Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [76]
She had remembered the milkmaid dress because it had brought her such good fortune. The present King, masked, had commanded her to be his partner that evening, and not only at the dance. She watched for her newest conquest to reappear and smiled at him when he did, dressed in a shapeless felt hat and a frayed shirt and hose with a jacket.
She did not know when she smiled that Catherine was watching her, or that, unconstricted by buckram, her opulent flesh billowed within the cheap garments. Or that her face, yellowed and pitted under its pigments, might yet have retained a kind of lined nobility, except that without its wired superstructure of headgear, the tight skull and big jaw were ludicrous.
Catherine saw her mother, mildly tipsy, produce that assured and brilliant smile; and saw Lymond return it charmingly, with all the easy deference of which, up to now, she had been so scornful. He took her mother’s free hand and spoke to her.
‘Will you forgive me? It cannot be comfortable. But we must cross the river, and the College has a boat beside the Augustins. Joseph has found us a guide. We are four humble workers who had leave from our bakehouse to cross the bridge and bait the Huguenots, but the bridge is closed, and we have had a little too much cheap wine, and unless we return to our master before the morning batch is put in the ovens, we shall be beaten and turned out to starve in the gutter. Can you act in such a way, when we meet people?’
The Maréchale was pleased to say that she could and Catherine her daughter thought that with the aid of the spiced wine so thoughtfully provided she was probably right. Then they were at the postern by which they had entered and the grey-haired porter was unlocking it for them, and grinning, and wishing them good fortune as they passed through. Catherine wondered how much M. de Sevigny had paid him. Then she saw that they had been joined by a big-handed young man in sweaty clothes, also grinning, whose likeness to Joseph told all that was necessary. His name, said M. de Sevigny, was Moses, cum duplicantur lateres qui venit.
Whether or not his name was Moses, it described his function exactly. Since they had entered the rue St Jean de Beauvais an hour previously the barriers had been put up, which in college time prevented the carts and wagons of the millers and the vinegar-merchants from rumbling through and spoiling the lessons.
Moses had a key to the barrier. He also knew just where the corps de garde were working in the roads leading back to the rue St Jacques: with the Maréchale de St André’s elbow tucked under his arm he led them from one safe alleyway to another, pausing from time to time to hail groups of homecoming artisans as the crowds, having seen the Calvinists safely in prison, began coming away from the Petit Châtelet.
Everyone seemed in cheerful mood. Justice had been done, which wa: satisfactory; and a good many personal blows had been struck, which was more satisfactory still. In the main street, the shutters were still open and a tavern had lit its serving-window and was handing out pots of liquor, to the trill of a flute in the background. Half a dozen customers, with drunken gravity, were measuring a dance among the litter of bloodstained paving stones.
They were singing in the rue Coupe-gorge cul de sac and for through-way to the rue des Maçons demanded a wayfarer’s fee of a ditty. Surprisingly, Madame la Maréchale’s valet, opening his mouth for virtually the first time that evening, produced a magnificent tenor and a sentimental vaudeville which made a group of ancient filles publiques in a condemned cellar burst into weeping: invitations followed them into the top of the rue de la Harpe where there was another party in active sport round the fountain. Someone tried to duck M. de Sevigny, who