Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [318]
He knew that Marthe was still in Blois, and that the Scottish Commissioners had left France, taking ship from Dieppe harbour.
So Sybilla was out of the country and Richard with her. The two village girls who had looked after her all those years ago, Renée and Isabelle, were dead because of her, and because of him; and the house was destroyed with the lines of silver over the mantelpiece.
I shall harness thee a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold
Come into our dwelling, in the perfume of the cedars.
A love of sorts, he supposed, had prompted that once. It mattered not at all now, obliterated by what had happened in that dusty upstairs bedroom, with the candle guttering.
On the day he returned from the encounter with Alva’s forces, he found Lancelot Plummer waiting for him in his tent, with Archie and the other four of his own men with him.
It was a moment before he recognized, behind the elegant beard, the officer he had left behind in Russia; and he saw from Plummer’s face that his own looks clearly had shocked him. He said, ‘I’ll only believe it if you tell me the Russian for I can get sandstone from Kama at quarter the cost. Lancelot! What does this mean?’
Never a boisterous man, Lancelot Plummer, engineer, architect and former member of the Scots mercenary force called St Mary’s, stepped forward and shook his hand firmly. ‘It means I’ve left Russia,’ he said. ‘And you’re well out of it. My God, you’ve got to the rank of Voevoda all over again, they tell me. I hope you can think of someone who’s made a lot of money out of this war and is looking for an architect.’
Lymond said, ‘I’m sure I can. Faux conseils et mauvaises testes, M’ont fait bastir ces fenestres? Or no. That was a lawyer’s house. In any case, come and tell us your news. Le corps sauvé, les branches se reconquesteront tousjours.’
Archie and Jerott, who had not been in Russia, fetched the wine and put the pots on the board. The others listened to the story of Lancelot’s misery: the houses the Tsar had had built but had not paid for; the houses he had half built and knocked down in a rage. His violence in council. His brutal punishments. The crazy scheme to attack Lithuania that year, against the advice of his ministers.
‘He’s going mad,’ Lancelot Plummer said. ‘I’m sure of it. You couldn’t hold him now, Voevoda. No one could.’
‘Not even Prince Vishnevetsky,’ said Guthrie dryly.
‘Ah,’ said Plummer uneasily.
Lymond glanced at him. ‘What? We have been placarded as abominable persons on the chancel-rail? We can bear it. We are a long way from Russia now.’
Lancelot Plummer said, ‘Güzel is dead.’
No one spoke. Then Lymond said, ‘How? How did it happen?’
‘She was killed. In April. By Vishnevetsky,’ Plummer said. ‘You knew
‘I knew they were together. Yes,’ said Francis Crawford. For two years, before he had left Russia, he and she had lived together, a Queen and her consort. It had been Güzel who had enabled Philippa and himself and the child to escape from Turkey safely. It had been Güzel who had sent him on the visit to England from which he had never returned.
‘They quarrelled,’ Plummer was saying, conscious of awkwardness. ‘They were not really suited to one another. No one even knows where she is buried.’
‘That seems a pity,’ Lymond said.
One of the things he liked least about his present situation was that the others always seemed to know when he was dealing with an attack, and also when he was nearing the limits of his endurance. His later recollection of the next five minutes was somewhat dim, but he knew that at the end of that time his tent was empty, Plummer having been thoughtfully taken off to dine on some special delicacy of Jerott’s. Then Alec Guthrie, reappearing like a sentinel in the doorway said, ‘Archie is coming in a moment. I’m sorry about the Mistress. She was foolish to trust Baida.’
‘She didn’t,’ said Lymond. He was still sitting, his hand shading his eyes. ‘She thought she was following a course laid down long before, with each of us under some sort of injunction. I think she was convinced all along that her life and