{"product_id":"queens-play-isbn-9780525565253","title":"Queens' Play","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. This second book in the series finds Francis Crawford of Lymond embroiled in a dangerous game to prevent the assassination of Mary Queen of Scots.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Having miraculously cleared his name of charges of murder and treason, Francis Crawford of Lymond is hardly the type to settle down to a peaceful life. Instead he embarks on a secret mission to protect the Scottish queen, who, though still a little girl, is already the object of malicious intrigues. Embedding himself within the decadent French court, Lymond undertakes the most unlikely of masquerades to ensure that the young queen remains safe. But with his past weighing more heavily on Lymond than he would ever admit, he finds himself sinking a little too deeply into his devious disguise—and risks losing himself completely.“Expert entertainment. . . . Dunnett can describe a duel more convincingly than Dumas.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dorothy Dunnett is a storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about suspense, pace and invention.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Lymond] is arguably the perfect romantic hero.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A masterpiece of historical fiction.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas . . . breathlessly exciting.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Cleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Ingenious and exceptional . . . its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBoston Herald\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\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.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sunday Times \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\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.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Times Literary Supplement \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\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.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Raleigh News and Observer\u003c\/b\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.The cauldron is exempt from its boiling when the food, the fire   and the cauldron are properly arranged, but that the attendant gives notice of his   putting the fork into the cauldron. That is, but so he warns: 'Take care,' says he.   'Here goes the fork into the cauldron.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She wanted Crawford of Lymond. His nerves   flinching from the first stir of disaster, the Chief Privy Councillor understood   his mistress at last.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Regal, humourless, briskly prosaic, the Queen Dowager of Scotland   had conducted the audience with her usual French competence and was bringing it to   its usual racing conclusion. She was a big woman, boxed in quilting in spite of the   weather, and Tom Erskine was limp with her approaching visit to France.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To the most   extravagant, the most cultured, the most dissolute kingdom in Europe the Queen Mother   was shortly to sail, and her barons, her bishops and her cavalry with her. And now,   it appeared, she wanted one man besides.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Queen Mother was a subtle woman, and   not Scots. The thick oils of statesmanship ran in Mary of Guise's veins, and she   rarely handed through the door what she could throw in by the cat's hole. So she   talked of safe conducts and couriers, of precedents and programmes, of gifts and   people to meet and to avoid before she added, 'And I want intelligence, good intelligence,   of French affairs. We had better place some sort of observer.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her Privy Councillor   had never found her foolish before. From the Duke de Guise downwards, every member   of that privileged family, with its quarterings of eight sovereign houses, its Cardinals,   its Abbesses and its high and influential posts at the French Court, might be worldly,   might be charming, would almost certainly be a congenital gambler; but would never   be foolish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e These were the Queen Dowager's brothers and sisters-good God, where   better could she go for intimate news? Granted, it was now twelve years since, a   young French widow, she had come to Scotland as King James V's bride, and eight years   since he died, leaving her with a war, a baby Queen and a parcel of rebellious nobles.   True, again, that she would be watched, by her Scottish barons no less than by the   enemies of her brothers in France. Only, for a French King, however friendly, to   find an informer at Court would be disaster.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Erskine said aloud, 'Madam . . . you   are supposed to be joining your daughter, nothing else.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e '-Some sort of observer,'   she was repeating, quite unruffled. 'Such as Crawford of Lymond.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With an elegant   yellow head in his mind's eye, and in his ears a tongue like sword cutler's emery,   Tom Erskine said bluntly, 'His name and face are known the length of France. And   I'm damned sure he'll not be persuaded.' Notoriously, at some time, every faction   in the kingdom had tried to buy Lymond's services. Nor was the bidding restricted   to Scotland, or to statesmen, or to men. Europe, whenever he wished, could provide   him-and probably did-with either a workshop or a playground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Queen Mother's   manner remained bland. 'He is possibly tired of trifling at home?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'He isn't dull   enough to commit himself to a contract.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'But he might come to France?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Oh, God!   'To entertain himself,' said Tom Erskine warningly. 'But for nothing else.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The   Queen Mother smiled, and he know that he had misjudged her again, and that, as usual,   streets and palaces and prisons beyond anyone's grasp lay under her thoughts. She   said, 'If he is in France. for the term of my visit, I shall be satisfied. You will   tell him so.