Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [266]
In profile, she looked perfectly composed, with her auburn hair bound neatly round it, and her long, slender neck with its collar of jewellery. She was dressed in the colours of Scotland: a white robe, over which fell the difficult train in the same green-grey blue as the hangings, made heavy with jewels and embroidery. It wound successfully round the last of the staging and up, Philippa was happy to see, to the platform. The Dauphin, with the King of Navarre and his two younger brothers, preceded her.
They all came to a halt in the heart of the platform, in the hazy lichenous dusk of the canopy. The end of the procession, scurrying, found its position. Cardinal de Bourbon faced the bridal pair, and with the whole of Paris below, breathless, watching, began to utter the words of the marriage service.
Philippa listened.
Take thou this wilful and lovely young woman, who is the realm, proud and ancient, of Scotland. Take thou this backward and impotent boy, in whom runs great Gaul’s royal blood-line. And join them in holy matrimony, whose object is to glorify God, to bear fruit, and to shun adultery.
And who was she, to mock such a marriage, when her own had used the rites of the church for a purpose not one whit more tender? When the union contracted in Turkey had produced neither heirs nor peace nor freedom from lechery …?
Take thou this young man and this girl of different nations who, unmoved on the day of their marriage, may discover in years to come a bond beyond man’s understanding. And let it come to them in such a form that they may keep it.…
One is permitted to weep at a wedding. There, already ranked on the platform, were the nine Scottish Commissioners, who were not tearful, but whose mien was not that of rejoicing. And on the other side, where she did not have to look to discover him, was Lymond her husband, with the same griefs contained in his stillness.
She had made no effort to withdraw from tomorrow’s process of annulment. It made no difference now.
The King of France’s ring, slipped on the bride’s finger, made her Reine-Dauphine of France. The Bishop of Paris, moving forward, began to intone a long prayer. The Duke de Guise, signing irritably, contrived to move a number of straying figures out of the public’s line of vision.
Soon the heralds at arms would come with sacks of coins and throw them from the three sides of the platform, roaring Largesse: an act long known to cause hysteria, injury and sometimes even death in the ensuing stampede but which no one, crown or people, dared tamper with. Then turning, the procession would pick its way into the church where Mass would be celebrated in the same style, said the Master of Ceremonies, as all simple brides use for the sacrament.
Once, de Chémault had been a good friend to Francis in London. If she had been a good friend to Francis … she would have sent him to Russia. Anything was better than this. Anything was better than the condition which could lead a man to repeat, as he had done that night at Fontainebleau, the words of another, refused by the grim boatman Charon:
J’irai donc, maugré toy, car j’ay dedans mon âme
Tant de traits amoureux et de larmes aux yeux
Que je seray le fleuve, et la barque, et la rame.
*
The wedding banquet in the Bishop’s Palace followed. Messieurs of the Town, who were not invited, dined by prior arrangement in a small house near the parvis of Notre-Dame, which proved inconvenient. After, they made for a bigger house on the Pont au Change, where, until their next assignation, they were able to pull off their robes and take the air over the water.
The royal party, embedded in cloth of gold upon litters, horses and coaches emerged from the banquet and proceeded to the Palais de Justice, making a short detour by the Notre-Dame bridge on the way. Attempting to follow the change of route, the spectators in the rue de Neuve