Checkmate Page 4

  It was what she had counted on. ‘Yes,’ said Marthe. ‘If you bring her to my house in the rue Mercière at six o’clock tomorrow. Do you want to swear me to secrecy also?’

  ‘No,’ said the little man slowly. He added suddenly, ‘Does Mr Blyth know all about this?’

  The truth, one supposed, was often the best. ‘He knows,’ said Marthe, ‘that there are family papers. He doesn’t know that Mistress Philippa has come south to look at them. And if he did, he would discourage a meeting between her and Mr Crawford. Jerott believes Mr Crawford should be encouraged to dissolve his marriage and set out for Moscow. He likes the idea of Mr Crawford in Moscow. The French monarchy, as you may know, does not. If M. le comte wants his freedom from Philippa, he has to stay in France for a twelvemonth.’

  ‘So I heard. Marshal Strozzi, they say, put the proposition to him in Flanders. It couldn’t be right,’ said the little man gently, ‘but they say that Marshal Strozzi got the idea from Mr Blyth, your husband?’

  ‘Do they?’ said Marthe, and rising, smoothed her gown and began walking slowly over the grass to the gateway. ‘Then I suppose there is nothing to be gained by contradicting it. But you may tell your mistress that Jerott played no part in baulking my brother.

  ‘Philippa may have sent him to France. But I, dear Mr Abernethy, devised the ultimatum that will keep him here.’

  *

  She was at home when the Hôtel de Ville emptied; nor did she see fit to mention her rendezvous. But in fact, Jerott Blyth had no thought of her. Like the other burghers of Lyon exposed to that stinging forty minutes’ exposition by the new Captain-General from Compiègne, he came down the steps silent, sober and thoughtful.

  So often, in the past, had he heard Lymond use this technique. The graceful exordium with its poetic and classical allusions: in this instance to Colonia Copia Lugdunum, sometime shelter of Popes and of Kings; home of wisdom, of poetry, of beauty; birthplace of Delorme and foster-parent of Rabelais; fount of learned men—M. Grolier; M. Gueraud the Receveur; M. Aneau the Rector beside him.

  And, of course, the distinguished daughters of Lyon … Madame Labé: Madame de Bourges whose words, with those of Scève and Dolet and Marot, might be recorded for posterity in more than four hundred printing-shops.

  The silk … the merchants … the bankers; the Gondi, the Spini, the Gadagne, the Arrighi, the Schiatti who, for two hundred years had married the wisdom of Italy to French acumen.

  Those who created annually her four magnificent fairs. All those who had made a city fit for Marot’s description: ce Lyon qui ne mord point; Lyon plus doux que cent pucelles.

  ‘… And from these loyal burghers of Lyon,’ had continued the agreeable voice of the King’s new commander, ‘from among these 50,000 fine souls in the wealthiest jewel of our crown, come the eight rotting heads you see on the Bridge of Saône gateway this morning.’

  The well-placed knife, which takes a moment to declare itself. With an interest almost clinical, Jerott waited for the rumbling stir, and the ensuing silence, and then for the voice, less melodious, taking up the brief, nasty story of treachery.

  He watched Lymond, since he hardly needed to listen. He himself had provided the report on which much of it was based. Letters had been found, under cover of packets to merchants in Lyon and Besançon, and a plot uncovered to admit troops at the next fair, dressed as traders. He, Jerott, had taken no direct part in the arrests. The orders for that, he now realized, must have come direct to the city from Lymond.

  On one side of him, Adam Blacklock sat quietly; long and brown and tougher in some ways than Jerott remembered him. And on the other, the short man with the hazel eyes and snub nose and drift of thin, sandy hair whom they had called Danny Hislop. A man more recently in Lymond’s employment, Jerott guessed, and still with an edge that could cut. And enjoying, of course, the expertise of it all.

