Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [140]
Austin Grey did not go with his uncle when he limped back to the gates and the French camp, there to offer his total surrender. Instead he climbed to where the two hostages watched on the ramparts, and spoke, his voice controlled, to Francis Crawford.
‘But for your guards, the men below would have killed you just now. How dare you defile this place by your presence?’
It was true. There had been a scuffle, put down in anger and fright by Grey’s officers. The surety for these two lives were the lives of Arthur Grey and Lew Davie. The seigneur d’Estrée said, ‘You impugn M. Crawford’s honesty? But what he did at Calais and Ham was quite legitimate in times of warfare. Your uncle accepts it.’
‘You have just seen,’ said Austin Grey, ‘what my uncle has been forced to accept.’ His cheeks were dry but his eyes, brighter than usual. told of the strain he was carrying. Most assured English even unto the death, Lord Grey had written from Guînes in his last letter to Queen Mary in England; and had taken oath there, on the broken bulwark, to die rather than show weakness or surrender. Whatever befalls, I am determined to die at my post, had written Lord Wentworth, the Calais Lord Deputy. And the defenders of Hâmes, who had sworn to hold out even to the death, had, they said, today mutinied and marched away, scatheless.
And he … he had killed, and enjoyed it.
‘I wonder,’ said Austin Grey, ‘that you are not crowing with joy at the comedy.’
From the parapet one looked across the bloody ditches choked with dead to the bright banners of the French princes streaming beyond: Piero Strozzi and the three brothers de Guise; d’Andelot and de Thermes, Roche-sur-Yon and Tavannes, Montmorency and de Bouillon, de la Brosse and d’Estrée. Banners which had flown long ago in Scottish air too: whose owners knew no other trade and had been born only for this; nursed amid trumpets; rocked in helmets; fed at the spear blade. As appetite therefore moveth and not as reason persuadeth, men run after vanitas. ‘It will make a good story,’ Lymond said. ‘So did the Constable’s bêtises before Saint-Quentin. It is not advisable to crow. It might be oneself next time.’
Austin Grey stepped to his side at the parapet. He said, ‘Warfare and trickery. It is your natural element.’
‘You despise it?’ Lymond said. ‘Montluc would argue with you. What would a brave and noble soul turn to, if not war? Who would crush the power of the Grand Seigneur? Men would amuse themselves in palaces, and though naturally of good heart, with time become cowards.’ He paused, and then added, without rancour, ‘I began, as you did, by defending my country. Then, disinherited, I had to follow the only profession I knew. There are only two roads to power: the Church, and the army; and there are villains in both. It is a moot point which does the most harm. You didn’t consider the cloister?’
Austin said, ‘The army was our tradition.’
‘And so you sacrificed your principles to Allendale vanity. While I,’ Lymond said, ‘have become ensnared by a lucrative talent for simple organization. We can offer each other some consolation. Without warfare, there would be no chivalry. The weak would be overturned; nations put to the sword; tyrants flourish. I have spent some time, myself, killing Tartars and Turks as well as Englishmen. One may say, If I do not do it, another will. There is a standpoint from which to retire with a farm-book or a breviary seems equally craven.’
Until he provoked it, Austin had been unaware that this had been what he required: a defence of war, in the mouth of the man best suited to proclaim it. Less well defined, these were the thoughts he had sheltered behind, in the night of his defence of the bulwark.
It was a strange source from which to receive unwitting comfort. Austin said, ‘And what do you say to men who kill, as they hunt, for a pastime?’ His body, despite itself, was shivering.
‘I try not to speak to them,’ Lymond said. ‘They generally don’t survive very long, anyway. We should go in. You