Queens' Play (10 page)

The marmalade head was cocked on one side. O’LiamRoe felt like being difficult. It was the other man who was in his debt. He had brought the fellow to France as his secretary to please his cousin Mariotta, who was also Lymond’s sister-in-law. He knew Lymond was Scots and not Irish, and he knew he was here with a mission. Indeed, it was out of a kind of schoolboy amusement that he had offered to help the deception. He therefore grinned, stretched, yawned an ear-cracking yawn and said, ‘Will I stay, now, if someone kindly gives me a chance? Who knows? Ask me after the King and yourself have had a talk about it.… And that puts me in mind of a thing. Piedar Dooly has a morsel of news. You recall our half-footed friend of the whale?’

This time he had the other man’s full attention. ‘Who fairly spoiled your one nightshirt? Yes.’

‘Well, now. He’s called Pierre Destaiz, it seems; and plaster whales are a passing concern. He’s one of the royal keepers at St. Germain. He’s an expert on elephants.’

Lymond’s eyes narrowed. His gaze, suddenly impersonal, rested thoughtfully on the accustomed idleness in O’LiamRoe’s soft face. Then he buried his face in his sheet, laughing noiselessly. His voice, muffled, came to Phelim. ‘And he’s come to Rouen for the
collier à toutes bêtes
. Go on.’

‘He’s been sent from the Royal Menagerie as he’s a native of Rouen—’

‘—And the elephants are to be used in the procession. With the enemies of France painted on the soles of their feet. With a dugong, a pill-rolling beetle, and a full squadron of horse of three pashas. And the little bees that stick to all flowers,’ said Lymond, laughing harder. ‘Ah, my simple orchidaceous, rotten, fertile, maimed, beloved fool of a France. Tomorrow,’ he said, sitting up with an effort, ‘tomorrow we go, web-footed country cousins that we are, to see the elephants.’

‘Tomorrow,’ said O’LiamRoe placidly, ‘we stay in this room. And on Monday. And on Tuesday. By urgent request of the authorities. The Elect of God has had enough of visiting natives, and them not using their handkerchiefs and leaving marks on the walls, and we are confined to this building henceforth. “Achieve a foothold at Court” is it?’ said the Prince of Barrow cordially, raising a limpid blue eye. ‘Well, well. Busy child, I think I shall just take that wager up.’

They had three days to pass indoors before the Entry on Wednesday.
They spent them drinking, arguing and nourishing a concatenation of visitors.

Their first, on Sunday morning, not too early, was Robin Stewart. Lord d’Aubigny was the official watchdog, but besides finding the task uncongenial he was involved in the day’s dreadful events. Stewart had been told not to let the Croix d’Or party out of his sight until Wednesday, when he and his lordship would take them, under leash, to the great Entry before shipping them post haste for Ireland.

He took the job eagerly. Slit-eyed and thickheaded, he arrayed his numberless ball and socket joints on the Croix d’Or fireplace and analysed Thady Boy’s recent performance. But still, after all his questions, it was hard to find out why to Mr. Ballagh inspiration seemed to come easily, and to Robin Stewart it came not at all.

Then Michel Hérisson arrived, his coat streaked with clay and strained across his broad shoulders, his white hair plastered wet from a sobering water jug. He leaped at Thady, his outstretched hand a flat boulder of cracked and cooled pumice; and thumped him mightily on the shoulder blades. ‘Man, man, I wouldn’t have missed that if it had cost me my presses instead of saving ‘em.…’

The O’LiamRoe and the sculptor took to one another. If the Irishman was surprised by his secretary’s exploit he did not show it. He launched forth at some length on a parallel adventure and set the older man laughing so that Stewart was able to concentrate on Thady Boy once again.

The callers that day were largely members of the previous night’s audience. They did not come empty-handed, and among other things brought a lively account of the Earl of Huntly becoming a Knight of the Order of St. Michael, with thirty-odd members of the Chapter trailing about Rouen clinking with what Thady Boy had irreverently described as the
collier à toutes bêtes
, or Every Quadruped’s Free Chain.

