Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [362]
‘So Lord Grey thinks,’ Lymond said.
‘And you?’
‘England or France?’ Lymond got up suddenly from the seat where he had been resting. ‘Of course, England is the old enemy. Eleven years ago the English occupied our forts and we hated them, whereas the French, from whatever self-interest, have sent us their gold and their generals: French ships have foundered for us; Frenchmen died on our ramparts. But we’re small; we are a cockpit; sooner or later every ally turns into an overlord. Today the French are in Dumbarton and Leith instead of the English and tomorrow, instead of being grateful, we may with reason have to throw them out, or be swallowed.’
‘Then you must choose,’ Wharton said, ‘the nation with the greatest affinity; the ally which will serve you best. Does the Church count for nothing?’
Francis Crawford did not look at the English warden. Instead he wandered to the high window and, gazing down on the mild English countryside, said soberly, ‘Affinity? French blood runs in both England and Scotland; their tongue is no barrier. As for religion … Identity of faith is small recommendation. Freedom of faith, surely, is what must be sought for: tolerance between every sect and its neighbour; clemency from every government. Otherwise you have men fighting from conviction who might as well be fighting from devilment: the thing has no more sense in it than your young Allendale’s cocks, slashing each other to death only because one will not give way to the other. And if there is to be tolerance, where do you think we may look for it? To England? Or to France, rather?’
‘I recommend you my nation,’ said Wharton. ‘I tell you also to look about you as you make and unmake alliances. The board is clearing. The old game is almost played, and the pieces broken. The Emperor is dead and Suleiman ageing. Russia, which you nearly saved, is being dashed to pieces in the madness of her Tsar. Mary Tudor has gone, and her church with her. Philip, free of his English bondage, may well abandon the sad Flemish morass he has floundered in, and France is sinking: all Italy lost; all her conquests squandered in a silly peace, made for the return of an old man to his monarch.’
‘Except for Calais,’ Lymond said.
‘Except for Calais,’ Wharton agreed. ‘The King of France won’t give up Calais. But he has given up Thionville, they tell me.’
Lymond did not speak. Wharton said, ‘You were young at Annan.’
‘Was I?’ Lymond said. After a moment he added, ‘I am thirty-two.’
‘And I am sixty-three,’ Lord Wharton said. ‘Who else does your country have? There is a new game about to begin. Will you leave it to others?’
‘As you will leave it to your son,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘It is all I find I can do.’
*
He left, with Wharton’s armed escort, later that day. And Lord Wharton himself, riding preoccupied back to his castle of Berwick, was only roused from his speculations by the sight of his new, quiet lieutenant, confronting him in his own chamber.
‘I am told that the comte de Sevigny has been released,’ said Austin Grey, Marquis of Allendale.
‘He should never have been arrested,’ said Wharton. ‘Don’t you know better than to trust the Lennoxes?’
Austin said, ‘He commanded the French army. He took Calais. He captured my uncle.’
Thomas, first Baron Wharton of Wharton, sat in his chair. ‘Boy,’ he said. ‘Listen to me, and learn the first lesson of man, the political animal. When you wage war, you wage it for ever. When war is over, it has never existed. There is a truce, and there will shortly be a peace between England and Scotland. Crawford of Lymond is the Queen’s friend, and my friend, and your friend.’
‘I am glad,’ said Austin Grey, ‘that you told me. My lord, I have some business at home, and my spell of duty,