Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  He had not expected her. His very rigidity made it clear, even seen over such a distance, and from behind. But by the time Philippa had closed the door and come a little way into the room Lymond had backed, and was standing looking at her from the corner in which, hours before, he had been seated. Then Philippa walked forward and confronting him, said something.

  Adam saw her stop speaking. For some moments it seemed, nothing occurred. Then with extreme deliberation, Francis Crawford seated himself. And as he did so, Philippa sank on her knees before him, her gaze on his, her robe dragged like a furled sleeve behind her. After a while he unloosed his hands and, withdrawing a kerchief, laid it on the stool beside her, saying something: when she lifted it and held it to her face, Adam knew she must be weeping. Presently she rose and, her fingers still pressed to the linen, moved to the window where she stood in profile against one of the embrasures. Then she lowered her hands and laid the handkerchief, still folded, on the window seat and as she did so Lymond followed her quietly and stood, separated by the window, facing her from the opposite side of the bay.

  For a long time they stood there, exchanging sentences occasionally, but more often silent. Then at length, she asked him a question, and he answered. And a moment later, turning, she walked to the door. There, she turned as she had before, and gave a smile of such sweetness that Adam’s breath caught. Then she had gone.

  Time passed. Between Adam and his high balcony and that blazing range of lit windows below, the night air moved in small breathing stirs. The beeches in the long drive sighed and an owl, unseen, shrieked, twice. Presently Lymond moved in the tall embrasure and taking a silver-gilt snuffer walked slowly from branch to branch of the clusters of tapers, extinguishing them one by one. Then, when the windows were lit by no more than the low dusky red of the fire, he turned and saw his own handkerchief, lying folded where Philippa had left it.

  He crossed to the embrasure and lifted it gently. Then with equal care he lowered his hand and replaced it exactly where it had been left. Without looking round, he walked to the door and, opening it, at last left the chamber. A few moments later Adam heard his steps mounting the stairs and then making their way past his bedroom to his own chamber beyond it.

  His door opened and closed.

  Next morning, when Adam left, they bade him farewell, as they had welcomed him, tranquilly and together.

  *

  Four days later, Adam Blacklock was back in Paris. To Jerott, to Danny, to Lady Culter, to Richard Crawford, to anyone else who asked what had happened or who talked to him of the Château of Sevigny he had only one answer to make. For the love of God, leave them alone.

  Chapter 3

  Avant conflict le grand tombera,

  Le grand à mort, trop subite et plainte,

  Nay imparfaict: la plus part nagera,

  Aupres du fleuve de sang la terre tainte.

  On Saturday, June 4th, a week after this, the second mission to Sevigny, the Duke de Guise with nearly two thousand men joined the army already awaiting him before the Spanish-held fortress town of Thionville near the western frontiers of France and settled down, with a total force of twelve thousand, of which three-quarters were German, to besiege it.

  There were some who thought he would fail, and there were some who wished that he would. Verses appeared at street junctions in Paris, pointing out that Thionville was not Calais, inhabited only by serfs. The better informed knew that assaults on Thionville had failed on three previous occasions: that the circling walls filled with earth were so thick that two wagons could ride round them abreast; that the ancient castle of the Counts of Luxembourg which guarded it at the edge of the river was so strong as to be proof against battery.

  There were others who knew that there was bad blood between the commanders of the French army. As long ago as February, the Governor of nearby Metz had propounded a plan to reduce Thionville while, under de Guise, all the rest of the troops in the north seized the Oye region. Then, by uniting both armies, a complete conquest of the Low Countries was feasible.

  Money was short, but he was given general permission to proceed, and with Sipierre and Strozzi and Sevigny had drawn up a plan of attack which began to look astonishingly promising. He collected troops from Thoul and Verdun and made provision for the influx of huge foreign levies. The nobility of Brie, Champagne and Bassigny and of the Duchy of Orleans came flocking to help until the army was undoubtedly large enough to put the whole Duchy of Luxembourg in the French King’s possession.

