Queens' Play

  By then Richard Crawford of Culter knew all that he needed to know about his younger brother.

  Erskine had prepared him, as best he could, with a swift narration of all Lymond had done, followed by an unadorned account of his conduct. Lord Culter heard it with complete calm; at one or two points his mouth twitched. At the end he said, ‘Well, Tom; you know Francis as well as I do. Your confidence isn’t shaken, surely?’

  Erskine’s answer had no hesitation. ‘No. But my God, Richard, be prepared.’

  ‘A fan, and his clothes hung with bells?’ Then, as Erskine hesitated, ‘No. Obviously. One of his grosser deceptions. It would be irresistible, given the Court of France and O’LiamRoe.’ Richard Crawford’s grey eyes were amused. ‘Thank you, Tom. I am amply warned.’

  This steadiness, this quality of tough-minded tranquillity which could sometimes seem stolid, was balm to the disease of danger and unrest which was preying on them all. In this was Culter’s great strength. Now in his mid-thirties, quiet, stocky and unremarkable, he was still nearly unique for his time in that he was perfectly reliable. It seemed as if he had set himself since boyhood to outweigh all the wanton recklessness of the younger brother; and had brought to it much the same deliberate power. Where Francis had ranged Europe in blazing notoriety, Richard had stayed at home, husbanding his wide estates, fighting for them when he must. Beyond this, and the joy he now possessed with Mariotta, his dark Irish wife, there was nothing more he desired.

  When, black-headed and sardonic, Lymond had departed for France, Lord Culter and his mother had been, in their different ways, thankful to see him set off at last, wholly on pleasure bent. For family reasons, Richard himself had not wished to go with the Queen Dowager to France. She, in turn, had been as anxious for him to stay: one of the few watchdogs she could trust. So that the bare, censored terms of her message, arriving at Midculter with the King of France’s pressing invitation, were enough to confirm that the summons was not of her seeking, and that her reactions to it were being watched. They had even included an invitation to his mother. Lord Culter had hesitated a moment; then, ashamed, had taken it to her.

  All the fair delicacy which had been Lymond’s at birth could be seen in Sybilla. White-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, she read the two messages and said instantly, ‘Francis, of course, embarking on some nutritive project, while all within hearing drop prone and their matins madly say.… Do you think they expect me to appear, unworldly and strongly maternal, like a Scotch clocking hen? It will be a pleasure to refuse.’

  Long ago it had been recognized by all who knew Sybilla that, though she doted on her two sons, her astringent soul belonged to the younger. Richard did not grudge it. He had sufficient happiness at home here in Midculter not to deny Francis any comfort he could snatch. And always, as she had proved yet again, Sybilla’s quick mind and formidable intelligence kept her impulses controlled and her judgment sound.

  She was watching him. ‘Such a pity. Not a time to be away.’

  He was thinking, too, of Mariotta. And it was because of her that he said, almost before his mother stopped speaking, ‘Either the Queen is in trouble, or Francis … or both. The sooner I go and find out what that fool of a son of yours is doing, the sooner we shall both be back.’

  In all her long life, Sybilla had perfected a blithe self-control which was absolute; if she had gone, the watchers, whoever they were, would have learned nothing from her face.

  But she knew, who knew him through and through, that they might have learned something from Lymond’s.

  But Richard, obviously, was another matter.

  A good quarter drunk, the Bourbon party arrived in the Rue Chemonton, Thady Boy in its midst, and swept into the wide, low-ceilinged room in the Hôtel de Guise where their host’s scarlet gown glowed by the silks of his sister.

  Margaret Erskine saw them come; saw Culter’s grey eyes rest on his brother, flatten and glance smoothly away; saw Lymond’s blue gaze return the look and continue unbroken to deposit its bloodshot burden of greeting on his major ecclesiastical target. In neither face was there a trace of recognition. They were a capable pair.

  The meal was a princely one, perfectly served. Lord Culter without evident effort created small talk in an impeccable flow, and only Margaret, her senses unnaturally raw, saw that he was watching his brother throughout. Lymond’s behaviour, as always, went to the limits of polite usage and then hurtled off into space. Bursts of laughter rose like cannon-shot from his side of the table, and his voice was blurring, as it always did by this time. When the boards were drawn, he had drunk enough, and so had most of the men, to be ready for whatever outrageous feat of inventiveness sprang into his head. No one had troubled to ask him to play.

