Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [308]
‘So let me record it. There is nothing of me that does not belong to you. More than your death I fear mine; because you would be left here to mourn for me. More than your love I want peace for you; so better your need of me died, than that it should become unendurable.
‘I want you to know what you have. That is its span. I have no other rod of assize.
‘God grant quiet rest. PHILIPPA.’
He had burned the rest of the letter, as she had suggested, after Alec Guthrie had left him. Then, because sleep was a state more and more foreign to him he had stayed there, unmoving in solitude, so that the channel was open. And a little later, like a coming home, he knew her mind was with him.
Just before it was time to rouse the camp he returned silently to his tent and without wakening Jerott took out paper and standish and wrote a quick, careful note to his brother.
Someone had cooked him cabbage on charcoal for breakfast, and found millet bread, and a little pomade, a drink made from apples. De Forcés said, ‘If they make a peace, I suppose they’ll disband us. Will you go back to Sevigny, mon Maréchal?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Lymond said. ‘But first we have to finish the war.’
They began marching at four, when the worst of the heat should have been over, but the plain still swam with it when they passed Caix four hours after that and their detours were not caused by water, but the need to keep the dry grass, noisy with cicadas, under their feet; rather than the chalky earth which rose funnelling into the air, sharp as desert sand, kicked sparkling into the small fires of evening.
Here and there, adrift in the haze, were small villages, the blue spire of the church set like thorn over the thatched cabins and red and white brick of the houses. Twice, they saw signs of hasty cropping, but mostly rank grass grew in the cornfields, and there were no working horses plodding the meadows, or dappled cows under the fruit trees. Only the birds were the same: a young pheasant, rising underfoot, gave Lymond reason to steady his mare and flocks of short-bodied birds rose and wheeled, as they had on that other journey from Ham. He was concerned, this time, that they should tell no tales to his enemies.
Now, within the ranks, hardship imposed its own discipline. The men marched grimly, eyes bloodshot and seared with the lancing glitter of helm and greaves and cuirass; lips cracked and brown skins opened raw with the sun and napped with clinging dirt. Half the mules had gone, turned back to Laon with their panniers empty, and two vacant wine wagons with them. The field gun, hot enough to flay skin, had been covered, and so too had the wagon of powder: it would be a pity, the Marshal remarked, to reach Amiens vertically.
The horses pulling the wagons were in need of water. Jerott’s mind was on that as they neared Caix and saw ahead the reeded banks of the Luce. He noticed the grove of tall chestnuts, hot and gold as syrup in the low light, and thought also how welcome their shade would be for ten minutes. Under his cuirass his buckskin jerkin was stiff with perspiration and, below that, he could feel his shirt oozing water. Beside him, in the outer file of marching men, a soldier fainted, and his companions broke ranks to help him.
Then Jerott saw that he had not fainted, and spurring his horse, sent his stentorian voice ringing along the line of march, bringing all the ensigns to a halt. Before they had stopped, Lymond was with him, looking down at the man in the dust.
‘Killed by a crossbolt,’ Jerott said. ‘From the trees, I think.’ Behind him, his lieutenant was pulling the vanguard back out of range. One or two hackbutters, loading quickly in the front line, turned and shot into the thick dusty felting of leaves. A crossbolt struck the ground at their heels as they ran. Lymond backed his horse, still watching the trees, and then turned and trotted with Jerott back to the rest of the company.
‘Why draw our attention?’ he said. ‘Alec?’
‘There’s a village beyond,’ Guthrie said.