Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
She had lied to Sybilla, and would go on doing so. What good would it do to say, ‘Within four weeks, unless he accepts my bribe or unless I can steal the evidence, Leonard Bailey will have sold all he knows about your extra-marital affairs to the Lennoxes in England’?
If Bailey were going to accept money, she could find or raise as much as Sybilla. If he were not, it was better that Sybilla should know nothing about it. It was for herself, a free agent, to attempt whatever felony was needed to remove the evidence from Bailey’s reach.
So she thought, looking at Sybilla, and Sybilla said, ‘From limbo, you cannot say forgive me, unless you can also say you regret what you have done. I have no regrets. I have nothing to tell you, except what you know already: that love is a powerful master. For his favours do you pay tribute and toll while flesh endures, and no doubt after.’
I have no regrets. Against the sunlight the slender, erect body looked for a moment as it must have looked thirty years before and more, when, careless of any consequences, and herself another man’s wife, Sybilla had followed where love dictated.
‘I shall do what I can,’ said Philippa baldly; and rising, walked out of the grotto and quickly, back to the palace without her.
There, she found in the succeeding days that nothing had changed. The peace overtures continued slowly to cross and recross between Fontainebleau and Brussels, with offers of mediation from the imprisoned St André and the Constable. M. d’Andelot travelled north to arrange for the fitting out of vessels to secure the French coast from possible English invasion. Fifty infantry captains left to raise companies to go to Scotland and Piedmont. An army of 15,000 German infantry and 4,000 cavalry began to collect at Metz, and for several days Lymond was in every room that one happened to enter, from the King’s post in the basse-cour to that of virtually each man holding senior office under the crown, in addition to a number of others lodged in the town outside the gates.
Philippa, mediating in an agonizing war of precedence between Alec Ross and du Boulay, the Lorraine herald-at-arms, during the final draft of the order of procession, was aware of it. The dispute dragged on into the Monday of Holy Week, when a new irritation beset her. Mary, already committed to eight minor engagements to do with her wedding garments and trousseau, was instead removed from her suite and closeted for the entire morning in the Cardinal’s room with the Dauphin, the keeper of Seals and two secretaries.
Madame de Sevigny dealt herself with the callers, a last-minute injunction by Madame Diane, and a visit from the Queen which lasted an hour. Then, returning limp to her room for some much-needed letter-writing, she found Archie Abernethy standing there, awaiting her.
Célie was there. She sent her out, and shut the door. ‘What?’ she said.
‘Now I need help,’ Archie said.
She could feel all the blood leaving her face. ‘I thought he was out with de Nevers,’ she said.
‘He was. He has just come in. He’ll be out again shortly,’ Archie said.
I have seen him like this before. Philippa said, ‘Is he ill? Archie?’
And Archie said, ‘Ill? He hasna the time tae be ill. He’s thrang as a tick in a tannery.’
‘Too busy?’ Philippa said.
‘Aye,’ said Archie. The black eyes scoured her face, and his voice was quite deliberate. ‘He’s like a man making his will; and in a hurry over it.’
She had kept from Sybilla, to spare her, the knowledge of what had happened in Lyon. But Sybilla, closer far to her own son than she could be, had already seen where lay the danger.
Her throat dry, she said, ‘What has happened?’
Master of camouflage, what had he to fear from marriage to Catherine?