Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  An excellent method of transmitting both letters to London occurred to her.

  The Commissioners arrived in Paris, and she saw Archie.

  In the interests of Master Bailey’s health she absented herself from an excruciating reception for the King and Queen of Navarre, newly arrived for the royal wedding, at which the comte de Sevigny was expected to be in attendance.

  She paid a visit to the Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld, and at last obtained permission to see Lord Grey of Wilton, the captured English commander.

  *

  To the thirteenth baron Grey of Wilton had fallen none of the galling luxury daily enjoyed by his nephew Austin, under the régime of the Hôtel d’Hercule.

  Not that he lacked either food or common necessities. For a nobleman of his rank, on parole to a brother-in-law of the Prince of Condé, such treatment would be unthinkable. Besides, since the Queen of England had displayed such a loving concern for him, he was worth a thumping good sum of money.

  His health was therefore well looked after, even to the healing of the unfortunate cut in one foot. Only the comte de La Rochefoucauld, with recent memories of a stringent six months’ captivity in Genap, was a little less accommodating in his hospitality than he might have been.

  Philippa, having passed the scrutiny of a porter, a captain of arms, a maître d’hôtel and finally, surprisingly, a quartet of the King’s own bodyguard, still required to pass through two locked doors and satisfy the double guard at the threshold of another before a key was inserted and turned and she was ushered at last into the presence of Austin Grey’s uncle.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Philippa Somerville appreciatively. ‘They are frightened of you. You’ve got more pikemen than they took Calais with.’

  His lordship of Wilton, rising abruptly, gazed at the vision before him and said, with caution, ‘It is Philippa Somerville?’

  ‘It was,’ the vision said, removing with aplomb a mesmerizing cloak of ermine and Anatolian green velvet and handing it to a servant, who left the room, locking the door carefully behind him. She sat down, her extremely costly dress spread about her. ‘Now, as you certainly know, it’s Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, the name of your favourite enemy. I’m sorry you don’t get on better together.’

  Lord Grey of Wilton also sat down, without removing his eyes from his visitor. The straight brown hair he rather remembered, although not dressed and knotted in this style. Her face had thinned. Her eyebrows had changed. He had seen paintings at Whitehall Palace with eyes like that. Come to think of it, these were probably painted too. The rubies round her neck were worth a fortune. And she was wearing scent. A smell of pepper and musk, faintly discernible, made the room pleasant.

  Lord Grey said dryly, ‘Perhaps for England’s sake it is as well that we do not. Your husband appears to possess an uncanny gift for seducing his enemies.’

  The versatile brown eyes gazed at him limpidly. ‘I have a confession to make. Did you know I brought him to France in the first place? I thought it might be cheering to watch France and Spain waste their money on one another. I didn’t, I’m afraid, think of Calais.’

  ‘No. And you have, of course, remained in France.’ Spare, and cool. It was the way he got the truth out of many a young ensign.

  Young ensigns did not say candidly, as this girl did, ‘But I haven’t taken arms against you, truly. It was the only way I could obtain my annulment. And in less than a month I shall be free to leave for England again, if he doesn’t contrive to get rid of me sooner. I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You should know,’ said Lord Grey, adjusting his sight to the folded paper he had just raised from his desk, ‘that I am tied to the Hexham Saphronia, who combines total chastity with a jackal-like taste for digging up my family history. With twelve barons Grey to research she should be rendered peacefully harmless, with no sharp quality of heat, either biting the tongue or offending the head. She will also bring you a fortune in dowry.’ He looked up.

  The girl, he was pleased to see, had turned a deep and uniform crimson. ‘He’s sent you a letter,’ she said.

  ‘Mr Crawford has indeed taken the trouble to write to me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. ‘Soliciting, it appears, my aid in the event of your making a match with my nephew. I have seldom been more astonished.’

