Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [13]
‘Not me,’ said Abernethy, agreeably. ‘My writing’s terrible. But he had his wife followed frae London to Dieppe. It made her nervous.’
‘And after Dieppe?’ said Marthe; and had her answer in the sudden gleam in the man’s eyes.
‘No one followed us,’ said Archie Abernethy with simplicity. ‘So unless you tell him, Mr Crawford—M. le comte—need never know that she’s here.’
‘Except,’ said Marthe dryly, ‘that the whole male Schiatti family are at this moment in the Hôtel de Ville with him.’
‘Sworn to silence,’ said Archie. ‘I told ye. She’s dead set on avoiding her husband. Only she needs his signature to look at the papers. We were hoping you could get it.’
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 ar 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