Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [95]
He had none, certainly, in which to make excursions to Flavy-le-Martel, even if he had been willing to advertise his intention, which he was not. Then, little more than a week after his return to Compiègne, there arrived at Court the Queen of Scotland’s most senior uncle, the Duke de Guise, summoned from Italy to save France from disaster like Chrysostom restored by an earthquake, and discovering, as he moved from a defensible Lyon to a tranquil court and a confident and liberated Paris, that by some perverse fortune, France had been rescued without him.
Accompanied by Piero Strozzi, under whose aegis the remarkable M. Crawford had been persuaded to return from Douai, the Duke de Guise rode to Compiègne with his trumpets, his banners, his gentlemen, and congratulated M. Crawford, as his niece had foreseen he would, on his hard work, his loyalty and his competence. He then addressed the troops, distributed a limited amount of back wages, and to the sound of cheering, rode back into the castle, leaving M. de Sevigny to take Marshal Strozzi round the foreign detachments.
Taking refreshment, amiably, with the rest of M. de Sevigny’s colleagues in his chamber, the Duke invited the Seigneur de Thermes, the Duke de Nevers and M. d’Estrée to describe for him the military situation as they presently each understood it.
They did so, readily. After ten minutes, a member of his own suite, with care, managed an interpolation. ‘It seems to me, monseigneur, that most of this repeats the report you already have before you from M. de Sevigny.’
The Duke de Guise glanced at his papers, and lifted out, with manicured fingers, the packet of ribbon-bound documents which had lain underneath them. ‘You are right. I have read this with interest. A clerkly hand, and a most meticulous attention to detail. It has been compiled, I suppose, with the expert help of all you gentlemen. Do I take it that you agree with it all?’
The Duke de Nevers looked round the comfortable room and then at the handsome bearded face opposite with its large, considerate eyes and honourable scar.
Still on the right side of forty, descendant of St Louis and Charlemagne, a bold and brave leader of men, wealthy, powerful, head of the most brilliant family in France and next to the monarch and his brother, the man who at this moment controlled France’s destiny, François, second Duke de Guise, was a man with whom to walk softly, whatever your rank. De Nevers said, ‘The facts are correct. The projects for the future are all the results of mutual discussion. The only one we had cause to dispute with M. de Sevigny was, of course, the first; but he has inclined us to follow his view. We think the time is ripe for expelling the English from France. We think the Christian King should attack the Pale and drive the English out of Calais.’
*
‘You know, of course,’ said Piero Strozzi, riding down the lines of huts and pavilions, ‘that you have been sent out of the way? That the Duke de Guise has been made lieutenant-general of all French armies inside and outside the kingdom, and that his orders are to be obeyed as would the King’s? That having, according to God’s Vicar on Earth, accomplished in Italy little for his master’s honour and still less for his own, he must urgently re-establish his reputation, and that therefore any campaign, any successes to come in this war will be immediately seized and appropriated? Did the monarch tell you that, when he made you a Chevalier of the Order? Did you know how short would be your tenure and is this, by any chance, why you are wearing so bravely the hundred-thousand-ducat point diamond with which his Most Christian Majesty rewarded the saving of Paris? I have to warn you that it is not the Duke’s habit to dispense with rivals by allowing them to leave freely for Russia. He breaks them; and they do not survive the experience.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ said Lymond. ‘I thought they were planning to send me with the eight ensigns and one hundred and fifty light cavalry to Scotland.’ A horse coughed in