Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [42]
For a moment Thady Boy watched; then streaming river water and perfume he turned, a little stiffly, to wade back to the shore.
He was still in the water when they reached him, back-slapping, shouting, talking, exclaiming, streaming down from the road. He was hustled from the beach to where a heavy, grey-bearded man in his fifties waited on horseback, a sword of ceremony stuck temporarily in his pommel. The rider bent down. ‘You, sir!’
Behind them, the procession was jerkily resuming its way; the wreckage was being cleared, and the shocked performers had vanished. Thady Boy was white, but his voice had a lilt in it. ‘Your lordship’s servant.’
‘Your brave action was marked by the King’s Majesty. He desires to thank you.’
‘It was nothing,’ said Thady Boy with modesty. ‘A middling piece of invention, all patched up with cat and clay.’
The royal party was beginning to pass. The Constable Montmorency brought his horse to the side of the road, and Thady Boy followed. ‘His grace desires to do your courage honour. I am commanded to ask your name and designation and to invite you to sup with the King and his friends at St. Ouen tonight.’
‘Indeed, now, isn’t that kindness itself?’ said Thady Boy. ‘And I would think shame to refuse, except that the King himself was for having me leave the city this night. Thady Boy Ballagh is my name, and I am paid secretary to The O’LiamRoe, Prince of Barrow; and himself unlucky with his small chat the other day.’
There was a short silence. The Constable cleared his throat. ‘I am sure that your departure can be deferred for at least a day. You will be advised. I am to tell you also that clothes will be sent to replace those you have spoiled.’
‘Ah, dhia, the sweet generosity that spouts from his heart’s veins,’ said Thady Boy. ‘And the loving forgiveness. And then Sir Gawaine wept, and King Arthur wept, and then they swooned both. Mallory might have had this very thing in his mind.’
‘I am not empowered,’ said the First Christian Baron, Marshal and Grand Master and Constable of France, Knight of the King’s Order and of the Garter and First Gentleman of the Chamber and Governor of Languedoc, ‘to invite the Prince of Barrow.’
‘And that is a power of good news in itself,’ said Thady Boy with composure, ‘for it would take an elephant, no less, to persuade him to come there.’
The procession was moving quickly now, and the Swiss Guards were almost on them. Montmorency sat back in his saddle, gathering the reins, his small shrewd eyes above the squat nose and rough beard outstaring the ollave. ‘But you, my friend, have no objections?’
‘May I be struck by a mallet of lightning like Lewy if I lie. You couldn’t stop me,’ said Thady Boy Ballagli.
Long after the Court had gone, crowds still jammed the roads and access to the city was blocked for an hour. The affair at the bridge, seen by them merely as a distant upheaval, had by that time been detailed ten times to O’LiamRoe and Robin Stewart. While the Irishman seemed only mildly amused, Robin Stewart, red-faced and a little upset, was avid to discover Thady and explore every nuance. They made the attempt to get back eventually, pushing through the picnicking crowds; but although they met plenty who had seen him, Thady Boy himself in his temporarily restored dignity was not to be found.
Alone on the plains of Grandmont, disgraced in the trampled grass and litter, far from the celebrated procession, the six elephants stood, roped each by the foreleg side by side in the vast thirty-foot tent put up several days since for their comfort;