Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [2]
There was no sign so far of the man he had come to Flanders to rescue. Austin Grey sat, seemingly quite at his ease, expertly deflecting the attention aroused by his uncommon good looks and reviewed, without pleasure, the mission he owed to his uncle, of the English fortress at Guînes, beside Calais.
‘If Francis Crawford wishes to leave Western Europe,’ irritably had said Lord Grey of Wilton, ‘then it is England’s duty to help him. Do you want him to lead the French armies into battle against us? Do you want him to go home to Scotland and encourage his countrymen to cross the Border and march into England? If he intends to go back to Russia, I for one will be happy to send him. You have his message. There is no doubt that it is authentic. Go to Douai and fetch him. You won’t be in any danger. He’s already thirty miles on the wrong side of the French frontier if he’s got there. He’ll be skulking, not you.’
And seeing the sleek, grey-bearded head turning to other business already—‘You have considered,’ had said Austin Grey gently, ‘that this may be a French trap?’
And his uncle, an irascible but by no means unjust man, had laid down his pen. ‘This I can tell you. If anyone else here were able to recognize Crawford of Lymond or be recognized by him, I should send him in your place. But I really cannot see any man laying an ambush for you at Douai, with Pembroke and the whole English army to one side of him and King Philip at Valenciennes on the other.
‘We are invading France, Austin; and this man, if he stayed in France, could be a danger to us. It is enough to know that the French will not lightly release him, and that he has turned to us for help.
‘You dislike him,’ had said Lord Grey, folding his hands and raising the combed grey beard at his nephew. ‘You cannot possibly dislike him as much as I have reason to do. But you will go to Douai. You will tell no one your mission; and you will take the most excellent care that no one discovers that Crawford has crossed into Flanders. For much as I esteem our lady Queen’s husband, I should prefer King Philip of Spain to win this war and those after it with the distinguished commanders he has, and without the services of your much-sought-after gentleman at Douai.’
But the man best known briefly as Lymond had not come to Douai, and now the torches were lit and full night had fallen. Also, as the tavern trestles were cleared and pushed together to form a square-walled platform, the presence of the duckwing was abruptly accounted for.
The fatherless only son of a despot and the last of a long line of soldiers, Austin Grey, Marquis of Allendale, had been compelled as a boy to witness altogether too many cockfights. He rose, intent on leaving the courtyard, and halted.
In front of him, blocking his way, stood the Italian he had already observed in the Piedmontese bonnet. In either hand this time the man held a linen bag within which something live struggled and grumbled. He smiled, displaying a swollen, broken-toothed mouth and reaching across, hooked both bags into place on the wall behind Austin’s shoulders and stood back, arms akimbo, regarding him. ‘You wish to lay a wager, monsieur?’
He was a travelling cock-master, and there would be others with him. Austin said, also in French, ‘Later. Just now I wish to hear the singers.’
‘Les Amis de Rabelais? We had them last year. They perform at the castle. Four students from Montpellier, monsieur.’
He knew that already, having been struck half-way through his meal by the quality of the singing, close as a toothcomb. All Calais spoke of them. The cocker said, ‘But being English, monsieur, the words maybe escape you?’
His French was good but not good enough, apparently, to pass him off as native. They were singing Je fille quant Dieu with the Swiss counter-tenor, silk in the weave, in the girl’s part. Austin said, ‘Thank you. I know both meanings of quenouille,’ and made smiling to pass.
The cocker stood