Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [197]
‘I wouldn’t know, my lady,’ said Archie.
‘But you do know about Mlle Marthe,’ Sybilla said. She had never uttered that name to him, or to either son, until that moment.
Archie’s lined face did not change, but his black eyes were not without pity. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Ye’ll ken, she was wed to Master Blyth.’
Sybilla said, ‘I know you are attached to my son, and must therefore regard me as an enemy. But I should like you to tell me. Does Francis mean Richard to meet her?’
He knew her and respected her, and had nursed her grandchild as his own, but he was also a man who spoke his mind, and sharply if need be. ‘Lady Culter,’ said Archie Abernethy, ‘only a man who hated you would do such a thing.’
She stood up then, staunchly upright in spite of the seventy years she carried, and said, ‘Forgive me, Mr Abernethy. You see, I have no guide lines left. I can do nothing to help him. You cannot know what it means to me that you are with him.’
There was a pause. Archie did not drop his eyes. Presently he said, ‘His defences are good. But it is his friends that will bring him low, not his enemies, Lady Culter. Keep you out of his way. That’s the best advice I can give you.’
*
At Paris, they were met outside the gates by a hundred gentlemen and a band of Archers of the King’s Guard with pipes and tambours and escorted to the Place de Grève for the City’s welcome; and thence over the river to the Maison de l’Ange, the large residence in the rue de la Huchette which the Crown utilized for its more important guests. There, they were received by the King’s Maréchal des Logis; and there took place the ceremony of the Corps de Ville’s gifts. The Commissioners received the double quarts of hippocras and boxes of dragees and gilded cotignac, the yellow wax flambeaux and the pâtés of Mayenne ham and the double marzipan of Lyon, gilded; and listened to and replied to the speeches. Then, at last, the nine official representatives of her Majesty the Queen Dowager and the Three Estates of the Realm of Scotland were allowed to retire and compose themselves.
Lymond went straight to the Hotel St André.
He knew, by the abandon with which the gates were flung open that his suit was known, and had prospered. Before he reached the top of the steps Marguerite, Maréchale de St André, was waiting there, dressed more splendidly than he had seen her in Lyon, as befitted a noble lady, the mother of a courted heiress. Only her eyes, as he bent to kiss her hand, dwelled on him in a manner less than maternal and her voice, scolding him, was softer than was its wont.
‘Cher ami, I hear you have been extravagant to the danger of your health. You must not act à la bizarre when you are wedded to Cathin. I trust your mother and the Earl are in good health?’
‘You shall meet them before very long. I have your permission, then, to address your daughter?’ said Francis Crawford. ‘I should try to make her content.’
‘I know she will be content,’ said the Maréchale de St André. ‘I am not happy, my dear; but if one should have you, then I should prefer it to be a child of my breeding. She is waiting for you.’
*
How long she had been waiting he could not imagine but she was there, sitting upright and alone in the smallest boudoir, with her black hair shining over her shoulders and her skirts of rosebud velvet spread all about her. Crystals, circling her throat, were her only ornament.
No one accompanied him into the room. He closed the door gently behind him and saw her colour rise as she turned her head, but she kept her perfect composure.
‘A wife, a spaniel, a walnut tree,/The more you beat them, the better they be. I learn,’ said Lymond, ‘that you are willing to undergo unmentionable risks?’
She had risen to curtsey to him. Now, standing, she faced him, unsmiling still. ‘It is my mother’s assent which brings you here,’ she said. ‘I have said