Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [267]
Francis Crawford fought delicately, like an automaton, his eyes largely elsewhere, and won. At the end, kissed, congratulated and bewreathed, still preoccupied, he took his jennet past the cushioned ledges where the Scottish Court was watching, and pausing, his little horse stayed between his knees, he unpinned his gauge.
Then he looked up, the light striking gold from his hair and resting on the high planes of brow and cheekbone and nose as he studied the child’s face.
Mary unseated herself and sat again angrily, one fold of red hair fallen down the outside ledge of the box. ‘But you didn’t fight M. d’Aubigny!’
‘No.… The King did that,’ said Francis Crawford.
Her eyes opened. ‘I didn’t see him!’
‘It was done another way. But I did fight someone, you know. Will he not do?’
‘M. le Vidame?’ It was the voice of proprietory scorn. ‘He brings me cats!’
Oh. Does he?’ said Lymond with interest. ‘It’s one thing he hasn’t brought me yet. How difficult it is. Then if he will not serve, I fear I must keep the glove until I find someone who will. What about that?’
‘But yes, excellent. Do you keep it, M. Crawford. For someone truly dangerous. Such as the Irishwoman who wished me some harm?’
‘No. We were wrong, you and I. The lady is a friend.’ Lymond, no doubt sensing the Dowager’s sharpened interest, changed the subject. ‘I must go, your grace. There is word that The O’LiamRoe is to show the Court how to play hurley, and they will need a few sober men, and a physician and a priest too, before they are done. But if I am to take your glove, I ought to leave you some token at least.’ And, reaching up, he laid something on the little Queen’s outstretched palm.
It was the enormous diamond. The Dowager caught it from her. ‘Ma mie, no! M. Crawford, she cannot accept that. It is greatly too much.’
‘It is the King’s,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘I understand that, unlike the pots and pans, he does not expect it returned.’
Under his own gauntlet, the edge of a bandage showed. She understood him too well. No duties; no obligations; no responsibilities—except to himself. And yet … he had kept the glove.
‘Say me a riddle,’ said the Queen.
The jennet was becoming impatient; he had paused long enough. ‘We are not private enough,’ he said. ‘Your servant, my lady.’ And smiling, tightened the reins.
‘Sing me a song, then,’ she pressed. He was hers; he had worn her gauge; others should see how pleasant they were together. But he only smiled again, and bowed, and moved off, the applause rattling down the stands, and the equerries closing in behind, his banner held high over his head.
Mary, watching half-annoyed, half-absorbed, raised her voice chanting; hardly heard, Margaret Erskine was thankful to notice, in the noise and movement around. Then she broke into full song, taking both parts herself, in a very good imitation of the famous voice: the voice which through a long winter had sung to the King and courtiers of France, and had played with her Queens.
‘King and Queen of Cantelon
How many miles to Babylon?
Eight and eight and other eight.
Will I get there by candlelight?
If your horse be good and your spurs be bright.
How many men have ye?
… Mair nor ye daur come and see.’
August 1961—October 1962
Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye
Reader’s Guide
1. For discussion of Queens’ Play
In some respects Queens’ Play is a sixteenth-century spy story, its hero a Scottish “mole” at the French court. How comfortable is Lymond as a state “operative”? Why is the state uncomfortable with him? Does he safely complete his mission, to save a child from an assassin? How does the tragic failure of his relationship with Robin Stewart qualify this?
2. Though Queens’ Play does not travel to Ireland, the politics and plight of that small, proud, conflicted nation are crucial to the novel. Why does Dorothy Dunnett choose to tell the story of Ireland largely through the figure of the emphatically anti-political Phelim O’Liam Roe? What qualities of ancient Ireland, sixteenth-century Ireland,