Gemini (120 page)

T
HERE YOU HAVE
a spiritual pronouncement. We astrologers are not necessarily attuned to the work of the Almighty and His servants, although I have time for Will Scheves. My concern is the Future, thus capitalised—not my own; not even that of the men and women in this tale; but the Future in which some of their children or grandchildren may take part. And, of course, my descendants. I have great hopes of my daughter, Camille.

My efforts have met with some success. I had a glimpse of something, just about the time of which you have been reading. I cannot remember what medium I used—the beryl, the tray of ink (ink is so expensive)?—but I can tell you the vision was short, and I could not say what year it represented, although I recognised where it took place: a pretty spot in France, which I happen to know very well. Nicholas de Fleury was there—indeed, he was my unwitting intermediary.

It is a sobering thing, to occupy the mind of another. The
amour propre
may find itself damaged. In this instance, Nicholas appeared to regard me with due respect, which is something. Some of the persons connected with him were visible, but there is no reason to suppose that harm had befallen those who were not. It was merely a glimpse. All I can say for certain is that I perceived the children more clearly than ever before, each with its thread to the future now firmly held in its hand.

Here is what I saw.

•  •  •

T
HE RIVER WAS
broad, and full with the summer flood. It was not yet the season for vintage, but the scent of the fruit drifted in the soft air and filled the senses like music.

Nicholas stood, without seeing. Far off, he could hear voices. If he turned, he would discover them: Bel’s family, Kathi’s family, and his own, taking their ease in the woodland and orchards of Chouzy, in the vale of the Cisse and the Loire; renewing, as he did every year, their old acquaintance with France.

He would see Bel’s son-in-law, Bernard, seigneur de Chouzy, a little frail for his years, smiling at Isabella, his fair, his bewitching young daughter. And never far off, he would find his own tall son Jordan, brown-haired, loose-limbed and inventive, with a flute stuck at his waist, or plucked out to amuse Isabella. Apart, the younger children would be playing: Camille dominating young Hob, unless her father Dr Andreas intervened. And behind them somewhere in the grass, Gelis and Kathi were certainly talking: Gelis lying back, her eyes screwed against the sun; Kathi sitting up collecting something, or shelling something, or unpacking the baskets. And halfway up a very tall tree, with a flower stuck in his hair, Kathi’s other son, whose childish name had been Rankin.

Seeing the way things were going, Nicholas had asked Bernard de Moncourt recently about the future of Chouzy, and he had smiled. ‘You don’t fancy managing it? Then have no fear. It will last my time, although Isabella’s husband, when she has one, and her family may have other ideas. The King’s advisers have sent to ask if this is for sale.’

‘Chouzy?’

‘No. The vineyards. This land we call Sevigny, by the river. The Crown wishes to build. A château for the monarch, or his guests, or to lease to privileged commanders.’

‘Will you sell?’

‘I might. I am not poor, as you know, but it would bring considerable wealth to my family. We could remain here for my lifetime. But if the Crown eventually tired of the building and sold, my heirs need not stay, and suffer a string of new neighbours.’ Then de Moncourt had smiled. ‘If the château is built, you may wish to advise about architects.’

‘I used to know a good Italian,’ Nicholas had said.

The river ran, singing. Life was full of surprises. He had never truly wanted to shorten his own, even when things were at their worst. He had not needed Andreas to warn him: fill your life. There is a long time to wait. Don’t make it longer.

He wondered how long it would be, and where he would wait, and what it would feel like. He wondered if anyone else had this happiness, to know what death was going to mean. He understood and was reconciled to the fact that he must not shorten the interval; must not call home that other, unknown life before its due span. The world had a right to its servants;
and echoes must remain only echoes; the shell remain shut, with its music, until the time came.

Until the time came.

Someone touched him. ‘Come and join us,’ said Kathi. She took his hand to lead him to Gelis. Now that he looked, it was all as he imagined, except that Isabella had snatched the flute and was running, laughing, from Jordan. A flower dropped on his hair. He looked up.