By Monday a small court had sprung up, with the Irishmen at its centre, and patronized by those of a liberal or unorthodox turn of mind who were willing to risk royal displeasure—a minor risk, for Stewart was discreet. The O’LiamRoe, expanding in a climate he knew, was outrageous and entertaining at his ease; and Thady Boy, while visited by no wild inspiration under the eye of his master, produced
sotto voce
at intervals a caustic commentary which the newcomers cherished. On Tuesday afternoon there were some half-dozen there, including Stewart, sitting cross-boned in the corner cleaning his nails, when the door opened to admit a small party which included Mistress Boyle and Oonagh, her dark and singular niece.

O’LiamRoe greeted them, his freckled face alight with pleasure dimmed by the merest crumb of a fret. Her headdress askew, her
cloak pinned with three different brooches and long, unsuitable earrings wagging like some hair-controlled scale for hysteria, Madame Boyle beat into the room. ‘Will ye look at him! He no sooner sets foot on the land than he ups and gives the holy King of it the desperate scold that a cow hand would be sorry to get.…’

She flung back her head, emitted a peal of laughter, and lowering a face wiped clean of levity said, ‘O’LiamRoe, I’ve been fairly bothered out of my senses with that thing. Had I never sent you a message, you would have behaved like a dove and be sitting at Court with your two shoes on the white neck of a lady-in-waiting, with respect and deference and fine meals and a sweet kiss in a corner to keep you warm this winter.’

‘Indeed; and it’s quilted frieze I prefer,’ said O’LiamRoe politely, beginning the introductions. ‘And with Thady Boy at the criminality too, we have fairly enjoyed ourselves putting a blot or two in the terrible rule books they have.’

‘Sweet, sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ said Mistress Boyle, sitting. ‘But I’ll not count myself pardoned till I hear the whole tale; and what the King said; and what our pretty de Genstan got out of his mouth, and the hairs on him stiff as a hog brush with fright.’

As O’LiamRoe told it, it was a rollicking story. While her aunt howled and chortled, mopping her eyes, Oonagh withdrew to where Robin Stewart sat, grinning, beside Thady Boy, who was engaged puff-eyed and scowling over a solitary game of cards. Acid in her low voice, she addressed the secretary. ‘The tale is beneath the notice of an ollave of the highest grade?’

He picked up a card and laid it down doubtfully. ‘The novelty, I would say, is the least thing worn off. But the first time I heard it, surely, the balls of my eyes set to whirling like mill paddles from fright.’

She was cold. ‘Why? You had nothing to lose.’

‘A man with a deficient helmet is not called to pay forfeit,’ said Thady Boy calmly. He shuffled the cards.

‘A man who helps to hide printing presses might have to forfeit more than he bargained for,’ said Oonagh. ‘You flatter yourself, my jolly boy.’

For a moment he was quite still. Then he lifted his head. Oonagh O’Dwyer, cold, hard-wrought with unleashed storms and eaten with pride, looked full into his eyes. The heavy gaze, warm, cloudless and deliberate, held hers as long as it needed, and tossed it aside. Deep lines of mischief and laughter sprang to Thady Boy’s dark face. He laughed. ‘No. I flatter you, my dear, don’t you think?’ he said, and returned placidly to his game.

Her breath beating unregarded in her throat, she got up then, her
hands taut, and looked down on his bent head. In Irish, she said, ‘
Thady Boy Ballagh:
would you not expect the name Boy on a yellow-haired man?’

O’LiamRoe heard it. He gave a quick glance at his ollave; but Lymond’s Gaelic was adequate, he was certain, and the black hair had been re-dyed that morning. Thady answered in English.

‘I pushed up through the sod yellow as a crocus, they tell me, and so they christened me after Papa.
Boy
was all they ever knew of his name; but he left the English version well accredited and they had no reason to disbelieve him in Gaelic. Oh, bad end to it!’ He glanced up, gathering together the cards. ‘Ah, the dear sympathy in that sweet eye … I haven’t the least objection, mind; but it’s fairly taking my mind off my game.’

Her voice was quiet. ‘Women grow in the fields of France like turnips. Don’t you care for them?’

Thady Boy smiled, running the cards lightly through long fingers. ‘Experiments have been a little restricted by the curfew.’

She watched his hands too. ‘La Veuve at Dieppe will be son to the heart. Won’t you miss her down there on the Loire?’

