Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [272]
For the first time, Lymond did not speak at once. Then he said, ‘And the address?’
‘Danny was never told,’ said Adam quietly. ‘The only person who would know is your mother. If you like, I shall go and ask her. She went some time ago to her room.’
‘No. Thank you. I had better do that,’ Lymond said.
Long ago, returning from some turbulent sequence of misdeeds, the younger, beloved son of the house of Culter would rap at the door of his mother’s chamber, and be admitted, and closing the door, would bend upon her the grave, sweet gaze, made of mischief and love, that melted the bones in her body. Then, sinking to one knee, he would kiss her hand, in obedience and humility.
Now he rapped, and she heard his voice speak her name and, rising, she faced him as the door opened and shut and he stood, his bearing and looks unlike anything she had ever seen in him before, in any extremity. He said, ‘I have to find Philippa.’ And then, walking into the room, he dropped on one knee and said, ‘I will promise anything you wish, to the end of my life, if you will tell me the name of the house that you know of.’
And as she did not answer, staring appalled at his face, he said, ‘Philippa asked that you should be prevented from going there. We know it is near the Petit Arsenal. I think Leonard Bailey has found it.’
Blanched by age and by agony, her skin had no colour at all, and her drawn brows this time were no longer those of a beautiful woman. Then she said, her timbreless voice barely audible, ‘It is called the Hôtel des Sphères; and it is in the rue de la Cerisaye.…
‘It is where you were born, Francis.’
He left while she was speaking. He reached the Grand’ Salle without thinking, as the quickest way to reach the staircase, and found his way blocked, unbelievably, by the muscular countryman’s body of his brother.
‘You are very busy,’ Richard Crawford said, ‘for a man assisting at the nuptial feast of his monarch. Wherever you are going now, I am sure you won’t mind if I come along with you.’
Over and over, the same song, the same burden; the obstruction; the battle; the challenge: if you won’t lead, try following, Richard!
But where he was going now, he could not take Richard. Nor, looking at his brother’s face, could he think of any ruse that would serve him. Richard said, ‘They tell me Philippa isn’t to be found. I don’t suppose you would know where she is?’
‘No. Ask Euphemia,’ the comte de Sevigny said. There were men all about them.
‘Don’t look round,’ Richard said. ‘There is no way out there. It would be rather crude, but if I have to, I shall stop you with violence. You are in a hurry, aren’t you?’
He was in too much of a hurry not to take all the care in the world with the next move. It was bluff and double bluff: a step, a feint, another step, and a sliding movement which took him out of Richard’s grasp just as his own blow, low and accurate, made his brother gasp and desist. Then he was moving as fast as he could through the crowds, with Richard he knew a few bare yards behind him.
He had not gained enough distance to outpace him on the stairs or in the outer rooms and passageways, so he did not attempt it. Instead Lymond turned inwards across the corner of the Grand’ Salle and up to where stood the wreathed double doors of the Chamber of Requests, flanked by two Archers of the Royal Bodyguard.
‘Monseigneur?’ one of them said. He knew them both well.
‘I have to assist their graces,’ said Lymond. ‘The noble earl my brother is not meantime to be admitted.’ And did not look back as he stepped through and the doors shut behind him.
The King, with a black silk mask binding his brow, was surprised but instantly welcoming. ‘The man we wish to see. Come, you create marvels in the field. Show us how to adjust this galleon so that Monseigneur my son may properly guide it.’
The golden room was full of people, and ships. The