Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
‘Plummer wanted the sledge drawn by a team of white bears,’ Lymond said, ‘but I thought it seemed a touch precious.’ He was wearing no jewels, but a caftan of oriental fabric so thickly embroidered that other richness was unthinkable. ‘Plummer dresses me also,’ added Lymond, with every appearance of candour. ‘Sometimes I think he will put the weevils in jerkins and codpieces. Please be welcome, and come in from the cold.’
Chancellor got out and walked to the steps, with Best and the architect following. Looking back, he saw that d’Harcourt had remained in the sledge. He encountered the Voevoda’s clever blue gaze. ‘Our friend will stay and look out for Christopher,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘Then he can warn him against me and my habits, and we can feel relieved and secure all together. Are you tired of roast swan in garlic?’
‘No,’ said Diccon Chancellor in a superhuman access of courtesy.
‘My God,’ said Lymond, stopping and staring at him. ‘In that case, I wish we had cooked it for you. Come along. Adam Blacklock is here, modestly reinstated, before you. I thought we should have a mildly cultural evening. I have not asked Mr Hoddim, who might expound too inconveniently on the laws of property, or Alec Guthrie, who is prone at times to be dismally moral. You are entering a different world: a world of determined sybaritic experience. The bower of Majnún and Leylí.’
The reference struck no response from Diccon’s navigational repertoire. Rob Best’s mouth had opened again. Lymond looked from one to the other.
Into Lancelot Plummer’s humourless eyes there came, without warning, a spark of undeniable entertainment. ‘A pair of Persian lovers,’ he offered.
‘A pair of Persian lovers,’ agreed Lymond, acknowledging the assistance. ‘Do you have a mistress, Master Chancellor? It is an asset no man should deny himself. Without it, the cooking suffers abominably, and I dare not mention what goes amiss with the drainage.’
Chancellor laughed. He laughed for quite a long time because his sense of humour was touched, while his logical mathematician’s brain was telling him that very likely he would be flung out of the house for it, if not banished altogether from this alarming country of Russia.
Lymond waited until he was nearly finished, and then, placing a hand on his shoulder, steered Chancellor up the remaining few steps, and along a gallery to the main double doors of the house. The light, flooding down from the sconces, gilded the bright feathered gold of his hair, and the cushioned silks of the caftan, and the faint lines round the relaxed mouth which were almost, but not quite, a smile. ‘Well, thank God,’ said Lymond. ‘I thought you were going to go down on your knees. The occasion is expensive, but not so far meet for prayer.’
And so, with a degree of anticipation not far from horrified pleasure, Diccon Chancellor entered the country home of the Voevoda Bolshoia and his mistress, and did not look to see if there was a witch ball hung over the lintel.
It was like an evening at Penshurst.
If an evening at Penshurst could have been spiced, and scented and jewelled, and anointed, like King Raia Colambu, with oil of storax and benjamin, it would have bred handsome hours such as these, charged with good wine and light talk and music, enclosed with comfort, and incised all about with a curving, trephining wit.
The vulgarity he had expected was missing. The beautiful woman introduced by Francis Crawford as
The lady Güzel, your hostess and mistress of all you see about you
, spoke English as well as himself, with an accent part Greek, part something else he could not identify. And recalling with compassion the pungent mind and honest gifts of Mistress Philippa, Diccon Chancellor recognized before him now, in the woman Güzel, the face and the mind and the power of a woman of destiny.
She dined with them, facing Lymond across a low, marbled table of malachite, with Plummer and Blacklock on one side, and on the other himself and the bearded young man in ermine, whom he had noticed while watching the Triumph. His name was Prince Dmitri Vishnevetsky, and he was governor of Cherkassy on the Lithuanian frontier, which made his presence in Moscow worth pondering.
He knew the Voevoda and his mistress fairly well, it was obvious, and called the Voevoda by his territorial name of Lymond, which his own men, out of habit, sometimes also used.
It suited him; Chancellor thought. Brief; impersonal; without title, or else, if you wished it, a title in itself. He tried to see him through Güzel’s eyes. She had brought him to Russia, he had been told: had introduced him and his company to the Tsar; had established him in the position from which he had now risen to such eminence.
Of the eminence, there was no longer any doubt. Even had he not learned from Plummer of all the tangible marks of the Emperor’s favour, it was only necessary to think of the display that afternoon; to hear the stories of the summer campaigning; to watch the people bow in the streets, as they did to the old princely families, when the Voevoda’s train passed.