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tom Erskine thought briefly that it would be pleasant to fall ill,   to be unable to ride, to become deaf. 'It will be a pleasure, madam,' he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Silent in the Boat\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If there be a hand-party there, and a rowing party, and a party   of middle-sport, the hand-party is the swamping-party, the middle-sport party is   the rowing party, and the spectators are they who are silent in the boat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the   last Thursday in September, and the fourteenth day out of Ireland, the wind dropped   to a flat calm, forcing the galley called La Sauv?e to approach Dieppe under oar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The best ships, the reliable crews and the senior captains had just brought the   Scottish Queen Dowager to France. La Sauv?e, built in 1520, was only fetching some   Irish guests to the French Court, a common errand enough. But her captain, an able   courtier, was no seaman; her seamen, through a misplaced concession, were far from   sober; and her bo's'n had been taking hashish for months. Thus, two hours off Dieppe,   the flags and streamers lay ready on dock, a little too early; the oarsmen, capping   shaved heads, were resting and re-engaging oars; and the pilot, involved with banners,   was far too busy to attend to the wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Robin Stewart, baulked of small talk, had   found a chair in the poop beside the fat Irishman, who was asleep. There were three   of them, and it was Stewart's task as one of the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers   in France to bring them safely to Court. For a century and a half, Scottish Archers   had guarded the King of France day and night, had crowned him, fought with him, buried   him, and were looked on, by others as well as by themselves, as the ?lite of the   men-at-arms who served the French Crown. Thus Robin Stewart was used to odd jobs;   ferrying the King's less sophisticated guests to and fro was just one of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ahead   was a reception party on the quay, a speech, a meal at the best Dieppe inn, and a   good night's rest on a bed before the ride inland to deliver his guests. Nothing   difficult there; but little to earn him money or fame either. Heir to nothing but   an old suit of armour and a vacant post in the Guard, Robin Stewart had always been   deeply interested in money and fame, and had for a long time been convinced that   in a world of arms, skill and hard work would still take you to the top, however   doubtful your background.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It had only latterly become plain that success in the   world of arms ran a poor second to success in the world of intrigue; and that while   no one worked harder, a good many people seemed to be more skilful than Robin Stewart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This was palpably impossible. He applied a good analytical brain to discovering   how other people managed to give this appearance of excellence. He also spent a good   deal of time trying to breach the stockade between reasonably paid routine soldiery   and the inner chamber of princes or of bankers, or even at a pinch of the fashionable   theologians. At the same time, he could not afford to lose ground in his regular   job, however irritating its calls on him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He looked round now, counting heads. At   his side, the Prince's secretary was still asleep, in a poisonous aura of wine, his   black head bound like a pot roast by the sliding shadow-pattern of the rigging. Whether   from panic or habit, Thady Boy Ballagh had been asleep or stupefied for two weeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Further off, Piedar Dooly the Prince's servant was just visible, fitted into a recess,   like something doubtful on the underside of a leaf. And beyond them was the Prince   himself, their master, and his third and most important charge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Phelim O'LiamRoe,   Prince of Barrow, son of Milesians, descendant of Carbery Cathead, of Art the Solitary,   Tuathal the Legitimate and Fergus of the Black Teeth, cousin to Maccon whose two   calves were as white as the snow of one night, was thin and middle-sized, with a   soft egg-shaped face thatched and cupped with blond whiskers. And at this moment,   Stewart saw, he was bent double in fruitless converse with a coal-black bow oar from   Tunis; thereby closing the main thoroughfare of the galley to seamen, oarsmen, timoneers,   soldiers, warders, ensigns, lieutenants and captain alike.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sweating Moor, bearing   down on fifty feet of solid beechwood, crashed back regularly and wordlessly on the   five-man bench like a piston, rowing twenty-four strokes to a minute, while the voice   of The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, Prince of Barrow and feudal lord of the Slieve   Bloom in the country of Ireland, warmly cordial, went on and on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e '. . . And it would   be queer if we didn't agree, with leverage itself the great wonder of the world,   as my own father knew, and my grandfather twenty-two stones and bedridden. When they   came from sluicing him down at the pump they would lay the coffin lid over the turf   stack next the bed and sit my grandfather at one end. They had a heifer trained to   jump on the other. When the lid was nailed over him at the end my grannie was blithe,   blithe at the wake; for she got a powerful lot of bruising when he landed. . . .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Robin Stewart winced. He had had two weeks of it. At Dalkey, Ireland, he had had   his first sight of the great man, as The O'LiamRoe had shinned ineptly and eagerly   up the ladder, to stand revealed on the tabernacle of La Sauv?e, a carefree, mild   and hilarious savage in a saffron tunic and leggings. His entire train, for which   Mr. Stewart had cleared a compartment, consisted of two: the small wild Firbolg called   Dooly and the comatose Mr. Ballagh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Robin Stewart had been mortified: not by O'LiamRoe's   looks, or his dress, or his simple enjoyment of useless knowledge, but because he   not only invited questions, he answered them. As a student of human nature, Stewart   enjoyed a long, difficult analysis; his onslaughts were memorable. A man talking   amicably about the art of the longbow would find that, by means known only to Mr.   