The grand finale to Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, "Checkmate" finds Francis Crawford returning to France to lead an army against England. But even as the soldier-scholar succeeds brilliantly on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to forces in both the French and English courts. "Checkmate" is a masterly evocation of the intrigue and pageantry of sixteenth-century Europe--and a triumphant conclusion to the Lymond saga. 1 map.