  Before the end of April, the Governor of Metz, M. de Vieilleville, had completed his preparations and was ready to make the assault. He had not perhaps realized that, with the pressure of duties arising from his niece’s nuptials, the Duke de Guise had not fully appreciated the attractive conquest appearing on the western horizon. Nor was M. de Vieilleville at that time aware that two of the strongest rivals of the de Guise family had either vanished or were about to vanish: the comte de Sevigny to his château on the Loire, and the sieur d’Andelot in due course to prison. Or he would have been less surprised than he was to receive, on the brink of his attack, a missive, more in sorrow than in anger, from the Duke de Guise, requesting him to cease all operations until the Duke should arrive at Thionville, and adding that as lieutenant-general the Duke would be most distressed if such a thing of honour and importance should occur without him.

  By moving at once, M. de Vieilleville afterwards calculated, he could have been inside Thionville in two hours, and in Luxembourg directly afterwards. As it was, in the three weeks it took the Duke to march towards him, Luxembourg fortified itself quite adequately against any assault he might have been planning; and the force inside Thionville under Jean de Caderebbe their Flemish commander aspired to three thousand picked men—twice the number the town would normally contain. The ensigns waiting for M. de Guise greeted him with grim jollity: Let us go, monsieur, and die before Thionville—we have been waiting for you for a long time. And M. d’Estrée the Grand Master of Artillery, supervising the arrival of the thirty-five boats containing the four companies of pioneers, the eighteen cannoneers, the six commissioners of artillery, the guns and the munitions for fifteen thousand shots, summoned the Duke in sonorous tones to come and see the fine present M. de Vieilleville was making him, while adding in less sonorous tones to his companions that it was very easy for M. de Guise to swallow, when everything else had already been chewed for him.

  Danny Hislop, jogging about in his cuirass collecting gems of impolitic vituperation, was consistently busy and happy: so was Blaise de Montluc, who had d’Andelot’s command of the infantry. Jerott Blyth, less tolerant of caprice, walked about glowering and being nasty to Adam, who in any case was feeling mildly sorry for himself after all the riding he had undertaken in the past seven days.

  When the news came that, after prolonged argument, M. de Vieilleville’s battle plan had been entirely changed and the assault was to be made at a different place, Adam experienced no shock of surprise. If Thionville was going to be a glorious victory, then the battle plan would have to be the Duke de Guise’s, not that of the Governor of Metz. He moved away from all the bright, lilting voices of the courtiers in the Duke de Guise’s train, and heard beside him another voice strongly accented in Italian and belonging to a dark and splendid nobleman in silver-engraved armour with bronze kid buttoned under it.

  ‘Must you look so disapproving?’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘You Scotsmen: you wish to be like the elephant, hacked to pieces for refusing to bow. You should follow my rule: here am I, supple and amenable as a goatskin glove of Vendôme and pleasant to all, Duke and dotard alike. You did not, I trust, persuade your eminent friend to forsake his bower in favour of these noisome marshes? That would indeed be a case of the punishment being born at the same time as the sin.’

  ‘No. He isn’t coming,’ said Adam.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Piero Strozzi heartily. ‘I love him, but I have brethren enough who are trying to climb with a foot on my neck. Do yo
u see that tower over the river?’

  ‘The Tour aux Puces?’ said Adam.

  ‘The Tower of Fleas. An adorable fancy. Yes. That is where we are to fire to make our breach, and we have to take the town in seven days: M. de Guise has promised His Majesty so. Once M. d’Estrée has his cannon set up, there is going to be sound enough to make a goat dance. Perhaps, after all, mon petit François has the best of it.’

  ‘He thought,’ Adam said, ‘that this would be a pioneers’ victory, unless M. de Vieilleville could take it by a surprise assault.’

  ‘So does M. d’Estrée,’ said Marshal Strozzi. ‘But then, they are his pioneers, and all tall old men are hungry for credit. Do you know what Thionville means?’

