After Flodden (11 page)

Paniter was panting as if he had run up the stairs. His hands were clenched. ‘The Brenier lass is due to come here tomorrow for the news, but I cannot keep her waiting.’ He heaved
himself out of his seat, gripping the settle while his dizziness cleared. After a pause, he spoke, his voice again firm and familiar. ‘I must ride to Leith now and break it to her, and her
grasping doxy of a mother.’ An apology of a smile crossed his face: ‘I will not sleep if I do not, you see.’

‘Let me go,’ said Gabriel, rising. ‘You are still weak.’

Paniter gave a bark more like a yelp of pain than a laugh. ‘And you, lad, with your arm wrapped in a sling, are in the very best of health?’

Gabriel smiled. ‘It is nothing, sir, trust me. Merely a flesh wound, already well on the way to healing. I was graced with great good favour on the field. More than my skill with a sword
deserved.’

Paniter looked grave once more. ‘I forget, you were in the thick of it all, Torrance. I cannot imagine how that must have felt. From our hill, Borthwick and I felt we were watching a
charnel house. If it was desperate at that remove, God alone knows what it was like where you were.’

‘I confess I’d rather not discuss it,’ said Gabriel. ‘It was unspeakable. Best for everyone it remain that way.’

‘Quite,’ said Paniter, reaching for his cloak. ‘I understand. But let us go to Leith together. I cannot commission you to do this for me. It is my obligation and mine alone to
bear the news, but your company will give me comfort in what I know will be a most miserable task. Also,’ he added, as they left the room, ‘Mme Brenier will no doubt try to sue the
court for guiltsilver for her daughter’s death. I need make it plain for once and forever that she has no cause, and no claim, for a groat more than she has already won.’

They began to make their way down the stairs. ‘I regret the day our king set eyes on that girl,’ Paniter continued. ‘A dreadful error of judgement, even had neither she nor the
king perished. Yet who could have known this liaison would haunt the court after James was gone?’ Unable to answer, Gabriel remained quiet, the wisest course with Paniter, as he had
learned.

For his part, Paniter appreciated the courtier’s talent for silence. Too many ambitious young men thought to ingratiate themselves with a demonstration of wit and knowledge so incessant,
it was like a slow but steady drip, capable, over time, of wearing down the hardiest of men. King James was more tolerant than his secretary, with the result that the court had too many chatterers
and dreamers who talked more than they would ever act. The king said their fancies amused him. That they irritated Paniter sorely was an additional source of pleasure.

In recent times, with his former pupil Alexander so often absent, Paniter found himself glad of Torrance’s company. Indeed, he was fast growing into an indispensable companion. There were
few similarities between him and James’s eldest-born. Alexander had a lightness of heart that mirrored his father’s blitheness. The fact he was a bastard and could never be king was,
for the boy, a source of relief rather than regret, and as he frittered away his time on the continent, and made heavy weather of learning the serious business expected of him as the precociously
young and marvellously unsuited Archbishop of St Andrews, he exasperated Paniter to such a degree he had once caught himself tearing at his hair, a parody of the demented teacher. He was obliged to
pause and smile at himself, but as a scholar who was never happier than with a book or pen in hand, Paniter could not fathom such a lack of gravity.

Torrance was a more sober man. He could not raise Paniter’s spirits as Alexander did, nor coax a laugh out of him whatever his mood. What the secretary felt for this handsome lord was
fondness only, and nothing like love. Yet affection was a rare enough event in his life for it to be remarkable. In the young man’s Roman nose and elegant limbs, in his air of natural
authority, and languorous entitlement, he caught a glimpse of the high-born Alexander.

Over time, Torrance’s provenance became clear, though he never spoke about his background without being prompted. That too Paniter respected.

‘I am the only son of a man who did not want me,’ he once confessed, with such a broad smile Paniter could not guess how sorely the fact pained him. ‘He died when I was young,
but by that time he had gambled and drunk away almost everything, and he left me little but his title, and a house with a leaking roof and empty stables. My mother lives for the present with
relatives in Glasgow, who are in the wine trade, but I hope one day to bring her to Edinburgh, where she can set up her own house. She is quite an accomplished musician.’

‘I don’t like to be impertinent, but where is your father’s estate?’ Paniter asked.

‘Ireland,’ he replied. ‘My full title is the Viscount Torrance of Blaneford and Mountjoy. A mouthful for everyday conversation!’

‘Yet useful,’ said Paniter, ‘however impoverished you may be. And the Irish connection explains everything. I had at first put you down as from the Ayrshire coast, or possibly
the Isles.’

‘Many find me hard to place,’ said Torrance. ‘In fact, I wish I had less of a brogue. I am endeavouring to sharpen it while at court among these more . . . shall I say robust
accents?’

‘Rough, you mean?’ said Paniter, raising his eyebrows.

‘Maybe I do. I am told the English court is less rural, and yet . . . ’ He paused, examining his neatly filed nails, ‘I find I prefer people who do not disguise their origins.
Maybe that’s the Irish coming out in me. No honest man need be ashamed of his background.’

‘So you will soon be speaking as if brought up in a woodcutter’s hovel,’ said Paniter, smiling.

But there were no smiles this unhappy day. Both were stony faced as they mounted their horses and set off abreast down the high street. The road to Leith was empty, their only companions the
herring gulls diving for gutter scraps, and an occasional dog truffling by the roadside. It was as if merchants and workers feared to be abroad, as if they would be too exposed to the eye, if not
of God, then of the enemy. Paniter could not recall such stillness since the last outbreak of plague. It made him uneasy and, sensing this, his horse danced and skittered, refusing to settle.

As they left the city, heading east towards a sea so still it might have been carved from wax, the chime of hammers and trowels from the Flodden wall grew faint. There was some comfort in
knowing that this barricade was now almost in place, but as they neared the port of Leith, the road narrowing, and the dwellings growing more crooked and ramshackle as its knitted streets drew
together, Paniter thought of the tumbling coastline north of the English border. Though much of it was sheer cliff, pounded by waves whatever the tide, there were enough beaches and unpatrolled
harbours between Berwick and Edinburgh that if Henry wanted to seek retribution, no bricks or gates could hold him back. They could not fool themselves that with the wall in place they were
safe.

But all thoughts of invasion fled as the Breniers’ house came into sight. As they approached, the king’s men sat taller in their saddles. They rode the final few yards along the
quayside in silence.

Louise and her mother met them at the door before they had dismounted, warned of their approach by the vixen’s bark. The courtiers’ faces told their news, but with the calmness of
disbelief, Louise led them into the house and offered them ale, hoping to delay what was to come.

‘No beverage, thank you,’ said Paniter, removing his cap. He looked at his hands, and lowered his voice, as if speaking in chapel. ‘We have had an answer from Benoit’s
commander, Lord Home. I am afraid – ’ He swallowed under the stare of the girl and her mother. ‘I’m afraid he believes he must have been killed in the fight.’

‘He’s not sure?’ asked Louise, in a pitch above her usual.

Paniter shook his head. ‘He cannot be. He does not recall seeing him in the battle, and certainly not after it. It is the obvious and most likely conclusion. Failing that, he may have been
taken prisoner to Berwick.’ He avoided her eyes. ‘But few survive capture, not even those fit enough to make it as far as the gaol. Those places are little short of open coffins.
Forgive my bluntness, but I do not want you to be under any further illusion that your brother still walks this earth. If you had seen what we have seen, you would understand what I am telling
you.’

Mme Brenier put an arm around her daughter. This was not news to her. She had said farewell to her son days ago. She’d had no hope to lose. But Louise had believed her brother lost, not
dead, and this report would, surely, destroy her faith in miracles.

Louise stood rigid, so brittle it felt as if she could snap. She looked at Paniter as if this crag of a man was as insubstantial as haar and she was seeing through his foggy shape to a scene
played out behind his back. But what she saw there made no sense and she stared, wide-eyed, willing the picture to become clear.

Gabriel glanced at the secretary. The young woman opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to sway. Gabriel stepped forward as she began to slip from her
mother’s hold, but before he reached her, she dropped to her hands and knees on the flagstones, lowering her head to fight off the faintness that swept over her.

