Gemini (33 page)

His wee Aunty Bel looked much the same: short and plump inside a lot of wide cloth, with her face like a loaf set to rise, and her hair all bundled into white napkins. She held out her hand, and kissed his cheek when he came over, and then sat with her arm still about him, looking up at his father. She smelled tasty, like fruit cooked in sugar. He turned his head to sniff her neck better. His father came to her other side, and when she lifted her face, bent quickly and kissed it, almost as he kissed Jodi’s mother. Aunty Bel said, ‘Well, well. So ye’ve got yourself sorted out at long last. Go and sit there, and here’s a stool for your big son.’

‘Captain Cuthbert has a hackbut,’ said Jodi, taking his seat.

‘You remember the hackbut!’ said his aunty. ‘And what else does Captain Cuthbert have? Have you tried the crossbow yet, now?’

He had. They had an interesting discussion about weapons, and hunting, and dogs. The question of dinner came up. Aunty Bel thought, for some reason, that his father must be hungry these days, and she was proposing a little something to eat. ‘So, Jodi—’

Jodi said, ‘When I’m at home, I usually eat with everyone else.’ He looked at his father.

His aunt said, ‘Well, of course you do. But since it’s so clement, I thought we might have our wee bite in the garden, and Isa’s bad with her legs, and could do with a hand with the dishes. Can ye set up a table?’

Jodi jumped up. He remembered Isa, and something to do with marchpane, but the desire for information came first. ‘How is she bad with her legs?’

‘You ask her. We’ll be there in a minute. I only want to ask your da here about poor Sir Anselm. Ye ken he’s got a wee baby?’

‘It’s a girl,’ Jodi said.

‘Do ye like lassies?’ said Aunty Bel. ‘Well, there’s a surprise. Tell Isa I sent you.’

When the door closed, she turned to his father. ‘A manful wee laddie. Well-grown, well-mannered and happy by nature, I’d say. He’s a credit to both of ye, Nicholas.’ Her smile grew. ‘Ye ken Henry’s taken a keek at him on the quiet? Came back fair cackling because wee cousin Jodi had grown up the image of his common big father de Fleury.’

‘I expect he said Claes,’ Nicholas said. ‘And Jordan has gone home? Why?’

Bel looked surprised. ‘I thought it was something you said. If you dinna ken, I’m not competent tae inform ye. He came back right red-wad after seeing you.’

‘And Simon?’

‘Is still in Madeira, and we all have to hope that he’ll stay there. The house is empty, Nicholas. You can say what you want to say, and so can I.’

He rose then, and walked forward, and took his place quietly at her feet, on the stool Jodi had used. She was in her late fifties; old enough to be his mother. Younger than his real mother would have been. He said, ‘What happened at Roslin. I was able to share it with Gelis, instead of having to choose. How did you know?’

She said, ‘I loved Umar, as you did, and this was no different. You think a man, or a woman, dies only once? They die afresh every time a friend hears of it, and be they ten years in the tomb, that is the day that the new-bereaved friend gets to mourn them. You gave Umar his due: the shame was that you knew he was dead, and Gelis didn’t. I made sure it wouldn’t happen again.’

He said, ‘You knew Phemie.’

‘I didna know she was childering. You were the one she trusted with that. But I was here at the sickbed when Adorne’s wife lost her wee bairn, and so was Phemie. I was there in Bruges with Phemie and Margriet when the Princess had her first son under his roof. I spent time with them all many times over, and I would have been glad to see Anselm Adorne share his life with that lady.’

‘Have you told him so?’ Nicholas said.

‘You think I should have been at the kirk,’ Bel of Cuthilgurdy said. ‘And so maybe did he. But I’ve seen him, and Archie. I’ve seen Robin, too.’

Nicholas said, ‘The last time we met—’ and broke off.

Bel stared at him, her fists on her two knees, her mouth set like a saw. ‘Christ fend us, Nicol de Fleury, is this all that ye can make of it? Four years ago, Robin thought ye were God. I charged you to use your influence right, and you did. Get that straight in your mind. I’ve no time for the self-centred man: him that’s aye off in a corner, squeezing the plukes on his conscience. What you’ve done wrong is done: God’ll judge you. It’s what you do now that everything hangs on.’

