Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [177]
‘Perhaps I had. But what cloth?’
‘Madame Bouchard stocks every kind. I have told you. You are free to choose,’ Martine said. ‘I am happy to see, mon cher, that you have lost none of your wits on this ride.’
‘And Lord James and Master Erskine? Are they devoted to cloth, that they also remained all night at Madame Bouchard’s? Or have they merely paid a second visit to inquire after my health?’
‘They came back this morning. You are an emissary of the Most Christian King. Naturally, they wish you to think well of them.’
‘While bearing in mind that principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est. Naturally. I think,’ he said, ‘that I should dress and relieve Madame Bouchard of her unexpected guest … You are too superb today to help me?’
‘I am too wise to help you. I shall send Mr Abernethy.’ She rose, and on her way to the door paused by a row of bale-laden shelves, her forefinger touching the velvets. ‘I shall have a dress-length of that for my parting-gift.’
‘You shall have two,’ Lymond said. ‘Take them downstairs and make James Stewart jealous. I have a fancy he considers me a sober and well-disposed citizen. I should like to see him lose that impression.’
‘I shall tell him the truth,’ Martine said. ‘That you want ghostly strength and are of a light humour that trifles with women’s affections.’
‘You have it. Remind him,’ he said, ‘of Julio Rosso. The only way he would hide in the canon’s house was stuffed between two plaster walls, with a stock of hams and a flask and the cooking-wench. You may choose a third length of velvet.’
‘I have,’ said Martine, smiling; and closed the door gently behind her.
He took time, before he left the room, to glance at the table where, as indicated by Martine, the last incumbent had left lying his writings.
The top page of it, lacking a signature, was headed: THE FIRST BLAST, TO AWAKE WOMEN DEGENERATE. It went on:
To promote a Woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion, or empire above any Realme, Nation or Citie, is repugnant to Nature; contumelie to God, a thing most contrarious to his reveled will and approved ordinance; and finallie, it is the subversion of good Order, of all equitie and justice.
There was little among what followed to flatter Martine and still less, one imagined, the writer’s hostess. He read it through to the end before, thoughtfully, he crossed to the shelves and then, collectedly, made his way down the winding oak stairs to where Lord James Stewart and Master John Erskine awaited him.
*
‘Here he is,’ said the Queen’s brother as the fellow de Sevigny’s step sounded coming downstairs, and John Erskine of Dun, seated quietly beside that impatient and brilliant young prince half his age, watched the door for this other young man who promised, they said, to be no less difficult.
In fifty scholarly years, with wealth and pedigree both to support him, John Erskine, laird of Dun and Constable of Montrose, had laid a wise hand on the reins of many a headstrong sprig of nobility, and by his steady intellect and habit of moderation had soothed their elders and steered the throne itself out of shoals in the early, ebullient days of religious upheaval.
He was of those who believed Calvin’s teachings, and who wished to hasten the reform of the established Catholic church, but still he enjoyed the Queen Dowager’s confidence, he believed, and while she practised tolerance throughout Scotland, he supported her.
In this he knew he had James’s agreement—James, who would have been on the throne if his kingly father had not begot him on a married woman, and an Erskine, though not of his family. He was not sure how strong James’s personal ambition would grow. He had been left wealthy by his father, and possessed revenues from church offices in Macon as well as in Scotland: he had no claim to the throne, and his belief in the Reformed faith was without question.
Also without question was his liking for power and his ability, it must be said, to wield it. Older men, up to the present, had been able to guide him. It remained to be seen how long he would brook guidance,