Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
The Latin was over, thank God, and the worst of the affair: Ely with a cursed long-winded oration and de Guise replying, silky in red camelot—a foreigner; one would say English himself. Now Henri, in plain white sewn with silver aiglettes, his black hair shining, looking well, touched the Book, kissed the Cross and was taking the oath.
It was going smoothly after all. Garter, well into his stride, took the blue silk Garter with its gold letters and buckle from the cushion, kissed it and gave it to Northampton. Flinging back his own mantle the Marquis took it and, kneeling, bound it round the muscular left leg of the King, combining reverence with deftness in a way that betrayed well-spent time with an equerry.
D’Aubigny was looking smug. Why had François de Guise been late? That fellow who played the Irishman had been his sister’s spy; you could tell that. The play acting over the boar had been typically à deux visages—a disclaimer of her interest at the time, and an excuse for her to be lenient later, if she needed one. And she had cast him off pretty sharply in the end. It was surprising that he permitted it. Not that you could blame her. As events proved, she had been right.
You could guess, too, the kind of game she would be playing in Scotland. A de Guise Regent of Scotland; a de Guise Pope at Rome; a de Guise virtually King of France.… Well. They would see about that. But with this fellow at her back …?
Well, they would see about that, too. The King had liked him; he would give the Médicis something to think about, too.
Capito vestem hanc purpuream.… God, it was hot.
The ninth galley was on fire. On Mary’s boat they had seen it. Someone, head and shoulders over the gunwale, was hacking at ropes. Then the whole linked cluster of boats rocked, and began to drift slowly forward. In his haste, the would-be helper had cut all the vessels free of the buoy, and the dozen roped boats were still drifting shoulder to shoulder in the same moving mass with his own.
Cholet, on the far side of the roof, had started to slither down. Beyond, O’LiamRoe with his three men were running back. Lymond called to him; then turning, slid to the ground and made fast for the lake. The fountains came on, two delicate blizzards of light on either side of the water.
The Duchess de Valentinois had long since gone in; the nymphs had absented themselves, with Bacchus, at the first sign of trouble; the men-at-arms in Mary’s boat, still obviously fearing nothing worse than an illicit fireworks display, were fending off the empty fleet with their oars. The brigantines, the painted galleys with their dragon prows, rocked; and a spurt of flame showed at the side and deck of the ninth. A sudden gift from heaven: the musicians, gaping, had fallen silent. Lymond, already running in water, cupped his hands. ‘Gunpowder in the boats. Row away.’ And turning quickly, caught the knife someone tossed him.
Abernaci, halfway from the menagerie shore, was treading water. Already the drifting boats were nearer Lymond than himself. He heard Lymond shout again, this time in Gaelic, just before he struck out. It was an instruction to harness the elephant.
It was meant for Abernaci, but it was O’LiamRoe who heard and acted on it, shouting to the cowardie, thonging new rope into Hughie’s harness. He stood at the water’s edge, hemp in hand, and threw it in unfolding yellow fakes into Abernaci’s wet hands as Francis Crawford slid through the water, green and white, to the boats. Under the sudden, urgent drive of two pairs of long oars, the Queen’s boat shot towards him, and the flotilla, sucked by the wake and the rush of fire near its tail, curtseyed after.
The white surcoat was off, and the new crimson gown on, the sword girded without incident; and Garter was kissing the Mantle and Hood. ‘Accipe Clamidem hanc caelici coloris … Take ye this Mantle of heavenly colour, with the shield of the Cross of Christ garnished, by whose strength