Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [17]
Lymond, grabbing Will Scott’s arm in a hurry, prevented pursuit. ‘Dammit, remember. We’re supposed to be the injured party. I told you Peter Cranston would warn us to avoid an offence to the Almighty in spilling blood on a prostitute’s grave.’
‘The small gentleman with the wounded shoulder?’ asked M. de Villegagnon sympathetically.
Tom Erskine answered, breathless with laughter. ‘Francis asked him to stand watch this evening on the Cessford road, and he’s very anxious to save Francis from sin.’
‘A risk which does not unduly trouble M. Crawford himself,’ said the Chevalier pointedly. ‘He regards boredom, I observe, as the One and Mighty Enemy of his soul. And will succeed in conquering it, I am sure—if he survives the experience.’
III
Joleta
(Flaw Valleys, May 1551)
ALMOST two years had passed, and peace had been declared between England and Scotland, before the Chevalier de Villegagnon met a Crawford again.
For part of this period, Francis Crawford of Lymond had been living in France, repelling boredom with considerable success among those serving the child Queen Mary of Scotland at the French Court. He was there while the Queen Dowager of Scotland came to visit her daughter; and he was still there when his brother Richard, Lord Culter, came to serve the child Queen in his turn, and thankfully, in due course, left the French Court once more for home.
Boats for Scotland, in these days of brisk piracy, of offended Flemings and outraged English and well-armed Spaniards, were not frequent or cheap. At Dieppe, Lord Culter, a quiet but effective traveller, made a number of calls, and then sat back and played backgammon until word reached him, one day at his inn, that a French galley was leaving for Scotland that night.
In half an hour, Richard had established that, as a royal ship of the King of France’s fleet, the galley would take no paid passengers; that the master was not averse to money; that the decision to accommodate one of the Scottish Queen Dowager’s Councillors rested with a certain royal official now lodging with the Governor at Dieppe Castle; and that this officer’s name was Nicholas Durand, Chevalier de Villegagnon. In an hour, neatly turned out in brown cloth and gold satin, Lord Culter presented himself at the castle of Dieppe.
The reunion was a civilized one. M. de Villegagnon, whose vows of poverty were elastic, wore a triangular jacket frilled at neck and cuff, to which were appended vast sleeves layered like cabbages. Richard, entering the private parlour set aside for the Chevalier by his host, became aware of a level of grandeur which had been present, but not obtrusive, in the cold harassed ditches outside Haddington. Several gentlemen in attendance and two pages in the Chevalier’s livery rose as he entered. Further, beyond the Chevalier’s portable priedieu, two nuns and an older lady in plain clothes collected their skirts, rose and curtseyed. M. de Villegagnon introduced one of the gentlemen as his secretary and another as his priest, and the elderly lady by name without any explanation at all. Then Richard, who knew when it paid best to be direct, broached his need of transport to Scotland, and consequent interest in the Chevalier’s galley tied up at the quay.
In the old-fashioned room, hung with mementoes of Dieppois voyages, there was a busy silence, filled by M. de Villegagnon repeating the question to gain time. His eyes, Lord Culter observed, rested on the calm face of the old lady. She, apparently unaware of this, continued with a piece of fine sewing. Only, without looking up, she said, ‘Mademoiselle would be the better of an