Paris. Early March 1599
Fortunately, the timing was right. The atrocious weather had delayed the French Court’s spring migration downriver to the various palaces and hunting grounds favoured by the King, and a pleasant house had been made ready for them by the pleasure gardens.
Unfortunately, when Nick finally went to find his bed, grim faced and worn out, his baggage lay open and strewn over the floor, every garment in it slashed and ripped and bare of every sewn jewel and button. His armour was gone and everything reeked like a Venetian brothel of the expensive scent pressed on him by Gallio. He stood in the doorway and looked at the mess. Thankfully his personal jewels and money were carried in a strongbox under guard.
“So soon,” he said aloud. A warning? First strike to you, whoever you are. And foolish, to put me on my guard. He sent for Trelawney, and after the horrified exclaiming, asked him to make discreet enquiries.
“Someone may have been seen. No fuss, and no official complaint, I think. Oh, and ask Young Colin to lend me a shirt. I’ve an audience with the King in the morning.”
He only had what gear he stood up in and did what he could, made no excuse, and presented himself and his perfumed credentials with everything about him clean and polished and smelling of soap. His armour and weapons had been found in the shrubbery under his window, and his sword hung now at his side with its jewelled hilt catching the light, the chains of his Orders gleamed across the shoulders of his battered leather jack. Henri the Good was said to be a judge of horseflesh and Shadow of the Wind was proud and glossy in her silver-studded harness and ribbons, enough in herself to get him through the gates. His retinue in their livery of black and gold carrying the Rokesby crest were no disgrace.
Halfway across the gravel and paving he was accosted by Ann de Montmorency.
“My dear, is this the fashion obtaining in England? I must see my tailor. Or is it perhaps a statement? You scorn our idle preoccupation with matters of style? I had not thought so in Venice.”
“That would hardly be thought good manners. A mishap, soon remedied. But not in time to mend my appearance, I’ve no wish to add lateness to my deficiencies.”
He dismounted and Young Colin led his horse and the rest of the men towards the stables after a corporal in the uniform of the Scottish Archers.
De Montmorency accompanied him past the guards at the door, chatting amiably, and handed him over to a splendid gentleman loaded with many more gold chains than Nicholas, turning aside to give some quiet orders.
The King had been hunting and received him an hour later still in his own mud-splashed riding clothes. Nick appreciated the courtesy.
“We understand you were robbed in the house of our choosing. What was lost has been replaced. We regret such a happening to a guest at our Court and an envoy from our cousin, Elizabeth. Rise. You will take wine.”
He waved Nicholas to a stool, and disposed his long horseman’s legs on the window seat. The weak sunlight through the coloured glass lit the thin curving nose and the quizzical brows. The set of the mouth was firm and kindly.
“We shall not keep you long. You will convey our thanks to your queen for her gifts of men and arms at time of need. She has honoured us with her approval – the Edict. You know of it?”
“L’Edict de Nantes, sire?”
“As a good Protestant she must approve. But we fear we have angered her of late. The treaty with Spain – still not a fait accompli, you may tell her – and other matters. We would mend the friendship. Scotland of course was always our friend.”
Nicholas decided to risk it.
“King James has many rivals. And enemies…” A long finger came out and lifted the chain of Nick’s Order.
“From whom you saved him. There will be a meeting of my councillors. Come to breakfast.”
Nicholas, in his scarred and polished leathers, was dismissed.
Lord Rokesby returned to his lodging to find the other half of the escort and his three young men standing about watching in amazement as servants unloaded a train of gold-fringed sumpter mules and made their way into the house with parcels and boxes and bales. Inside, a steward in a doublet badged with the fleur-de-lis was directing the unpacking. He bowed with a flourish.
“His Majesty is pleased to make reparation,” he said in excellent English. “We have enquired of your taste – you favour green, I believe.” There was certainly a great deal of it. Cloaks and doublets and trunk hose, hats with feathers and hats without, velvet and silk and brocade… The shirts and small-clothes, mercifully white, were of finest linen and silk, the ruffs the small pie-crust frill favoured in France.
There were tapestries for the walls, carpets for the floors, crystal and silver plate and monstrous candelabra. Sheaves of good wax candles, some of them scented, bedlinen and silk coverlets made their way in on parti-coloured page boy legs. Finally, two pages struggled in with a silver-gilt epergne loaded with fruit, pineapple and figs, grapes and oranges. Seeing nowhere to place it, they put it on the floor. The nuts rolled off.
The major-domo waved a lordly arm.
“In token of His Majesty’s friendship to your Queen.” And as a further bale was carefully unwrapped, “For the banquet. A tailor will call.” The doublet was of taffetas, the changing colour of a pigeon’s breast, its embroidered roses centred with amethyst and the pale green of peridots. The short cloak was edged with silver fox. France prospers, thought Nick. Aloud he said, “How can I thank His Gracious Majesty for such gifts?”
“An insult was offered in his house. The culprit shall be found and punished.”
“It is in hand. I beg the Court will not trouble itself further.” He caught sight of Henry, standing behind Trelawney, his face greenish-white. He murmured to Young Colin in Scots, “if that boy is going to be sick, get him out of here.”
The mules departed, the major-domo rode off on his palfrey, and the house servants took over. Tim picked up a tunic and held it against himself.
“Help yourself. The tailor will call…” Nick started to laugh and laughing still, left the room to find his bedchamber. It had been swept and garnished and he leaned against the closed door and wept.
Expecting to be placed at one of the lower tables, Nicholas was surprised to be placed near the top, next to Ann de Montmorency. The Frenchman kissed him on both cheeks.
“An improvement, my friend,” he said. “Not that you are not charming in battle array. Do you see who is here?” Nicholas looked along the raised top table and saw, leaning to listen to the woman next the King, Angelica d’Alighieri in her own form of battle dress. He had not thought to see her again. She looked up and saw him: a soft flush began at her bodice and swept to her jewelled hairline.
“Fortunate, no?” murmured his neighbour. “Friends at Court?” The heat and noise grew steadily unbearable, the procession of dishes obscene. The King was entertaining embassies from Germany and Burgundy and the Low Countries, all noted trenchermen. Nicholas was worried about Henry standing so long behind his chair. He sent him away presently and Young Colin took his place, more accustomed to Court excesses. Long verses were spoken, someone sang to a lute, acrobats formed pyramids and juggled and the dancing began. The dances were formal and graceful, little of the leaping and lifting of the Tudor Court. He and Angelica passed and re-passed, he saw how her body moved inside the stiff bodice and remembered. He was not surprised when a note was pushed into his sleeve. As once before it was short. “Hôtel des Colombes. Tonight.”
He went on foot, padding through the murmurous streets with one hand on his sword, down to an elegant little square by the river, Henri’s new building programme well in evidence. The Hôtel des Colombes was a tall narrow house in a circle of gravel, steps leading up to a classic marble portico. He crunched as quietly as he could round to the side, past a dovecote shaped like a beehive for ten thousand bees and found a side door open. Soft light shone from a room at top of the curving stair. She was waiting for him.
Starved by his recent self-imposed restraint and still distressed, his only concern was that his long abstinence would overwhelm them both, but she knew him well enough now and did not keep him waiting, taking him in her arms and meeting his hunger with her own. Later, the first urgency spent, they sat with food and spiced wine and exchanged news. Her husband had died on a long journey from Russia.
“I advised him not to go, Niccolo. As I told you, I have made that journey – it was frightful – and at that time of year… But he was always a stubborn man. My Medici cousin invited me here – and I have business interests. Tell me, Niccolo, is it true what I hear, that you took two troopships and Spanish gold? I thought you were turning merchant, not pirate.”
“Neither. I am set to work in my country’s interest – to my wounding, it sometimes seems. Things have not gone well for me either, Angelica.”
“I saw as much. Tell me.”
“It is not one of those tall tales, my Scheherazade. It is too soon to speak of it. Tell me of your doings here.”
“You are my dear friend, Niccolo, and I can admit to you that I wear black because it becomes me. I am my own mistress now and so I shall stay. No more husbands for me, to make use of my fortune and hinder my wishes. I am a rich woman and can do as I please. I am here to amuse myself.”
You have no ageing Queen to pose a threat, thought Nicholas. You don’t know how lucky you are – Rosalyne is rich, yet she seems willing to take a husband…
Angelica was saying, “Our witty friend keeps to himself these days. He has written a pleasing entertainment or two, but he prefers to stay in Verona – a shame, he is such good company.”
“Not when he is working, my dear, he is like a wolf biting its own tail. I must go, it grows late – or early.”
“Until tomorrow, then. I shall wheedle a tale out of you yet.”