The cards danced without a pause. Behind them, amid the laughter and talk, O’LiamRoe had become quiet. Thady Boy took his time. He dealt himself a hand, turned up a card, and drew one from the pack before he said, ‘No. A dear, neat little soul like a pot of strawberries, would you say; but hard, hard on the purse.’ And he paid no more attention. She turned on her heel.

It was a long time before she and her aunt left, and still longer before the other visitors followed, and at last they were left alone with their Archer as guard. For once O’LiamRoe sat silent, hunched by the fire, his eyes straying to the dark, withdrawn face of Francis Crawford. They were sitting there still when the bell spoke, announcing midnight, and the morning of Wednesday, October first, 1550: the day of the Royal Entry of King Henri the Second into his good town of Rouen; and their last day in France.

T
WO 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, The O’LiamRoe and his secretary left the Croix d’Or under strong escort to cross town and bridge and take up their stance outside for the Entry. Lord d’Aubigny, in a dress of unbearable magnificence, had collected them, and Robin Stewart, highly polished to the best of his conscientious ability, was at the rear with a handful of men.

Already the streets were all but impassable. Half Normandy was taking part in King Henri’s processional Entry and the other half had turned out to watch. The streets had been crammed to the crown since midnight and the processional route, the Rue Grand Pont, the Cross, the Rue St.-Ouen, St.-Maclou, the Pont Robec and the Cathedral, was lined with tapestries and flowers, and the draped and garlanded windows were thick with heads.

Somewhere a trumpet called, threadlike above the trampling, and the pace suddenly quickened. The trumpet sounded again.

‘God, we’re going to be late,’ said Robin Stewart; and Lord d’Aubigny, hearing, swore. The mistiming was his, not the Archer’s, but his place for the procession, unlike theirs, was public and prominent. ‘There’s a cart,’ said O’LiamRoe mildly.

The stresses of the journey had made speech so far impossible, but both the King of France’s guests had seemed more tickled than impressed by the occasion, although The O’LiamRoe, industriously craning, had twice tripped and been saved by his armpits from being trodden flat underfoot.

The cart he had noticed held the last of the cortège: a huddle of garlanded nymphs clutching baskets; several men with cardboard castles on poles, or with antique trumpets or amphorae; two gloomy mock-captives with their hands tied; and three withdrawn figures in square-necked Roman costume and bare knees, burdened each with a struggling lamb. ‘Come on,’ said O’LiamRoe, and scrabbled diligently at the side of the vehicle. Thady Boy gave him a heave and followed, and Stewart and his men piled after.

Lord d’Aubigny hesitated. The decision was not his, but he could see no alternative. He had no intention, however, of personally riding in the cart. He had a brief, charming conversation with the nearest embroidered young man on horseback and was helped up to share his saddle. In a short while he had disappeared.

The cart with its habromaniac burden trundled on. The O’LiamRoe, wound like the Laocoön on a trumpet, raised his voice in amiable strictures on victory processions that were a dead copy of the Ptolemies, and one of the dryads crushed close to an Archer gave a giggle. Yellow light burst from the sun. Shadows sprang fresh and lively over the crowd; gilt shone and paint sparkled, and cold, neurotic, bad-tempered faces warmed and coloured and relaxed. There were bursts of laughter, and bursts of cheering, and a surge of noise from behind them as the cart, reaching the gates, rumbled on to the bridge, and the fresh river air greeted it.

The Seine was covered with ships. On their right, the big merchantmen were crowded to the yardarms; and on the left smaller boats, brightly painted and pinned all over with armorial shields, darted backwards and forwards. On the far shore Orpheus waited by the Triumphal Arch chatting to Hercules. Beside them on the beach Neptune, a cloak over his blue robes, was sitting huddled beside a Seven-Headed Hydra which was lying on its back and eating a sausage. Beyond that sat three men next to a plaster whale.

The noise, the splashing, the flag-strewn spread of colour beyond, where the whole pageant wheeled and formed and shifted ready to move, like some private army conscripted by gods, jewellers and
theatrical costumiers, was too much for the lambs. They broke loose. One got over the side of the cart. One, struggling, was hooked by O’LiamRoe’s trumpet, and the third was silenced, threshing, by a pot on its head. To laughter, shouts, bleating and a shower of triumphant toots O’LiamRoe arrived at the muster point like chariot-borne Dionysus with his Pans, Menads and Satyrs but without Thady Boy Ballagh who, to Stewart’s rib-squeezing chagrin, was no longer there.

