Queen's Play. by Dorothy Dunnett (Lymond Chronicles #2)

Queen's Play
By Dorothy Dunnett

Lymond Chronicles #2

You know what gets me the most about Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles? That they have existed for most of my life -- this one was completed in 1961, for instance, when I was nine -- and I didn't know. Maybe I had to be the age I am to really appreciate them, I don't know. But all I have to do now is think of one scene in Game of Kings to get breathless with wonder. And to think there are four more I have not read and that there must be some apotheosis I cannot anticipate in at least one of them... sigh.

Queen's Play takes Lymond to France in disguise to look after the welfare of little Mary, Queen of Scots. Her mother, the Dowager Queen of Scotland, is worriedabout numerous seemingly innocuous illnesses and accidents that she is hearing about and plans herself to spend some time with her daughter at the court of the Dowager's brother, King Henri II. Lymond doesn't want to go, but appealing to his tenderness towards the child, the Dowager succeeds in convincing him. Dunnett presents Lymond as one of the party of a Prince of Ireland, O'Liam Roe, coming to kiss up to the French Court. O'Liam himself is accompanied by his bard, and the reader doesn't know for a while which is Lymond, which caused for me one of those wonderful, magical moments when your mind goes back and reinterprets everything you've read. O'Liam is earnest, his bard madcap. Their babysitter, Robin Stewart, one of the French king's Sciots archers (remember them from Niccolo?) has his hands full with both, especially since one accident after another happens to threaten them.

Again the reader is presented with the self destructive Lymond. In one heart-breaking scene, his brother Richard tells him "But you have your whole life to live!" Francis replies, in the way of the brilliant, artistic young person (he's in his early 20s), "Yes, but for what?" You don't know at that moment whether you want to gather him up in your arms or punch him in the nose. In this novel he has another moment of painful self-revelation that is so tragic I had to stop reading and sit and stare. It was almost too hard to bear.

The reason is the brilliance of Dunnett's characterization, not only of Francis but of all the other characters. They are intensely human, completely credible, and incomplete enough to keep you longing for them to find peace or love or whatever you think they need. This book has elephants, lions, explosives, poisoned candy, and Scots disguised as all kinds of exotic characters, but you will find the people Lymond encounters as memorable. Una, the Irish revolutionary with her raucous aunt and abusive lover. The simple soulful Irish prince. Robin, the archer, who can't understand why he can't get ahead. The omni-affectional king of France with his cool de Medici wife and spiteful lover Diane. And how can we forget the bard, at once a drunken buffoon and exquisite musician?

There is one oddity that distracted me. I read the Biccolo books first, and in one volume the hero of that book engages in a rooftop race with a young Scot named Robin. The same happens here, though of course this is the earlier instance. Why Dunnett wrote about one of these dangerous, hilarious races and had a Robin in both is puzzling.

At various points in this novel when I began to shake my head at Francis Crawford of Lymond, at his self-indulgent and sometimes pathetic angst, I just remembered two things about him. His youth, for one, but also the transformation, or rather revelation, of Francis in the first novel. Then all I can do is shake my head... in wonder at Dunnett's mastery.