Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [99]
‘I should make faggots of your bones, shouldn’t I, me little ugglesome allies? You lay your sticky trotters on us, who come to fight your wars for you? I think you need to be taught a little right feeling, eh brothers? So on your knees, Flemings. And prime your chops, Flemings. You’re going to lick the road clean for me and my fellows to walk on. And you’re going to pray like two English gents, while you’re at it. I’ll tell you what to pray. You say, God save the Queen and f—— Flanders.’
‘You bloody donkey!’ yelled Lymond. ‘D’you think I’ve been swearing in Walloon? When were you last in London? Never bloody saw it, I wager. Well, I tell you something. I was born by the Pissing Conduit at St Christopher’s Parish, and I can tell an English soldier from a parcel of hop-picking yokels from Surrey. What’s more, I know milord Wentworth.’
‘Do you, now?’ said an educated voice. The Knight-Porter and the fifty men at arms had arrived. The grip on the two apple-sellers slackened. Lymond looked up, his two-day stubble stippling his baleful, unwashed countenance.
‘That is,’ said Lymond sulkily, ‘I had an aunty that cleaned out his jakes for him. We’re honest traders, my lord. The gentlemen had no call to set on us. We sell sweet apples to those that’ll pay for them, but we’re poor men. If you take our goods from us by force, why, you take our livelihood, and that’s not an Englishman’s way. Leastways, not when I was in London.’
‘It is still not an Englishman’s way,’ said the Knight-Porter repressively. ‘Release these men. Replace the apples. Set the wagon to rights. You say your wares are for sale?’
‘Yes, milord,’ said Lymond. He dived nervously for his hat and clutched it, turning it round and round against his coarse jerkin. ‘All save a barrel bespoke for the Ruisbank.’
‘What price are you asking?’ said the Knight-Porter.
‘Two sols, milord,’ said Lymond. ‘Tuppence a pound, you would say. And fit for her highness at Greenwich, bless her dear, saintly heart.’ Piero Strozzi, rubbing his arms, let his mouth fall dumbly open.
‘We shall take them,’ said the Knight-Porter curtly. ‘And at three sols, to compensate for your pains. Can you turn the animal round, and bring the wagon into the courtyard?’
Lymond hesitated. ‘There’s a barrel of them for the Ruisbank. We made a bond on it,’ he said.
The Knight-Porter had grown impatient. ‘We shall see that you are helped to deliver it. Do you want to take my offer or not?’
‘Oh. Aye. Your lordship,’ said Lymond, ‘is a real gentleman. Milord, you’ve struck a blow for the honour of England, and when you see those dear green fields again, mind and salute them for me and my uncle.’
Later, sitting below Ruisbank Fort waiting for the ferryman to take them back across the harbour to Calais, Piero Strozzi said, ‘I have a strong objection to being described as your uncle.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Lymond. ‘I thought perhaps you would prefer uncle to father. It wasn’t, incidentally, the regular Knight-Porter. That was Sir Henry Palmer.’
‘Ah,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘The man who has helped to hold Guînes while my lord Grey has been away with King Philip?’
‘Yes. I knew Tommy, the older brother. He held Guînes and Calais appointments as well. Meddled in politics, however, and paid for it.’
‘I had heard. I had also heard that my lord Grey of Wilton was in trouble at the same time, but was reckoned too good a soldier to execute, even though he might lean to the Reformers. The English Pale is a useful exile, it seems to me, for the nation’s more recalcitrant citizens.’
Piero Strozzi turned and looked at his placid companion. ‘You took some trouble to get me this morning to Mass. Can it have escaped your memory that I refused a Cardinal’s hat in my youth? That Pope Leo was my mother’s brother? That I have a sister an Abbess