The Lymond Chronicles:
-- Vol. 2 --
Queens' Play
"... They delivered Thady Boy, damp clean and singing at the Croix d'Or at three in the morning.
Not a few people heard him arrive. A door banged after repeated farewells, and uneven satisfied chanting ascended the stairs interrupted by innumerable thuds and clatters:"cows, pigs horses, sheep, goats,
The O'Liam Roe heard him. He awoke from his fireside snooze in the parlour and turned a speculative blue eye on the door.
Dogs, cats, hens, geese, - noisy goods - "" - Noisy goods,
"Death alive, the world's only liquid chapbook," said O'Liam Roe. ..."
Little bees that stick to all flowers:
These are the ten beasts of the world's men.
The reason why I love Derry ... "
In the service of Mary of Guise, the Scottish Queen Dowager, Francis Crawford of Lymond is sent incognito to the French court, charged with protecting the child Mary Queen of Scots from repeated attempts at murder.
But is the court of Henri II, experienced as it is in every kind of sin, crime and intrigue, really prepared for Francis Crawford?
A 16th-century spy mystery, Queens' Play is one of the best whodunits ever written. The descriptions of the most magnificent European court of its time, the characters, the complicated intrigues to unveil the murderer, and the political twists among France, England and Ireland are Dunnett's material for a colourful and exciting "Tour de France".