Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [27]
She had thought of all this. She had met that danger as best she could simply by removing the worst elements of danger and carrying them with her. But even so, before even she came to Dieppe, the powerful and violent men in her train were nipping and kicking and plunging at one another and at the ribbons which held them.
And in the face of this she must move correctly, with haughtiness and with splendour through the excessive and appalling round of ceremony that had been prepared for her; must behave to the King and his Court, to her own family and their rivals and the ambassadors of every nation in Europe who came to pay court to her, as if she had come merely to visit her child, and as if, given her own way, she would not have smashed the gilded bubble of dance and laughter with a blow, so that these damned lackadaisical, self-important, rich, preening men would be hurled by circumstance round the conference table, where she would have them, to discuss with all the gifts in their power, the future policies of France and of Scotland.
So she sat restless in the Hôtel Prudhomme after a morning of state receptions, with Lady Fleming and Margaret Erskine at her side; and said abruptly, ‘Madame Erskine. I wish to speak with your husband.’
The page found him when he was paying his last calls before leaving, on Friday, for Flanders. The Chief Privy Councillor had also heard the rumours. As he hurried back to the Hôtel Prudhomme, Tom Erskine knew very well he was going to be asked about Lymond.
It was hurled at him as he stepped over the threshold. ‘I hear the Irishmen are being sent home. What does this mean?’
Since Dieppe, he had heard nothing. He wished he had not told her of Lymond’s identity. Now, in the presence of his wife and his wife’s mother, he attempted to reason with the Queen. With so much else, God knew, to harass them, she could not afford to pursue indefinitely this curious whim, or allow its failures to distract her. Lymond’s visit had no vital purpose; he was not her agent. His presence or his absence would make no difference.
But the Queen Mother’s patience had run out. ‘For whom is he working?’
‘Himself. No one.’
‘And whom will he be working for in a year’s time?’
There was a silence. Then Erskine said, ‘He won’t be committed. He told me himself.’
Mary of Guise checked her temper, waited and then spoke in an even voice. ‘You call yourself his friend. Consider him then. He has now his reputation, his possessions, his wealth. Yet at home his future is uncertain. It is his elder brother Lord Culter who has the barony, and the child which Lady Culter is expecting will oust our friend Lymond from his inheritance and even from his title, if it is a son.… He is idle then; he has no attachments, no dependants, no followers; he is ready, my dear Chancellor, for the dedication. In one year’s time,’ said the Queen Dowager of Scotland explicitly, ‘I want his allegiance to be mine. I need it. But far more than that, the Queen will need it. This is the moment most critical in his life and ours. If I do not seize him now, we shall never have him. And now, now is the moment; for I mean to take this man in his failure, Master Erskine—in his failure, and not in his success.’
As she spoke, the door had opened on a scratch, and a page entered, bending double in silence. ‘Bring him in,’ said the Queen Dowager, and turned her cold eyes on Tom Erskine and the two women. ‘I suspected there was only one way to find the truth; and so I sent for him,’ she said. ‘M. Crawford of Lymond is here.’
The page scuttled; the door