And for the rest, one need only look around one. Plummer had built for a king: or, being given the heart of a building, had worked it over to become a suitable setting for Russia’s supreme commander. Outside, the groups of kokoshnik gables, the huddle of cones and pyramids and finials, the square stones set in thick mortar, with their brick trim in scarlet sawtooth or zigzag embroidery round window and cornice and drums. And inside, the jarred doors with frames of worked stone; the gilded piers, the majolica floortiles. All the arts of Syria and the Orient, of Turkey and Venice, of France and Russia itself had been combined in the interior. They said they had flown from Stamboul as fugitives. If that were true, it was impossible to conceive how these treasures could have been smuggled out also, or how, in less than two years, so much that was perfect could have been chosen, or gifted, or brought in from the closed caravan routes that lay behind Astrakhan and Bokhara. Great God, look at the Baghdad robes she was wearing of Tyrian purple laden with birds and with panthers; and the earrings next to the smooth olive face with its large eyes and charcoal black hair; at her ring with the cameo head of a negro, his neck encircled with diamonds.
The silk figured lampas which fell rustling over the door: the Flemish tapestry, mild and exquisite, clothing another room fitted with fine stools and carpets and bookshelves whose rolls and volumes Adam Blacklock’s eyes had surveyed hungrily, his fingers smoothing the cover of the one he had borrowed, its boards laced and coloured with Persian cloisonné enamel.
The Turkish towels. The cushion covers, worked in pearled German falcons. The paintings, each with its curtain. The wrought silver fuming pots, faint with pastilles of musk and ambergris, jasmine and benzoin. The beds hung with chagrin silk and blonde lace, the lawn sheets fumed with lemon and violets. The silver. The ewers and basins; the clusters of cups; the bellied livery pots, parcel-gilt with fruit swags and strapwork. The tall Chinese jar hooped with gold, with fringes of great netted pearls hung about it. The glimmering fruit bowls and candelabra here on the table before him, and the crystal
salt, and the wine jug, and the little trellised goblets on baluster sterns, one of which he was emptying, and having refilled, and emptying again …
Christopher came in, his eyes dilated from the darkness outside, with Ludovic d’Harcourt, the big, smiling Knight of St John. His manner, making his apologies, pleased his father in spite of himself: he did not stare at Güzel, but kissed her hand, and bowed to his host and the other men, and gave only a passing blink at the laden table where the youngest of the blue-shirted servants, a boy of perhaps less than Christopher’s own age, was setting a fresh place for his son. The young manservant finished, and pulled back a stool, smiling, while Christopher, moving towards it, returned the smile warmly.
‘His name is Venceslas,’ said the Voevoda, whom nothing ever escaped. ‘He is Polish, but speaks English very well. Sit and eat, while he serves you. You have some space to make up.’
Ludovic d’Harcourt left, closing the door ungently behind him. In spite of himself, Diccon glanced at his son, and then at the lad Vencelas serving him. The Polish boy was beautiful. Even if what the big knight had hinted was true, there was no need to concern himself unduly. The matter, he thought, was already adequately taken care of. Then they brought in the aromatic pie, which had small birds under its pastry, some stuffed with meat and some with eggs, and some fried in grape juice and limes, and the lambs stuffed with meat and ground pistachio nuts and cooked in sesame oil, and the sturgeon in broth, and the ground figs, cloves and mace, and the coloured jellies shaped like flowers and trees, and the golden spice plates with sugar plums and suckets wrapped in rolled aniseed leaves, and nougat and marzipan, and more spiced claret with honey, and Diccon Chancellor forgot everything else, looking at his son’s scarlet face.
There was music later, when the table was drawn and they were seated at leisure, on cushions and long tasselled benches and tall chairs, watching the play of small flames in the brazier. Women played on the lute, and a boy sang, and accompanied himself on a curious eight-stringed lyre. Then Güzel herself took the lute, and played to them, singing in her true, mellow voice, but in a language Chancellor could not understand.
He had wondered, at the beginning of this evening, what pleasure this handsome, wealthy woman had found in her creation. He knew now, looking at the powerful man they called Lymond. He had expected vulgarity; he had been afraid of embarrassing dalliance; he had been prepared to be disgusted or bored.
In the event, his host and hostess had barely exchanged a glance in the course of the evening: there was no call for it. Cool and assured, each wholly in command of all the civilized arts of giving pleasure, they wove and interwove their attentions, controlling the evening
between them; guiding the talk; leading the laughter. Güzel was well read, as well as highly trained in all the womanly arts. She held Plummer in disputation and brought pen and paper so that Adam could dispose of some fanciful theory with a sweep of his long, artist’s fingers.
But Lymond was more than well read. Somewhere, God knew where, he had picked up a formal education and had bettered it. He was also well informed, to a degree Chancellor found disturbing. Political awareness one found in the Vatican, and at the courts of Henri of France, and the Emperor Charles, and in the unhappy government of England and the torn ducal palaces of Italy. One did not look for it here, in a soldier who lived by his sword, in a country so remote that the transmission of news was itself a feat worth remarking.
That kind of mind was not Güzel’s creation. And that explosive combination of physical skill and intelligence, so dangerous in the world of affairs. Henry Sidney had it, but couched in a family setting which enabled him to stay in favour through two conflicting reigns. Ned Somerset had had it; and Warwick to a degree. And the de Guises in France: the Duke, the Cardinal, the Prior. Brains, hardihood, and looks.
Brains and hardihood were here in this man. And looks he had not observed before. Good hands, and a body agreeably marshalled. Hair strongly springing which was not yellow, but stranded with all the live colours between citrine and amber. An overbred face, with bone fitted to bone like the hilt to the tang of a blade; a gaze, wide and blue, and hard as the gaze of an idol. And the long, linear design of the mouth, with its hairline engraving of temper.…
What passion did this exquisite woman find there? The bower of Majnún and Leylí, Lymond had said; and Chancellor had long since recognized the unfair irony behind that expansive remark. Whatever took place between these two strong-willed and experienced people had nothing to do with cheap sentiment, or simple chapbook romance. He was glad that the Voevoda credited him, at least, with the wits to discover as much. And he knew why the girl Philippa never thought to speak of him except by his surname. He said to the artist, sitting beside him, ‘What is Mr Crawford’s Christian name?’
Adam Blacklock looked startled. He said, dropping his voice, ‘Francis. Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny. The Russians call him Frangike.… In St Mary’s we prefer to use surnames.’
It was a warning, but one quite unnecessary. Diccon Chancellor could not imagine himself or anyone else addressing the Voevoda as a fellow human being. He smiled. ‘You at least are back in favour,’ he said.
Adam did not smile. ‘Like God, he instructs with rebuke mixed with mercy. The issue was on a matter of principle,’ he said.
‘The Prince Vishnevetsky does not understand English,’ said Lymond’s voice from across the warm room. ‘Can you bear to discuss the subject in Russian? Blacklock has been longing for sympathy.’
‘I haven’t asked for it,’ said Adam Blacklock.
‘No, you haven’t, but it shows in your paintings. All those ikons in raw umber and egg yolk we’re not supposed to be looking at,’ Lymond said. ‘Chancellor, did you know Ivan Mihkailovich Viscovatu was a painter? You should visit the ikon workshop in the armoury. When the fire destroyed half the work in the Kremlin, they brought in the best painters from Novgorod to replace all the saints in the iconostasis, and the finest ikons to copy their style from. Viscovatu’s own work is not the best, but it has solid quality. Even Blacklock can be brought to admit it.’
Diccon said, ‘What then is the matter of principle?’
‘The Voevoda will tell you,’ said Adam.
‘Tancred is sensitive on the subject,’ said Lymond. Christopher, his eyes shining like brass in the lamplight was staring at him, Diccon suddenly noticed, like the eye of reason before the Divine Light. Lymond went on: ‘… but in fact the point is quite valid. Ikons are holy—you can’t put them in the fire, you must bury them with full ecclesiastical honours when they’re worn out. And they are painted according to a set of extremely strict rules laid down by the Church. It follows then that since most of the painting in Russia is commissioned by the Church—portraiture and sculpture are frowned on, and the Tsar is not interested in any other kind—there is no scope for the artist whatever. He cannot change his technique. He cannot experiment. He must approach every subject according to the versions in the Podlinki, the manuals of iconographic tradition, and obey the laws of the Church Council, the Stoglav. And the Stoglav holds that
he who shall paint an ikon out of his imagination shall suffer endless torment
. Have I presented your case fairly, Blacklock?’