  ‘No,’ said Adam. Jerott had come out of their common tent and was glaring at him.

  ‘It is Villa Theon, the town of God,’ said Marshal Strozzi. ‘You know the saying, Ce que Dieu garde est bien gardé? Fortunately, Master Nostradamus has suggested to His Majesty that good news is on the way, so M. de Vieilleville will be comforted. But of course, you are also a good Christian?’

  ‘Isn’t everybody,’ said Adam dryly, ‘on the eve of battle?’ And as Strozzi, laughing, clapped him on the back, he turned and joined the others in his tent.

  *

  The town of God fell not seven but seventeen days later to its French attackers, leaving eight hundred dead and seven hundred wounded within the fortress, and four hundred French dead outside. And on Friday, the first of July, the news came to Sevigny.

  It came in the livery of the royal household and in the form of a troop of bright-armoured horsemen who swept through the royal town of Blois and the vineyards beyond in the trembling heat, and arrived at the château just as the man they were seeking walked down the steps, his fair hair glittering in the sun. Behind him, a young girl with long brown hair in a light silk berline paused and stood still as they dismounted and the leader, a gentleman of the King’s bedchamber and therefore a courtier of some considerable distinction, came forward.

  ‘I am glad to see you, M. de Sevigny. I bear you greetings from His Most Christian Majesty.’

  This was a different matter from the cheerful exhortations of his fellow-commanders, and all of those present perceived it. When, presently, the King’s representative was established indoors with his hosts he lost no time in delivering his message.

  ‘I am to bring you news of the fall of Thionville. It was taken by the Duke de Guise on the 22nd, after a siege of great hardship, and it means that the army may now march north through Luxembourg with good prospects. His Majesty forgives your recent defection. He reminds you that in times such as these, the fulfilment of a gentleman’s duty to his king and his Order is a matter of honour. His Majesty therefore refuses all your demissions and requires you instead to present yourself within three weeks to the lieutenant-general of his army. In earnest of which, and of His Majesty’s love and good feeling towards you, I am to offer you this.’

  Across his two palms the King’s representative held an oblong case of gilt leather, stamped with the lilies of France and clasped in gold with the cipher of Valois. M. le comte de Sevigny, rising, accepted it, and placing it on the table, unfastened and laid back the cover.

  Inside, banded with gold, was the staff of a Marshal of France.

  The girl made a small sound. The comte de Sevigny did not speak at all, with good reason. In France, only four men could hold this office under their Constable, and four men currently did, to his knowledge.

  So my lord of Sevigny, his hands on either side of the case, showed no joy but instead broke silence curtly. ‘Whose, Monsieur? Whose is the bâton?’

  And so, regretfully, the courier answered him. ‘It belonged, Monseigneur, to Marshal Strozzi. He was killed at Thionville on the 20th.’

  *

  It was Philippa who suggested the day after that, when she knew he had not slept at all, that they should ride south-west to the château of Onzain and visit Lord Grey in his captivity.

  Any wish of hers was his also, effortlessly as two pools of a brook reaching parity. She knew he was aware of the reason. That morning, drawn from her own restless bed by her anxiety, she had found him there, within sight of her chamber, waiting as he had done every dawn in those early weeks, restoring to her the gift of his presence.

  But this time, unlike those first cruel mornings, she had had to remind herself not to react naturally: by taking his hands as Kate would have done, or offering him the warmth of speechless comfort, as he must have known it once, one supposed, from Sybilla.

  That way, that sunlit, gentle path was set with mines, and had at the end of it a chasm she could not contemplate. So she hid her impulse, and did not know, because he was better at concealment than she, that he had noticed it.

  *

  They had once before called at the old moated château of Onzain, set for four hundred years by the Loire on its ridge overlooking the watermeadows.

  That had been when she first found casual talk possible: conversations with Nick Applegarth and his steward; encounters with folk on the farms of Sevigny and in the gardens. That was when Francis had brought in, little by little, other elements to replace the first, steady bulwark of the written word, and his presence, all her waking moments beside her.

