Checkmate

  ‘You will find out,’ said the child. He was sitting very still under the blade. Even so, a hairline of blood showed on the bare flesh and then was concealed by the fog-wreaths, drifting pallidly into the darkness.

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Lymond. ‘My horsemen were expecting an attack. Perhaps your friends are all dead. Who will pay you then?’

  ‘The same,’ said the boy hardily. But he was watching the sword. ‘But there will be more for me, then,’

  ‘You say?’ said Lymond. ‘But these men know what they ask of you. To kill a royal commissioner, and not only at night. In broad daylight, where you may be recognized and caught, as I have caught you. For the risks you run, the reward must be riches undreamed of. What is it worth, to go through life footless? What do they pay you?’

  There was a short silence. Then, ‘My name is Paul. They pay me three écus,’ said the boy thinly.

  ‘I see,’ said Lymond. ‘And what would you do, if you were paid with such an object as this lady’s girdle?’

  Tears, stinging Philippa’s eyes, obscured her sight as she scrabbled to unhook her girdle. She held it out by the light of the archway, so that the skeined pearls all dimly glimmered, and the bullion tassel swung like a pendulum. Lymond said, ‘What are their names?’

  The boy Paul said, ‘They would kill me.’ His eyes, shifting back and forth, followed the swing of the bullion.

  ‘I shall kill you,’ said Lymond, very softly.

  There was a silence. Then the boy turned his head and spat. ‘I will tell you.’

  The names were those of merchants, three in number. From Lymond’s face, Philippa could not tell if the answer surprised him. He listened, thoughtfully, and when the boy had finished he neither removed the sword nor asked Philippa to hand over the girdle. Instead he said, ‘What you say may be true. Now I require proof of it.’

  The boy Paul started up, and then shrank back under the cut of the sword. He cried, ‘You said——’

  ‘I made a bargain,’ said Lymond coolly. ‘It remains to be seen whether you have kept your share of it. You will come back now to the Hôtel de Gouvernement, and you will remain there until my men have taken these merchants and searched them. So soon as your story is proved, you will be set free, along with the girdle. Until then, you are my prisoner … footless or dead, as you will.’

  It was common sense: the simplest of precautions. Philippa, slowly reclasping her girdle, made no comment as Lymond withdrew the sword; as the boy crying and protesting was dragged to his feet and then, propelled in front, was made to stumble before them, along the rue Mercière towards the bridgehead. Only she said, gripping his cloak as they set off, ‘Who freed the boy? If the kitchen was locked, then who freed him? Jerott was sleeping.’

  ‘Marthe, of course,’ Lymond said. ‘The servants’ door is thick, but they would make quite a noise with their banging. By then, it was too late for the boy to find and warn his friends that we weren’t with our escort. He was bound to try and follow us, and probably try to kill us himself, if he could. After all, he had three écus to gain by it.’ He shook the boy. ‘Was that so?’

  The boy Paul agreed. He had become very much quieter. Hazily, Philippa wondered, again, why Lymond had not admitted Marthe to his confidence. Why risk death for them both, when surely all he had to do was interview the boy there, in the kitchen? Unless, of course, he didn’t wish to embroil Marthe or Jerott. Or unless he didn’t trust them, which she didn’t want to believe. Or unless …

  She had only got so far when Lymond’s cloak, with a tearing wrench, was ripped from her hand. The boy, she saw, had flung himself on the ground, breaking the grip on his collar. Then he sprang to his feet and set off, panting, into the darkness.

  It was a slim hope, with Francis Crawford behind him. Lymond did not use his sword. But he used, without hesitation, all the other skills which permit an armed man to bring down an unarmed boy, flying; and then having knocked him to the ground, stood over and partly on him, another precaution undoubtedly wise. Philippa said, ‘He was lying?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Lymond. ‘I think he just doesn’t want to cross the bridge with us.’

  There was a small silence. The boy Paul breathed heavily, exposing gapped teeth. His nose was running. Lymond said, ‘You were not the only paid assassin in the Hôtel Gaultier?’

  They stared at one another. Then Paul shook his head.

  ‘There was another boy? Someone who was not in the kitchen?’

  ‘Another man,’ said the boy sullenly. ‘The groom in the stables.’