  ‘So have I,’ the girl said. She was still scarlet. ‘That is, it’s true that Austin has mentioned marriage, but nothing has been settled as yet. And in any case … although of course I know he would want your approval

  ‘He is of full age, and requires no one’s permission to marry. Quite,’ said Lord Grey. He recalled, but did not refer to the succession of powerful families into which Audrey Grey had attempted in vain to marry her son. He continued, gazing at the girl, ‘That is not the point exercising your husband. He appears merely to be anxious that the match should not fail because of what he calls any undue delicacy surrounding the use of the young lady’s dowry.’

  ‘For your ransom?’ said Philippa. Her face had become even brighter. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. He knows Austin better than I expected. But he doesn’t know how anxious … That is, I don’t think Austin would allow the money to interfere with his plans.’

  ‘Then I,’ said Lord Grey with heavy humour, ‘am tempted to be equally magnanimous. This attachment, then, is of some standing? It explains, of course, Austin’s behaviour on a number of occasions. I am sorry the boy did not see fit to confide in me. If he had, I must admit that I should have put forward several objections. There is, forgive me, some difference in rank. The boy is unworldly. And you yourself, Mistress Philippa, have been married for some years to a man of some notoriety; a Scotsman who has many times fought openly against us, and who has made powerful enemies in England.’

  ‘But you knew Gideon,’ the girl said quietly; and under her gaze he felt his colour rising. She said, ‘In any case, as Mr Crawford has so tactfully pointed out, I should expect my money to mend my lack of status. And if he has powerful enemies, Mr Crawford has friends even more powerful. If you have any doubts, speak to Austin, however. I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping both my husbands.’

  Lord Grey said, ‘Friends more important than royalty? It isn’t my place to repeat scandal, but you must know of the Lennox feud with your husband. It dates back to ’42. They have land in the north next to Austin’s. And Lady Lennox is the Queen’s cousin.’

  ‘But I hear the Queen is failing,’ the girl said. After a moment she added, ‘Also, it isn’t my place to repeat scandal either, but in ’42 Lady Lennox surely was in her late twenties, while … Mr Crawford was a prisoner in London.’ She had lost a little of her poise.

  ‘He fought at Solway. He would be sixteen. Quite old enough,’ said Lord Grey, ‘for that kind of trouble. The initial fault may not have been his. Lady Lennox is an ambitious and powerful woman, who has been the downfall of more than one comely boy in her day. About his subsequent career, however, there is no ambiguity … I would allow to lead my army, Mistress Philippa, a man who had begun life like that. I would not give him any maiden I respected in marriage. I still do not know how you could so defy your upbringing.’

  ‘It was done to preserve appearances. The mail from Turkey was rather slow,’ the girl said flatly. She was shocked, Grey saw. The platonic marriage, which he had hardly believed in, suddenly appeared to be very likely a fact. Mistress Philippa, worldly as she appeared, was an innocent. Come to think of it, Austin would have chosen no one else. He wondered, as he had wondered so often, how his good-sister had come to give birth to a saintly fool.

  He said, ‘Well. You have been far from home and good guidance, but perhaps your mother’s excellent sense has stood you in better stead than would appear. As you say, large changes are possible which may overturn many who today feel most secure. I hear peace is spoken of. That, too, should make your match more acceptable.’

  He knew, when she did not contradict him, that there was some truth in it. He kept his ears open. He knew Calais was alrea
dy being repopulated from the wreck of Saint-Quentin, and that there seemed no prospect now of his own side recrossing the water to take it. King Philip, lumbered with unpaid troops and overdrawn credit, had no wish either, it seemed, to launch a new venture. The war was in abeyance.

  But you couldn’t talk of peace without recalling that the Duke de Guise and his brothers flourished on war. And although they might have retired for the moment, that the armies of France were fresh, and well armed and plenished.

  Until the Queen of Scots’ marriage, rumour said, no one would lead those armies into action, and talk of truce no doubt would keep both countries pacified. After April, with Scotland in her purse, there was no knowing what France might rush at. He wondered if he could slip a word of warning in his next letter to London.