Gabriel crouched and put a hand on her back, but she shrugged it off, heedless of his or anyone else’s concern. While her mother’s shoes clipped out of the room to bring cold water,
Louise was aware of nothing but darkness and a surging heat that threatened to melt her. She gave a moan, raised a hand, and slumped unconscious, sprawling amid a tumble of skirts like a guttered
candle wreathed in wax.

Gabriel looked around for a cushion. ‘Voici,’ said Mme Brenier, who was at his side with a bowl and cloth. The courtier took these while she pulled off her shawl and bundled it into
a pillow under her daughter’s head. The vixen was licking Louise’s face, but Mme was too distracted to chase her away. ‘N’aie pas peur, ma p’tite,’ she
whispered, chafing her hands, ‘n’aie pas douleur.’ Her tears fell onto her daughter’s bodice as she tried to revive her, stroking as if she could rub life, and spirit, back
into her. ‘Benoit is at peace, little one. He cannot be harmed any more. He is safe, at last, and happy.’

Gabriel knelt and pressed the damp cloth to Louise’s forehead. A trickle of water ran down her neck, and with a shudder she opened her eyes. As she regained her senses, the hollow
expression that had unnerved Paniter faded. She gripped her mother’s hand, but her eyes were on Gabriel. Seeing her conscious, he brushed her hair back from her face, his gentle smile more
that of a nurse than a man of the court whose sword was scraping the floor. A blush of colour crept back into her cheeks. She frowned, turned away, and was sick.

Gabriel left Mme Brenier to attend her daughter. Paniter, who had played no part in the crisis, was trembling. ‘An accursed business,’ he said, addressing no-one but himself.
‘This is what I mean by war’s stinking breath. It reaches everywhere. It is not only the dead who die on the field.’ He twisted and dubbed his hands as if they were dough.

Gabriel touched Paniter’s sleeve. In ordinary times this would be a gross liberty, but it seemed to the courtier that the secretary was almost as close to collapse as the Brenier girl.
‘Come, good sir,’ he said, ‘we should leave them alone.’

It took time for his words to reach Paniter.

‘We should go, sir,’ Gabriel repeated.

Recalled to himself, Paniter nodded. He smoothed out his cap, which he had been throttling. ‘Of course. Of course. They will want to grieve by themselves. We above all people are a cruel
reminder of far better times.’

By now Louise was seated on the settle, the vixen at her feet. Mme Brenier faced the king’s men with a dignity her daughter would always remember.

‘We thank you,’ she said, ‘for your kindness in seeking information about Benoit, and coming down here with it. We are eternally in your debt.’

She opened the door. Paniter and Gabriel bowed to Madame, and again to Louise. The secretary swept out of the room without a word. ‘My deepest commiserations to you both,’ said
Gabriel, and looked at Louise as if he would like to say more. Then he too was gone.

The day was still light, but Mme Brenier had nailed a mourning cross to the door and closed the shutters on all floors before the king’s men had even reached the Edinburgh road.

CHAPTER SEVEN

3 October 1513

‘Sshhh!’ Louise put a hand over the vixen’s muzzle. ‘Not the smallest yap till we’re out of here. Otherwise I’ll have to leave you
behind.’ The vixen understood, her mistress’s whisper as stern as she had ever heard. She thumped her tail meekly, and followed her down the passage with only the faintest scratch of
claws on stone.

It was black as a winter night, and the wind had set the shutters rattling. When Louise slipped out of her bed in the kitchen, fully dressed save for stockinged feet, she was glad of the wind as
her tiptoes set the boards creaking. Stealthy as a thief she wrapped bannocks and dried fish in a cloth, and put them into her pack. From Benoit’s caddy she took a fistful of coins and
stuffed them into her boots. Her belt was slung over the back of the settle, weighed down with a simple small sword. This was a piece of burgling she felt no shame about at all. Overhead, Vincent
had slept on unaware, ale fumes hovering around his head. Harrumphing and kicking as he always did in the first hours of oblivion, he had not heard her creeping into his bedchamber, nor the fumble
as she removed his blade from his scabbard. With nimble fingers she fitted it into her own belt, a hand-me-down from Benoit, taken without his permission but, she believed, with his blessing.