Queens' Play

  The trumpets blew, and they moved in.

  You had to grant they were good at it. Like machines, the Lord Ambassador’s staff paced into the Presence, lined with diamond-studded foreigners, moving straight up to the tables to let the tail of the Embassy get in. The door shut, the three reverences were made, and as the trumpets burst into a fantasy of sound the two ranks separated, exposing the advancing officers of arms: Flower, tramping steadily in Chester Herald’s brilliant coat, his arms full of material, and Garter King of Arms, his beard combed, his crown straight, in his furred robe with the blue and red quartered tabard V-necked over it, gleaming with gold lions and fleurs-de-lis. He carried the cushion of purple velvet, tasselled with gold, on which sparkled the Garter, the Collar, the Book of Statutes in gold lace and velvet and the scroll with their Commission of Legation—most of which must be pinned—nothing slid or even moved.

  With a marvellous bow to the sovereign’s state, Dethick deposited the Ensigns on the long table beside the Mantle, Surcoat, Hood and Cap, and made way for Northampton. The oration began. The Commission of Legation, handed over to Henri, was read aloud by his secretary. ‘Edward VI, by the grace of God, King of England and Lord of Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Sovereign of our Most Noble Order of the Garter, to our right truly and right entirely beloved Cousin, the Marquis of Northampton … will and authorize you … accept and admit to the said Order, and receive his oath.…’

  Extraordinary how well their robes became them. Parr, who hadn’t the wits of a trumpet on the field, could pass for a King. There was d’Aubigny. Henri looked nervous. Devil take the de Guises, thought the Constable. He would like to see the Dowager’s face if Edward agreed to hand over Calais in return for marrying her daughter after all, compensation or no compensation.

  He suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t likely to happen; merely an interesting gambit, nothing more. But it was a triumph for his own party that the thing had even been agreed. He hoped to God that St. André would be circumspect. The last marriage embassy they had sent in old King Henry’s day had nearly ruined their mission, selling off the contents of their baggage at cut prices to their hosts before the puddings were set on the table; the Tailors’ Hall had looked like a market stall, and the guilds had all been up in arms, and quite rightly too. However, he could trust St. André. Unlike the de Guises. Pasque-Dieu, the Duke wasn’t here. No, he was; come in late.… God, it was hot.

  It was the short guard who came at a run and unlocked and flung open the door; the men behind him were de Guise’s. Lymond was amongst them in a second, his hand on O’LiamRoe, white and breathless at their head. ‘—She told you?’

  ‘Robin Stewart sent word. Dooly held it back. It’s only reached us this minute. The attempt is now, on the lake.’

  They were running, the armed men rattling behind. As they ran, O’LiamRoe managed to speak. ‘We must go quietly. Your release is unlawful. There’s no proof as yet, and the King would never agree.… Tosh brought Piedar; Abernaci’s gone back. The Queen’s on the lake, but even if the explosive is there, Cholet has no means of firing it,’ said the Prince of Barrow, reaching dizzily for some sane element in a rocking world. ‘And listen—Stewart is wanting you. He was after you to come for him this morning at nine, to keep the blame off him for all this. There’s a message.’

  ‘Oh—Stewart,’ said Lymond. ‘He’ll bustle in with a knife and a bloody lecture, both wide of the mark, when it’s all over. To the sea. To the sea, thou that art initiated!’

  Running past the tiltyard, the sweat dripping from the chin—’Michel Hérisson is there,’ said O’LiamRoe. ‘They’ve got Beck.… The man we’re looking for is fortyish, small, thick, black haired, with a ginger beard.’

  ‘God!’ said Lymond and laughed, panting; to O’LiamRoe he seemed vibrant with life. He ran like a dancer, outstripping the other man’s stumbling feet, the soldiers in their leather jerkins at his elbow. But at the lake he stopped dead. ‘My God, what are they doing? She’s still there. Look!’

  They stopped. It was true. The Queen’s barge, gaily painted and stuffed with children and men-at-arms, was tied up in the centre of the lake, with the twelve little vessels alongside.

  ‘No boats,’ said O’LiamRoe, a shade late. ‘They took the last for the Queen. And the musicians are drowning the shouting.’

