Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [101]
He had been embarrassed. ‘If the King ever hears of it. According to d’Aubigny he’s been out the whole night, and came in the back way only just now with his nose white; and the Constable behind him with his nose red. The lady didn’t suit him tonight, I jalouse.’
‘He’ll hear of it.’ Thady, trailing his recovered doublet, was at the guardroom door. Stewart suddenly wanted to stop him. ‘Ballagh, listen …’
Patiently the fat man turned. ‘I have been making terrible free with the Robin, so you had better put your tongue to Thady Boy.’
Full of drink and success and his new, frail, fledgling trust, the Archer stood over him. ‘Leave O’LiamRoe. Leave him,’ he said. ‘Yon serena was gey funny, and he fairly needed the lesson, but it isn’t enough. Leave him. He’s no good. They’ll spoil you, the lot of them—och, it’s recognition, I know, of a sort: the kind I once thought I was desperate to have. But it’ll wreck you, body and mind. Better find an honest master and do an honest day’s work; and if success comes, you can be proud of it.’
His friend Thady Boy was able, at least, to put something of its proper value on this newborn and unwonted solicitude. After a second he said, ‘The O’LiamRoe and I will part soon enough in Ireland. We talked of this once before. If you dislike the Court so much, why not leave?’
Stewart’s unpractised, eager emotion carried him forward too quickly. ‘And come to Ireland with you?’
There was a pause. Then, relaxing, Stewart heard what he had wanted to hear. ‘If you wish to,’ said Thady Boy slowly, and bearing Stewart’s inarticulate pleasure with patience, won his way at last out of the room. Presently he lost the last of his escorts and was able to make his way straight to Jenny Fleming’s pretty room.
She was not in bed; not even surprised, it seemed, to see him, although it was nearly dawn and the paint on her face, over the feathered bedrohe, was cracked and moist. ‘Francis …? I gather you have sounded the tocsin and ruined the sleep of every living person in Blois. Margaret will be beating her breast.’
He stood stock-still inside the door, his doublet thrown over one burst and filthy shoulder. ‘Pray tell me, Lady Fleming … Why is no one on duty outside the Queen’s door?’
Jenny Fleming never shirked an issue; she enjoyed it. Backing up the velvet steps to the great bed, she perched on the end. ‘Do I need to tell you?’
His eyes and voice remained bleak. ‘No. The King has been here, and probably the Constable. Is the child always unguarded when the King comes?’
Mary’s room adjoined hers. Lymond’s voice had been quiet. Even late hours could not make Jenny’s smile less than delicious. ‘You would like me to have Janet, and James, and Agnes in chairs round the room? The doors from the Queen’s room to mine and to the passage are both locked. And the King’s valet and the Constable are usually in the anteroom.’
‘But not always. What happened tonight?’
‘Happened?’ Her fair lashes rose like stars with the stretching of her brows. Then as Lymond’s stare stayed immovable, she laughed. ‘The Duchesse de Valentinois surprised the King leaving my room. She accused the King of being unfaithful, and the King was hurt to the quick at the lady’s lack of faith. “Madame, il n’y a là aucun mal. Je n’ai fait que bavarder”.’
Her laughter, light as it was, had the finest edge to it. ‘Are you wondering if he cut her off after fifteen years? If so, you are wrong. He apologized.’
‘And Diane?’
‘Accused the Constable of procuring. There was a considerable scene, with some high language, at the end of which the Duchess and the Constable were not on speaking terms. The King promised not to see me again. He also promised’—she laughed—‘not to tell the Duke or the Cardinal of Lorraine.’
‘And,’ said Lymond, ‘where were you all this time?’
‘Here,’ said Jenny simply. ‘At the keyhole, listening.’ She rose lightly and, drifting down the steps in a shiver of satin, came close and caught his two wrists. She clicked her tongue. ‘What