  At this point, judging the ollave’s condition with skill, the Cardinal signed to bring on the wrestlers.

  Jousting, fencing, fighting with staffs—this kind of knockabout combat was an old distraction; fresh, lively and painful, boisterous, sometimes malicious, they rejoiced in it to a man. Only Margaret, it seemed, was aware tonight of the queer tension in the air; only to her mind had the breathing space of good company and laughter suddenly shrunk, as if a door had shut in some lukewarm brood chamber, and something uncouth and organic had started to grow. Rumour had it that the chief wrestler, the Cornishman, had been challenged by Thady. True or not, the ollave seemed to be ready to wrestle; as the first exhibition bout started she saw something like eagerness on Lymond’s slackened face. It disturbed her. His mind was never, as a rule, so simple to read.

  During the bout, her uneasiness grew. One man, the smaller, was quite new. The other, the Cornishman, had fought already at Court on that December night when Thady had roused all Blois with his race. He was a big man, over six feet and solid, with the vast limbs and the cream and rose-flooded flesh of the sandy-haired. His head was shaved, like his partner’s. They were both in soft boiled leather, a second skin sewn on them, body and limbs, and their clipped feet slapped bare on the tiles. The weapons were as usual: the cudgel and the shield with the iron prong at its foot. The straining, thinly gloved muscles glistened with oil; as the bodies groaned and grunted and collided and gasped the firelight varnished them, dripping, bald, squat and scarlet as Burmese teak.

  Watching, Margaret became aware of yet one thing more. Whenever the Cornishman’s attention was free, the white-lashed eyes turned towards Thady. In them was very little of intelligence and nothing of amity. They expressed scorn, she thought, and excitement, and something else she could not properly name. Only Lymond, close by the two men, plainly saw in the pale, pink-rimmed eyes a pleasurable anticipation of murder.

  The present bout was soon ended. It had been reasonably exciting. The mild applause, the circling wine, the little stir of gossip and change filled the moment that was suddenly on them, on all those that knew and were concerned, like a burden of unbearable weight. Then the floor was clear, and on it was Thady Boy, portentously solemn, stripped to creased shirt and fat, silk-puffed haunches, club and shield in his hands. Long ago, the stuffed and elaborate clothing he wore had let him dispense with additional padding; his way of life was bringing illusion near enough reality, for the rest. Opposite him now, loosely bent, waited the supple-skinned ox of a Cornishman, the fire red on his skull and his eyes and the silver spike of his shield.

  Margaret, feeling her face grow cold, and therefore white, looked away quickly. Beside her, the square, short-nosed profile of Richard Crawford showed no kind of change. No muscle altered; no apprehension showed in his eyes. Margaret wondered briefly if he felt any warmth for his brother or only a sense of duty, doggedly preserved.

  The bout began at great speed, because the Cornishman wanted quickly to disarm his opponent. The rubbery hulk of him pattered in, lightfooted; but there was less still of Thady Boy. He blew like a wind ball, vagrant on the periphery in untraceable patterns, and the heavy cudgel, thrashing hard through the air, whined empty on the place where the ollave had been standing. Behind him, Tha
dy Boy whistled; and as the Cornishman turned, hit two melodious notes from the wrestler’s own shield and set words to it, before he had to skip fast to shelter.

  He was busy then for quite a few moments, for the Cornishman, annoyed, was impatient. The cudgels cracked, on the shields and on each other, but adroitly missed flesh and bone. That would come. They were fresh as yet, although the ollave’s breathing was thick and fast; and Erskine, who had seen him, weightless, fight his brother tempered like a sword, watched with a troubled face all this blunted skill. Then Thady Boy ran backwards, his round shadow swift before him, and without an instant’s warning hurled his shield away from him with all his strength.

  You could hear the impact of the blow. It hit the wrestler’s leather wrist, fell, bounced, and wheeled straight to a dark corner, skidding the Cornishman’s dropped cudgel with it. Thady now had his club only; and the wrestler nothing but his shield.

