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henceforth be staying.
    Jerott Blyth had been relieved to hear it. Any visit Lymond paid to the Hôtel Gaultier would consequently be a brief one. A young priest standing beside him said, ‘I’m told you fought, sir, under his lordship of Sevigny. In Scotland, is he of good family?’
    The usual question. ‘He is the second son of a very old Scottish house,’ Jerott said, watching the bridge. ‘He has a Scottish property at Lymond and a French estate at Sevigny, on the Loire. His brother, Crawford of Culter, has the title.’
    ‘Ah!’ said the monk. He looked impressed. ‘I have heard of Lord Crawford of Culter.’
    And the usual answer. ‘You will have heard of the first baron,’ Jerott said. ‘This is three generations away. This Mr Crawford has only fought occasionally in France and has just spent two years in Russia.’
    Which in some degree, he supposed, must have altered him. On that point, Adam’s letters had not been informative. The mounted procession, feathered caps bobbing, was coming closer. He had not far off a hundred men at arms with him, Jerott calculated; and God knew how many servants, as well as a jogging group in black skirts: the finance officers. Then the Consulat and the chief burghers. Then Adam Blacklock, lean and unexpectedly scarred, riding next to a small, fresh-faced person unknown to him. Then …
    Then Francis Crawford of Lymond, comte de Sevigny. At Douai, before he killed Strozzi’s men, he had played the part, Adam said, of a red-headed student counter-tenor.
    Now he was not playing a rôle. Jerott wondered what the Douaisiens would have made of this fair, slender man with the sculptured face and wide, watchful eyes, and the lyre marks of satire and also of arrogance about the long mouth. Lymond rode under the personal banner of his house, and wore for his entry a high-throated doublet and surcoat of floating Persian tissue whose stuff drew comment like the chatter of looms from all the watching weavers, and whose jewels, luminous in the sunlight, cast their bloom as through a wine glass, citrine and azure and amethyst; to gratify bankers and make merchants fall silent, appraising them.
    Then the Captain-General dismounted and Jerott found himself, all too soon, summoned to his place in the introductions. Face to face: ‘My God,’ said Francis Crawford in English, smiling cordially and shaking his hand. ‘Caffa and purled lace and pinking, and a butt on him like oneof Shah Mahmút the Ghazněrides’ elephants. How is Marthe?’ To his escort he added blandly, in French, ‘Forgive me. Mr Blyth and I are old acquaintances.’
    ‘Don’t apologize. M. le Prévôt speaks English,’ said Jerott coldly.
    ‘So he does,’ said Lymond thoughtfully. ‘Remind me to tell him that the Shah Mahmút the Ghazněrides kept very small elephants. And Marthe, you that in love find lucke and habundance? May I call on her?’
    ‘If you wish. That is, we shall be honoured,’ said Jerott quickly. Francis could always tie him in knots.
    Lymond, his mouth twitching, moved on. His two captains, Adam Blacklock and Daniel Hislop watched him go and turned their gaze with one accord upon Jerott Blyth, left staring after him.
    ‘This man Jerott,’ said Danny Hislop accusingly. ‘You said he was middle-aged.’ Jerott turned.
    ‘I didn’t,’ said Adam Blacklock indignantly. ‘I said he was stinking rich and cut his old allies dead in the street. I did not say he was middle-aged.’
    Vivid, black-haired and muscular, with passions far from middle-aged lodged between the flat belly and lean hips on which he had just been insulted, Jerott Blyth looked at the two men and, for the first time, his face lost its apprehension.
    Then Adam put his hand on his arm, and laughed, and introduced the short, sandy-haired man called Danny Hislop, and together they went into the Hôtel de Ville after Lymond.
    *
    Jerott’s golden-haired wife watched them go. Unknown to him, Marthe had stood for an hour in the