Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [273]
‘Nonsense, mon fils,’ said the King. ‘Is it unsafe?’
‘One requires to steer it with caution,’ said Condé. He rolled up his eyes, bored, at Lymond, who knelt beside him quickly, and surveyed the mechanism.
‘Well?’ said the King. ‘Our audience, messieurs, awaits us. Is it safe for the Dauphin?’
Lymond rose. ‘On any other day, yes,’ he observed. ‘But on his wedding night—no: I should not trust the Dauphin to any but a perfect vehicle. It would be better to launch five boats instead of six.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Condé said. ‘We have to steer round the hall and pick up our consorts.’
It was spoken with the irritation of a man whose consort for the purpose was the Duchess de Guise, ten days over the birth of her untimely offspring. His Majesty said, ‘The Dauphin was to have uplifted Queen Catherine. You say the steering will not answer?’
Lymond touched the levers. ‘I could make it answer,’ he said. ‘But that would hardly …’
‘Then you shall steer it,’ said the King heartily. ‘François, give him your mask. And the cloak. The height is different but seated, it will not be noticed. The plan, de Sevigny, is to steer twice round the hall. Then I shall pause and take up the Queen of Scotland beside me, while Navarre takes his wife, Lorraine takes my daughter Claude, Nemours takes Madame Marguerite and you, of course, take her grace the Queen.… Does it astonish you, to find yourself so acting with the princes of the blood?’
‘I am overwhelmed,’ said Francis Crawford rapidly, and climbed into the ship. Someone signed to the King’s gentleman nearest the door and he opened it, and caught the eye of the trumpets.
The blare of sound warned Richard Crawford that there was no prospect, when the doors opened, of slipping inside and on some excuse, of dragging out his younger brother. Instead he had to stand there, sickened still by the pain of his blow, and see the Archers fling open the leaves and the mechanical fleet of the king come swaying and tacking across the black and white squares of the floor.
The doors closed. Since there was no other exit Lord Culter stationed himself by the entrance, and watched with little attention as, to music and clapping, the royal crew skimmed round the pillars and threw silver light on the statues of past monarchs, long since dead, with their playthings.
It was not until the last graceful ship had passed him twice that he saw that the unsmiling mouth under the mask of the helmsman was longer and firmer than the Dauphin’s ever would be; that the chin and throat were mature, and the airy hands on the silk reins were those which had just inflicted on him such careless agony.
Then the barque came to a halt and the captain, rising, smiled and held out his hand while the Queen of France, glancing at him, stepped in and sat down beside him. Her thick lips moved, asking a question, and at the answer she laughed and then sat, as the ship slid into motion and followed the rest down the length of the Grand’ Salle and into the depths of the palace. The last Richard saw of them before the crowds closed cheering between them was the Queen’s snubbed and inelegant profile turned on her chevalier, a considering look in the shallow, protuberant eyes.
Then, of course, he lost them. Lord Culter turned and, striding, made for the principal stairs.
Those, in his turn, Lymond avoided. Vanishing with remarkable speed from his vehicle he had almost reached the door to the Sainte Chapelle when he was fallen upon by an ancient abbot in his cups. To extricate himself without any means which would be unmemorable took him two minutes: running then, he found the locked doorway and then