{"product_id":"checkmate-isbn-9780525565291","title":"Checkmate","description":"Combining all the political intrigue of \u003ci\u003eGame of Thrones\u003c\/i\u003e with the sweeping romanticism of \u003ci\u003eOutlander\u003c\/i\u003e, Dorothy Dunnett’s legendary Lymond Chronicles have enthralled readers for decades and amassed legions of devoted fans. In the series’ stunning conclusion, Francis Crawford of Lymond leads an army against England—and a final fight against the enemies that would like nothing more than to see this resilient Scottish rogue, and all that he loves, permanently vanquished.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It is now 1557 and Lymond has returned to France to marshal forces in the Scottish struggle against England. But even as he attains brilliant success on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to both sides. For whoever knows the secret of Lymond’s parentage possesses the power to control him—or destroy him. With his country, his family, his great love, and his very life at stake, it’s time for Lymond to make his final moves.“Exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Dunnett’s] hero. . .is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Vivid, engaging, densely plotted. . . . Dunnett is a master of suspense and misdirection.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A masterpiece of historical fiction.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[Lymond] is arguably the perfect romantic hero.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas . . . breathlessly exciting.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Cleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Ingenious and exceptional . . . its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Boston Herald\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality . . . an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sunday Times \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia. . . . He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Times Literary Supplement \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness . . . and turbulent intensity of one of Europe’s greatest eras.”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Raleigh News and Observer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eDOROTHY DUNNETT was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries; \u003ci\u003eKing Hereafter\u003c\/i\u003e, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text of \u003ci\u003eThe Scottish Highlands\u003c\/i\u003e, a book of photographs by David Paterson, on which she collaborated with her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett. In 1992 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature. Lady Dunnett died in 2001.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What the celebration at the castle had been, Austin Grey never discovered.   He rode in to his tryst at the Tournai and found the inn ankle-deep in drunk burghers,   thronging the common room and spilling out into the courtyard where inoffensive travellers   like himself were attempting to sup their bread and mutton and chicory salad in the   airless July dusk of Douai.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He avoided using his title. Money, and a steady, effective   insistence, procured a room for him. There he removed the dust of his two days' journey   through French-speaking Flanders from Calais.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He had meant to dine indoors, but   the heat and the smells forced him down to the yard where he cut food as best he   could, between the elbows of a wheezing book-pedlar and a talkative merchant from   Antwerp, playfully intent on the bodice-strings of the serving-maids. A group of   students somewhere under the gallery were hymning cuckoldry (co co co co dae) with   an artistry worthy of a Magnificat; and a pair of fishmongers, locked in liquescent   brotherhood, reeled up and sent his cup rolling. A black-eyed Piedmontese slid past,   limping, with a dubbed duckwing cock churring under his elbow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was no sign   so far of the man he had come to Flanders to rescue. Austin Grey sat, seemingly quite   at his ease, expertly deflecting the attention aroused by his uncommon good looks   and reviewed, without pleasure, the mission he owed to his uncle, of the English   fortress at Guines, beside Calais.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'If Francis Crawford wishes to leave Western   Europe,' irritably had said Lord Grey of Wilton, 'then it is England's duty to help   him. Do you want him to lead the French armies into battle against us? Do you want   him to go home to Scotland and encourage his countrymen to cross the Border and march   into England? If he intends to go back to Russia, I for one will be happy to send   him. You have his message. There is no doubt that it is authentic. Go to Douai and   fetch him. You won't be in any danger. He's already thirty miles on the wrong side   of the French frontier if he's got there. He'll be skulking, not you.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And seeing   the sleek, grey-bearded head turning to other business already-'You have considered,'   had said Austin Grey gently, 'that this may be a French trap?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And his uncle, an   irascible but by no means unjust man, had laid down his pen. 'This I can tell you.   If anyone else here were able to recognize Crawford of Lymond or be recognized by   him, I should send him in your place. But I really cannot see any man laying an ambush   for you at Douai, with Pembroke and the whole English army to one side of him and   King Philip at Valenciennes on the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'We are invading France, Austin; and this   man, if he stayed in France, could be a danger to us. It is enough to know that the   French will not lightly release him, and that he has turned to us for help.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'You   dislike him,' had said Lord Grey, folding his hands and raising the combed grey beard   at his nephew. 'You cannot possibly dislike him as much as I have reason to do. But   you will go to Douai. You will tell no one your mission; and you will take the most   excellent care that no one discovers that Crawford has crossed into Flanders. For   much as I esteem our lady Queen's husband, I should prefer King Philip of Spain to   win this war and those after it with the distinguished commanders he has, and without   the services of your much-sought-after gentleman at Douai.