Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [27]
The contemplative brown eyes inspected him. ‘What about you? I don’t notice you going about in crewel garters and wadmoll mittens, that I can recall.’
His profile remained undisturbed. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I wear them at night. Whereby presumption and arrogancy shall be withstanded, malice and contention expelled and carnal liberty refrained and tempered. The Tsar used to get very fussed.’ He returned the salutes of another group of gratified merchants and obtained, with a glassy stare, Philippa’s approval.
Philippa said, ‘Madame only wanted to satisfy herself that it was really family papers that brought me here. She thinks I’m following you about because I have a youthful passion for you.’
‘But you were able to reassure her?’ said Lymond. A market wagon, driven too fast, jolted past them on to the bridge and he let his horse feel the bit, leaning gracefully away from her.
Philippa said tartly, ‘I am extremely tempted to say “no” and make you fall off your horse. I said you were a friend of my mother’s and I was a friend of your mother’s.’
‘I should think that about sums it up,’ Lymond said. His voice was a trifle unsteady. ‘It doesn’t do my self-esteem much good though, does it?’
‘Your self-esteem has had a lifetime of steady attention,’ said Philippa abstractedly. She studied him a little, soberly. ‘Archie reported that I could look for these records? You have no really deep objection?’
He did not answer at once. But when they had descended the other side of the bridge and, crossing the square of the Lannerie, were preparing to turn right into the long, shadowy canyon of the rue Mercière, he said, ‘Lest of an evil chick comes an evil bird? The time is long past, Philippa, when it mattered to me. I have a campaign to conduct. I should like, candidly, to see you out of Lyon. That is why I am making this visit. I have also, I hope, shortened your investigation in other ways. I have studied the papers held by the house of Schiatti, and they contain nothing of interest.’
He paused, to let his horse pick its way past some unloading carts in the sharp shadows of the busy street. The clatter of six sets of hooves, reverberating between the almost unbroken line of tall, crooked houses, stitched its way through the general heat and the stinks and the clamour, and even the blue and silver pennant and the livery meant little, it was plain, to a street full of Lyonnais intent on making a profit.
The rue Mercière, running across the crowded Presqu’île like the crossbar of a gate, was the main trading thoroughfare between the Saône and the Rhône; which was why the horologist and dealer and usurer who had called himself Marthe’s uncle had chosen to tenant it.
The name Gaultier still appeared, freshly repainted, among the signboards ticketing the long block of buildings ahead on their right. It seemed typical of Marthe that the house she shared with her husband should not bear his name or her own, but that of the defunct and unpleasant man whose business she still continued.
Trotting behind, Philippa found that her eminent escort was making better speed than she was; opened her mouth; closed it, and touched up her horse as soon as she could, to jog alongside him. She said peevishly, ‘Do you consider I’m old enough to stop calling you Mr Crawford?’
‘No,’ said Mr Crawford shortly. ‘What alternatives would you suggest? Master? Uncle?’
‘That would certainly unsettle the Maréchale, for one,’ said Philippa more cheerfully. ‘I shall call you “mon compère”, as the King does the Constable. You haven’t enough artillery, have you?’
‘Against you or the Germans?’ said Lymond. He had relaxed again.
‘If M. Polvilliers’s troops are well armed and have