She was going to have to leave France as soon as her bill of divorcement was final. Austin, if she guessed aright, would be freed in time to go home with her. Then, perhaps, she could make up her mind whether, by marrying Austin, she would be able to give him sufficient return for all the singular, selfless love he could offer her.

  By the time he returned, she had made up her mind; and when the table had been dried and the servant withdrawn, she laid down the fresh glass he had poured for her and said, ‘What happened just now was my fault. Saving each other’s feelings is all very well, but it might be better to be frank. About what happened in the Séjour du Roi, for example. You may have guessed by now that Marthe Blyth is Lymond’s base-born sister. It is not spoken of, as Lord Culter is not aware of it. But that explains her outburst, a little.’

  ‘I see,’ said Austin Grey. His skin was still very pale against his dark hair but his eyes met hers directly. ‘She is jealous, perhaps, of her brother? Or of you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Philippa said. ‘What does matter is that she accused me before you all of being enamoured of Francis Crawford.’

  She paused. ‘You may not have believed her. I don’t think the others did. But you ought to be told that she was right.’

  Distress; disbelief; alarm; anger … all these she had been braced to receive and to deal with. But—‘Oh, my dear,’ he said only, and Philippa’s own eyes pricked at the understanding, the compassion of it. She stopped, and then began again, for to break off now would be unthinkable.

  ‘As you know, it … isn’t reciprocated. There was never any question of completing our marriage. Next month he will make Catherine his wife, and we are unlikely ever to meet. He is already at some pains to avoid me.’ She looked up, smiling.

  ‘Do you think I am surprised?’ Austin said. ‘He would charm the fish from the sea, and one needs more years than you have to see what lies underneath. It was a fever. It will one day be over. But you are telling me that, until it is, I must wait.’

  ‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘I am telling you, my dear, that I have met, unsuitably, hopelessly, and too young the only human being I wish to belong to; that I never will belong to him; but that anyone wishing to marry me should know of the fact. It is a lifelong fever, Austin; and leaves no passion to spare. Only mild love, and kindness, and friendship.’

  His eyes had darkened and his hands were clasped, she saw, to still them. He said, ‘You know, I am bound to say, you may be mistaken.’

  ‘I know you are bound to say it,’ was all she answered.

  Nor did she break the silence that followed, although she guessed what was coming, and wished, painfully, that she could help him.

  Then he said, his head bent, his eyes on his hands, ‘Philippa, my love is not mild.’

  ‘I know that too,’ said Philippa gently. ‘I am not asking anyone to marry me and become to me less than a husband should. I am only saying that … what I have to offer is flawed. You must recognize that and think about it, before this matter goes any further.’

  ‘Must I?’ he said; and looking up, let her see for the first time what she had inflicted on him. ‘Philippa,’ said Austin Grey, ‘why did you have to tell me?’

  The wine at her side lay still, deep and bright in its goblet. ‘Because, of all those who have offered me love, you would have noticed,’ she said.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I was being selfish.’ He waited, schooling his voice, and then said, ‘But feeling like this, you can have no wish for marriage.’

  ‘Perhaps I need it more than anybody,’ Philippa said. ‘I can live alone, but it is better to have someone else to concern oneself with; to help and be helped by. There is nothing so strong as a family.’

  Sitting opposite her, without approaching or moving or making any attempt to touch her: ‘Will you then marry me?’ said Austin Grey.

  ‘I want
you to be sure,’ Philippa said. ‘I want you to think about yourself, and not about me. And I want … I should like Catherine d’Albon’s marriage to pass before I make any betrothal announcements. When that time comes, will you ask me again, if you want to?’

  ‘And if I do?’ said Austin Grey.

  ‘Then we shall go home,’ Philippa said. ‘To Allendale, and Kate; and be married.’

  *

  Self-respect forbade that Philippa should cry on her way back to the Hôtel de Guise; and when she arrived in her room, Célie was waiting to speak to her.

  The Célestins had returned the Dame de Doubtance’s key, having discovered the door it belonged to.

  The house to which it gave admittance was called the Hôtel des Sphères. And the occupier of the house, who had expressed interest in the Countess’s story and who would be happy to make the Countess’s acquaintance, was a widowed lady named Isabelle Roset.