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But the man best known   briefly as Lymond had not come to Douai, and now the torches were fit and full night   had fallen. Also, as the tavern trestles were cleared and pushed together to form   a square-walled platform, the presence of the duckwing was abruptly accounted for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The fatherless only son of a despot and the last of a long line of soldiers, Austin   Grey, Marquis of Allendale, had been compelled as a boy to witness altogether too   many cockfights. He rose, intent on leaving the courtyard, and halted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In front   of him, blocking his way, stood the Italian he had already observed in the Piedmontese   bonnet. In either hand this time the man held a linen bag within which something   live struggled and grumbled. He smiled, displaying a swollen, broken-toothed mouth   and reaching across, hooked both bags into place on the wall behind Austin's shoulders   and stood back, arms akimbo, regarding him. 'You wish to lay a wager, monsieur?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He was a travelling cock-master, and there would be others with him. Austin said,   also in French, 'Later. Just now I wish to hear the singers.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Les Amis de Rabelais?   We had them last year. They perform at the castle. Four students from Montpellier,   monsieur.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He knew that already, having been struck half-way through his meal by   the quality of the singing, close as a toothcomb. All Calais spoke of them. The cocker   said, 'But being English, monsieur, the words maybe escape you?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His French was   good but not good enough, apparently, to pass him off as native. They were singing   Je fille quant Dieu with the Swiss countertenor, silk in the weave, in the girl's   part. Austin said, 'Thank you. I know both meanings of quenouille,' and made smiling   to pass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The cocker stood aside. 'Saucy, yes? And the Battle of Marignon? Ah!' And   raising a mellifluous tenor he warbled:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Soyez hardis, en joye mis,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chascun s'asaisonne,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e La fleur de lys,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Fleur de hault pris\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Y est en personne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Suivez Francoys . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He broke off, grinning, to a chorus of drunken hissing and catcalls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Follow Francis.   Austin Grey stared at the Italian cocker and the cocker, grinning, addressed him   in perfect English. 'Go and hear the singers, Lord Allendale. That is where you will   find him.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He went and heard the singers: four young men in breech hose and buff   jerkins led by solid Hunno, the bass: Andreas, the lank, pale-headed Saxon tenor,   Oswald of Basle, baritone, brown, energetic and cheerful; and auburn-haired Hilary   from the eastern cantons whose ragged moustache and bleeding cheek told of the violent   and continuing battle to defend his virility. From behind the moustache emerged the   delicious head-voice of a eunuch, while the three others chanted, with the force   and precision of wire-weavers:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e La plus belle de la ville, c'est moy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e La plus belle   de la ville, c'est moy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Non est\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sy est\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Non est\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sy est\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Non est, non est, je vous   jure ma foy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Non est, non est, je vous jure ma foy . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then someone shouted a   pleasantry and the next moment Hilary had leaped straight into the thick of the crowd,   followed protesting by his three colleagues striving to restrain him. Deafened and   buffeted, Austin was standing, searching in vain for his quarry, when Francis Crawford   made himself known, as a quick, amused voice in the m?l?e. 'Faith has a fair name,   but falsheid faris bettir. In your room, after the cockfight.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But when Grey twisted   round, there was no one behind him that he recognized.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He would have gone to his   room then and there, but the Piedmontese cocker waylaid him. 'You heard him? Till   then, you're to stay in the courtyard.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Who are you?' said Austin Grey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He had   wound a filthy scarf round the torn mouth, but you could tell the dark face was grinning.   'A friend. Did you not see who he was?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'He spoke from behind. No,' said Austin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'The counter-tenor. There he is, at the cock platform. Go and watch. But do not   speak to him,' said the cocker; and grinning, made off through the crowd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Austin   gazed at his back. Then he forced his way with extreme firmness to the mat-covered   platform of trestles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Les Amis de Rabelais were there, vociferously proclaiming   their bets from the opposite side of the platform. And there, visibly battered, his   fists full of livres and sols and deniers, was Hilary of the tousled red hair, bouncing   with glee like a clown on a clock spring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It couldn't be. This half-fledged, ebullient   Graindor could never be the man who controlled armies in Russia; whose skill in war   was so celebrated that Lord Grey was prepared to take any risk to help him leave   France; and even to keep him out of the hands of his allies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And yet . . . Take   away the moustache, and the hair, and you had a man nearer thirty than twenty; whose   eyes had seen more than the frets of a lute and the inside of a medical college,   and who had learned lessons other than his praxis and chirugia and theoria.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was   Francis Crawford of Lymond. He drummed his fists on the ledge, and talked and quarrelled   and shrieked with his friends, casting no single glance in Austin's direction. But   Austin, all through the fight, watched him silently.