  The wave of comment stopped in mid-flight. The circling had begun again, but this time more slowly. The wrestler’s white-lashed eyes had narrowed. He moved, crab-legged, his right hand splayed and his oil-sleek muscles shifting until he had the other within reach. Then, like a snake striking, a foot flashed upwards to Thady’s groin. As the pounded flock filling his preposterous breeches took the blow, Thady’s cudgel swung out. The wrestler jerked his head—in vain.

  For the club was aimed, not at his head, but at the uppermost rim of the shield. It landed. And splitting it with a high crack from end to end, it drove the spike underneath into the Cornishman’s own shin, With a sharp, strangled grunt the wrestler hopped back, clutching his leg, and Thady, the sweat sparkling on his face, grinned and tossed up his baton. The grunting stopped. The hubbub of laughter and talk died away. In a growling silence, elbows out, hands beseeching, the Cornishman began to advance crouching on Thady.

  The Cornishman was now quite unarmed. But he had assets Thady lacked: a hug that could kill and an ungreased body to seize. Above all, he was a professional: a dangerous man, a thug, and not quick witted, but with all the tricks of the game sunk deep in his battered bones.

  He advanced, feinted, and double-feinted. His solid, well-trained body answered him this time a fraction quicker than the abused one of Thady’s. Lymond guessed right once, but not twice; even so, dodging, his cudgel touched the other man’s shoulder. The resilient, thick-knotted muscles accepted the blow. The Cornishman grunted, but continued unshaken. The jaws of a rocklike embrace advanced, hovered and snapped shut. Then the Cornishman pressed; and Thady Boy, held tight as a parcel, was lifted slowly into the air.

  It was a perfect move, spoiled by overconfidence in the end. In the instant before the big man drew breath to hurl him wholesale to the ground, Lymond flung his weight forward. His legs alone were quite free. With the last ounce of his breath, the ollave lunged with one foot and brought it sharply, heel down, on the back of the other man’s knee.

  A lighter man would have fallen. The Cornishman stumbled, opaque surprise on his face turning to anger at the orthodox, classical reply. Already the ollave was half-free. Sheer rage lending him speed, the Cornishman recovered first. He could not, as he planned, smash his opponent flat on the ground. But he twisted, heeled, and diverted his own stumbling weight so that they collapsed together, the ollave underneath, shoulder pinned to the floor. Thady Boy had yielded first fall.

  Then they were circling each other again. To win, Thady would have to throw the Cornishman twice. And he still had the cudgel.

  He used it now, to keep the other man off. Although the lead-paned windows were flung wide to the night, the room was suffocatingly hot. It had a stuffy smell, left over from the liver and ginger and the pastries and the venison with Milan cheese; and the company, pressed back in their crumpled satins against the fine, split-oak wainscotting and watching in well-bred passivity, brought to mind nothing so much as a cageful of moulting sparrow hawks. Lord Culter, passing a box full of sugary sweetmeats, had to speak twice before Margaret even heard. Then he turned back calmly to watch.

  Any wrestler in his senses would have made it his first aim to seize Thady’s club. The Cornishman set out to do it with no nonsense: after all, the ollave might be in poor trim, but the wrestler had fought one bout already. So, dodging and ducking the whirling wood, he took one swift step and, grasping Thady’s right arm, twisted. It was perfect. In inescapable reflex, the ollave’s hand opened and the cudgel flew out and hit the floor, skidding, as Thady wrenched himself free. In the same moment the big man turned and dived for the weapon himself.

  As the sole of his receding foot came up, Lymond struck it viciously with his own, and the Cornishman, hand still outstretched, came down hard on one knee. Then the ollave’s hands gripped his ankle, found leverage, and heaved. Eighteen stone of Cornishman rose in the air and fell crashing to the ground. Second fall to Master Ballagh.

  The pure shock of the experience held the wrestler prone, if only for seconds. It was long enough for Thady Boy, breathing wildly and dripping with sweat, to upend three boxes of marzipan, over him. Emitting a thick roar, the first voluntary sound he had made, the wrestler rolled over and got to his feet, closely covered in a kind of sparkling white suede. At last, with his oil coated in sugar, he was susceptible to his opponent’s mischievous hands.

