Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [144]
But of that, and the person who filled both their minds, neither of them ever said anything.
The Queen of France was less discreet, or had less need to be tactful. With unerring swiftness she had discerned what Philippa preferred to pass unnoticed: her gift with children. The Princesses Claude and Elisabeth, aged ten and twelve, were brought to her notice; and then Charles and Henri, aged seven and six, and Marguerite, four. Attending her mistress in the Royal Audience Chamber in les Tournelles, Philippa found she spent a large part of her time on the floor with her lute, entertaining and wiping the noses of small royal children. The King’s sister Marguerite often joined her. And once, when the Queen of Scots had been called unexpectedly from the room, Queen Catherine crossed from her chair of state and seating herself on a stool said, ‘But you play as charmingly as your husband. You have no regrets about dissolving this marriage?’
‘None, your Majesty,’ Philippa said. ‘Marriage requires more than two lutes in counterpoint, felicitous though that may be.’
The young woman, the Queen had noticed before, had a delightful voice: clear and mellow, and allied to the kind of strong nerves which camouflage any falsehood.
However, if that was a lie, she had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure of her husband’s next bedfellow. The Queen of France said, ‘I know the Demoiselle d’Albon has formed a great affection for the young man. I should like to learn if his feelings are engaged?’
‘I believe … not yet, Madame,’ said the comtesse de Sevigny.
‘Then will he marry her? She is already an heiress.’
There was a little pause. Then the girl said, ‘He is, I understand, in no great want of money.… At the same time, his friends would be well pleased if he abandoned his present plan to go back to Russia.’
Catherine de Médicis, Queen of France, settled back on her stool with a certain satisfaction. ‘He has sensible friends. I agree with them. It seems a case, then, of encouraging M. your husband to form an attachment in that quarter. I take it he is capable of doing so. And he is, I am sure, a man of honour.’
She raised her eyebrows. Philippa, who had put this precise point only a short while before to her sister-in-law, felt a dim sinking within her. She said, ‘Your Majesty knows better than I do, Mademoiselle d’Albon’s undoubted attractions.’
The Queen smiled. ‘They are considerable,’ said Catherine de Médicis. She leaned forward and picked up two gold buttons which had burst from Charles’s doublet, and then plucked a third one from Henri’s right ear. ‘But it is for the rest of us—and you and I in particular—to create for them the opportunities.’
*
The next time she spotted the red-headed man of Applegarth’s following her, she drew her valet into a doorway and stepping out suddenly, caused her pursuer to recoil with a yammer.
‘You’re not very good at it are you?’ said Philippa. ‘I thought the idea was not to attract notice.’
That was what Adam Blacklock had said when she had complained first about the presence of a perpetual bodyguard, and then had tried, soft-heartedly, to have him asked into the kitchen when the weather got cold. It was a point. If the Court knew the Sevignys had been threatened, they would instantly want to know what they were being threatened with. She stared at the man.
‘I wasn’t attracting notice,’ said Applegarth’s man rather sulkily. ‘Not until you