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was not, he thought, acting.   Most men of war delighted in cock fighting. Socrates had drawn from it an example   of valour; the sons of the Emperor Severus had been brought to watch it daily before   being sent to reduce England. And Themistocles had braced his army to vanquish the   Persians with the same analogy: Behold: these do not fight for their household gods,   for the monuments of their ancestors, for glory, for liberty or the safety of their   children; but only because the one will not give way to the other. In Christian lands,   to give one's cocks strength, one fed them filched bread from the altar-table.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Austin   continued to watch. The docked birds dashed to each other and remained beak to beak,   each shaved serpent neck straining upwards. Then came the familiar, blustering rattle   as of a masterless sail in a whirlwind. Beating, gnawing and striking the cocks sprang   from the mat, wrung together, and the red-haired student screeched and shot his arms   over his head, half concussing a dyer and knocking a barber's hat over his face like   a chafing dish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then the birds dropped, in a fury of warm, gouting blood and black   feathers, and Austin saw that the birchen grey, a big eight-pound fowl, had a spur   sunk up to the hilt in its enemy's neck, and the fight was already over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He would   have gone then to his room, but the crowd behind held him stapled fast to his place.   They took the dead bird out for the pot, and the owner, his beaming face red in the   torchlight, lifted the victor tenderly in his thick hands and with his tongue began   searching its injuries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Soon, stinking with curative urine, it would take a pat   of sweet rosemary butter and be put to stove in the straw of its sweating basket.   It had been fortunate. He had seen a fight between two wounded cocks last a couple   of hours, even though the spurs were cut smooth and sharp with a penknife. As the   ancients had said: in their raging pride, indifferent to pain and injury, they would   fight to the end of their powers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Looking through the eyes of the man opposite you   could, he supposed, see a barbaric magnificence in it. You could admire the quick,   graceful movements of the bird they now put on the mat, with its tight glossy plumage   and muscular thighs; brilliant yellow on shoulder and saddle. Or the sprightly strut   of its black and red adversary, the polled head darting and glinting; the spurs growing   low and wicked and curved on the white and sinewy legs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They liked to fight, it   was said. It was their instinct. They would seek battle regardless of the presence   of man, and would pine if denied it. And here, in the darting bodies, the sparring,   the dodging, the high, rustling flirts when with beak, foot and spur, bird grappled   with bird, there was strength and fire and a most unflinching valour for men to admire   and emulate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Half an hour went by of the struggle. By the end of it the golden fowl,   slashed and impaled, was sorely beaten, but continued steadily to attack its superb   and untouched antagonist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then it weakened. In silence among the screaming spectators   Austin Grey watched the tired legs beginning to tremble; the beak to open; the tongue   to palpitate. One barred yellow wing trailed on the mat and when, in the flurries,   it sought to grip with its beak, the rich red wings of its foe beat it down, and   the other's strong spurs struck again and again, at its head, its throat or its neck,   or the place in its back where, sinking through, the sharpened point would spear   through its vitals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Austin had laid no wagers. But when, in one such bustle, the   golden cock struck to the head and against all expectation, the bigger bird disengaged   and dropped aside, staggering, he was glad; as if he and not the duckwing had been   suffering. Then he saw what the chance blow had done. The black-breasted red had   lost the use of its eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Silence fell. The yellow bird, its abdomen slit, was almost   vanquished. It moved as if drunk, toppling first on its breast and then on its ragged   docked tail and you could see sweat, like citrines, on the torn feathers. It lay,   red eyes glaring its challenge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And the red, strong still, trod forward groping   in darkness and found and gripped the fallen bird with its beak. Then, beating down   its cut wings, it attacked and went on attacking its enemy's body.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It should have   been the end. The yellow bird twitched and raised its stained head. It lifted itself,   shivering. It stood, and might have fallen. Instead, in a single magic explosion   of courage and anger, it hurled forward the naked head and caught the blinded red   foe by the throat. Then springing high in the air, the yellow cock brought down its   spurs in a stroke no living bird could have fended.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The black-breasted red toppled   and lay, in the jumping, glistening stream of its blood. And the yellow stepped on   its back, and moved its one wing, and throwing back its gored head, crowed in triumph.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Courage, of a noble and humbling order. Courage of the brute, subject to neither   reason nor discipline. Courage which could inspire emulation or greed, or brutality.   What were they celebrating now, these bellowing figures about him, but a win against   odds, and the making or losing of money?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Opposite him, the red-haired student had   won his wager. The others had thrown him in the air and he descended upside down,   in a rain of silver, attempting through hiccoughing laughter to semaphore to himself   a serving of Auxerrois.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was easy now to get away from the mat. Austin Grey turned,   his face unsmiling, and ran up the gallery stairs to his chamber.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301286695141,"sku":"NP9780525565291","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525565291.jpg?v=1767723607","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/checkmate-isbn-9780525565291","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}