Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [100]
A wooden platform had been built out, extending the size of the bell chamber, and a small handrope railed it. A metal post, strutted into the stone, held one end of the cable which rose upwards before their eyes, shining in the new light, above the ravine separating the church of St. Lomer from the château on its rock. Two-thirds of the way along, arms scissoring, legs swaying, an angular figure was moving, suspended above the vault. A second was already over, climbing the crowded wall, busying himself, distantly and mysteriously, on the far side. Three yards, or four, and Stewart would have landed also.
St. André reached the platform and ducked under the rail. As on the far side Stewart struggled off the cable to the blessed safety of the château wall, the Marshal de St. André bent, found a grip, and swung off into space.
Short of murder, the cable could not now be cut. And there was a chance—a slim but real chance—of snatching the lead in that crowded courtyard where, as he could see, the huddle of bobbing heads had not parted even to let Thady Boy and Robin Stewart through. St. André was three arm spans from the church wall, and de Genstan was just stopping to grip the wire when a roar of acclaim—a double roar—reached his ears. Hung in black space, arms cracking, palms hard on the rope, he looked to his right.
On the wall of the château a queer, misshapen bulk had appeared. On its flanking harness holstered torches spluttered and burned. Under its knees and haunches a wooden platform was bound. Between its heavy ears, black and gross in the wild, smoking darkness, were two rolling eyes and a lip that curled back, showing long teeth and an open throat that lanced the cheers, the screaming, the laughter, the remembered beats of the great bell, with an ear-splitting bray. Tosh’s donkey, untied and in full working array, was about to make its solo celebrated cable-swoop on the church of St. Lomer. With all the power of his shoulders St. André set himself, grimly, to race back to the safety of the church.
It was Tosh’s donkey’s finest moment. With a whine and a hiss she left the wall and, torches streaming, tail flying, ears laid back and braying fit to drive back the waters of the Loire, whizzed over the abyss on smoking timber to plunge, hot, hairy and kicking, into the crowded belfry of St. Lomer.
What St. André said was never recorded. What the donkey said rang from wall to wall and spire to spire and house to house of Blois. Robin Stewart, watching filthy, exhausted and triumphant from the walls of the château, cried tears of laughter at the sound until he found himself swung off his feet and riding shoulder-high side by side with his friend through courtiers, colleagues, well-wishers, failed competitors, over the courtyard to the castle.
John Stewart, Lord d’Aubigny, on duty in the King’s cabinet, came out at the noise, already sufficiently irritated by his overdue Archer. But the scene in the wide guardroom had in it such a flamboyant smell of success that his lordship paused. His Archer and the Court’s darling, Master Ballagh, in a state only describable as revolting, led a vociferous and excited crowd, struggling to tack up on the beautiful woodwork a paper which Robin Stewart had just finished writing, in his round, difficult hand, to the ollave’s dictation.
Honneur
Espérance
Noblesse
Renommée
Justice
Diligence
Equité
Vérité
Amour
Libéralité
Obédience
Intelligence
Sapience
His lordship of Aubigny smiled, and moved forward to congratulate them.
Much later, when the wine was finished and the songs were wavering, Robin Stewart, half-clean in borrowed clothes, went back to duty, still a little tending to pant, a stressful ache in his larynx and throat base and a shrunken cabbage inside his ribs.
All the rest of him was happy. He had attempted to analyze the night’s events with Thady Boy, but the ollave had cut him short. ‘You did a good thing or two this night, Robin Stewart. A few small exploits more, and you