  She had remembered, scanning his charts, what Chancellor had told her about map-making and the arts of navigation, and what she had learned since from Nicolas de Nicolay in Paris. Using his telescope, she learned her way again about the night sky and began to see work they might do together, for they had both travelled far, and had learning enough to apply what they had discovered. A friend of his, a mathematician visiting Blois, was invited with her consent to spend an afternoon with them. This, the opening of the first door upon the outside world was a milestone: as unlike as possible to the paralysis of those two untimely visits, from Strozzi and from Adam Blacklock, when the whole patient fabric of reason and recovery had been upheld by Francis alone, with the willpower which had carried them through these two months.

  A willpower exerted now to such prodigal purpose that he could set aside, as an unwanted luxury, the sickness of headaches and blindness, both of which had gone as if they had never existed.

  To riding, now that she was recovered, had been added tennis and jeu de paume and pall mall and other sports. Another friend came: a scholar from Strasbourg University; and she paid her first visits to Blois, and then, one day, to the Abbess at la Guiche. And to Willie Grey, who knew, inevitably, the gossip from Paris; who knew that she had flouted Austin and that there was now little hope of the Sevigny money coming to save him. But who had been kind, in the way of a general who makes the best of a failure, and who perhaps was even relieved, a little, for Austin’s sake.

  So today, in his prison at the top of the keep he welcomed them both, and was prepared to be won from the tale of his grievances.

  He knew, as Philippa had hoped, all about Thionville. Charles de La Rochefoucauld had been there, and the wounded were already returning.

  ‘Glory and fruits of their labour stolen by fortune-hunting princes. That’s what d’Estrée said, they tell me, and he had reason. Allowed the fortress to prepare all its defences and then wasted eleven days’ ammunition making a breach too exposed to benefit them. You said it and I said it and we were right. It was a pioneers’ job and bloody work too, in the shortest nights of the year, however many covering cannon they had. They dug trenches for over three thousand feet, I was told, before they got close enough to take the tower, and the Duke de Guise sent to tell de Vieilleville not to let the town surrender until he and his courtiers had a chance to get there and witness it. That doesn’t go down well. He should have slept in the trenches, like Strozzi and Montluc. If he’d let Strozzi get on with his work, he’d be there today.’

  ‘How?’ asked Philippa. It was cooler within the stone walls than outside, although she could see two of Grey’s men on the roof below, taking the air on the battlements. Harry Palmer’
s wound, they said, had become serious.

  ‘Apparently he crossed the river to change his shirt in his tents, and de Guise insisted on his staying the night there instead of the trenches. He didn’t want to. Had a premonition, he said, that something was going to happen. He stayed, and was reconnoitring culverin sites the next morning when the hackbut shot took him above the heart from five hundred paces. So they say.’

  Lymond said, ‘Why in God’s name …?’ and breaking off, shrugged.

  ‘Didn’t he wear a breastplate? He was just putting it on. But not in God’s name. That gentleman,’ Lord Grey said without especial rancour, ‘was a damned irreligious Italian, although he was reared for the Church. Forced de Vieilleville to retire with the colic, I’m told, the night before he was killed, by promoting a mischievous discussion on what he thought God did before the Creation. De Vieilleville swore he’d never meet him again, and the siege would make an end of him. Which it did, of course.’

  ‘Scusandosi, dicendo, io nol’ conosco. I don’t need to ask,’ Lymond said, ‘if he died recanting?’

  ‘You don’t,’ said Lord Grey grimly. ‘ “I renounce God; my hour is over,” he said. And when they insisted on reminding him that he would be face to face that day with his Maker: “Morte-Dieu! I shall be with all the rest who have been dying for six thousand years!” the fellow came back with. And gave up his spirit, but to whom, of course, is unknown. He was, I make no doubt, a fine engineer,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton.