Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [46]
‘By God,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘He nearly got served with a kick on the bottom. I was nearly sure Destaiz was plotting something myself, and then he turned as cautious as a dog with his first flea—Are ye wanting to see him?’
‘I have been trying,’ said Francis Crawford, ‘to indicate as much for ten minutes.’
‘Yes. Well. There’s a wee difficulty,’ said Archie Abernethy; and standing, he began to button up the gorgeous silk of his coat. ‘There’s a wee difficulty. He’s deid.’
‘You surprise me,’ said Lymond dryly. ‘How?’
‘Oh, drowning. He got dragged in this morning, and he was no swimmer, poor chap. We had to send the elephant back in after him.’
‘May I see him?’ asked Lymond.
The Keeper hesitated. Then he said, ‘Oh, aye. Come away. He’s just next door’, and led the way through to the elephants, nimble fingers resettling the turban on his head. In the darkest corner he bent, and hauling back a layer of sacking, disclosed the undignified and sodden corpse of a man with half a foot missing. ‘That’s Pierre.’
He had probably drowned as indicated; but he had certainly been knifed first. Proof or none, Hughie, the kindhearted big bairn of a beastie, had been swiftly avenged.
Crawford of Lymond, looking down, kept his counsel, and the man Abernaci, equally wordless, softly replaced the sheet. They walked together outside, and faced each other.
‘Aye. It was a pity he drowned,’ said Archie Abernethy, a genuine frown on his face. ‘For I fancy if they’re after the little Queen, someone else will have a try.’
‘Yes. Unless we find out who it is.’
‘We?’
‘I thought I might rely on your benevolent eye—and that of Hughie,’ said Lymond. ‘How strict is your secret? If I send friends of mine to you, will they have to speak Urdu?’
‘If they’re Scots, and you trust them, then I’ll take my chance,’ said Abernaci. ‘Tell them what you want, and ye can count on me if ye need me. Of course the Irish, I’ve always held, are a different matter … but I’m willing tae make an exception for your Doolys and such—provided, ye understand, it doesna spread. But, man—ye’re leaving France yourself tomorrow, are ye not?’
‘My dear Archie, were not you and I and Hughie all that lay between the King’s triumphant Entry and a sad calamity today?’
‘Even so—’
‘And has not the King invited me to appear at his supper at St. Ouen tonight?’
‘It’s the least he could do. But still—’
‘There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O’LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank,’ said Lymond, gently reflective, ‘to be perfectly frank, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O’LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers.’
VI
Rouen: The Difficult and the Impossible
The difference between the difficult and the impossible is as follows: the difficult is troublesome to procure, but though troublesome it is still procured; whereas the impossible is a thing which it is impossible for a person to procure, because it is not natural for anybody to get it at all.
ONE of the pleasures of Lord d’Aubigny’s fastidious middle age was to see the Court dine, properly served, housed and habited. In diamonds, music and spice, in good talk, in good taste, in the secure knowledge that nearly every man present was of a higher rank than his own, Lord d’Aubigny felt that his life was worth while; that the great deeds of his forebears and the high honours of his brother Lennox were being outstripped by the splendour of his days; and that winged Comus was his bedfellow.
In all this glory, the promised presence of an Irish princeling’s toadlike secretary was a blight and an affront. At Court, his distaste was shared. And when after Mass the Court resettled