  ‘I see. So the decoy party will have reached home quite unmolested, and the welcoming party will be looking out, not for them, but for this lady and myself on foot? What is the groom’s name, and who is he paid by?’

  ‘His name is Jérôme. He is paid by the same three. There are some of us in the employment of many merchants. The couple Blyth know nothing,’ the boy said. ‘Let me go. Let me go! They will kill me.’

  ‘I’m afraid they will,’ said Lymond thoughtfully. ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘Many. Very many,’ the boy said. He was gasping.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Hereabouts,’ said the boy Paul desperately. ‘Let me go! I don’t want the girdle.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Lymond, ‘you’re going to need it, my friend, to escape with.’ He lifted his sword, and laying the edge against the child’s bond, quickly severed it. Then, gripping Paul’s arm, he spoke in English. ‘Give him the pearls. He won’t want to share those with anyone.’

  Philippa gave Paul the pearls. He snatched them, his eyes veering to Lymond’s hard hand on his shoulder. Lymond lifted it, and the child bolted.

  ‘A total vindication for Danny Hislop,’ Philippa said shakily.

  ‘Undoubtedly, if you expected me to kill him,’ said Lymond. ‘Are you as tired as you look?’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Philippa said, with a venom sluggish with weariness. ‘You want us to traboule through to the quayside and swim the Saône to the Côte de la Baleine, from which we clamber over the Petit Palais roof to your lodging.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Jerott,’ said Lymond absently. Philippa followed his gaze into the smoky vapour at the neck of the street. Through it, black against the faint incandescence of invisible lamplight, appeared the spoked carcass of an overturned wagon. Within its pattern something moved, and sharpened in outline. Two men, advancing.

  Philippa turned, her hood sweeping back. Fog swirled at the mouth of the rue de Chalamon, blemished with random shadows. The shadows turned from ashen to charcoal and then, moving and shouting, to black. She said, ‘There are two men behind us as well.’

  The arched mouth of a traboule lay just beside them. Lymond looked at her then, his sword drawn, his eyes smiling, his hood also fallen back from his hair, since there was no longer any point in concealment. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘Do what I tell you. No one is going to harm you.’

  With four men rushing upon them and another, no doubt, at the other end of the tunnel, the carefree voice might have seemed ludicrous. But Philippa’s heart, oddly, lifted; her tiredness vanished and she returned his smile, unshadowed and fleeting as his hand closed on her arm and he drew her, in a single, silent rush, into the arched passage under the building.

  The fog streamed in with them: past closed doors and shuttered windows to the foot of a narrow staircase; a grille and a plangent statue of St Peter, his key-holding hand lit by an oil lamp. Behind that, another lightening of the darkness suggested a courtyard to one side with a lanthorn in it. And beyond that, unrelieved darkness again.

  A little whistle from pursed lips sounded suddenly from the traboule arch they had just left behind them. And almost immediately an identical whistle answered, from the darkness at the other end of the tunnel.

  ‘Damn!’ said Lymond cheerfully, and released her. In one liquid series of movements, he removed and draped his cloak on the statue. In another, he rehung the lamp swi
ftly behind it, and retrieving his poniard placed it among the stony keys. Point outwards, it glimmered there dully.

  ‘I’m going to delay them,’ he said, ‘while you explore the courtyard.

  ‘The man in the moon drinks claret

  The huntsmen whoop and hallowe

  Ringwood, Royster, Bowman, Jowler,

  All the chase now follow.’

  Philippa said, ‘I used to be rather good with a peashooter. There’s Ringwood.’

  A shadowy figure appeared at the mouth of the traboule. ‘And Royster,’ said Lymond. He had vanished into an alcove opposite the dim silhouette of St Peter. The fog swam round the hood of the statue and the knife in its châtelaine fingers. A second pursuer, less distinct than the first, gesticulated in the entrance. Philippa, withdrawn deep into the darkness, watched them as she unpacked the boy’s parcel and drew from it the sarbacane and a handful of blow-darts. One of the men at the traboule entrance repeated his whistle.

  Lymond was whispering. His voice, agreeably eerie, echoed through the foggy stone vaulting.

