Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [17]
VULNERABLE as a crab at the moult, The O’LiamRoe rode, mild, unwashed and hoary, into the splendid bosom of Rouen. And by the grace of all the old and mischievous gods, his arrival, with Thady Boy Ballagh and Piedar Dooly, passed that day unremarked by the townspeople. For four days, the Sacred Majesty of the Most Christian King of France, the most magnanimous, powerful and victorious King Henri, Second of that name, would enter his Norman capital for the first time in the three years of his reign, and the preparations for that joyous Entry had worn the Rouennois into tatters.
They were lucky to miss the Court, which had blocked the Rouen road all that morning, settling into the Priory of Bonne-Nouvelle across the river to sit out the days till the Entry. Lord d’Aubigny, who had escorted the Irish party from Dieppe and last night had secured them an unexceptionable inn for their comfort, took his leave there with his lances to join the gentlemen about the King, leaving Robin Stewart with his small retinue to see O’LiamRoe safely lodged in the city.
They had reached the suburbs in the plain of Grandmont when a whale came out of a house on a trolley and crossed the road, with four men pushing it. Every horse in Robin Stewart’s party snubbed its owner and O’LiamRoe’s mare reared. The Chieftain was nothing if not a good rider. He bore her down, the horsecloth all over him, and instantly bestowed his fond attention on the situation. ‘Dhia! I see you have a great care for your fishing industry, to improve them with wooden legs. Will you look at that, Thady?’
Mr. Ballagh leaned over. The whale at their feet, its plaster sides sweating in the sun, clapped open its jaws and a jet of Seine water hit the air. The horses, thoroughly shaken, plunged and danced to the tune of Scots swearing, and O’LiamRoe this time very neatly fell off.
It was a scene of unqualified extravagance. Before them lay the lit walls of Rouen veiled with rigging; the crowded bridge and the yellow, slapping water; but the city was all but masked by the white canvas of tents and marquees sprung like land-ships on the near bank before them. A half-finished pavilion covered with crescents and fleurs-de-lis stood by the roadside, crawling with joiners, and behind, a square of horse lines was busy with men, and a knot of six or seven soaked geldings being rubbed down. Someone had left a streaky chariot in the mud, a trident stuck by a wheel; and inside one of the tents, where a city archer gossiped on guard, a dozen fresh green canvas fishtails were drying in a row.
The sandy mud of the banks boiled with dripping men and small boats; the islands were messy with scaffolding; and somewhere a rather poor choir was practising hard. The air was filled, like birds flying, with shouts and hammer blows and arguing voices, and at the entrance to the bridge a woman halfway up a ladder with a boy under her arm was screeching at a painter curled on a pediment high above, decorating a niche. The four men, no doubt regretting their exuberance, had disappeared with the whale to the water. Leaving his horse blithely loose, and with never a glance at his surroundings, O’LiamRoe followed.
Robin Stewart, of the King’s Bodyguard of Scots Archers, gave a hard-pressed sigh and turned to share his despair with his bowmen. Instead, the acid, droopbrowed face of the ollave caught his eye.
‘France, mère des arts, des armes et des lois,’ observed Thady Boy, without altering a muscle. ‘I take it you wish to enter Rouen. Unless you divert O’LiamRoe’s mind instantly, he will feed on his whale like a prawn on the seethings of drowned men.’ Robin Stewart opened his mouth.
But the diversion came from another direction. Over the bridge before them, two women came riding, satins fluttering and furs blowing; and the servants mounted behind were all in a livery Stewart knew as well as he knew the redheaded owner in front. It was Jenny Fleming.
Janet, Lady Fleming, was pretty, and Scottish, and a widow. She was a natural daughter of King James IV of Scotland. She was also