Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [267]
There were men in the crowd who remembered the wedding of old King Henri, when the streets were draped with tapestries and carpets hung from every window, and when the Fountain of Ponceau flowed with wine and hippocras. There were younger men who remembered other Triumphs and Ceremonial Entries, when choirs of children had sung at the Hôtel-Dieu and on the Parvis; when the streets were spanned by great Arches with living statues, and at every corner there had been stages, with plays enacted upon them, or nymphs waiting with gifts, or gods with heroic poetry.
For the Scotch wedding, it appeared, none of this was considered suitable, when (so the Keeper of Seals let it be known) the country was still at war. There had been largesse, as was right. The belltower of the Palais had led the carillons. There had been a salute, somewhere, of cannon. But even the bird-keepers of the Pont au Change had not been discreetly visited, as was normal, and assured of the King’s concrete gratitude if and when they made the traditional gesture when the royal party crossed to the Palais.
The traditional gesture consisted of the release into the air of two hundred dozen birds of all species. Given generous warning, one was assured at least of providing a spectacle. That Sunday, as the bride’s procession set foot on the planks of the bridge, the bird-keepers opened their cages; and as peculiar an assortment of bird life ascended the skies as could be seen anywhere outside a bestiary.
The air blackened with wings of all colours, and then blanched with the fruits of their disquietude. On the epaulette of the Archer by Philippa arrived a small portly creature in green, which puked; remarked, ‘Hé, petit capitaine de merde!’ and whirred off as he reached up to throttle it.
She was gazing after its flight when a hand, thrust through the crowd, pushed something into her fingers.
The hand had gone before she whirled to look for it. She rode on, gripping her prize, and smiling affably to the jostling thicket of pink, sweating countenances. Then, tilting her palm, she saw what was in it.
A page of paper, tightly balled, bore traces of broken writing. Unfolded a little, it showed her it contained a message. Unfolded a good deal more, it told her that the message was from Leonard Bailey.
At last, on the edge of the river, had been granted the stay she was waiting for.
Chapter 8
L ‘ire insensée du combat furieux
Fera à table par freres le fer luire.
As the Kings of France, like the early Christians, were always wed in the porch of their church, so they always followed the Mass with a public banquet at the Marble Table of the Palais de Justice, attended by the courtiers, the courts of Parliament, Messieurs of the Town and Messieurs of the University, together with the better-bred nationals of whatever nation had received the happy portion of a French spouse.
By five o’clock, when Messieurs of the Town had walked to the Palais and had been allotted their seats below the royal covers, the going price for the password ‘Brede and Ale’ was three écues sol and still rising, and the accent in the strangers’ benches was far from predominantly Scottish. There began, as the ushers realized this, some heavily muffled engagements.
The gates were fastened. The great seigneurs who were not princes of the blood entered and took their places. There was a flourish of trumpets, and the bridal company paced through the double carved doors and seated themselves, stiff and smiling as Holy Week images behind the famous table, the longest, the broadest, the thickest single slab of unbroken marble in history. Daniel Hislop, sitting four tables down