  ‘O God breake thou theyr teeth at once

  Within theyr mouth throughout

  The tuskes that in their great chaw bones

  Like Lions whelpes hang out.’

  The two figures hesitated. Philippa fitted a dart to her blowpipe. Lymond’s voice, a little louder this time, said hollowly, ‘May Gibil devour you! May Gibil catch you! May Gibil kill you! May Gibil consume …!’

  The words rose to a shout. The clash of steel on stone drowned it. The man nicknamed Ringwood had rushed into the traboule. With a roar and a sweep of his sword he slashed the hooded figure which loomed in the darkness. The head of St Peter, immovably benign, jumped from its shoulders. With equal precision Lymond stepped from the shadows and forced his sword through the hide, flesh and bone of Ringwood’s broad leather back.

  Ringwood fell. The statue tottered. Lymond pulled out his sword. Philippa, vouchsafed at last a perfect view of Royster plunging in to the rescue, aimed her sarbacane, took a deep breath and spat.

  Royster screamed. Two other shapes, rushing precipitately in from the roadway, hesitated, stopped, and remained suspended, like washed-out dye, in the entrance. Lymond kneeling said, ‘Christ.… My dear girl, you’ve killed him.’

  ‘I meant to,’ said Philippa irritably. ‘To devise is the work of the master: to execute, the act of the servant. There’s a courtyard there with a couple of workshops, a turnpike tower and a stable.’ She spat again, and a yell came from the mouth of the traboule. One of the shadows, clutching its shoulder, was cursing. She said, ‘You could try banging on a few doors, but they’ll be mad if they answer,’ and realized that she was talking to herself: Lymond had passed her like a wraith and was already in the courtyard banging on doors. The two men at the entrance of the traboule stayed where they were, debating. The man or men at the opposite end had made no further sign either. It seemed to argue that they were pretty certain there was no escape possible. She thought they were probably waiting for reinforcements.

  Philippa put the pipe in her teeth like a flautist, and kicking off her shoes, began unhooking her bodice. The men in the entrance arch faded and vanished. She called, ‘They’ve gone! Mr Crawford!’ and hopped to her feet, kicking aside her discarded gown and petticoat as Lymond, reconstituted, became again visible.

  He examined the traboule entrance and with equal interest the knee-length chemise of his companion. ‘At least we’ll let them think we think so,’ he said. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for a piece of string,’ said Philippa. ‘Since someone gave away my pearl cincture.’

  Lymond pulled undone the knot of his shirt and tossed her the silk cord with its aiglets. ‘Kirtle your chemise up with that, and keep your cloak on. I’ve managed to break a few locks. There’s a horse, a knife-grinder’s and a shoemaker’s workshop. Hurry. They’re bound to try and come in from the quayside.’

  She took St Peter’s lamp with her. He had the courtyard lanthorn already inside the stable. The cobbler’s workshop produced thirty left-footed shoes on a spar, a greasy felt helmet and a tunic apron, the last two of which covered her hair and her chemise respectively. She chose two identical shoes and jammed them on, hopping, prior to making one or two fast dispositions. A horse’s feet, trampling excitedly inside the stable, told that Lymond was occupied also. She returned from the traboule in time to see him race over the courtyard and up the first flight of a turnpike.

  He came down again almost immediately. ‘There’s a group of men on the quay at our entrance. When I send the horse through the traboule, take that awl and run like hell after it. Jab it if it stops. Jab it when it gets to the entrance so that it turns left and makes off downriver. Then sprint across the quay to the Chalamon jetty. I’ll join you there.’ He listened. ‘They’re coming. Now!’ And he opened the doors of the stable.

  ‘I only accept it,’ said Philippa, ‘to avoid cavillation.’ A large, portly horse cantered out with, affixed to his back, the six-foot sweep of the shoemaker’s other spar, containing thirty right-footed shoes. Pinked by the awl he neighed, bucked, and pranced his way into the traboule’s low-ceilinged corridor. Then head down, he charged along its black length to the entrance.