  ‘Every family, I need not tell you,’ Lymond said, ‘has its wastrels. Those of yours have been extirpated. A great city, steadfast and loyal, can withstand that which would annihilate a divided one, and draws to herself, by her greatness, the succour of others.…’

  The Captain-General from Russia stopped, and let his eyes travel over his audience from wall to wall. He had spoken without notes; his bearing relaxed, his hands still, his easy French conveying all the emphasis he required. He waited, and then said gravely, ‘Burghers of Lyon, you are standing upon a new battlefield. Philip of Spain has decided to capture this city. The Baron Nicolas de Polvilliers, a lieutenant of the Duke of Savoy and a disciple of the Bishop of Arras, has mustered two armies and is preparing to march with both to Bourg-en-Bresse, ten leagues from this spot. While King Philip’s army engages his Excellency the Constable’s forces in the north, Pollvilliers will advance upon Lyon.’

  He paused. ‘Will you, as these eight traitors wanted, open your gates to him?’

  Not the knife a second time, but the bludgeon. Stunned by the unexpectedness of it, Jerott heard the repercussion begin; the noise increase; the sharp voices of inquiry, of denial, of anxious disbelief.

  Lymond held up his hand. ‘You ask how I know. I tell you, the monarch knows everything. You ask why I am here, and I will tell you. To seek out and punish the merchants who invited Polvilliers … You need not look at one another. It is done. The men were invited to Saint-Just last night and persuaded to confess. You may think it should not be long before they join their fellow traitors, there on the bridge-head. I shall read you their names.’

  It was new to Jerott, but he believed it. Two of the arrested men were neighbours of his. He listened, absorbed, to the details. The enemy, it seemed, was on the march through the Franche-Comté.

  Jerott said aloud, ‘But we have an agreement. The Franche-Comté has promised not to allow hostile troops through its territory.’

  ‘It’s being looked after,’ said Adam Blacklock. ‘The Swiss Cantons are to be reminded of their treaty also. We’re holding a Diet of Switzers to levy 8,000 and we’ll place them as soon as possible at Mâcon and Bourg as well as round Lyon. Part of the Piedmont force is on its way already. You’ll hear if you listen.’

  Jerott heard. He listened to Lymond read out the formidable tally of the armies being brought to save Lyon. Discussions about the defence of the town had taken place already with their Consulat. Instructions would be posted: every citizen would be told how he or she could assist them. They, the responsible burghers of Lyon, had been informed first because on their resolution depended the safety of the city.

  ‘There will be no panic,’ said the King’s commander quietly. ‘There will be no evacuation of the city; and any man attempting to leave, or to send his goods or his money to safety, will, I assure you, be hanged. The King is not abandoning his city of Lyon to King Philip. If the enemy comes, he will find a defensible fortress, with about it an army which will die for you. For this, your King will strip himself of all but honour. He asks for your help, and trust. What more you can do, you may think of.’

  ‘How much?’ said Danny Hislop as they came down the steps with Blyth presently.

  ‘Imagination boggles,’ said Adam dreamily. ‘Two hundred thousand. At least. They’ll pour up to Saint-Just tomorrow with their moneybags.’

  Danny smiled at the splendid, unsmiling face of Jerott Blyth. ‘They know very well, you see, what happens when Switzers don’t get paid. And none knows better than a banker that the King hasn’t an écu to pay them with. Added to which, if they don’t contribute——’

  ‘The King’s representatives might just conclude that they are in sympathy with the enemy. He hasn’t changed,’ Jerott said.

  ‘Lymond? I think he has,’ said Adam shortly. ‘I have to make an arrangement on his behalf, Jerott. He would like to visit you later.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ said Jerott. He remembered what Marthe had suggested. ‘About six of the clock would suit best, if he can manage it. I expect you are all busy this evening.’

  The nostalgia, for a moment, must have shown
. ‘Danny is busy,’ said Adam cheerfully, ‘but I’m not as it happens. And I must say, I’ve a thirst that a Cossack would envy.’

  *

  Which was how, when my lord of Lymond and Sevigny came to recross the bridge to his lodging, Adam Blacklock was not in the procession; nor were Jerott Blyth or his wife this time anywhere in the vicinity. On the other hand, the Captain-General was receiving the fullest attention of his banker, a heavily built gentleman gowned in black who, riding by his side, had become gently insistent that Mr Crawford should visit the Hôtel Schiatti with him.

  Riding within earshot, behind the hundred men at arms, the servants and the finance officials, Danny Hislop deduced that Lymond was not interested in his bank balance, or in the papers which M. Schiatti apparently thought it his duty to look at.

