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  ACCLAIM FOR

  Dorothy Dunnett’s

  LYMOND CHRONICLES

  “Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas … breathlessly exciting.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer. It combines the accuracy of exhaustive historical research with a gripping story to give the reader a visceral as well as cerebral understanding of an epoch.”

  —Christian Science Monitor

  “Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality … an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit.”

  —Sunday Times (London)

  “Expert entertainment.… Dunnett can describe a duel more convincingly than Dumas.”

  —The New York Times

  “A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia.… He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring.”

  —Times Literary Supplement (London)

  “A masterpiece of historical fiction, a pyrotechnic blend of passionate scholarship and high-speed storytelling soaked with the scents and colors and sounds and combustible emotions of 16th-century feudal Scotland.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness … and turbulent intensity of one of Europe’s greatest eras.”

  —Raleigh News and Observer

  “Splendidly colored scenes … always exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Detailed research, baroque imagination, staggering dramatic twists, multilingual literary allusion and scenes that can be very funny.”

  —The Times (London)

  “Ingenious and exceptional … its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”

  —Boston Herald

  FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, MAY 1997

  Copyright © 1964 by Dorothy Dunnett

  Copyright renewed 1992 by Dorothy Dunnett

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Cassell & Company Ltd., London, and in the United States by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, in 1964.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dunnett, Dorothy.

  Queens’ play / Dorothy Dunnett. — 1st Vintage Books ed.

  p. cm.

  Second novel in Dunnett’s Lymond saga.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76237-5

  1. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1567—Childhood and youth—Fiction.

  2. Scotland—History—Mary Stuart, 1542-1567—Fiction. 3. France—History—

  Henry II, 1547-1559—Fiction. 4. Queens—Scotland—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6054.U56Q4 1997

  823’.914—dc21 96-46882

  Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/

  v3.1_r1

  Dedicated, for their passing entertainment,

  to the Dunnetts,

  who are stuck with reading it, anyway

  GEORGE SINCLAIR DUNNETT

  ALASTAIR MACTAVISH DUNNETT

  DORIS MACNICOL DUNNETT PATERSON

  THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

  FOREWORD BY Dorothy Dunnett

  When, a generation ago, I sat down before an old Olivetti typewriter, ran through a sheet of paper, and typed a title, The Game of Kings, I had no notion of changing the course of my life. I wished to explore, within several books, the nature and experiences of a classical hero: a gifted leader whose star-crossed career, disturbing, hilarious, dangerous, I could follow in finest detail for ten years. And I wished to set him in the age of the Renaissance.

  Francis Crawford of Lymond in reality did not exist, and his family, his enemies and his lovers are merely fictitious. The countries in which he practices his arts, and for whom he fights, are, however, real enough. In pursuit of a personal quest, he finds his way—or is driven—across the known world, from the palaces of the Tudor kings and queens of England to the brilliant court of Henry II and Catherine de Medici in France.

  His home, however, is Scotland, where Mary Queen of Scots is a vulnerable child in a country ruled by her mother. It becomes apparent in the course of the story that Lymond, the most articulate and charismatic of men, is vulnerable too, not least because of his feeling for Scotland, and for his estranged family.

  The Game of Kings was my first novel. As Lymond developed in wisdom, so did I. We introduced one another to the world of sixteenth-century Europe, and while he cannot change history, the wars and events which embroil him are real. After the last book of the six had been published, it was hard to accept that nothing more about Francis Crawford could be written, without disturbing the shape and theme of his story. But there Was, as it happened, something that could be done: a little manicuring to repair the defects of the original edition as it was rushed out on both sides of the Atlantic. And so here is Lymond returned, in a freshened text which presents him as I first envisaged him, to a different world.

  CHARACTERS

  These, by birth or marriage, are some of the Scots in the story:

  MARY OF GUISE, Queen Mother of Scotland, and widow of King James V

  MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, aged seven, her daughter

  FRANCIS CRAWFORD OF LYMOND, Master of Culter

  RICHARD CRAWFORD, third Baron Culter, his brother

  THOMAS ERSKINE, Master of Erskine, Chief Privy Councillor and Special Ambassador

  MARGARET ERSKINE, née Fleming, his wife

  JENNY, LADY FLEMING, mother to Margaret Erskine and illegitimate daughter of King James IV of Scotland; governess to Queen Mary

  LORD FLEMING, Jenny’s son, and brother to Margaret Erskine

  MARY and AGNES FLEMING, his sisters, maids of honour to Queen Mary

  ARTHUR ERSKINE, one of Thomas Erskine’s brothers

  SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS, brother of the Earl of Angus and uncle to Lady Lennox

  SIR JAMES DOUGLAS OF DRUMLANRIG, his brother-in-law

  MICHEL HÉRISSON, a Scots sculptor resident in Rouen

  BRICE HARISSON, his brother, in the service of the Protector Somerset in London

  These are the Irish and their adherents:

