Queen's Play — Dorothy Dunnett

Queen's Play is the second book in Dorothy Dunnett's series, THE LYMOND CHRONICLES, which bring to life sixteenth-century history through the adventures of Scottish soldier of fortune, scholar and wit, Francis Crawford of Lymond.

Menaced by England and riven by internal discord, Scotland in 1548 clung to a single hope of survival as a nation -- an alliance with France to be sealed by the betrothal of the five-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin. But once in France, Mary suffers a series of ominous "accidents". The one man Mary's mother, the Dowager Queen, feels she can trust to protect he daughter, now seven, is Francis Crawford.

Lymond is despatched to France and embarks upon a nightmare game of hide-and-seek at the very heart of the glittering, decadent court of Henry II. To expose the would-be assassin, he is ready to gamble his life, but does not forsee, as do his friends, what else he may lose.