She knew nothing of Kate and his broken dream, and it was not until a few nights later that he could speak even a little of it. She propped herself up on the pillows and regarded him gravely.
“It is probably too soon to say so, Niccolo, but this may be for the best. A childhood romance does not always make a good marriage – and few of us can choose whom we marry.” She stroked her fingers down his arm. “Only our lovers.”
“You recommend a loveless match?”
“Need it be so? Does this Rosalyne disgust you?” He remembered with a jolt that last passionate encounter and his first sight of her.
“No…”
“Then obey your Queen and take her. And for the moment, you are here.”
There was no shortage of amusement at the court of Henri le Bon. The weather cleared and the Court moved off. Great barges loaded with cooks and servants and their servants’ servants, food, cook pots and stoves, plate and linen, beds and bed hangings, silver chamber pots and ewers and barrels of wine, followed the river south. Decorated barges with court ladies and their women, elder statesmen and children with their nurses came after and settled chattering into each new place like a flock of migrating birds. The men of the Court rode in a throng along the banks, a moving rainbow, talking, talking, talking, huntsmen and hounds of all kinds following with the troop of soldiers and the King’s royal guard of Scottish Archers.
There was hare coursing along the way, and deer hunting and hunting the boar, hawking and races. At the chateaux and manoirs where the Court rested and then moved on, having stripped the place bare as a swarm of locusts, there was jousting and sword play, wrestling and archery. The knights jousted in full armour, favours flying, or in plain mail and fancy dress, bears fighting lions and ostriches attacking flamingoes in pink taffeta; a knight with a stuffed princess nodding behind him slew a dragon. Henri himself took part in the archery and swordplay, plainly dressed and competent. His supple armour fitted him like a glove.
At night the feasting went on into the small hours, with jugglers and acrobats, jesters and musicians. And conversation. Even at the Mermaid there was seldom so much conversation. Around the King gathered a smaller court of poets and philosophers and statesmen and soon Nicholas was admitted to this enclave, where, after Angelica and her gentle teaching, he had no difficulty holding his own. He found that in spite of the horseplay and extravagance and mind-numbing expense, there was little licence; Henri was a man of sense and sound policy, a good listener. Nicholas formed an impression of a court in good heart, admiring and respectful of their king. A long-avowed Protestant, there were those, certainly, who distrusted Henri’s conversion to the Catholic faith as expedient. His offhand remark, “Paris is worth a Mass,” had not helped. Under his rule, however, the country was prospering, the heavy debts had been repaid, and his expressed desire that every peasant should have a chicken in the pot looked set to be realised. Wherever he passed on this Progress, the people came out to see him and cheer.
On his last visit to Elizabeth’s court, Nick had sensed an uneasy brilliance, a dying glare, a corpse-light of uncertainty. How could it be otherwise? The Queen was ailing, with no named successor; Essex was posing a threat, Europe in its usual state of turmoil. In the audiences granted him with the king of France, Nicholas was able to speak carefully of his hopes for his own country without fear of jeopardising his task. He asked if the King had any message for her. They were in the chamber hastily prepared for the King in the doll’s-house chateau belonging to the Marquis de Conde, with its blue slates and pointy towers. Henri said, “Your queen is wise. Men reveal themselves in their struggle for power and so may be recognised.”
He knows why I’m here, thought Nick.
“Tell your queen that when my time comes, I shall hope to leave a legacy such as hers.” Nick felt this was altogether too like an epitaph. An oral message can always be edited, he thought. He certainly would not repeat the King’s next remark.
“I could wish I had married her myself.”
Nick smiled dutifully. Henri’s first marriage had been a disaster.
“We are fortunate in having so many of your countrymen at court,” said Henri, idly. He was stringing a lute. “William Boyd, for example, and my lord Bothwell. And they have made friends among us.” The message was as clear as if he had shouted in Nick’s ear. “Aubigny, and young de Longhi. A playful duel, I hear. You bear the mark. I doubt he will challenge you again. We are sending him to Cologne, to the Duke. He likes to hunt the chamois.” His eyes were sparkling and his face quite straight. He obviously had a network quite as good as Cecil’s.
“He is a skilful climber, your majesty.”
The king laughed outright. “He would like to think so. Come, I see the lady d’Alighieri. We shall make music together.”
Yes, thought Nick, following him. Quite as good.