Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [239]
Those who could find no harbour there were forced to travel the forest to Moret-sur-Loing, a pleasant small riverside town with a castle, in which the Crown housed its official guests on occasion, and where its permanent foreign ambassadors were also expected to stay. There the nine Commissioners from Scotland were lodged, and divided their time, in chilly March weather, between Moret and Fontainebleau itself.
The Royal family and all those dear to its heart were housed in the windowed white geometry of the palace itself, with squared gardens and fountains and lake water to look upon. They included the brothers de Guise of whom, in the nature of things, Philippa saw a good deal. It was the Duke and the Cardinal who arranged all the wedding ceremonial, including placing in hand the six silver-sailed ships of gold tissue and crimson velvet suggested by Signor Primaticcio in the wake of which she could foresee, with a cynicism born of experience, a long tunnel of hopeless catastrophes.
She saw them also at the succession of informal entertainments for the growing numbers of wedding guests already gathering. And she saw them when, supervised by Cardinal Charles, the Scottish Commissioners embarked upon the series of conclaves to discuss and ratify the marriage agreement between their child Queen and the fourteen-year-old Dauphin.
They brought the bridegroom in from the hunting field for some of the meetings. Standing behind the young Queen, Philippa saw the nine Commissioners each in his own way covertly watch him: this pallid snub-nosed boy with the heavy head and perpetual catarrh who slept, or sat groaning with earache, or would run out when released in an access of useless energy and seizing a horse, ride himself into a collapse, and the palfrey to death.
One listened then to the interminable voices, the Scots and the French, pondering all the matters at issue: the dowry Mary was to be given; the pension she was to receive and the lands; and the repetition in three tongues of the terms of the treaty made in Haddington those ten years before, by which her highness contracted, agreed and obliged herself that she and her heirs-successors should observe and keep the Freedoms, Liberties and Privileges of the realm of Scotland and the laws of the same siclike and in the same manner as in all King’s times of Scotland of before; and to provide that if she died without issue, the righteous blood of the Crown of Scotland should succeed without any impediment.
Then one looked at the slim back and auburn hair and pale, pointed face of Maria Dei gratia regina Scotorum, and wondered how Cardinal Charles had so trained and shaped and moulded a volatile, emotional fifteen-year-old that she, too, was more attentive to paper and ink, to legal concession and legal commitment than to flesh and blood. But then, Philippa reminded herself, the manner of ruling comes easily to the young, and is a balm to their pride, until they learn better.
The articles drew towards their final drafting. Towards the third week of March, attending the Queen on her retirai, Philippa caught the ring of Piero Strozzi’s ebullient speech somewhere in the long, painted galleries, in competition with another assured voice, equally unmistakable. Francis was back.
He brought the Commissioners to their assignation next morning. She heard him speaking, with a little unwonted emphasis, outside the room, and knew she had been given a warning. Then he walked in with the rest.
As always, the fair hair, brushed and orderly now, asserted itself among the others. But this