Blue eyes, golden hair, framed in the leaves of a tree. Kathi’s son, bright as a fawn, his face dirty. He sang out, and Kathi looked up with resignation and said, ‘We notice. You will, of course, fall. But wait until we have left.’

Walking with Nicholas again, she unexpectedly spoke. ‘You don’t mind?’ She glanced back at the tree. ‘You don’t mind what he is called?’

She had not asked him before. She was offering to speak of it now, as an expression of faith in his strength, his self-discipline, his ability to recover, even, from something she had seen in his face. Nicholas opened an arm and, walking still, Kathi took his hand over her shoulder. He said, ‘You disguised it well enough, didn’t you? No, I didn’t mind.’

‘It began as Franskin,’ Kathi said. ‘Just a pet name, but hard for a little person to say. When he was born, Margaret couldn’t pronounce it.’

He said, ‘There wasn’t much she couldn’t do.’

‘No,’ said Kathi in thoughtful agreement.

He had given Margaret a pearl. Kathi had asked him to keep it. Nicholas had no daughter, but might have a granddaughter one day, who might have a daughter in turn. Its story would live.

They walked. Then Kathi resumed in the same tone. ‘The name for our son? Robin wanted this one as much as I did, and asked Gelis. She said she gave it to us as a gift from you both. She had made a journey to Dijon. She had found it engraved in the crypt.’

‘I thought so,’ he said.

Gelis had never told him. His hand clung to Kathi’s, and hers to his. She spoke gently. ‘The child in the tomb. He was your twin, who died before you were born?’

Rankin; Franskin; Francis.

‘Yes,’ he said; and by his voice, closed the subject for ever.

Was; and is; and will be.

He looked back. The lad had swung himself from branch to branch to the ground, lissom as once his father had been. A handsome boy, with springing blond hair, and features fine as if fashioned in porcelain.

This was a soul that he knew, gifted and eager and generous; beloved of many; destined surely for fame; and determined, as Robin was, to follow a man he thought worthy. A noble child of his race, Francis Crawford of Berecrofts. Francis Crawford of Templehall, it would be, one day.

But this was not the piercing spirit, clear as a snowfield in sunlight,
for whom Nicholas de Fleury was waiting. A being fiercer than this, he had been told: far more passionate, far more vulnerable, with far more to give to a world which would not know, at first, how to receive it. A spirit that would always lead; that could never be a disciple.

The other half of his being, come again.

K
ATHI’S SON LEFT
the tree and came running, and Nicholas turned the flower into a dart and flung it, with comradely venom. The lad, laughing, ducked.

Ahead, the pretty, fair girl ran on, but Jordan had glanced round, and was looking. Nicholas waved to him, with his free hand.

H
ERE ENDED THE
picture.

Heir endis the buke of the ches
.

Reader’s Guide

1. For Discussion:
Gemini

“They were more than halfway towards becoming friends,” says Nicholas of his two sons. What had made them enemies? As Jordan and Henry stepped tentatively and poignantly towards friendship, which do you think made the greater effort? Which made the greater achievement?

2. What are the links between the story of the Duke of Gloucester, soon to become the infamous English King Richard III, and that of Alexander, Scottish Duke of Albany? Are theirs at some level the same story? How do they diverge?

3. At the climax of this novel, and this series, Nicholas de Fleury finally kills a member of his family. What are the elements that make up what Kathi now calls his “obsession” against doing this? What do you think enables him to do it at last?

4. In its final quarter the novel devotes considerable attention to Jordan de Rebeirac. What enlightenments about him invite our understanding, and even our pity? What does Bel mean by insisting that he and Nicholas are alike? What is his final tragedy?

5. In their final scene together, Anselme Adorne says to Nicholas, “I wish—” and is cut off. How would you finish that sentence? How is Adorne’s role in the Scotland of this section of the novel similar to his role in the Bruges of the early chapters? And different from it? What are some of the reasons he is “at home” in Scotland?

Dorothy Dunnett was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries;
King Hereafter
, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text of
The Scottish Highlands
, a book of photographs by David Paterson, on which she collaborated with her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth appointed her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Lady Dunnett died in 2001.