  On each side of him the spar, sweeping the walls, hissed and whipped and let fly smartly from time to time with a boot or a patten. Within six paces it had hooked a yelling man under the chin and carried him a fair way, his teeth sunk in his tongue, before dropping him. At the same moment it fired off the companion of Philippa’s footgear, which she had been hopefully watching. She caught it, galloping. A man somewhere ahead shouted, ducking, and then was sprawled on the ground by a chopine. The entrance burst upon her, a vaporous dazzle of yellow. She aimed for the horse’s right haunch and jabbed the awl in it.

  With a squeal and a snort, the horse hurtled out through the entrance and turning left, thundered off up the quay, with the sound of running men’s steps dwindling after it. Two shadows on her right became a pair of men advancing on her brandishing axes. While she looked, they lay down; chiefly because someone had cut and let fall a fishing net on them. Philippa said ‘Ha!’ and set off, scampering, across the Chalamon quay to the riverside.

  Below her was a short wooden jetty whose steps led to a cluster of rowing-boats. She stood on one leg, momentarily, to put on her new hard-won foot-gear and then slid down the steps and into one. The quay lamps showed her Francis Crawford, his sword in its scabbard, arrived on the jetty and laughing at her. ‘In Moab I will washe my feete, Over Edom throw my shoo … Meditate, O Bhikshu, and be not heedless. There aren’t any oars. Your place and mine is under the jetty. Your cloak, my child. Quickly!’

  He took it, but didn’t follow her. Clambering out of the rocking shallop and along the rotted cradle of timbers that upheld the jetty, Philippa heard him shouting behind her. ‘To the boats! Quickly! Quickly!’ There was a thud; then another, and a splash as the boat she had just left was cast off. From her refuge under the planks she saw him thrust the tenantless boat until it was caught by the current. It swung a moment and then turned twisting into the flow of the river. There were two huddled sacks in it, one of them draped in her mantle. He was busy a moment longer and then, ducking, began making his way along the dark scaffold towards her. Then reaching her, he signalled for silence.

  Armed with knives, their pursuers had not taken long to slash through the fishing nets. And with their whistles they had summoned all those who could move within earshot. The thud of footsteps sounded over Philippa’s head as she clung to the timbers, accompanied by a good deal of shouting and swearing and a series of dull thumping noises, followed by a splintering as if someone was forcing a doorway. There was, she remembered, a ferryman’s hut by the quayside. Bowman and Jowler were going to have oars therefore. Then followed a trampling, and voices, and the creak of laden boats settling, and the splash of loosed ropes, followed by the rattle and groan as the oars made their first s
weep in the water. The sounds faded away, and silence descended.

  The fog, it seemed to her, had become rather thinner. The lamplight, striking down through the joints in the planks, showed her Francis Crawford’s ruffled fair hair and open shirt and the filthy brocade of his pourpoint. He was doubled up, laughing. Philippa poked him. He unfolded, still laughing, and scrambling out from under the jetty, gave her his hand to emerge on the steps in the lamplight. There was no sign of the boats: only, quite far downriver, a faded outburst of hysterical shouting.

  ‘With Emeroides in the hinder parts

  He stroke his enmies all

  And put them then unto a shame

  That was perpetuall …

  ‘I took the bungs out of the shallops,’ said Lymond.

  *

  He pulled himself together before she did, dropping her hand and running his fingers through his tangled hair, restoring it to something like normal orderliness. Then he surveyed her, seeing, one supposed, the dirty chemise and long cobbler’s apron, and the greasy felt cap, with the hair leaked from under its ear-flaps.

  The familiar blandness returned to his face, smoothing out all the wild elation. ‘Well,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘Make my compliments to the boys of Flaw Valleys, or whoever trained you in the use of a peashooter. You did very well. I shall now return you to the Schiatti, Hathor’s temple; home of intoxication and place of enjoyment. They won’t know whether to lock up their sons or their daughters.’

  Philippa Somerville shoved her hair under her cap, stuck her hands on her hips, and without budging a step, stood and glared at him. ‘Do I appear,’ she inquired, ‘crazed with lust?’

  His eyes flicked wide open, Lymond considered her. Then he bent his head, and she could not tell if he was smiling. ‘Very seldom,’ he said.

  ‘Or artless? Or addled? Or excitable?’ She was getting angrier. ‘Is that why you keep recoiling as if I was a line of armed cavalry?’