  He further wondered if the girl’s reference to the Lennoxes had been quite fortuitous, or if she had reason to know how much he disliked them. He supposed his private persuasions were fairly well known by this time, although the Queen, fortunately, took no account of them. He added, since she made no rejoinder, ‘Peace. A dangerous thing. It gives the politicians time to get into mischief.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you were a Deputy in Rouen or Toulouse,’ Philippa said. ‘France is exhausted with taxes.’

  ‘She’ll be taxed whatever happens,’ said Grey of Wilton. ‘Well fed, vigorous men with nothing to do in the house—if they can’t go to war with someone else, they’ll fight each other. Take this new religion, now. They say it grows. They say it thrives, too, in Scotland.’ He looked at her. There was a gleam in her eye.

  ‘There are those in Scotland who don’t like French rule,’ Philippa said.

  ‘There are always, of course, the nationalists and those who want personal power. There are some, too, who have honest beliefs. If there is peace between France and Spain,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton reflectively, ‘and England no longer has a Catholic queen on the throne, I see both France and Spain might think her a tempting morsel. Then our sole bulwark may be those of the Reformed faith, from whatever land they derive.’

  He had called her innocent, for this he believed was her nature. But the brown eyes watching him now were those of a clever young woman, versed in diplomacy. She said, ‘He won’t go back to Scotland, Lord Grey. And if he did, how do you know which side he would take?’

  ‘I hoped you would tell me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton.

  ‘No. I don’t know. He may not know himself.’

  ‘Ah. There,’ said Lord Grey, ‘if I may say so, I think you are wrong. These are profound issues. A man of intelligence will not fail to have considered them. Discuss it with him.’

  ‘No. That is for you to do. You forget,’ Philippa said. ‘I am not his confidante: only the subject of an act of propriety, shortly to be excised.’ She rose. ‘If Austin asks me to marry him, do you truly think you could find it supportable? I swear that whatever happens, at least Mr Crawford will never suborn him.’

  Within the brushed and silvery beard, he smiled at her. ‘I believe you. I see it may be a good match. I shall not stand in your way,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. And in the same kindly mood took the packet she gave him; and agreed, patting her arm, to send it to London with the envoy arranging his ransom. He wondered, examining the very firm seal, why she was writing to Henry Sidney, but he didn’t break it. It might, after all, be to do with her dowry.

  He stood at his window and watched her depart. She looked preoccupied.

  She was preoccupied. She had just asked Lord Grey for leave to marry his nephew. But as she saw it, the time was coming nearer and nearer when she might have to wed one of four bankers.

  *

  The youth with the scarred cheek who alternated with Osias followed her home and she made it easy for him, wryly conscious of the fact that, like two fortune-tellers at a fair, she and his master were playing the same game. Except that these men were paid by Lymond for the straightforward purpose of protecting her, while her duplicity was rather more complicated. She returned anxiously to her boiling pots, but found that no message had come to her from Bailey or the Schiatti cousins; and the men watching the Hôtel des Sphères reported that the old man and his four henchmen were still inside, and there had been no unwonted activity.

  One could not be certain, with all the passing traffic of a large and busy household, that no other messages slipped in and out. One could only hope that Bailey’s own men would handle the important matters.

  A note came from Richard, brief and friendly. The Commissioners were coming to kiss the hand of their juvenile monarch, and he looked forward to seeing her. Sybilla would not be there.

  She hadn’t called to see Sybilla yet. Had it been possible, she would have been missing from Queen Mary’s reception as well; but the inquiries about her health last time had been too many and too embarrassing to perpetuate. Her task was not to draw attention but to present an appearance of unruffled serenity.

  By the day of the ceremony, the strain of maintaining unruffled serenity had put her off her food and sowed a doubt in her mind as to whether she was going to be capable of attending anyway. The presence of Richard presented no unsurmountable problems. He knew from Kate, presumably, that she was in France for her divorce, and at Court through Queen Mary’s persuasion. She had always been able to handle Richard, and most of the other Commissioners were familiar to her as well, from her frequent sojourns in Lymond’s absence at Midculter.

  What frightened her was the knowledge that now she must face and deceive Lymond himself.

