Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [301]
‘Because I was offered it,’ said Lymond laconically. ‘Aussy tost veu, aussy tost pleust. Also because I dislike untidy wars, as I dislike untidy peacemaking. I am staying in France. Fergie, do you want to go back to Scotland?’
Fergie Hoddim looked surprised. ‘I thought the kingdom of France was to be ruinated if I got any wages. I’ll have to earn my fare somehow.’
The long mouth twitched in a way that had not changed. ‘Alec?’
‘Do I take it,’ said Alec Guthrie, ‘that you want us on the strength here again? I tell you, it’s like working under a weather-cock.’
‘The answer is yes,’ Lymond said, ‘provided you can keep Fergie out of the Chambre des Comptes. He’d be a joy on a plinth as Temperantia, embracing his clock and his spectacles.’
He stood up. ‘I must go. I’m at Marchais just now, and shall be until the army is mustered, but I shall come back when I can.’
They moved to the doorway with him, talking. As they waited for his horse Adam said, quietly, ‘You know Marthe has come back?’
Jerott caught it. He flushed. ‘I’m sure he is interested,’ he said. ‘But we, apparently, are not to ask how Philippa is, or where she is, or why in God’s name he didn’t keep to his divorce in the first place.’ He faced Francis Crawford suddenly, standing stubbornly in his way to the sunlight.
‘If I asked you all those things, would you answer?’
There was a little silence. Then Guthrie said dryly, ‘I think, mon commandant, that you will have to say something, even if it’s only to declare that after all these years, neither your welfare nor Mistress Philippa’s should concern us.’
Lymond said, ‘She is well. She is at Sevigny, and Archie is with her. If you will tell me, Jerott, why you received Marthe back, I shall tell you why I failed to have my marriage dissolved. The rest, I imagine, is more my affair than that of any other man’s, however well disposed he may be. Are you answered?’
‘Yes,’ said Guthrie bluntly. ‘He’s answered. Now go, since that is what you have come to do, and advance the glory of the kingdom of France in the terrestrial globe, without if possible permitting the King or the King-Dauphin within ten full miles of the nearest action.’
And to Jerott, as they watched the banners of Sevigny vanishing: ‘You will have to change your theory,’ said Guthrie, ‘unless you have ever met that look on a greedy philanderer. Adam, what do you know, that you are so silent?’
‘I know enough,’ said Adam Blacklock, ‘not to ask a lot of interfering bloody questions and expect them to be answered. If someone builds a bulwark that high, it’s for reasons that matter, I take it.’
‘I also,’ said Alec Guthrie. ‘But a bulwark may cut off help, as well as interference. Jerott is right. To measure a ladder against it from time to time is justifiable.’
‘Then let’s leave it to Jerott,’ said Danny. ‘The next man with a ladder, I fancy, is going to find himself bounced off and run through the brisket.’
*
The King of France held a review of his army in battle array, the troops numbering sixty thousand in all, and comprising the largest and finest force of foot and cavalry the kingdom had ever mustered. The review line was four miles or longer, and it took three hours to march from the top to the bottom and back again. It was a very hot day.
A force of seven ensigns, headed by a captain of Montluc’s and Adam Blacklock, left Pierrepont for Corbie, marching for two nights and a day without halting for more than a catnap; and entered the town just ahead of the enemy. Danny Hislop departed for Dourlans with three ensigns, and Guthrie, Jerott and Captain de Forcés with seven for Amiens. Fergie Hoddim set off for Montreuil with a small force. With him went de Villars with a larger one, also destined for Amiens.
The comtesse de Sevigny received a letter.