Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [12]
Richard, gripping his wife, looked over her head at his mother. “Who did it? What happened?”
But Mariotta answered. She shut her eyes; the darkness showed her a cool blue gaze, and she opened them again. “It was your brother. He must be insane.”
“Not insane, dear.” Sybilla, speaking gently, contradicted. “Not insane. But magnificently drunk, I fear.”
He listened to what they had to tell him; he dropped beside Janet as she lay nursing her shoulder wound and spoke to her, and came back with an unseeing face to his mother’s side through the babble of relief and hysteria. Through white lips he said, “I appear to have made a fool of myself. But not again, in that way, I promise you.”
Buccleuch’s hand was on his arm. “By God, when we come back …”
“Back?” said the Dowager.
Sir Wat’s beard folded; a sign of concern. He said flatly, “You’ve not heard the news?”
“What news?”
Without looking at Mariotta, Richard answered for him. “We heard at Boghall. It’s open war, and sooner than we thought. The English have collected an army and are on their way north. We are all summoned instantly to the Governor to fight …
“… So Lymond—dear God, Lymond must wait.”
* * *
Only eight months had gone since Henry VIII of England had been suspended in death, there to lie like Mohammed’s coffin, hardly in the Church nor out of it, attended by his martyrs and the acidulous fivefold ghosts of his wives. King Francis of France, stranded by his neighbour’s death in the midst of a policy so advanced, so brilliant and so intricate that it should at last batter England to the ground, and be damned to the best legs in Europe—Francis, bereft of these sweet pleasures, dwindled and died likewise.
From Venice to Rome, Paris to Brussels, London to Edinburgh, the Ambassadors watched, long-eared and bright-eyed.
Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England.
Henry, new King of France, tenderly conscious of the Emperor’s power and hostility, felt his way thoughtfully toward a small cabal between himself, the Venetians and the Pope, and wondered how to induce Charles to give up Savoy, how to evict England from Boulogne, and how best to serve his close friend and dear relative Scotland without throwing England into the arms or the lap of the Empire.
He observed Scotland, her baby Queen, her French and widowed Queen Mother, and her Governor Arran.
He observed England, ruled by the royal uncle Somerset for the boy King Edward, aged nine.
He watched with interest as the English dotingly pursued their most cherished policy: the marriage which should painlessly annex Scotland to England and end forever the long, dangerous romance between Scotland and France.
Pensively, France marshalled its fleet and set about cultivating the Netherlands, whose harbours might be kind to storm-driven galleys. The Emperor, fretted by Scottish piracy and less busy than he had been, watched the northern skies narrowly. Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waited for the opening gambit.
Part One
THE PLAY FOR
JONATHAN CROUCH
CHAPTER I: Taking en Passant
II: Blindfold Play
III: More Blindfold Play: The Queen Moves Too Far
IV: Several Moves by a Knight
V: Castling
VI: Forced Move for a Minor Piece
VII: A Variety of Mating Replies
I
Taking en Passant
The gardes and kepars of cytees ben signefied By the vii Pawn.… They ought … to enquyre of all thynges and ought to rapporte to the gouernours of the cyte such thynge as apperteyneth … and yf hit be in tyme of warre, they ought not to open the yates by nyght to no man.
1. The English Opening
ON Saturday, September 10th, the English Protector Somerset and his army met