  *

  Long ago, this southern corner of Paris between the Porte de St Antoine and the river had been filled with wide gardens, with white chapels and bowered galleries, with sweating chambers and aviaries, boar and lion-houses, lists and ball courts built for fine palaces. Most had gone, decayed into ruin or sold as separate mansions, but the little roads round the rue de la Cerisaye by their names kept a remembrance of them, and great houses here and there were still standing. A long ivied wall which Philippa passed the next morning held the blue turrets of part of the Palais Royal of St Paul, once the property of King François’s mistress: now one of the houses of Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King François’s son. It was a fair haven, long accustomed to lovers.

  And here Sybilla had stayed, with the man who had fathered her children. Isabelle Roset was Renée Jourda’s widowed sister, Lymond had said. And kept house for Sybilla and her master somewhere in Paris. The child Francis Crawford was born there.

  So he had learned at Flavy-le-Martel where the old woman Renée had died; Renée who with her sister Isabelle had served Sybilla as a young bride and who, eleven years after Sybilla’s marriage to Gavin, Lord Culter, had witnessed the birth of Francis Crawford here in Paris, and then of his sister Eloise. Who knew, and alone in the world might yet tell her, the name of the two children’s father.

  This time, Philippa had left Célie in her chamber. There had been a fresh fall of snow just before sunrise and the rue St Antoine was already deep in rimed slush. Beyond it, the small roads lay tranquil and white, edged with ancient walls and speckled groups of brick and wood houses all chequered with snow like cloisonné work. The sky, smoky red behind the Bastille, turned the snow in the gardens to sherbet: the cherry trees bore it like blossom, and the bowers of birch, beech and elm, the weeping thorns and the lilac and vine stems which laced the sky over the gateways. Behind the Célestins’ wall there was holly, and the rilled ranks of a physics garden, and a row of Bergamot pear trees as high as their snowy steeples.

  Behind her, when she stopped at the wrought iron gates of the Hôtel des Sphères there was only the single track of her chopines, and the flouncing blur from the thick hooded cloak which enveloped her. She had told Célie, before she left, to have Osias called in and given hot soup in the kitchen. Whatever had happened once in the Hôtel des Sphères, there was no reason why anyone remotely connected with Midculter now should know of it.

  There was a bell by the gatepost but the clapper was missing, and when she put her gloved hand on the heavy gates, they gave way before her. So, pushing them slowly apart, Philippa carved her way over the creamy snow to a small elegant mansion of patterned brick laid between wrought bands of silvery wood. Above the chiselled door, modelled within a cartouche, was a celestial globe with two winged figures brooding over it. Philippa raised the ring knocker and rapped with it.

  The serving-girl who opened the door was young, but well trained in her duties. She asked madame la comtesse to enter, and taking her pattens and cloak left her seated by the fire in the pretty, wainscotted hall, while she retreated to call her superior. Then, before Philippa could receive much more than a pleasing impression of a kind of shining and miniature richness, the maid returned, and she found herself in the parlour, being received by Isabelle Roset.

  Unlike her sister’s, Madame Roset’s eyes had no flaw in them. They stared out, bright faded hazel from the blotched tussore skin of old age, under an old-fashioned goffered cap as white as her hair; and her black dress with its high neck and long, tight sleeves with epaulettes was old-fashioned also, unless you looked on it as a uniform. And indeed, depending from the chain at her waist was the châtelaine’s cluster of keys and the hands, broad fingered and knotted, clasped before her were working hands: the hands of a housekeeper or, indeed, a peasant girl from Coulanges. Philippa said, ‘It is kind of you to see me, a stranger. Forgive me, too, for approaching you through your neighbours. I had looked for your name at the Hôtel de Ville, but could not find it.’

  ‘You thought perhaps I owned the Hôtel des Sphères. But that is not so,’ Madame Roset said. Her voice, thin and girlish was that, Philippa thought, of a talker with no one to talk to. Her eyes, active as monkeys, were brilliant with curiosity. ‘Pray be seated, Madame. It is a matter of a bereavement? Allow me to condole with you.’