  In the utter silence, as they faced up again, the Cornishman’s whistling grunt was queerly disturbing. It continued, at the back of his throat, all the time that he circled. With one fall each, this time they were equal, with no weapons but their hands and feet, their speed, and the tortile strength of their muscles. Thady, periwinkle-gay in the silver cloud of spilled sugar, had become smoothly taut. The Cornishman, soft-footed, ranged round and gently round; the pink-rimmed eyes, like a butcher’s, probing and thoughtful. Then, with a sudden, double hiss of forced air, the two men came to grips.

  One of the toughest of sports, it could be the most brutal, and the Cornishman knew every trick. A spatulate thumb, sliding into the eye, was his answer to Thady’s quick knee lock, and as the ollave’s head jerked to protect himself, the wrestler’s hard foot flashed up and in, and his hands, deep in Thady’s black hair, jerked his scalp hard to the ground. Lymond’s hands, outspread, met the tiles a split second before his head. He somersaulted, and his stockinged legs, swinging up, scissored the Cornishman’s neck and hurled him off balance backwards.

  It was a good escape; but no more than that, for Thady Boy landed first, and on his stomach at that, with the wrestler on top of him. Then they were up and close-grasped again. Beneath the dyed skin, Francis Crawford was livid, and breathing in fast, retching gasps. The Cornishman set his joints. Then, twisting, tearing, wrenching, kicking, he fought for one thing and got it. He trapped Thady at last in the cage of a full hug and without attempting to throw him, set himself, to his whining monody, to burst the lighter man’s ribs.

  The pressure mounted, bit by bit. Flat against the hot, sticky leather Thady’s face looked darkly congested. His hands moved weaving behind the Cornishman’s back. They moved till they rested on the fleshy pads of the ribs, and then gripped and wrung, through leather and skin. Shaken, the big man grunted; and in that second, Lymond hooked his inside left leg with his own right. It was not enough, by a long way, for a fall; but enough to shake the intensity of the hug. The Cornishman changed his mind. Slackening his own hold, he spun round so that he was underneath Lymond’s belly and prepared to throw him bodily over his head.

  From that height, and on those tiles, it meant possible death. As soon as the grasp on him slackened, Lymond changed and tightened his own. When the wrestler applied his leverage, it was counteracted by a lock which not only equalled his but bent him double, as he crouched, until he knelt on the floor. Then the grip under his arms began to shift and extend. There was a grunt, a twist and a deep, shaken sigh. The next moment Lymond’s two clasped hands met at the back of the Cornishman’s neck.

  The knuckles whitened. A vein, rapidly beating, appeared in the dark skin of his temple. Then,
slowly, the thick-jointed shining bald head started to bow, to sink, to press lower and lower, to be pushed inexorably into the wrestler’s great chest, pushed with the last, deadly, unanswerable thrust that drives bone asunder from bone.

  It was then, in the small, breathing silence that was theirs, in the midst of the rustling ring of their audience, the cries, the murmurs, the rapt and riveted gaze of the Court, that Thady Boy spoke to the Cornishman.

  What he said could not be heard by the spectators. But the wrestler understood; the veined eyes glared white and the sweat dripped, greasily warm, as he listened. Then, squeezing the words from compressed throat and chest, he answered. ‘They’re lying. Ils mentirent, donc.’

  Thady Boy addressed him again. Under the long and pitiless fingers the glittering head was sinking still, the sandy skin darkening to purple. Again, patently the answer was negative.

  What happened next was a matter of idle dispute afterwards among all those who watched. The ollave spoke, and this time relaxed his pressure a fraction. The wrestler answered, his voice stifled and raucous, and after another exchange Thady seemed satisfied.

  He loosened his grasp, shifted, and as the Cornishman drew a first, shuddering breath, Thady’s arm flashed under his chin, gripped, tightened, and pulled up and back. There was a click, clearly audible all through the engrossed room. Then the great bulk of the wrestler, his eyes white and open, his mouth ajar, his neck queerly awry, heeled with momentous precision and, slumping, slid prone on the tiles.

  Thady Boy rocked on his hunkers and sat down, looking at once pleased, alarmed and vaguely apologetic. ‘Ah, clumsy fellow that I am. Would you think it: I’ve killed him stone dead.’