THE LYMOND CHRONICLES
The Game of Kings
Queens’ Play
The Disorderly Knights
Pawn in Frankincense
The Ringed Castle
Checkmate

King Hereafter

The Photogenic Soprano
(
Dolly and the Singing Bird
)
Murder in the Round
(
Dolly and the Cookie Bird
)
Match for a Murderer
(
Dolly and the Doctor Bird)
Murder in Focus
(
Dolly and the Starry Bird
)
Dolly and the Nanny Bird
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise
Send a Fax to the Kasbah
(
Moroccan Traffic
)

THE HOUSE OF NICCOLÒ
Niccolò Rising
The Spring of the Ram
Race of Scorpions
Scales of Gold
The Unicorn Hunt
To Lie with Lions
Caprice and Rondo
Gemini

The Scottish Highlands
(with Alastair Dunnett)
The Dorothy Dunnett Companion Volume I
(by Elspeth Morrison)
The Dorothy Dunnett Companion Volume II
(by Elspeth Morrison)

NICCOLÒ RISING

Bruges, 1460. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett’s hero Nicholas rises from wastrel to prodigy in a breathless adventure that wins him the hand of the most powerful woman in Bruges— and the hatred of two powerful enemies.

Fiction/978-0-375-70477-2

THE SPRING OF THE RAM

Backed by none other than Cosimo de’ Medici, Nicholas sails the Black Sea to Trebizond, last outpost of Byzantium, and the last jewel missing from the crown of the Ottoman Empire. But trouble lies ahead. Nicholas’s stepdaughter has eloped with his rival in trade: a Machiavellian Genoese who races ahead of Nicholas, sowing disaster at every port.

Fiction/978-0-375-70478-9

RACE OF SCORPIONS

At the age of 21, Nicholas finds himself in limbo. His beloved wife is dead, his stepchildren have locked him out of the family business, and his private army is the target of multiple conspiracies. And both contenders for the throne of Cyprus—the brilliant Queen Carlotta and her sexually ambivalent brother James—are demanding his support.

Fiction/978-0-375-70479-6

SCALES OF GOLD

As unknown enemies conspire against him in Venice, Nicholas sets sail for Africa, legendary location of the Fountain of Youth and the source of gold in such abundance that men prefer to barter in shells. There he will discover the charms of Gelis van Borselen—a woman whose passion for Nicholas is rivaled only by her desire to punish him for his role in her sister’s death.

Fiction/978-0-375-70480-2

THE UNICORN HUNT

Nicholas seeks to avenge his bride’s claim that she carries the offspring of his archenemy, Simon St. Pol. When she flees before Nicholas can determine whether or not the rumored child is his own—or exists at all—Nicholas gives chase. So begins the deadly game of cat and mouse that will lead him from the infested cisterns of Cairo to the misted canals of Venice at carnival.

Fiction/978-0-375-70481-9

TO LIE WITH LIONS

As three courts vie for his allegiance, Nicholas finds himself embroiled in furious combat with his estranged wife for the future of their young son. He embarks on the greatest business scheme of his life—beginning with a journey to Iceland. But while Nicholas confronts merchant knights and the frozen volcanic wastelands of the North, a greater challenge awaits: the vengeful Gelis, whose secrets threaten to topple all Nicholas has achieved.

Fiction/978-0-375-70482-6

CAPRICE AND RONDO

Winter 1474 finds Nicholas exiled in the frozen port of Danzig, Poland. His Machiavellian exploits in Scotland have cost him friends and family—not to mention countless riches. As Nicholas pursues his future, his estranged wife, Gelis, seeks the truth about his past, only to discover the secret identity of his latest comrade in arms—a ghost from the past poised to deal him the crowning death blow.

Fiction/978-0-375-70612-7

GEMINI

It is 1477 and Nicholas returns to Scotland in search of personal redemption and a haven for his recently reunited family. Friends and foes from many a past adventure converge on the scene as Nicholas becomes swept up in a political involving the Scottish royal family. With tensions escalating and the secrets of his heritage emerging, Nicholas finds that peace can be the most elusive achievement of all.

Fiction/978-0-375-7085-5

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