  The chair on which she sat was embroidered, and so were its cushions and footstool: the curtains over the paintings were taffeta, and the little bow window pictured in grisaille the story of Psyche. Philippa said, ‘The lady who left me your doorkey was not a relative. Her name was Camille, and she lived in a house called Doubtance in Blois, and another in the rue de Mercière in Lyon. I think you knew her.’

  ‘The Dame de Doubtance?’ said Isabelle Roset. She sat down. On her face, still, was nothing but the liveliest interest. ‘I remember. I think I remember. She had a daughter Béatris. I nursed her in childbed. Poor girl. In a convent, Madame, one sees many of such cases.’

  ‘Béatris died?’ Philippa said.

  ‘Oh, many years later. She herself gave day to a daughter, and died. Fickle men!’ said Madame Roset without a great deal of censure. ‘And, Madame, Mistress Camille spoke of me?’

  The round eyes, staring at her, told Philippa that it was time to say something. She said, ‘Alas, Madame, I was not with the Dame de Doubtance when she died. But she left a legacy, as it happened, to my husband, and with it a keepsake she wished us to bring you. Here it is. It comes, I am sure, with her blessing.’

  The brooch she handed over was her own, and so was the small bag of money; but Madame Roset was not to know that. She took them both, her cheeks red, her mouth open, and it was necessary to wait, and be patient, while she told it over, and exclaimed, and put questions.

  Then it was simple to encourage her to talk of Mistress Camille and Beatris her daughter, and to express interest in what she could tell her.

  ‘And,’ said Philippa, ‘how many children did Béatris have? Or perhaps you would not hear.’

  ‘Oh, yes indeed, I heard,’ Madame Roset said. ‘One has many relatives, Madame, in Coulanges. The girl was brought to bed twice in eight years and died after the daughter was born. Marthe, they called her.’

  ‘And eight years before, while you were at la Guiche, Béatris had her first child?’ Philippa said. ‘Poor thing. Madame Roset, was it a son? And why was it not on the records?’

  ‘The father did not wish it,’ said Madame Roset. A small, lopsided severity had descended, not surprisingly, over the nimble features. ‘Madame, if you were a friend of the Lady of Doubtance, did she not tell you of her two grandchildren?’

  ‘Was it a son?’ Philippa said; and, shaken into subservience, the elderly figure opposite her nodded its head.

  ‘It is of no matter now, Madame, but it was: a fair enough child, but afflicted. He lived ten years with his grandmother before the grand mal carried him off, and his father saw he wanted for nothing. That will be why——’ She broke off.

  ‘That will be why the Dame de Doubtance had the key to this house,’ Philippa S
omerville finished slowly. ‘Because the father of the ten-year-old boy who died in 1526 in Lyon … and the father of Marthe … and the owner of this house, Madame Roset, are the same?’

  It was one point on which she could be contradicted. ‘This house, Madame de Sevigny,’ said the old woman firmly, ‘is owned by a lady.’

  He had lied to her. All along, from the beginning, he had lied to her.

  ‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘And I am married to her son, who was born here.’

  ‘How clever of you,’ said Leonard Bailey, from the doorway.

  Chapter 7

  Au mois troisiesme se levant le soleil

  Sanglier, liepard au champ mars pour combatre.

  He had changed since last year in England, when he had accepted from his great-nephew Francis Crawford a life-pension to keep Sybilla’s reputation unblemished.

  Then, Leonard Bailey had been a great, neglected hulk of a man in stained coat and bonnet, living meanly alone with his servants in the estate his treachery had brought him in England.

  Now the heavy jowls were the same, and the great nose, spread like a garlic clove, and the odour of unbathed old age, and of malice. But his ribbed doublet and breeches this time were new and uncreased and stiff, and the sleeveless coat lined with some sort of fur, and his trailing hair trimmed under a new velvet bonnet.

  He had done well from his great-nephew’s pension, had Leonard Bailey, who detested herself and Sybilla, and most of all loathed his great-nephew, who had forced his blackmail of Sybilla to finish. It was his doing that Lord Grey’s men had taken Francis at Flavy. It was because of him that Osias and his colleagues had been paid by Francis to safeguard her. It was because of him—did she know it? Or was there merely impatience in the look she was bending on him?—that Isabelle Roset had lost a sister at Flavy-le-Martel this winter.