Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [307]
Late the same day, with forty miles still to cover, they passed the village of Flavy-le-Martel with, beyond it, the enemy-occupied fortress of Ham in which the Marshal himself had once been held prisoner.
No one mentioned it, and they gave Ham an extremely wide berth: the more so that the marquis de Villars had also passed that way, on a march somewhat less orderly.
It was as well that they had brought with them their own food supplies, for the villages they did pass were deserted and many of them in ruins, so that the wide flat countryside stretching far to the east beyond the Somme offered little shelter. In the intense heat much of the marshy ground had dried out, but necessity pushed them once or twice from the more convenient tracks into a network of the small streams which fed the Somme, and there the trestles and boats came into use, and the coils of rope they had brought for dragging both cobles and wagons.
They used local guides twice, although these were often double informers, and once hired, were not allowed to leave camp: their news was always checked by Lymond’s own outposts which moved back and forth constantly. He knew, at every point, how far de Villars was ahead of him and also the situation at Amiens where d’Estrée and his commissaires de vivres had already started work. His own relay of couriers also arrived at regular intervals from Pierrepont with news of the main army.
Two further letters had come from his wife, one while he was still at Marchais, and the other which he had opened that morning, just before Guthrie came across him.
Each contained a closely written budget of news. ‘I gather great princes still make peace sword in hand. The rumour is that Spain won’t give in until she has Savoy and Piedmont back; England wants Calais and the King of France wants the Constable.
‘If peace is made, the Germans will be paid off and the Cardinal, it is thought, will be able to act fairly freely against the Calvinists. Master Knox, in Geneva, has just printed a tract against women monarchs which has made him the de Guises’ special favourite. I’m told the church have been investigating the meeting of drapers in the rue Marie-Egyptienne, and hope our mystical friend has not been attending them: he is meanwhile providently predicting nothing but quotable victories.
‘Willie Grey is temporarily satisfied in a new-found belief that Onzain communicates with Chaumont under the river by tunnel, and that if he can only find it, he will be a free man, provided he can get out of Chaumont. He says the Duchess d’Uzes has told de La Rochefoucauld who has told de Merguey that Queen Catherine thinks Lord Seton has gone crazy. I have a feeling that you were intended to be at the end of this particular tunnel, so I pass it on for what you can make of it.
The rest of the news is not mine. On the principle of Fluctuat nec Mergitur, which I hope you approve of, I have solicited all your former correspondents, and new reports are now beginning to come in. There are times, it seems to me, when one needs help in deciphering the recondite secrets of God the Creator …’
She had reopened the network which, begun long ago, had kept him apprised before most people of the shifting allegiances of Europe.
The remainder of both letters was occupied with material taken from the incoming dispatches. At the end of each was a paragraph, no more, about her own concerns. The first ended with the words, You are missed.
The second, the one he had read in the wood, had been different. In that she had put only her signature. It was not until he turned it over that he saw that there was a separate page.
‘You will have to burn my letters. Shall I tell you exactly when you realized this? Who would believe that I know to the second? Nostradamus?
‘So I wished to write you something you need not burn.
‘It seemed to me that a circumscribed love was not love; and it was a reflection on whole love to call it so. But against what