There was no time to search. A fanfare sounded. Running, they reached the pavilion as the drums rolled and the voice of the
Georges d’Amboise
, over the river, declared the King in his chair.

O’LiamRoe and Stewart found their obscure benches and sat. With glint, twitter, rustle, like the flight of small costly birds, the Court of France and its guests settled around them. Silence fell, into which, quavering, rose the
Exaudiat te Dominus
of the first advancing procession.

Bedded in scent and blinded with cloth of gold, The O’LiamRoe watched with the rest as, blackhooded, tall crosses trembling, a file of clergy appeared and paced slowly towards them. The Triumphant and Joyous Entry had begun.

The Chariot of Happy Fortune was in the middle of it, after the councillors and the corporations and the parliamentarians and two overdecorated floats. Drawn by unicorns and surrounded by nymphs, spearmen and halberdiers, it represented King Henri, enthroned, with four of his children at his feet, and a winged figure loftily poised at his back, offering a paper crown to his bonneted head.

It received a great welcome. Phalanx after phalanx of worthy bodies, however splendid, had had time to pall. The unicorns, led by costumed grooms, were behaving well about their horns, and the painted rhapsodies all round the cart were more than flattering while the pseudo-king, sceptred in ermine, was positively handsome, as well as resembling the real one quite a lot. The small boy acting as the Dauphin, was obviously his son. It was easy to guess that the angel and the other three children, demure on tasselled cushions, were also related. Reminded by the red heads before her, the Queen Dowager spoke absently to Margaret Erskine. ‘I must tell your mother to destroy that marmoset. Mary teases it, and it bites.’

Her gaze, resting idly on the float, suddenly focussed, slid down a familiar small body, and stopped at a hand adorned with a small piece of bandage. The Queen Mother of Scotland drew a long, shuddering breath and brought her fingers hard down on Margaret Erskine’s soft wrist. ‘It isn’t possible!’

Jenny Fleming’s daughter, pressing her lips tightly together,
caught her husband’s eye. There must be no scene. But, of course, except in private, there would be no scene. The Dowager’s hand was already relaxing. ‘It is, you know,’ said Margaret Erskine. ‘Look who the angel is.’

The Chariot of Happy Fortune reached the Pavilion. It paused; king bowed to king, flowers were thrown and cheering broke out; then the unicorns took the strain and it rumbled on in its turn, bearing with it, unnoticed by its less observant French audience, Lady Fleming, Mary Fleming, Agnes Fleming, and Her Majesty the Queen of Scotland.

The O’LiamRoe was very taken with it also, mentioning to his neighbour that it would be a grand cart for market day, and the hens fairly cross-eyed peering and marvelling at the pictures. The elephants which followed, tasselled, crescented and harnessed, pacing in three pairs between their turbaned attendants, fascinated him even more.

Long trunks docile, brush tails lightly twitching, they patiently paced with shaky replicas of ships, forts and captured castles on the mighty massif of each back. The finest beasts led, a monolithic pair with the noble head and bright hazel eye of a healthy animal in the prime of its life. The bull elephant, with a certain amount of planned forethought, carried on its back four bronze ewers smoking with scented oils. On its high brow there lay a broad and shallow serenity, and its small, searching ingenious eye was irregularly gay.

They passed, and the foot cortège came, and the mounted Children of Honour. As the end of the procession came in sight the King rose, the princes and peers of his retinue with him, and prepared to mount and follow his burghers into his good city of Rouen.

The head of the procession reached the bridge and began to cross it. In silence the trample of hooves and the tread of feet rumbled over the boards. Gaunt and splendid in the October air, the Cathedral bell spoke. It rang in great strokes, beating on the wind as the Court, glittering silver and white, moved in a drift after the long laborious ribbon of the pageant. The
Marie d’Estouteville
, high and sweet, joined her voice to the
Georges d’Amboise
and from church to church and belfry to belfry the pealing anthems of pomp and tribute sprang to life. From the Grosse-Horloge itself
Rouvel
and
Cache-Ribaud
swung and vied until the crack of gun salvoes told that the King was nearing the bridge.