Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [300]
But behind Danny Hislop as he entered, Alec Guthrie, grey-bearded and unchanged, was already rising to his feet, with the long face of Hoddim the lawyer beside him, his moustache bracketing the woeful pleats of his smile.
‘… I hope,’ Lymond said, ‘you are not expecting your wages. If every candidate for mort-pay turned up eleven months after his demise you would ruin the Kingdom, if the Cardinal hadn’t thought of it first. We thought we had lost you.’
‘I know,’ said Guthrie. After a moment he freed Lymond’s hands, and holding him by the shoulders surveyed him up to his face. ‘You have something to answer for as well, haven’t you?’
‘Not at this court,’ Lymond said. ‘Fergie … are you going to raise an action against anyone?’
‘Well, no,’ said Fergie Hoddim. ‘We were captured while pursuing our profession: there’s no case for wrangful detention. Forbye, we jouked out of the prison-house anyway, but Alex had a musket ball in his leg, and I had another in a place I’d have to lowse my breeches to show you; and that’s why we were slow getting back again.… Is it right they’ve made you a Marshal?’
‘Why else do you suppose I’ve come back?’ Lymond said, and sat down on Jerott’s campaign bed. ‘The Lorde was with Joseph and he was a luckie felowe; unlike my unfortunate Piero, qui Fortunam vincit, vincit et invideat. I hear he is being blamed for all that went wrong at Thionville.’
‘Do you?’ said Jerott grimly. ‘He was as yellow as his shirt with jaundice. It wasn’t Strozzi’s fault de Vieilleville had to wait three weeks for troops and advice he’d no need for. And he was dead, poor bastard, by the time Montluc took Arlon and the whole town got burned down, including the booty, so the Germans bickered and grumbled all the rest of the marching-time. It wasn’t his fault that when we did get word about de Thermes’s disaster at Gravelines there was such a panic that we broke the army: sent the bloody German foot and horse off with three months’ pay and little gold medals, and then crept along north ourselves with the same troops we’d taken to Thionville with us.
‘Forced marches! I tell you, our Guisard friend wants to listen to Montluc: O mes compagnons, when the King tells you to hurry, don’t lose a quarter of an hour. If we’d made better time north in the first place, Egmont would never have dared keep so many good men at Gravelines. As it was, someone had to send to Metz and get de Vieilleville to throw twelve companies of legionnaires after us.’
‘For that, you can thank me,’ said Lymond. ‘With de Thermes, we’ve lost all the best men from Ardres and Boulogne and Montreuil as well as Calais. There are only two ensigns each in Corbie and Amiens and Dourlans. If Egmont had had enough foot soldiers to support his cavalry, we should have had Saint-Quentin all over again in the last fortnight.’
‘Christ!’ Jerott said. ‘What’s it like now?’
‘Better, marginally. De Sipierre and d’Amville and de Lansac and all the courtiers I could get hold of have gone to Boulogne and Calais. D’Aumale is on his way to Abbeville, and I’ve sent d’Urfé to Montreuil.’
‘Accompanied by Madame Gout?’ said Danny. ‘But not by overmuch experience.’
‘One of us will have to relieve him. I should also like to see somebody useful in Corbie and in Dourlans, with seven ensigns at least; and then the rest into Amiens. We shall probably make camp there, once I can get the rest of the army mustered and moving. Philip is marching as well.’
‘So you are staying?’ Adam said. For good or for evil, the imperious ‘I had returned. What else had been restored to him was not immediately obvious.
‘For long enough, I hope, to have this nonsense settled one way or another. All you’ve said, Jerott, has been echoed in one way or another by Henri. The de Guise family are having a little trouble maintaining their foothold, and that means that the peace talks may prosper. And once a truce is called, the Commissioners can take ship for Scotland.’
Guthrie