Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [51]
It was then that the jugglers got involved. Ignoring the laughter, eyes snakelike, arms whirling in particoloured costume, they sent blunt-edged daggers in a stream to each other, their hands a pink blur in the slipstream of silver. Thady Boy exploded, his arms full of remedies, and somehow a two-handled vase flashed alien into the glittering stream. Cramp-fingered and incredulous, the first juggler waited for it, changed grip desperately, and sent it back to his partner in a shower of knives. The next convoy of daggers brought a key; and then a cup appeared. The juggler caught it and hurled it to the side, where Thady Boy with no apparent effort received it.
Swift, timely, in perfect position, one of the juggler’s little knives came back from the same quarter; then another; then the cup. His embrace slipping with objects, Thady Boy seemed to have acquired a whirlpool of possessions in mid-air: dishes and salt-cellars began to join it. His object seemed to be to regain possession of the amphora; but instead a stream of incoming knives began mysteriously to shoot at him. With combined and deadly malice, the jugglers had begun to incorporate Thady Boy in the act. From knives, they fed the rest of their stock into the air. The knives turned to balls, the balls to rings, the rings to eggs. He returned them all.
By now the whole room was watching. From a rustle of amusement rose a few cheers; then the King, leaning forward, was seen to smile, and the cheering became louder. From the top table Lord d’Aubigny, his handsome face on fire, strode down to the ollave; then backed a step as an egg, mishandled, landed, thickly soggy, in his shirt. Another, slipping badly astray, splashed M. Brusquet, talking hoarsely and unheard in what was approaching a din. The jugglers themselves began to suffer.
Their clothes were not cheap. To preserve their garments and the shreds of their professionalism they with one accord moved backwards, out of range and towards the end of the room. The alien objects—the cup, the key, the vase—dropped to the floor. A last tremendous hiccough shook Thady. Clothes streaming with egg yolk and water, hair erect as the crest on a jay, he leaped and fell on the amphora in the exact moment that Condé leaped and fell on the key. There was a squelching collision. Thady Boy tripped, rocked and collapsed, and falling, snatched at the carpet. Far off at the end, in front of the dais, the pyramid of tumblers, wreathed in dazzling smiles, planed a moment, genuflected and shot into space.
The King of France laughed. And like the well-bred bone and tinkle of an ancient and imperial sepulchre on the eve of All Hallows, the bored and over-refined flower of French civilization gave way to its mirth.
The tumblers had gone; the mess had been cleared up, and in the muted, end-of-meal light, diamonds flickered, caught like stars in quick water, as the company talked and laughed, and the King summoned Thady Boy to his chair.
As Lymond walked past without a sign, Tom Erskine at last allowed his eyes to meet the Queen Dowager’s with gentle triumph in his gaze. Thady Boy’s face was childlike in its innocence, and the wide, fringed blue eyes met the King’s with confidence, with a trust perfectly endearing. Henri of France addressed him in his deep, pleasant voice. ‘You have made chaos of my supper and a shambles of my supper room, sir. Are dinners so conducted in Ireland?’
‘We repel sadness if we can. It is a duty of our profession.’
‘You were not invited, I believe,’ said the King, ‘to repel sadness.’
‘I was not invited, I believe, to repel elephants,’ said Thady Boy with serenity. ‘We turn our hand to whatever we may.’
The royal eyes searched for presumption and found none. The royal face relaxed a little. ‘It is true, both your endeavours today have made you remarkably damp.’
‘It is not my favourite element. I had no choice.
‘A la fontaine je voudrais
Avec ma belle aller jouer.
‘Ma belle being a cow elephant called Annie.’
‘Ah, you quote poetry,