Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [292]
Lymond said, ‘He was also a wit and a scholar. If he had entered the church instead of trying to right his family’s wrongs he would be alive today, and you might have kept Calais.’
‘And now,’ Lord Grey said, ‘there is a Marshal’s bâton begging. Who will receive it? De Thermes? De Vieilleville?’ A royal courier in Blois would hardly escape notice.
‘I was offered it yesterday,’ Lymond said. ‘Would you say that in honour I could accept it?’
‘It is, of course, the supreme accolade,’ William Grey said. ‘I suppose you know your own mind if, as a Marshal of France, you are required to take arms against Scotland?’
Philippa, remote in her corner, watched Francis. He said, ‘It seems an unlikely contingency. I might as well ask whether you would side with the Scots against England?’
Lord Grey got to his feet and took a turn, without limping, to the barred window. Then he stood, rocking lightly, and faced Francis Crawford. ‘You are a man,’ he said, ‘of dangerous acumen. May I remind you that you are also a Knight of the supreme Order of St Michael, vowed to virtue, concord, fidelity, friendship, nobility, grandeur and equality? And I, equally, am a member of the Order of the Garter, with similar requirements of chivalry. You speak of Piero Strozzi who placed his family first. To what do you owe supreme allegiance?’
‘To my name,’ said Lymond evenly.
‘As he did. It is, I suppose, every man’s right. And after that?’
From his face, as he sat motionless in his chair, Grey could not have told what Francis was thinking. He said, ‘Piero Strozzi had renounced God. But although he took pleasure, sometimes, in tormenting men with small power about him, he never alarmed his men or his superiors by making a public show of it. The task came first.’
‘He fought for the Pope,’ Lord Grey said. ‘In Italy, he kissed the hand of the Pope, and waged war for him.’
‘They say there are Huguenots among the Knight Hospitallers of St John in Malta,’ Lymond said. ‘The Grand Prior of France came posthaste to court at the end of May, I have been told, to acquire money to help the Turks attack Italy. How often has Petre changed coat? Or Paget, or Arundel, or Pembroke? Or is it a matter of changing coat, or a matter simply of keeping counsel and pursuing, as best one can, one’s chosen objective?’
‘Your line of reasoning would appeal to a great many people,’ said Lord Grey dryly. ‘It all depends of course, on the nature of your objective. The end of successful warfare is victory. The end of victory is the expression of a noble spirit, showing itself in pity and munificence. Such is the aim of each of the Orders to which you and I belong.’
‘I observe,’ Francis said, ‘the spiritual benefits, but they do apply, I believe in other fields also. Meanwhile, battles are fought not by knights, as you well know, but by mercenaries. They are employed, as mastiffs are employed in the boar season, and victory goes to the deepest purse, while the people suffer the cost of them. That is war without pride ruled by chivalry, as the Master of Game rules the hunting field.’
‘It has reached my ears,’ Lord Grey said, ‘that once you spoke otherwise to young Austin.’
She had not known that. Francis said, ‘He required, temporarily, a palliative. He spat it out, I am sure, with equal satisfaction when himself again … There are, surely, other methods of preserving the weak and the good. There are other ways of exercising courage and magnanimity. Fighting preserves a man from wrath and avarice, sloth and gluttony, envy and lechery no more than hunting does.’
‘Would you rather men unleashed them at home, or in the council chamber?’ said Grey. ‘That is the argument for waging war as a exercise; although I agree with you: to kill for such a reason is wasteful. But