Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [9]
He glared at his nephew, who had failed to kill Francis Crawford of Lymond, and Austin Grey sustained his gaze without moving.
At Lymond’s hands he had risked the loss of more than his time and his patience. He had enjoyed a grim satisfaction in attempting to repay him, painfully, in that brief moment of fighting at Douai.
But he had not sought to kill him.
One could not say that to Lord Grey. One could not say that in honour one could not bring oneself to slay Francis Crawford, then or at any time in the future, no matter how much one disliked him.
One could not say that one deeply loved, and wished to marry, Francis Crawford’s exquisite wife.
Chapter 2
Dedans Lyon ving cinq d’une halaine
Cinq citoyens, Germains, Bressans, Latins
Par dessous nobles conduiront longue traine
Et descouvers par abbois de mastins.
That a Royal deputation was coming was known to every burgher in Lyon by the last week in July, but only the doughty Scottish merchant called Jerott Blyth knew who was to lead it, for Francis Crawford sent him a letter.
Once, Jerott had fought under Lymond, when his band of mercenaries had first made their mark throughout Europe. He still exchanged news and heard from his former colleagues occasionally. He knew, for example, from Adam Blacklock what Lymond had done and said on his return from Douai, when his captains had succeeded, with Strozzi’s help, in preventing him from leaving France.
Jerott Blyth was a tough and even a foolhardy man, but he was glad he had not been there. He was content to receive his instructions by letter and to carry them out in the pleasant place where he had chosen to settle, in the Presqu’île, the flat pendant of land on the breast of the south-flowing Rhône which was the heart of commercial Lyon.
To his north lay the streams of the Saône and the Rhône, the cords of the pendant here united. From Marseille up the Rhône to the Presqu’île there came the wine, the crystal, the oil, the vats of silk and the ostrich feathers, the gold, the carpets, the almonds, the sugar, the balms and the spices of Venice, Africa and the Orient. Through the river-passes to the north and the west, trade and conquering peoples flowed over the Alps and into Italy as well as into Germany, Flanders and Paris. Long after the Romans had founded it, Lyon remained the crossroads of the world: the springboard of every Transalpine campaign; the station in every traveller’s journey from the Mediterranean to the Court in the north.
And so Lyon was larger than Paris, and, fed by the rich blood of its immigrants, grew richer and still more brilliant. It gave to the world silks and poetry, the finest banking system Europe possessed, and the most distinguished collection of printing houses. And from its wealth, it came in time to pay the penalty. Four French Kings, coated in silver-etched armour, had hurled themselves into warfare on the bankers’ orders loyally proffered by Lyon, and the burghers were in no doubt at this moment as to why a Russian general with French and Scottish titles should be riding from Compiègne to address them. But none the less, on this Sunday, August 15th, they gathered outside the Hôtel de Ville on the Presqu’île and waited for the welcoming party to appear on the bridge with their visitors.
And Jerott Blyth, standing with them in his expensive high-collared cloak and paned pourpoint wondered why, successfully settled in this handsome city, he troubled to further the career of someone who was, after all, no longer his commander. And why, gazing over the river to the tree-cloudy hill of la Fourvière palisaded with the tall, crowded homes of the bankers, the administrators, the clergy, he should find his gloved fingers clenched, his pulse hurrying.
He had nothing to fear. He was beyond the age,