Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [89]
The key Marthe had sent her fitted none of the big doors at Sevigny, nor any others in its smooth, tended purlieus. She had not told Lymond’s sister that her next call was to be to the Abbey of Notre-Dame de la Guiche, where, paid by Gaultier, the nuns of St Claire had reared Marthe.
Nicholas gave her an introduction to the Abbess. But Philippa made that visit alone and returned from it to find Nicholas Applegarth, anxiety on his kind face, awaiting her.
With him was a royal messenger, with the red lion of Scotland on his doublet and a polite document, which said little, in his dispatch bag. The sharpened edge of the message betrayed itself in the spoken command which accompanied it. The Most High and Virtuous Princess Mary Stewart, crowned Queen of Scotland, sent her greetings to madame Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, and commanded her to Court forthwith, to take her place as one of the Queen’s ladies of honour.
One hoped, said the messenger smoothly, that madame la comtesse was conscious of the greatness of the honour. There was, one assumed, no question of refusing. Or such a refusal, naturally, would incline her Highness’s uncles to look askance on any favours required from her husband, in a household which they must regard as henceforth tinged with disloyalty.
She wept all night, for the meeting which now must come, and which she had trusted never to be called upon to endure. Then, being Philippa, she rose and cleaned and tinted her face, and put on the gown and sleeves and cloak in which, she knew, she looked most assured and most elegant. Then, leaving Nicholas silent behind, she rode to Saint-Germain.
*
The repose of self-command was still there, and the impervious face and the exquisite Turkish grooming when unawares Francis Crawford walked into her presence and stopped dead, his eyes open, his thoughts dispelled, it was obvious, like a mountain torrent striking a boulder. Philippa Somerville said steadily, ‘Her Majesty was hoping, I think, to surprise you. It was not my intention to stay in France. But I have been honoured with an appointment it would have been difficult to refuse.’
There followed an interval during which no one spoke.
Mary Fleming closed the door, remaining inside it. Her Majesty, no doubt, had had the satisfaction of overhearing the initial results, at any rate, of her subterfuge. She hoped the Countess, setting aside her restraint, might now settle to gay conversation as she had done before, on her way southwards. The Queen had enjoyed her company. It would be a pity if an old man like Master Nostradamus should hamper them. Then Mr Crawford said, ‘I understand. Some invitations are more irresistible than others.’
It was all he said. His stare had shifted to the Queen’s physician. She had forgotten, like the Queen, quite how fair-skinned he was. Master Nostradamus, easing the stiff black gown over his knees, settled back in his chair and made professional conversation. ‘I hear, my lord Count, that you have been appointed a Chevalier of the Order, on which I must offer you my congratulations. Were you a patient of mine, I should warn you against over-indulgence at their banquets. I have known men attend them who have never recovered.’
‘They have not perhaps had the good fortune to discover the right physician,’ said Francis Crawford slowly. He looked down at the feathered cap in his hand and then, with a sudden sharp gesture, threw it on the small table, where it landed between his wife and the doctor. ‘I speak, I think, to the author of the most famous Centuries, the book of prophecies published two years ago?’
The comtesse de Sevigny, whose luminous brown eyes had been fixed on her husband, turned her head suddenly to look at the Queen’s doctor. ‘You flatter me,’ said the Queen’s doctor equably. ‘You have heard of my humble works.’
He was not, Mary Fleming thought, the aesthetic figure one would have thought from his reputation. Beneath the broad black cap his