Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [151]
Piero Stròzzi had screamed again. The Queen’s cousin rose to his feet. Below the black hair, tightly curled with the damp, his lips were drawn back in a rictus of passion, displaying his broken teeth. Then, raising one pink and ribboned arm, he swept it across the table and tore from a startled échevin’s grasp the silver cup from which he was drinking. Gouts of claret soaked the municipal rust and crimson velvet. The merchant jumped to his feet.
Nose to nose: ‘You have many ill-deserved rights as échevin of this undesirable city,’ said Piero Strozzi, ‘but stealing my table silver is not one of them!’
Someone hauled, with steady violence, at his coat. He rocked, but remained standing.
‘Monseigneur!’ Where visible through beard and winestains, the merchant’s face was blotched with fury. ‘I demand reparation! You insult me and the city which honours you!’
‘Honours me!’ roared Marshal Strozzi, staggering and recovering with aplomb. He interrupted himself, staring along the crowded table. ‘Mon petit François, there is your silver, also.’
‘So it is,’ said Lymond with interest. The merchant’s wife who was admiring a great salt in cut glass and silver snatched her hands back, turning white. The man at her side began to rise slowly, piping like a Chinese ocarina. Lymond, concentrating, surveyed him closely. ‘Now I think of it, the shirt is very familiar.’
‘My lord count!’ said the Councillor.
‘… But I couldn’t swear to it, in a court of law. I don’t object. The intention is to make us feel at home.’ He lifted a heavy silver-gilt object from the table far to his left and showed it helpfully to Marshal Strozzi. ‘There’s one of your livery pots.’ Marshal Strozzi lunged.
This time Philippa waited until he was off-balance. Then she took a strong grasp of his fur-trimmed coat with both hands and jerked.
With a crash and a hooting of oaths which out-trumpeted even the clarion, Marshal Strozzi fell on his back. It was a gradual fall, broken by the short row of pages behind him. He dropped into a dish of roast swan, and from there into a platter of bustards, and ended with a liquid sigh on the floor in a bowl of small pullets with vinegar. Gilded plumes from the swan quilled, with chic, a bubbling tippet of gravy. From the ruffled merchants, there came a squeal of shocked glee. He lay, speechless.
Across his fallen chair, Lymond gazed reflectively at his wife. ‘You borrowed the silver,’ he said.
‘Someone had to help them,’ said Philippa. ‘The King invited himself, and left them eight days to get ready. Baptiste had four days to finish the paintings. The tinsmith could only supply so much on short notice. They had to have linen brought in and laundered and buy rose water to scent it, and torch batons and wine, and get a Folder of Linen for the napkins. The master roasters and bakers haven’t had any sleep for three days, and Jodelle for four, and they’ve all been here since this morning, slaving to make everything ready.’
Piero Strozzi sat up, his gravy-stained hands negligently clasped about his steaming and redolent knees. ‘But why the comtesse de Sevigny?’ he inquired. He was no longer annoyed.
Philippa glanced at Lymond. ‘The comte de Sevigny had protected the walls of their city. They were willing to entrust me with their pride.’
‘Ah.’ Piero Strozzi rose to his feet, righted his chair and removing his ruined coat, seated himself in his doublet. ‘I think, mon petit François, that your wife delivers a reprimand and a warning. We watch our conduct?’
‘It’s going to be awful,’ Philippa said, flinching as the King’s trumpets, shrieking, announced the general serving of the banquet. ‘But if your bone-headed scions make fools of them, the Prévôt and Councillors will never forgive them.’
Piero Strozzi and Francis Crawford looked at one another. ‘A hint,’ said Lymond, ‘sufficeth