Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [38]
V
Rouen: Fast Drivings for the Purpose of Killing
The following are fast drivings and unlawful drivings for the purpose of killing: Driving into the sea; driving into a puddle; driving into mud; driving with malice and neglect, by which some are lost.…
The wounds of beasts are as the wounds of human beings, from death to white blow.
TWO scented red heads, fresh from morning worship, hung cheek by cheek like two peonies in a garland, window-gazing at the crowds.
Mary Queen of Scotland spoke first, dreamily, her face cupped in warm palms. ‘I regret,’ she said in English, ‘that I bit your marmoset, my aunt.’
No regret was visible on her lucent, seven-year-old face. On one of her fingers was a small piece of bandage.
‘Don’t apologize,’ said Jenny Fleming, lifting her firm, pretty hand from the little girl’s shoulder. ‘Our nerves aren’t what they were; and the brute had the last word anyway. Glory, child, if you get the rabies on top of today’s little gadding, they’ll bring the skin up over my ears like the widow did to the Judge.’
Turning, the Queen eyed her favourite aunt for a long moment. She said piercingly, ‘You’re afraid! You’re afraid we’ll be caught!’
Although a good many in despair had accused her of it, Jenny Fleming had never been afraid in her life. Her soul was fanned with peacocks’ tails and nourished with stardust; her appetite for excitement was a child’s. Children loved her. Mary, future bride of the Dauphin and treasure of the royal nurseries, was her own special care; but the six-year-old fiancé Louis himself was an ally, and the small French princesses Elizabeth and Claude were her fondest admirers.
Thirty-seven children were being reared with the Children of France, to serve them and play with them and bear them company, and mischief and measles broke out in the nurseries with equal facility. This month one of the smallest princes was ill—was dying, had they known it—and the great household of babies, with its 150 officials and 57 cooks, was at Mantes. So that instead of the paralysing sea-growth of maids of honour, grooms, pages and ladies-in-waiting, Queen Mary was here at Court with her mother and with only her aunt and her aunt’s four Fleming offspring to look after her.
And today, not even these. James, Lord Fleming, fifteen, sandy and solemn, was to ride with the King in his Entry. Margaret Erskine, with her husband, would watch the procession from the state pavilion with the Queen Dowager’s retinue. And here, at a magnificent window in the Faubourg St.-Sever, Mary Queen of Scots was to see it with her aunt Jenny Fleming, with her two small Fleming cousins and with no nurse, groom or page other than two members of the Royal Bodyguard of Archers outside the door. A situation with many attractions for Jenny Fleming, and which she had planned for some days to use to the full.
Now, half an hour before the procession was due to begin, she glanced at the clock, jumped up and began distributing cloaks. ‘Caught! Lord, we shall be if we’re late!’ And catching their hands, she ran for the door, the three children spinning behind her.
Outside, the Archers stared straight ahead as the muffled figures emerged, although one of them winked at the trim, unmistakable Fleming back. My lady the Queen’s aunt could make surprisingly effective arrangements when she chose; and today as always, her wishes were law. In making historic Entry into his loyal town of Rouen, the très magnanime, très puissant et victorieux Roy de France, Henri, Deuxième de ce nom, was, unwittingly, to be royally supported. Nothing, uniformed or not, was going to dissuade a parcel of irresponsible redheads from the iron path of a whim.
At dawn the same morning, leaving Piedar Dooly behind,