  PHELIM O’LIAMROE, Prince of Barrow and feudal lord of the Slieve Bloom

  THADY BOY BALLAGH, his ollave

  PIEDAR DOOLY, his servant

  THERESA BOYLE, an Irish widow resident at Neuvy

  OONAGH O’DWYER, her niece

  HÉLIE and ANNE MOÛTIER, relatives of Oonagh resident in Blois

  CORMAC O’CONNOR, heir to Brian Faly O’Connor, captain of Offaly

  GEORGE PARIS, an agent

  These, by birth, service or adoption, are the French:

  HENRI II, KING OF FRANCE

  CATHERINE DE MÉDICIS, his Queen

  DIANE DE POITIERS, Duchess de Valentinois, his mistress

  FRANCIS, Dauphin of France, his heir, affianced to Mary Queen of Scots

  ELIZABETH and CLAUDE, his young daughters

  MARGUERITE OF FRANCE, his sister

  ANNE DE MONTMORENCY, Marshal, Grand Master, and Constable of France

  FRANÇOIS, second Duke de Guise, brother to the Queen Mother of Scotland

  CHARLES DE GUISE, second Cardinal of Lorraine, his brother

  CLAUDE DE GUISE, Duke d’Aumale,
his brother

  DUKE DE LONGUEVILLE, French-born son of Mary of Guise’s first marriage

  JOHN STEWART, Lord d’Aubigny, former captain of the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers in France, and brother to the Earl of Lennox

  ROBIN STEWART members of the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers

  LAURENS DE GENSTAN

  JACQUES D’ALBON, Marshal de St. André Courtiers

  LOUIS DE BOURBON, first Prince of Condé

  JEAN DE BOURBON, Sieur d’Enghien, his brother

  FRANÇOIS DE VENDÔME, Vidame de Chartres

  ARCHEMBAULT ABERNACI Keepers of the Royal Menageries of France

  PIERRE DESTAIZ

  FLORIMUND PELLAQUIN

  THOMAS OUSCHART (Tosh), a funambulist MAÎTRE

  GEORGES GAULTIER, a usurer of Blois

  THE DAME DE DOUBTANCE, astrologer, of Blois

  RAOUL DE CHÉMAULT, French Ambassador in London

  JEHANNE DE CHÉMAULT, his wife

  And these, by birth, marriage or adoption, are the English:

  JOHN DUDLEY, Earl of Warwick, Earl Marshal of England

  MATTHEW STEWART, Earl of Lennox, brother to Lord d’Aubigny

  MARGARET LENNOX, née Douglas, his wife, and niece to the late King Henry VIII and to Sir George Douglas

  WILLIAM PARR OF KENDALL, Marquis of Northampton, Lord Great Chamberlain of England and leader of the English Mission to France

  THOMAS BUTLER, Earl of Ormond, an Irishman resident in England, also of the Mission

  SIR GILBERT DETHICK, Garter King of Arms

  SIR JOHN PERROT, illegitimate son of the late King Henry VIII

  SIR JAMES MASON, retiring English Ambassador in France

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Lymond Chronicles

  Characters

  Part One

  THE VULGAR LYRE

  Part Two

  DANGEROUS JUGGLES

  Part Three

  LONDON: THE EXCITEMENT OF BEING HUNTED

  Part Four

  THE LOAN AND THE LIMIT

  Reader’s Guide

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  The chapter headings are taken from the Brehon Laws, the ancient laws and institutes of Ireland. The Senchus Mor itself was written in the 5th century, A.D.

  Part One

  THE VULGAR LYRE

  My son, that thou mayest know when the head of a king is upon a plebeian, and the head of a plebeian upon a king.

  The Fork Is Chosen

  I: Silent in the Boat

  II: Dieppe: The Pitfalls and the Deer

  III: Rouen: The Nut Without Fruit

  IV: Rouen: Fine, Scientific Works Without Warning

  V: Rouen: Fast Drivings for the Purpose of Killing

  VI: Rouen: The Difficult and the Impossible

  The Fork Is Chosen

  The cauldron is exempt from its boiling when the food, the fire and the cauldron are properly arranged, but that the attendant gives notice of his putting the fork into the cauldron. That is, but so he warns: ‘Take care,’ says he. ‘Here goes the fork into the cauldron.’

  SHE wanted Crawford of Lymond. His nerves flinching from the first stir of disaster, the Chief Privy Councillor understood his mistress at last.

  Regal, humourless, briskly prosaic, the Queen Dowager of Scotland had conducted the audience with her usual French competence and was bringing it to its usual racing conclusion. She was a big woman, boxed in quilting in spite of the weather, and Tom Erskine was limp with her approaching visit to France.

  To the most extravagant, the most cultured, the most dissolute kingdom in Europe the Queen Mother was shortly to sail, and her barons, her bishops and her cavalry with her. And now, it appeared, she wanted one man besides.

  The Queen Mother was a subtle woman, and not Scots. The thick oils of statesmanship ran in Mary of Guise’s veins, and she rarely handed through the door what she could throw in by the cat’s hole. So she talked of safe conducts and couriers, of precedents and programmes, of gifts and people to meet and to avoid before she added, ‘And I want intelligence, good intelligence, of French affairs. We had better place some sort of observer.’