Stewart, this led straight to God, his total income, and where his schooling had   taken place, if any. In one day, the Archer knew that O'LiamRoe was thirty, unmarried,   and resident in a large, coarse Irish castle. He knew that there was a widowed mother,   a string of servants and five tuaths filled with clansmen and the minimum wherewithal   to sustain life with no money to speak of. He knew that, in terms of followers, O'LiamRoe   was one of the mightiest chieftains in English-occupied Ireland, except that it had   never yet occurred to him to lead them anywhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Watching the lord of the Slieve   Bloom straighten and move happily off, tripping over an old pennant with a salamander   on it, the Scotsman was moved to an irritation almost maternal. 'And anyway, what   in God's name's a tuath?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He had said it aloud. A voice replied in his ear. 'Thirty   ballys, my dear. And if you ask what in God's name does a bally do, it holds four   herds of cows without one cow, desperate lonely that they are, touching another.'   The fat Irishman in the next chair scratched his black poll and recrossed his hands   over his comfortable little stomach 'Surely The O'LiamRoe told you that? Bring in   any little fact and O'LiamRoe will wet-nurse it for you.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Ballagh, asleep or   drunk, had so far escaped the Archer's attentions. In the dark-skinned, slothful,   unshaven face he thought he saw disillusionment, intelligence, the remains of high   aspirations perhaps, all soaked and crumbled into servitude and cynicism. He said   easily, 'Ye'll have been a long time with the Prince?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Ballagh's answer was   succinct. 'Three weeks.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Three weeks too much, eh? You should have made enquiries   about him beforehand.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'So I could, then; but who would answer me? The fellow lives   in a bog and devil the person has laid eyes on him from one end of the country to   the other. I heard from a friend of a cousin of a cousin,' said Mr. Ballagh on a   little wave of wine-coloured confidence, 'that he was wild for a true-bred ollave   who could talk in French for him, and here I am.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The O'LiamRoe had no French. That   he had English was a welcome surprise. France, from the lowest of motives, had entertained   not a few of the powerful leaders of her downtrodden neighbour, and had sweated over   their plots and counterplots in Gaelic and Latin. 'What's an ollave?' asked Mr. Stewart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Master Ballagh recited. 'A hired ollave is a sweet-stringed timpan, and a sign,   so they say, that the master of the house is a grand, wealthy fellow, and him for   ever reading books. An ollave of the highest grade is professor, singer, poet, all   in the one. His songs and tales are of battles and voyages, of tragedies and adventures,   of cattle raids and preyings, of forays, hostings, courtships and elopements, hidings   and destructions, sieges and feasts and slaughters; and you'd rather listen to a   man killing a pig than hear half of them through. I,' said Mr. Ballagh bitterly,   'am an ollave of the highest grade.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Well, you're wasting your time here,' Robin   Stewart pointed out. 'You should be getting grand money for all yon, surely. And   what made you take up poetry anyway, for heaven's sake?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Grand money, is it; and   everyone forced by legislation to speak the English?' snarled Mr. Ballagh. He calmed   down. 'The O'Coffey, who ran the bardic school near my home, had a hurley team would   make your mouth water and the blood come out at your ears. I was the fifteenth child,   and the nippiest, so why should I object to what my father and the O'Coffey might   arrange? The fifteenth. And the nippiest . . .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Master Thady Boy Ballagh smoothed   the doubtful black of his pourpoint, flicked the limp grey frills of his cuff, and   wrapped the stained folds of his robe over his knees. 'Hand me that bottle, will   you?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And by then it was too late. The squall was already coming, a streaming blemish   over the water, and lying over before it the Gouden Roos, a three-masted galliasse   caught with every rag on the yards. For a moment still, La Sauv?e slid peacefully   along. Claret flowed from the leather down Master Ballagh's throat. Stewart, his   arms folded, watched O'LiamRoe's head bob and the fifty blades rise, catch the red   sun and fall into glassy green shadow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They rose again, but this time the shadow   remained. The whole galley disappeared from the sun in the fair blue waters of the   English Channel as a thousand tons of galliasse drove at them broadside on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She   was Flemish and foul-bottomed, her sheets paid out on a lee helm so that the westerly   squall had caught her and was spinning her leeward on top of them, hurled on by wind   pressure on sides, sails and gear. Then the wind caught La Sauv?e too. Master Ballagh's   bottle fell from his hand; the chairs in the poop slid, and the galley heeled, her   shrouds whining and the long lattice of her shells spiked and quilled along its 150   feet by the oars, clenched, thrashing or rattling loose. The shadow of the galliasse   darkened and the captain jumped, shouting, on the gangway. The oarsmen on the starboard   side were on their feet. Spray hissed and then clattered on the bared benches, and   for a moment the stentorian voice of O'LiamRoe, sliding with twenty others in the   mess of pennants and tenting around the open holds, was heard bellowing: 'The key!   The key for the leg irons, ye clod of a Derry-born bladder-worm!'","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305076576485,"sku":"NP9780525565253","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525565253.jpg?v=1767735283","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/queens-play-isbn-9780525565253","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}