Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [18]
A handcart perched in the street guarded by a group of armed men wearing sleeve badges. On the cobbles beside it, newly unloaded, were lodged half a dozen deep wooden boxes and a group of arguing servants. Some of them, Danny saw, wore the Governor’s livery. The rest showed the same badge as the men at arms: a badge he could not place, although he had seen it quite recently. Madame la Maréchale, looking over her shoulder, said, ‘M. de Sevigny. You bank with the House of Schiatti. Are you expecting document boxes?’
Lymond came and stood beside her. Then, drawing open the neighbouring window, he watched without speaking as the skirmishing voices below came clearly upwards. ‘They seem to be indicating,’ said Madame de St André after a moment, ‘that the coffers are to be delivered to you personally. My staff, naturally, are not accustomed to allow other servants into the house.’
‘I am causing you trouble,’ Lymond said. ‘I apologize. I did ask M. Schiatti to send me some papers. There are rather more of them than I anticipated. Perhaps it would suffice if one of the carriers was allowed to enter and speak to me personally. The child, perhaps. Don’t you think he is charming?’
Danny looked at the child. He was not particularly charming, being bent double with a cloth and a leather harness wrapped round his head, complaining viciously about the size of the box two others were lowering on to his back. But he was certainly the youngest of all the Schiatti servants and the filthy hands were agile enough, and the language sufficiently foul, to suggest why Lymond wanted to see him.
Marguerite de St Andre’s thoughts were in another direction. She said, ‘He is dirty.’
Francis Crawford closed the window and turned, so near that they shared breath between them. Then he smiled, and lifting his hands, took hers lightly in them. ‘But mine are clean, and it pleases me to keep them so,’ said the King’s Captain-General. ‘You will have him sent up for a moment?’
And as she smiled and inclined her head, he dropped one hand and led her with the other to the door.
Danny watched it close, awestruck, behind her. He said. ‘A wool seller kens a wool buyer. You do know what in hell you are doing?’
With some trouble, Lymond stopped laughing. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. He sank into a chair and still smiling, gazed at the flower-painted beams of the ceiling. ‘If they force me to stay in France they will have to put up, won’t they, with the consequences? In any case, you’re the one who likes mature gentlewomen. L’échange de deux fantasies et le contact de deux épidermes. When I’ve trained her, you may put in a bid if you want to.’
‘Was that the boy?’ Danny said, switching subjects. With Lymond in this mood, it was useless. ‘The boy on the bridge?’
The door opened. ‘I told you,’ Lymond said, and rose, taking his time, while the Governor’s wife entered the chamber behind him. ‘I shouldn’t recognize him again.’ And he turned, as the child from the street shot in and halted. Lymond said, ‘You were right. He is really appallingly dirty.’ His voice had not quite recovered.
Danny Hislop stalked to the door, shut it, and held a chair for the Maréchale de St André, well out of blowpipe collimation. The child scowled under its thicket of wadding. Its breeches and sleeveless green livery jacket were several sizes too large for it, but the grimy arms were muscular enough under the rolled-up sleeves and its hands, gripped behind its back, were quite capable of wielding a weapon. He might well have one concealed in the turban-like headdress. He most certainly, thought Danny, had lice. The boy, red-faced under the triple scrutiny, said thinly, ‘De la part de M. Schiatti, huit coffres-forts pour M. de Sevigny,’ and facing Danny, unclasped his hands, bowed sketchily, and gripped his hands once more, defensively.
In tranquil French, Lymond intervened. ‘Unlikely though it may seem, I am François, comte de Sevigny. What is your name?’
The urchin turned quickly and eyed him. ‘Je m’appelle