  Nor, it became further clear, did he wish to discuss his future plans with M. Schiatti, or even to enlarge on his curious situation vis-à-vis his wife. Danny sympathized with M. Schiatti, who appeared to be sitting on a sizeable fortune belonging to somebody whose sole ambition was to remove himself and it from the country as soon as its rulers would let him. For a moment Danny wondered why Lymond didn’t arrest the conversation more sharply, and then realized, with admiration, what reassurance the burghers would draw from it. The King’s commander had money in Lyon; and was leaving it there.

  They were crossing the bridge. Bracketed by the sunlit river, the low green hill before them rose from a confection of tender bisque buildings, deeply lit by the afternoon glow. They lined the river like marquetry and sank melting into the china-blue water in a gloss of towers and gables and galleries. Upriver a handful of skiffs floated, newly painted, at the steps of Saint-Eloi.

  On the bridge a horse plunged, a little ahead of Danny Hislop. He thought, but did not say so, that perhaps the rotting heads had upset it. There were people here too, watching them pass from the parapets: shopkeepers, clergy, housewives, children. A scattered cheer rose as the main party, with himself in it, rode by. He could not discover in it anything particularly ironical.

  Another horse reared far ahead, and there was a clatter of hooves, a flash of morions and some controlled explosions of the human voice among the orderly percussion of trotting horses as the near-by riders were inconvenienced by it. Without interrupting M. Schiatti’s discourse Lymond turned his head and, meeting the look, Danny Hislop moved unobtrusively away and spoke to the captain of arquebusiers, who broke rank and rode quickly forwards. It was not a wide bridge. One did not, at this point in a campaign, want an accident among the proletariat.

  Danny returned to his position just behind Lymond. He had just got there when his saddle dropped from his buttocks. His horse was bucking. Shaken loose, Danny whacked at it, hurtling forward. He was still going forward when it reared, smashing his nose against its neck and tearing the reins from his fingers. He was half off, swearing in Russian with tears and blood pouring down his face, when someone gripped the bridle and the animals on either side converged on him.

  One of the riders was Lymond, his gloved hand running along the horse’s belly. He pulled, and Danny exclaimed again, his glove palming his face, as his horse bucked and whinnied. Then he saw the steel dart in Lymond’s fingers.

  ‘Blown through a metal tube. An old stephanois custom,’ said Lymond, and turned to the men at arms nearest him. ‘You two, to that parapet. You two, to this. Round up all those boys and girls under twelve and tell them they are being taken back to the Hôtel de Ville for sucketts. Have we a priest?… Yes? Perhaps, monseigneur, you would go for reassurance with them. M. le capitaine, I wish the march to proceed slowly until the children are taken away, and then halted until the Grand’ Rue is also made safe ahead.’

  Danny got out his handkerchief. When the orders ceased he said, ‘Children?’

  Lymond glanced at him. ‘It seems so, from the angle of trajectory. An adult on his knees with a blowpipe would be apt to astonish his neighbours. In any case, I saw one of them.’

  ‘How?’ said Danny. ‘You weren’t looking towards me.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. My attention wandered,’ said Lymond. In his palm lay now not one steel barb, but two. ‘Death with a dart in his hand. It struck the brooch in my cap. Whoever paid those children,’ said Lymond, ‘was hoping for more than a stampede, a number of unnecessary deaths and a storm of animosity towards this delegation and its purposes.… I suppose, M. le Prévôt, that arrangements can be made to entertain these little ones when they arrive at the Mairie?’

  The master merchant, bewildered, stared at him. ‘Assuredly. I imagine so. That is, I shall give instructions.… You wish to question these children?’ asked the Prévôt.

  ‘And antagonize the parents? There would be no evidence,’ said Lymond. ‘All the blowpipes would long since have been thrown in the river. It is for you, messieurs, to hunt not children, but those among you who still wish to shame your city and kill its defenders. I shall not report this to His Majesty, in case he should conclude that the premier town in this kingdom is a dunghill upon which the blood of loyal men should not be squandered.’

  Behind his gore-drenched handkerchief, Danny Hislop dispatched a thought, hopefully, to wherever Adam Blacklock might be. ‘One hundred thousand more, interest-free, my boy. And if someone actually kills M. de Sevigny, they’ll make an outright gift of their wives into the bargain.’