  ‘If there’s a slow match …’

  ‘There isn’t,’ said O’LiamRoe. ‘Abernaci swears no one has been out to these boats since last night. There isn’t a master gunner alive who could judge a slow match for that long.’

  ‘Then it’s going to be a fire arrow,’ said Lymond, without apparently taking any thought at all. ‘The menagerie is clear of strangers?’

  ‘We can depend on that.’

  ‘Then it must come from the pavilion, or the end of the lake where the chariots are. You can see this end is empty. Take three men and scour the carriages. I’ll do the—’

  It was Michel Hérisson, without greeting, who interrupted him. ‘Thady, there are Diana’s bows over there, and flint by the stand—’

  ‘Find the fountains and put them on. Can you swim? No? Phelim? God—no, look. Abernaci is in.’ The file of running men, stringing out, began to spread round the box paths. Lymond, Hérisson at his side, started up to the lakeside stand, glaring cloth of gold, with the workmen resting, staring, on its roof. One of them began to run.

  Lymond whistled. The high, sweet call stopped O’LiamRoe in his tracks, halfway over to the carts. The de Guise men below halted and looked up. By now the men-at-arms in the Queen’s boat had caught sight of the flurry. From the shore their sun-reddened faces could be seen gazing distrustfully towards land. They had raised their shields in a kind of barricade; behind it, not even Mary’s red hair could be seen. They must have thought, with relief, that she was quite safe; they made no move to row to land.

  The man on the roof disappeared. But not before they had seen the small barrel body, and the chestnut grizzle on the chin. It was Cholet. Lymond seized one of the stout Roman pilasters and began to climb like a goat—O’LiamRoe could see the flying black coat of the ollave, racing up the mast of La Sauvée, knife in his teeth. He had no knife now. To free his arms he had stripped off even the wide canvas shirt; against his brown, scarred back his hair looked less yellow than silver.

  Cholet reappeared, bow in hand, on the thick cartouche crowning the front of the stand. Against the white disc of the sun, flame was pale as air, but they could see the grey smoke rising, thin and wandering, from the flaming arrow as he nocked.

  He shot three burning arrows swiftly, one after the other. The first dropped hissing into the water. The second and the third sank firmly into the wood of the ninth vessel in the lake, the small galley next the canopied barge of state. Then Artus Cholet threw down the bow and kindling on the flat roof beneath him. The varnished wood and baked metal cloth of the stand received it like some worldly friar his martyrdom, and laid between Cholet and Francis Crawford, racing towards him, a sudden lurching barrier of fire.

  The Latin was over, thank God, and the worst of the affair: Ely with a cursed long-winded oration and de Guise replying, silky in red camelot—a foreigner; one would say English himself. Now Henri, in plain white sewn with silver aiglettes, his black hair shining, looking well, touched the Book, kissed the Cross and was taking the oath.

  It was going smoothly after all. Garter, well into his stride, took the blue silk Garter with its gold letters and buckle from the cushion, kissed it and gave it to Northampton. Flinging back his own mantle the Marquis took it and, kneeling, bound it round the muscular left leg of the King, combining reverence with deftness in a way that betrayed well-spent time with an equerry.

  D’Aubigny was looking smug. Why had François de Guise been late? That fellow who played the Irishman had been his sister’s spy; you could tell that. The play acting over the boar had been typically à deux visages—a disclaimer of her interest at the time, and an excuse for her to be lenient later, if she need
ed one. And she had cast him off pretty sharply in the end. It was surprising that he permitted it. Not that you could blame her. As events proved, she had been right.

  You could guess, too, the kind of game she would be playing in Scotland. A de Guise Regent of Scotland; a de Guise Pope at Rome; a de Guise virtually King of France.… Well. They would see about that. But with this fellow at her back …?

  Well, they would see about that, too. The King had liked him; he would give the Médicis something to think about, too.

  Capito vestem hanc purpuream.… God, it was hot.

  The ninth galley was on fire. On Mary’s boat they had seen it. Someone, head and shoulders over the gunwale, was hacking at ropes. Then the whole linked cluster of boats rocked, and began to drift slowly forward. In his haste, the would-be helper had cut all the vessels free of the buoy, and the dozen roped boats were still drifting shoulder to shoulder in the same moving mass with his own.

