Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [339]
Qui m’as l’âme ravie
D’un soubzris gracieux,
Viens tost me secourir
Ou me fauldra mourir …
‘I have had,’ the King said, ‘to prohibit skirmishes after your little exploit, or we should have found ourselves, so eager for glory are my commanders, in the thick of a general engagement. So you have lost no opportunities by your absence. Indeed, affairs have moved. The bridge which you destroyed with such superbité may now prove an inconvenience when dispatching our emissaries to Cercamp for peace talks.’ He put down the other foot and stood up. M. d’Aumale, holding the royal pourpoint, moved forward.
‘I must beg your grace’s pardon,’ Lymond said. ‘The next bridge I destroy I shall leave fitted with spriggs and spelkin nails, fit for rebuilding. So there is a truce to be made?’
‘It seems so,’ said the King. He slid his arm through the second ribboned sleeve and waited while the garment was smoothed about him. The fire, scented with rosemary, threw its gentle light on the red and chestnut and gold of the Cordoban hangings and the pavane entered its second verse:
Approche donc ma belle,
Approche toy mon bien,
Ne me sois plus rebelle
Puisque mon coeur est tien
Pour mon mal appaiser
Donne moi un baiser.
‘Col de Dieu, you play better than that, mon ami. If you will not take the cremorne, and I know you will not,’ said the King, ‘have them give you a lute and let us have some music worthy of the name. Yes, I shall soon be disposing of my troublesome Blacksmiths, and the Bishop of Ely and the Earl of Arundel are on their way from England for peace talks. You know them both, as I remember. I shall look to you to give me advice.’ He pressed his feet into his velvet slippers and leaned forward to choose his rings.
‘May one ask what the terms are likely to be?’ Lymond said. He received the lute someone brought him and walking a step or two, adjusted his weight against a gilt and marquetry table and began, his head bent, to tune it softly.
‘We shall dictate them,’ said the Cardinal of Lorraine, smiling. The firelight, burning on the vermilion robes, lit the golden hair and beard and the kind, light grey eyes. ‘The Duke of Savoy, naturally, wishes Piedmont and Nice and Savoy returned to him. The King of Spain wishes to have restored Thionville and the other great towns which have been captured from him. And the English want back Calais and Guînes and the rest of the Pale. They will not receive them, but they have no redress: money is far too short with King Philip. He will return to Spain, the Duke of Savoy to his own business. The Duke of Alva, they tell me, is already licking Flemish boots in the hope of being given the Regency. The war which opened so inauspiciously for us last August with the sad defeat of Saint-Quentin is ending in victory.’
No one dissented. The lute, in an extremely low voice, dictated a brilliant account of a melody Richard Crawford recognized instantly.
Margot labourez les vignes
Vignes, vignes, vignolet
Margot labourez les vignes bient tost.
De Nevers said, ‘Perhaps M. de Sevigny has not heard. Fray Carlo de Santo-Hieronimo is dead. King Philip’s father. The Queen of England, it seems, is sinking. Even Cardinal Pole has a double quartain ague and is not likely, they say, to survive. As his grace has said, there has been a mortal sickness abroad these past weeks which touches us all.’
‘And if God were to call the Queen to her account, King Philip would have a new bride to seek,’ Lymond said. ‘A versatile commodity, death; except for those suffering it. My brother’s colleagues at Dieppe were also among the unfortunate.’
As if unrelated to the musician, the song of the lute continued to dance:
En revenant de Lorraine
Margot recontray trois capitaines,
Vignes, vignes, vignolet.
The King’s cap was set on his head and, as he stood, his sash, his chain and his Order added, followed by his furred surcoat. He said, ‘I made sure, M. de Sevigny, that every Scotsman with a complaining tongue in his throat would come running to you: I am glad to hear that your door has been closed to