Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [94]
At the third clue, with ten to go, the two leading couples had a coil of rope each, three couples had dropped out and five were still following, with St. André partnered by Laurens de Genstan leading Arthur Erskine and Claude de Guise. Running softly for the Place St.-Louis, his hand on Stewart’s arm, Thady Boy spoke in his ear. ‘My dilsy, I foresee trouble now. We are too even, and some fine fellow is going to try and set that to rights. Go as quiet as you can. If one is held up, the other goes on. There is a word with each clue to memorize, as certain proof we have seen it, and you have a stark sober mind to hold them. Honneur, Espérance and Noblesse are behind us, and were I to choose, I would surely nominate Régurgitation the next.’
It was, in fact, Renommée, nestling with its clues in the carved frontage of a draper’s house in the Place; and when the next, in the Rue du Palais, turned out to be Justice, Stewart saw what he meant.
Ballagh had been right also about the horseplay. They were all on top of one another again, and it was both drunken and rough. Ropes were hacked at without mercy for those suspended; gutters kicked down and tiles dislodged; elbows, knees and feet brought brutally into play. Stewart, tripped up neatly from the shadows, had a fall of twenty feet, ultimately and safely ended in thatch. De Genstan, who perpetrated it, was caught, as he ran along an exposed upper gallery, by the contents of some sleeper’s slop bucket, hurled with a soft Irish benediction full in his face.
Stewart himself saw it, his eyes shining. Outside himself at last, he had no fear. Even when hurtling down among the chimneys he had an absolute belief in his own salvation, and rose unharmed and unshaken.
It was as well, for a new challenge was appearing. As much as a steeplechase now, it was hide and seek. Their brains were well matched. The subtleties of the acrostics gave them pause more than once, but only briefly. The real test was one of agility and ingenuity and pure stamina.
And here, taking over as the Constable’s nephews, the Colignys and the de Guises—tripping each other up, exploding into laughter, clattering down the rooftops on tin trays and pelting one another with eggs from some long defunct nest—began to lose the sharp sense, of contest, were Jacques d’Albon, Marshal de St. André, and de Genstan his partner. Courtier, diplomat and fighting man, hated by the King’s father and most dearly loved by the King, St. André was trained to an inch, sinew, muscle and brain. As windows lit behind them in street after street, as the spectators, the admirers, the rabble coursing below them along the route roared their acclaim; he began to press forward.
Many of the locations properly vacant in the daytime were far from so in the middle of the night. Ten little girls in a convent dormitory giggled, squealed, or hid under the bedclothes, as one by one, the window was darkened by six or seven gallants, each in turn dropping to the floor and subjecting the fireplace to a search. The Mother Superior arrived running as the last well-muscled leg shot round the shutters and, trapped in a fog of hysteria, did not find until morning the discarded shift blatant on the highest finial of all.
It was about this time that St. André and de Genstan passed them and Thady Boy, who had prepared for the circumstance two streets ago, cracked a jar of rose attar and lobbed the contents at the Marshal as he went. The crowd yelled; the victim swore, choking, in rivers of pomade; and Robin Stewart laughed till he cried.
Then it was their eleventh