  Cholet, on the far side of the roof, had started to slither down. Beyond, O’LiamRoe with his three men were running back. Lymond called to him; then turning, slid to the ground and made fast for the lake. The fountains came on, two delicate blizzards of light on either side of the water.

  The Duchess de Valentinois had long since gone in; the nymphs had absented themselves, with Bacchus, at the first sign of trouble; the men-at-arms in Mary’s boat, still obviously fearing nothing worse than an illicit fireworks display, were fending off the empty fleet with their oars. The brigantines, the painted galleys with their dragon prows, rocked; and a spurt of flame showed at the side and deck of the ninth. A sudden gift from heaven: the musicians, gaping, had fallen silent. Lymond, already running in water, cupped his hands. ‘Gunpowder in the boats. Row away.’ And turning quickly, caught the knife someone tossed him.

  Abernaci, halfway from the menagerie shore, was treading water. Already the drifting boats were nearer Lymond than himself. He heard Lymond shout again, this time in Gaelic, just before he struck out. It was an instruction to harness the elephant.

  It was meant for Abernaci, but it was O’LiamRoe who heard and acted on it, shouting to the cowardie, thonging new rope into Hughie’s harness. He stood at the water’s edge, hemp in hand, and threw it in unfolding yellow fakes into Abernaci’s wet hands as Francis Crawford slid through the water, green and white, to the boats. Under the sudden, urgent drive of two pairs of long oars, the Queen’s boat shot towards him, and the flotilla, sucked by the wake and the rush of fire near its tail, curtseyed after.

  The white surcoat was off, and the new crimson gown on, the sword girded without incident; and Garter was kissing the Mantle and Hood. ‘Accipe Clamidem hanc caelici coloris … Take ye this Mantle of heavenly colour, with the shield of the Cross of Christ garnished, by whose strength and virtue ye always be defended …’

  The fresh-tied tassels hung still; the powdering of garters on the blue shone steadily, silver-gilt in the bright light. Henri was becoming bored.

  There was only the Collar left, and the usual homily; then Chapel; then the meal. There was this: Scotland no longer had such value to France, now the English threat was so weak. If the girl died, the Dauphin would be free to marry elsewhere. For example … By God, it was hot. A man might go to sleep, heavily robed in this heat.

  At the last moment, the cowardie would not go. So the big male elephant, moving lazily through the lake, had O’LiamRoe on its back, O’LiamRoe who could not swim, with his ears clouded with water, clinging to the sodden leathers on big Hughie’s brow and watching Abernaci, ahead, continuing steadily towards the burning boats.

  Lymond got there first. Margaret Erskine saw it, holding Mary loosely in her arms behind the rattling barricade of shields, tossing everyday conversation between James, herself and the children, bracing herself against the great tug of the oars as the four men drove the boat through the water. The smoke behind them smelled acrid. ‘What a shame,’ she said brightly. ‘All the beautiful feux de joie meant for tonight. I fear, chérie, you are about to have the most costly display of squibs ever set off in broad daylight.’

  ‘M. Crawford will stop it,’ said the girl, and poked her ruffled red head out between the lattice of arms. She was afraid—Margaret could sense it—but gallantly she too subscribed to the fiction. What a pity … the squibs would be put to waste.

  The fair head, the dark chevron in the water, were almost level with them now. He must have known, halfway there, that the fire was now too strong to put out. His eyes lifted every few strokes gauging distances, watching O’LiamRoe and Abernaci drawing close from the far side of the lake. Once, perhaps hearing his name, he turned and lifted an arm quickly, in a shower of sunlit drops, in brief salute to the Queen. Then he was at the first of the boats, and pulling himself, wet as a starfish, up to its flanks.

