Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [152]
‘Unfortunately,’ said Piero Strozzi, ‘I heard what she said. She spoke good sense.’
‘No bloodshed, harrows and ffrayes?’
‘I have said this before,’ said Piero Strozzi austerely. ‘You have no sense of responsibility. Look at those titled louts at the end of the table who will not sit because they have not been brought wine. Do they not realize that pages cannot pass between the tables if they move about and meet their friends and slap one another, laughing?’
‘We have wine?’ said Lymond.
‘Yes. And some of us have had too much of it. Let us pass it,’ said Piero Strozzi, picking up two of the willow-covered flasks standing before him, ‘to those more deserving.’
The two bottles sailed through the air. Pursued by three other pairs they made their way, hurtling, from one end of the table to the other. As it happened, there were no mishaps. The young men clambering over the end of the table desisted for the nonce and sat down. A dam of steaming dishes, thus released, proceeded like a millrace down the room and then halted again, blocked by a hilarious group. ‘Why,’ said the comtesse de Laval on Lymond’s other side, ‘are the pages four feet high? They cannot see where they are going.’
‘And yellow and violet silk!’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘It martyrs the eye even more than your vulgar collar, mon fils.’
‘They’re children. Whose?’ said Lymond sharply.
‘The merchants’ sons,’ said Philippa. The Marshal had been right. He was sober. ‘The children are serving everywhere except the royal table, to honour the King and allow them a share of the celebration. But of course, they’re frightened. And the crowd won’t let them through.’
‘They will,’ said Lymond briefly.
She caught his arm, and then dropped her hand instantly, her colour heightened. ‘No. You can’t control it for them.’
‘No,’ he agreed after a moment. He dropped back into his seat. ‘But I can dispatch some very dirty stares. Piero?’
‘I heard you,’ said Piero. ‘You have become responsible. No te quiero. No te quiero, Juliano.’
‘You will,’ Lymond said, ‘When the Paris Parlement votes us all that beautiful money to enable you to squeeze more victory prizes out of the poor bleeding treasury of France. If you will control that little bastard Paliano at your end, I shall petrify the equerries by the fireplace at mine. Oh Christ, he’s going to spill jelly all over us.’ He switched to French. ‘I see, mon cher, you carry this as the King’s pages do. I know a better way. Hold it thus, and thus. You see? And smile. The King likes smiling faces.’
Piero Strozzi closed his mouth, which had fallen ajar. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You have a son, don’t …’
He roared. ‘I beg your pardon. My foot slipped,’ said Philippa. ‘Have a date flan, and don’t talk so much while the hautboys are playing. If you lose your voice, none of us will know what to do.’
In fact, they did their best to salvage the occasion. The Sieur d’Estrée and the d’Andelots helped. But disaster, like a dropped stitch in knitwear spread running and, torn between sympathy and hysteria, Philippa was forced to watch the evening steadily and formidably falling apart.
Children were sick, burst into tears and dropped dishes. All the marzipan arrived at one table and all the cream dariolles at another. The trestle nearest the serving door captured all the Auxerre wine as it came through and refused to let the serving children carry it further.
The tables further from the serving door began throwing dragees in protest, followed by harder objects: Piero Strozzi at this point collected his own silverware and the Sevigny crystal and put it under his bench, which led to a good deal of excitement from the deprived diners who had to drink out of the wine flasks, share cups or pour wine on their platters and lap it, which some of them unhappily did.
A brief moment of uneasy silence fell during the saying of grace by the Cardinal, and another was accorded the eulogy to the Duke de Guise by the Prévôt des Marchands.
There followed a modest reply by