  Her Privy Councillor had never found her foolish before. From the Duke de Guise downwards, every member of that privileged family, with its quarterings of eight sovereign houses, its Cardinals, its Abbesses and its high and influential posts at the French Court, might be worldly, might be charming, would almost certainly be a congenital gambler; but would never be foolish.

  These were the Queen Dowager’s brothers and sisters—good God, where better could she go for intimate news? Granted, it was now twelve years since, a young French widow, she had come to Scotland as King James V’s bride, and eight years since he died, leaving her with a war, a baby Queen and a parcel of rebellious nobles. True, again, that she would be watched, by her Scottish barons no less than by the enemies of her brothers in France. Only, for a French King, however friendly, to find an informer at Court would be disaster. Erskine said aloud, ‘Madam … you are supposed to be joining your daughter, nothing else.’

  ‘—Some sort of observer,’ she was repeating, quite unruffled. ‘Such as Crawford of Lymond.’

  With an elegant yellow head in his mind’s eye, and in his ears a tongue like sword cutler’s emery, Tom Erskine said bluntly, ‘His name and face are known the length of France. And I’m damned sure he’ll not be persuaded.’ Notoriously, at some time, every faction in the kingdom had tried to buy Lymond’s services. Nor was the bidding restricted to Scotland, or to statesmen, or to men. Europe, whenever he wished, could provide him—and probably did—with either a workshop or a playground.

  The Queen Mother’s manner remained bland. ‘He is possibly tired of trifling at home?’

  ‘He isn’t dull enough to commit himself to a contract.’

  ‘But he might come to France?’

  Oh, God! ‘To entertain himself,’ said Tom Erskine warningly. ‘But for nothing else.’

  The Queen Mother smiled, and he knew that he had misjudged her again, and that, as usual, streets and palaces and prisons beyond anyone’s grasp lay under her thoughts. She said, ‘If he is in France for the term of my visit, I shall be satisfied. You will tell him so.’

  Tom Erskine thought briefly that it would be pleasant to fall ill, to be unable to ride, to become deaf. ‘It will be a pleasure, madam,’ he said.

  I

  Silent in the Boat

  If there be a hand-party there, and a rowing party, and a party of middle-sport, the hand-party is the swamping-party, the middle-sport party is the rowing party, and the spectators are they who are silent in the boat.

  ON the last Thursday in September, and the fourteenth day out of Ireland, the wind dropped to a flat calm, forcing the galley called La Sauvée to approach Dieppe under oar.

  The best ships, the reliable crews and the senior captains had just brought the Scottish Queen Dowager to France. La Sauvée, built in 1520, was only fetching some Irish guests to the French Court, a common errand enough. But her captain, an able courtier, was no seaman; her seamen, through a misplaced concession, were far from sober; and her bo’s’n had been taking hashish for months. Thus, two hours off Dieppe, the flags and streamers lay ready on deck, a little too early; the oarsmen, capping shaved heads, were resting and re-engaging oars; and the pilot, involved with banners, was far too busy to attend to the wind.

  Robin Stewart, baulked of small talk, had found a chair in the poop beside the fat Irishman, who was asleep. There were three of them, and it was Stewart’s task as one of the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers in France to bring them safely to Court. For a century and a half, Scottish Archers had guarded the King of France day and night, had crowned him, fought with him, buried him, and were looked on, by others as well as by themselves, as the élite of the men-at-arms who served the French Crown. Thus R
obin Stewart was used to odd jobs; ferrying the King’s less sophisticated guests to and fro was just one of them.

  Ahead was a reception party on the quay, a speech, a meal at the best Dieppe inn, and a good night’s rest on a bed before the ride inland to deliver his guests. Nothing difficult there; but little to earn him money or fame either. Heir to nothing but an old suit of armour and a vacant post in the Guard, Robin Stewart had always been deeply interested in money and fame, and had for a long time been convinced that in a world of arms, skill and hard work would still take you to the top, however doubtful your background.

  It had only latterly become plain that success in the world of arms ran a poor second to success in the world of intrigue; and that while no one worked harder, a good many people seemed to be more skilful than Robin Stewart.

  This was palpably impossible. He applied a good analytical brain to discovering how other people managed to give this appearance of excellence. He also spent a good deal of time trying to breach the stockade between reasonably paid routine soldiery and the inner chamber of princes or of bankers, or even at a pinch of the fashionable theologians. At the same time, he could not afford to lose ground in his regular job, however irritating its calls on him.

  He looked round now, counting heads. At his side, the Prince’s secretary was still asleep, in a poisonous aura of wine, his black head bound like a pot roast by the sliding shadow-pattern of the rigging. Whether from panic or habit, Thady Boy Ballagh had been asleep or stupefied for two weeks.

  Further off, Piedar Dooly the Prince’s servant was just visible, fitted into a recess, like something doubtful on the underside of a leaf. And beyond them was the Prince himself, their master, and his third and most important charge.