  It was one of the display boats. Smoothly though he climbed, the hull kissed the brigantine tied poop to prow, and the little shock ran jarring down the flotilla. The boats danced and for a second even the stranded players, clinging hoarse to their raft, were quite still. A cloud of sparks sprang from the burning galley, two-thirds along the swaying pack, and fell radiant against the rush of black smoke, thickly metallic with the smell of burned paint. The shadow of it netted them all: the clutter of boats; the Queen’s barge straining to burst free at one side; and at the other, Abernaci’s brown arms whirling nearer, with O’LiamRoe beyond, the bull elephant halted just within its own depth, hauling and barking at it in Gaelic to make it turn.

  From the paved shore, as the startled water bumped and splashed at their feet, the men-at-arms and the workmen, streaming down to the edge, joined moment by moment by men and women from the castle, saw the sparks drop soundlessly into the smoke. The galley’s carved rails were crowded with fire. All her detail was printed black on burgeoning gold, and her pennants, pointing to the blue sky, were run up afresh by the flames.

  With a crack, the fire wheel on the ultimate barge burst into light. The pale gold head of Vervassal, slipping fast through the smoke, was haloed suddenly with coloured fire. The great wheel, near enough to touch, began to turn with gathering speed, and with crack after crack the little charges within it began to fire and revolve, sparkling within the grey haze, jewelling Lymond’s glittering skin as he hopped through.

  On the sailyard a second wheel began to whirl, and in the foreship another. On the flaming boat, the fire had reached the deckhouse, and the little brigantine in front had begun to show a pilling of flame. Lymond crossed from the last boat to the next, his feet like velvet, slid from there to a barge, and moving from boat to boat with unbelievable softness, had reached the burning galley before the wheels behind him had gathered full speed.

  He must have checked each boat as he passed. Margaret Erskine, her light sleeves flying with their own gathered speed, realized it as she saw him poised on the eighth, the burning galley before him. He was standing on the barge of state. The cloth of gold draping the top castle had caught. Lymond ripped it off in passing, flinging it to hiss in the lake. The painted windows of the stateroom whirled and glowed, eye to eye with the spitting feux de joie in the rear. Then he jumped on to the blistered deck and, blazing prow and port rails bright at his back, cut the lashing to set all the boats he had just traversed free.

  It was just possible to pass to the foreship with the deckhouse giving shelter between. Lymond stopped once, to glance in the well. Then he was gone, darting like a dragonfly down, up, along, regardless of caution, crossing three boats to where Abernaci, flying turbaned through the water, was ready with the rope.

  The mahout lifted himself up, his scarred face enamelled with light, and raising one thin, powerful arm, sent the hemp flying. Lymond caught it. He had found a belaying place. He lashed the cable to the leading prow, raised an arm, and as O’LiamRoe kicked and Abernaci called, saw it tighten as thirty-eight hundredweight of elephant took the strain. It was all he waited to see. As the truncated convoy, heavy, squinting, stirred and started to move, Lymond made his wa
y back to the fire.

  O’LiamRoe looked back. Bleached as a raisin inside his pulped clothes, clinging to the horny grey loins with numb hands, his legs bumping awash, he could feel the big bull beneath him walking steadily and well, brow, trunk and back breaking the water, obeying the odd sounds of his mahout’s distant voice.

  It was a long way to the shore, but the water was empty, and the ground before them was vacant of buildings, or men or even animals to take harm. The musicians’ raft, never very close, was now far away; between the four boats he was pulling and the rest of the flotilla the swirling debris-flecked gap grew and grew. Beyond that, the royal boat had pulled clear at last, skimming out of the shadow with the helmets of the rowers alight in the sun. The children’s gowns showed, red and blue beyond the woman’s encircling arms, and, bobbing and tousled, an excited red head. How much gunpowder was there? Christ.… Well, even if all four boats were full, in another few minutes the children would be safe.

  Abernaci, nearer, had seen Lymond scan the leading boat as he passed. He saw something hit the water from the second, and sink gobbling; Lymond had found powder there. He saw, in between the queer cries to Hughie, that Lymond was back now on the burning ship, using his knife to get under canvas, the moving air of their passage fringing every yard and tassel with flame. He also saw that, gathering momentum, the four ships, like four coals in their pall, were beginning to swim free in the water, answering the pull of the rope merrily, skimming the glassy water faster than the elephant could pull. The ships were overtaking their pilot.