Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [123]
She was shrewd. Adam saw the thought strike her; and saw her eyes narrow before she produced it, dressed lightly in mockery. ‘Or has he been forced to rise to the occasion because his commander has dropped below it? Is Francis prostituting his rare endowments again with pipes and satyrs and spears wreathed with ivy?’
‘No,’ said Adam. It was childish to feel any anger. He remembered the door closing along the corridor in the Hôtel de Gouvernement, Lyon, and the stories he had heard repeated with envious laughter here in France of the pipes and satyrs and vine leaves of six years ago. He had heard the sound of the Vidame de Chartres’ voice, not so long since, talking to Lymond.
Adam said, ‘You and Jerott were with Francis at Volos, when his addiction was broken. Do you remember if he had headaches?’
Her eyes were wide open in the fragile face and for once, he could have sworn there was no artifice. Marthe said sharply, ‘Naturally. He had opium cramps. Why? Have they come back again?’
‘According to Archie,’ said Adam. ‘It seems that Francis has been increasingly subject to bouts of intense pain.’
Marthe got up. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Ill-wished by the idols of Themixtitan, whose cement is the blood of small children.’ She did not explain. ‘It dates back to a chess game. I didn’t know its effects were there still. Has he seen doctors?’
‘No. He covers it, when it has to be covered, with alcohol,’ said Adam grimly. ‘He was, however, examined without his knowledge by Nostradamus in Lyon. Archie told us about it.’
Someone tapped on the door and came in to light the wax candles. Marthe, ignoring him, walked up and down in front of the flickering hearth. ‘So what did he say? Whatever is wrong, I am sure with his sense of the picturesque, Francis will succeed in manifesting a fadeur exquise.’
The last stand of tapers lit her skin and made it translucent: pure as that of a girl ten years younger. It lit also something else: the fashionable silhouette of a woman standing just inside the open door which led to Marthe’s cabinet. The chamber-groom, catching sight of it first, said, ‘Oh, my lady. Madame returned with a guest. I … We …’
‘You forgot to tell her I was here,’ said Philippa Somerville. ‘You will have to make your peace with her about that afterwards. Marthe, I have been eavesdropping. Do you mind entertaining winged virgins with brazen claws? I think divorced wives should appear among the funeral trophies.’
Jerott said she had changed. It was true, Adam saw. Even since London, Philippa had altered, not so much in face, as in presence. And the spontaneous honesty which had always been there had acquired a disconcerting edge from other, flourishing faculties which seemed to spring up, like dragons’ teeth, to meet each fresh challenge of fortune.
The servant, released by a sign, fled from the room. Marthe said, ‘Mr Blacklock was coming to see you. You’ve saved him the trouble.’ She held a chair while Philippa sat, her cloak discarded; her furred sleeves folded on the tiled floor. Then Marthe added, seating herself, ‘But you have mentioned something we didn’t know. Is your marriage annulled?’
Philippa sat very straight but not cross-legged, which would have come to her, as it happened, equally easily. ‘Not yet. But the Queen has made it known privately that if the war goes well, Mr Crawford may, if he wishes, marry Catherine d’Albon before his twelve months of service are finished. The Queen of Scotland is furious and even Mademoiselle d’Albon appears faintly stunned. It should be a rather fine match, if they can find a volunteer to go to bed with her mother. You were speaking of Volos?’
‘You heard what we said?’ Marthe said.
‘Yes. I can tell you something else,’ Philippa said. ‘The attacks began again when Mr Crawford came back from Russia to London.’
‘They began at Berwick,’ said Adam dryly, ‘when his older brother took an enviable opportunity to knock him senseless. Then between us we made it impossible for him to go to Russia. After that, we weren’t in the running