  On the way along the Grand’ Rue he had a second thought, and delivered it aloud, to his commander. ‘I thought you said you saw one of the children.’

  ‘He shall,’ said Lymond, ‘ben lyk the lytel bee That seketh the blosme on the tre And souketh on the primerole. You want me to look for him?’

  ‘It would seem obvious,’ Danny said. From experience, this kind of talk made him wary.

  ‘It would seem obvious,’ Lymond agreed peaceably, ‘if I ever expected to know him again. Can you dispose of your swaddling band, or do I have to introduce the top of your head and your chin to the wife of the Governor?’

  They had arrived. Danny, inhaling, removed his handkerchief. The idea had been conveyed to him, he noticed, that M. de Sevigny had observed one of the murdering brats, but not closely enough to identify him.

  He distrusted, for some reason, that implication.

  He went further. He was perfectly sure that his lordship had lied to him.

  Chapter 3

  Et Ferdinand blond sera descorte

  Quitter la fleur, suyvre le Macedon

  Au grand Besoing defaillira sa routte

  Et marchera contre le myrmidon.

  Danny Hislop had been warned about the Governor’s wife, and when he saw her waiting with her staff and her ladies in the upper courtyard of the Hôtel de Gouvernement he believed every word of it.

  The Governor, rich, gallant and lifelong friend of the monarch, was in Picardy, fighting Lord Grey and King Philip with the Constable’s army. His wife, Madame la Maréchale de St André, was a woman of the Court and unlikely therefore to repine over or even notice the absence of her brilliant husband; particularly if the stories Adam told about her were true.

  That the other stories were also true was more than borne out by her manner. Madame la Maréchale resented the presence of Mr Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny as a guest under her roof. A magnificent tolerance invested the painted face within the black-tinted hair. The rest of her statuesque presence appeared covered with jewels. Her gable headdress, her honeycomb sleeves, her glistening skirts were stitched with aiglets and cabuchons, and a medallion the size of a plate reposed on the gathered cambric of her bosom.

  Then Lymond walked up the stairs from the street and Danny, following behind, saw Madame’s eyes rest on the Persian coat, and the size and quite matchless splendour of his lordship’s jewels and lastly, on his face, which was as urbane as her own. And to himself: Blessed shall ye be when men shall hate you, said Danny Hislop; and delighted, settled to witness a conflict.

  It did not come. It appeared that, if driven to it, M. de Sevigny could
conduct and sustain a soothing conversation which comprised not only an exchange of news but also some skilful anecdotes and even, entrancingly, a little fresh scandal now and then.

  Madame la Maréchale, listening, allowed her defences to dwindle. After dinner she dismissed her women, her clerk and her chaplain, and appeared prepared to sit alone in her visitors’ company without digging trenches beforehand. The names of Condé and d’Enghien and the Vidame of Chartres which had appeared with mysterious frequency in her previous discourse tended to disappear, to the disappointment of Danny, who was hoping for further details of his commander’s disgusting past.

  Of his peccadilloes in Russia, Danny had made a complete study in person. But even Adam had not been with Lymond during that stay six years since at the French court. Rumour agreed on some aspects: that he had been drunk most of the time; that he had performed some service for the Crown and had been taken up by the courtiers as a result.

  Adam had reminded him that the French court was notorious for licence, and had hinted that Lymond’s offences in Madame la Maréchale’s eyes were partly to do with her husband. Her husband, Danny gathered, had not been offended: rather the contrary. The same appeared to be true of Messrs the Vidame, the Marquis d’Enghien and the Prince of Condé.

  Added to what Danny knew for a certainty of Lymond’s more orthodox conquests, it made an impressive tally. He stared into space, his nose in a handkerchief, thinking of a Tartar girl he had promised himself to stop thinking of.

  Marguerite de St André had forgotten he was there at all. The golden-haired commander whose drunken wildness had once so attracted Jacques had learned manners. He was quite charming and also, clearly, of inordinate wealth. She smiled at him: the particular smile, for the first time, that made the most of her eyes and hid her bad teeth and said, ‘And when is your next deputation? In half an hour? I cannot believe that, sitting here, you are conducting our defence against invading armies.’