  Since her far-off moment of self-discovery in Lyon she had seen him only twice. Once when, lying to her, he had told her at Saint-Germain that he was the son of Gavin Crawford. And once through the long, dizzy evening at the Hôtel de Ville which had ended in that explosion of violence and loathing in which he had flung at Marthe the name of his mistress.

  Since then, he had endured the reunion at Dieppe described by Archie as vexing; and the brief prostration afterwards which had seemed so easy to account for, but was not.

  Since then, she had found out at last the nature of the canker he lived with; the scourge which accounted for everything he had ever said or done. And worse, she knew that at any given moment it might be broadcast to all the world, unless she herself could prevent it. And all this, by whatever means, must be kept from him.

  The last time they met, she had rushed from the house like a schoolgirl. Dressed today by the Cardinal’s decree in stiff blue velvet to offset the Queen’s impressive cloth of silver she stood with the rest, and begged the mute gods of the Masque to uphold her as she watched the Commissioners enter, two by two, while trumpets like golden-voiced drakes quarrelled together.

  And there was Richard, brown and heavy and grave, and a glimpse of fair hair, picked out by the low winter sun. Then the half-brothers entered, almost together.

  And, knowing their parentage now, you could see Sybilla in both her sons; but more clearly still, the legendary presence of the first baron Crawford of Culter: blurred through two generations in the square, brown-haired person of Richard; and undiluted in Francis, the love-child.

  Richard, seeking her as soon as he stepped through the door caught her eye and smiled, before filing forward to make his salute to the Queen.

  Francis Crawford looked only at the Chair of State, and if the arc of his gaze included the demoiselles of honour, he gave no indication of it whatever.

  It was beyond Philippa to look anywhere else in those first moments. He had become a romantic figure in the country, they said. The pale, pleated taffetas with their exquisite needlework and the channel of cabochon emeralds on the short, reversed cloak confirmed the suspicion that he was living up to it. His manners during the presentations were of a courtly perfection verging on the caricature. When he chose to assume the high style, as when he chose to be vulgar, he could always equal or outdo the professionals.

  Of the illness at Dieppe there was no trace, unless it were in the weight of his gaze,
modishly languorous. But when, stepping back, he did allow his eye to be caught and bowed delightfully to his countess, every nerve from his mouth to his fingertips was unquestionably within his control.

  He was not alone in that form of dexterity. Into her answering curtsey Philippa put a matched degree of suavity and slightly more distance: Richard, she saw, grinned; and Lord James Stewart, also observing, was watching her critically. Then the speeches began and ended, and Lymond rejoined his compatriots and she was left with the Provost of Edinburgh, whose royal ancestors had bequeathed him a certain amount of conceit which she suffered, because he was brother to one of the four little Maries. But she had always thought George Seton facile, and now the charm barely covered the drift of his questions.

  Of course, her interest for them all lay in her marriage. But she was thankful instead of wary when at last Richard came and displaced him. ‘Dearest Philippa, you would take away the breath of any right-minded man who was not talking politics. You must come to see Sybilla. She misses you.’

  Kind as of old, but greyer and a good deal more adroit, he was studying her as he was speaking. She leaned forward and kissed him. ‘Of course I shall come soon. Is she well, Richard? And Mariotta at home, and the family?’

  ‘Come to the Hôtel de l’Ange and you shall hear,’ Richard said. ‘Yes, we are well, and Kuzúm is flourishing. Kate has been looking every day for your letters. We thought you were coming home before now. But after this, of course I see what is keeping you. I hear the royal marriage would founder without you.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Philippa said, ‘or you would all have to go home. What did the Queen say?’

  ‘She asked,’ Richard said, ‘if I thought my brother really intended to marry the Marshal de St André’s daughter. You know, of course, about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Philippa firmly. ‘I think it’s a splendid idea.’

  ‘So do I,’ Richard said. ‘I told her grace that he might not marry the girl if she lost the use of her limbs or her dowry; but I couldn’t think of anything else that would deter him. You must be mortally glad to be free of the whole business at last. Is he always tiresome, or has he attempted at least to be civil to you?’