Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [80]
The Duke de Guise was indisposed on his voyage to France, and wrote that he would come north to Paris by litter as soon as he was able to travel.
The King of France replied that the Duke was on no account to make himself unwell by hurrying, adding that never was master so pleased with his servant as he with the Duke. He then resumed hunting with his new and charming companion, pursued by couriers from Compiègne, Laon, Amiens, Abbeville and Lyon and accompanied by M. de Vigne, the French Ambassador to Turkey, newly back with advice from the Sultan Suleiman.
The Ambassador, in common with all ambassadors in France, was accustomed to transacting his business on horseback, but not to obtaining decisions with what turned out to be the present velocity. The situation in Turkey was complex. The powerful Suleiman, whose pirate raids in the Mediterranean had been of such assistance in harassing the Spaniards in Italy, was disgruntled. The French, for instance, kept making peace with the Pope without consulting him. He was considering, the Sultan said, invading Hungary and Germany himself in the summer, and if the most Christian King would kindly refrain from concluding his campaign in Italy, the Sultan might be able to spare the Ottoman fleet to support him. He sent a gold cup and a small vase of balsam as, one might say, drink money.
With Spain on her doorstep, it was understood, France had no desire to reopen the Italian war, which had been a crazy venture of the de Guise family in the first place. In the event, no one had to lose face by saying so, for the King’s new fair-haired commander merely said, ‘You’ll get the fleet in any case. My information is that Suleiman is not in good health, and the sons have begun fighting over the succession again. Hungary is in no danger. He won’t risk leaving Topkapi.’
‘The Knights of Malta will not be pleased,’ M. de Vigne had ventured. The Knights of St John, sworn to slaughter the infidel, owed the very island they possessed to the King of Spain. He added, ‘Your grace will remember the sad tidings. The Grand Master Claude de la Sengle has departed this world.’
The new fair-haired general, a good seven years younger than Henri, for God’s sake, had answered courteously. ‘His grace, as you know, is profoundly moved by the news. But the Knights of St John will require a permit for grain. And if Parisot de la Valette succeeds as Grand Master, France has nothing to fear.’
They were in the middle of a close run, and the Ambassador to Turkey could only gasp obsequiously in reply, and observe the King smiling at his commander. The man, he now recalled, had been for a brief period a French envoy to Turkey, and had fought on Malta. There was a Knight of St John, they said, presently on his staff.
He had heard what M. de Sevigny had achieved in Lyon and Paris. At the kill, he saw how the King kept the man by his side, and held him by the arm, and joked with him. And after the kill, the King read the last batch of dispatches, which all reflected the single conclusion: the threat to Paris was over. So M. de Vigne became witness to a moving and extraordinary ceremony: when the King of France placed his hands on the comte de Sevigny’s shoulders, and requiring him to kneel, with borrowed sword and gilt spur created him a knight of the royal Order of St Michael.
And that, thought M. de Vigne, was going to shake a few birds from the tree-tops. It was the premier order of chivalry, granted to the great of the civilized world: to kings and princes and generals. There were only 36 Knights of the Order of St Michael. The late King James of Scotland had been one. And Charles V, the great Emperor, now retired to his monastery in Spain, whose son Philip was conducting this war with such lack of confidence. And of course, the de Guise family. The Cardinal of Lorraine was its Chancellor.
Returning to Paris in the wake of the hunting party and watching the King dismount at the Tourelles, his hand on the comte de Sevigny