‘Including me,’ Nicholas said. He started to laugh. ‘I’ve just escaped a charge of ecclesiastical theft. Davie Simpson.’

‘Do you tell me?’ said his hostess. She released her fingertips and scuffed absently at some dog hairs, which fell from her chest to her lap. ‘And that’s a hanging matter, you say? I’d say more like being tied to a board at a horse’s tail. So Davie Simpson played a prank on you, the wee naughty man. Ye ken he pitched me out of my house?’

‘I heard. He’ll pay for it,’ Nicholas said.

‘That’s why I mentioned it. How?’

‘Andro Wodman will tell you,’ said Nicholas. He made it sound like a kindly reminder. ‘At least, I assume he will. You sent him to Flanders, didn’t you, to watch David last year? May I ask you something?’

‘Air’s cheap,’ she said.

‘Yes. Andro and Simpson were in the same company of Royal Archers in France. Wodman killed a man, and he and Davie both left and joined St Pol, who had once been an Archer and was now settled and wealthy in France. I’ve asked Wodman, and now I’m asking you. Did anything happen that would give Simpson a hold over the old man?’

‘What did Andro tell you?’ she said. It was a waste of time. He could tell.

‘That he killed the man, Cressant, in a hand-to-hand fight over a personal matter and that St Pol offered him a lucrative job that tempted Davies also to leave. He had to pretend to have leprosy.’

‘Aye. That’s about it,’ Bel said. ‘And you’re not thinking straight, Nicol. If Jordan de St Pol had anything to fear from Davie Simpson, he wadna have dismissed him. He wouldna even have employed him before that. He would have killed him.’

‘But there’s more,’ Nicholas said. ‘There must be more. Why do you always …’

‘Keep my own counsel? I’m entitled. But I wouldna hold back what would harm you. This is the truth. St Pol will do just what he wants to do. Davie Simpson has no way of controlling him.’

‘But you arranged for him to go to the Tyrol,’ Nicholas said. He felt like saying it. ‘How did Simpson get on with the Duchess?’

It sounded innocent, but it signalled his discontent. Eleanor, Duchess of the Tyrol, was an elderly Scottish princess who knew Bel, Nicholas believed, far far better than she knew Nicholas himself, even though he had worked for her over a season. He waited to hear what Bel would say.

She said, ‘Have you ever been chamois-hunting?’

‘Once,’ Nicholas said. The hurt faded. Oh Bel, Bel.

‘Well, ye ken what it’s like. It’s not the chamois, it’s the corruption and riotous merriment afterwards. Cartloads of lassies, they say.’

‘Do they?’ said Nicholas.

‘Aye. And they had a gentleman’s bonspiel, big fires and bare scuddies,
and Davie wasna that smart at the sooping. And the Duchess took him hunting a lot.’

‘Oh my God,’ Nicholas said.

‘As you say. Also, there’s a strong drink she serves …’ She gazed at him. Her eyes were small, round, and the colour of gravel.

‘All right. I had it. I know what happens,’ Nicholas said.

‘Well, I hope she didna make you do what she did with Davie Simpson,’ the dame of Cuthilgurdy observed. ‘She’s a strong-minded body, the Duchess, and unchancy to cross. I canna think why she took against him, but she did. Of course, he and Buchan her brother were there to offer peace on Duke Charles’s behalf: a civil gesture belike; except that no one had told them the Duke had been at peace in superior company these several weeks past, which made them look a wee bit provincial. Well, are ye stuck there, my Ignaures, or d’you want something to eat?’

She had sent David to the Tyrol, and he had learned nothing. Just as Nicholas had learned nothing now. But now, he didn’t resent it.

By then, the table was set up in the shade in the garden, and a cloth on it with dishes and flagons, and Jodi had found all the dogs and a few other things besides, including a sturdy bow just his size, with its case and its arrows.

‘It was your cousin Henry’s,’ Bel said, stringing and stretching it with one short, formidable arm before handing it over. ‘Mind you, he was a strong loon at eight, and no shame if that’s a wee bit beyond you, but … Well, fancy that!’

Jodi had shot, and the arrow had flown straight to the wooden target that Isa had put for him.

‘It’s all right,’ said Jodi, in a casual treble. ‘A bit on the small side, perhaps.’

‘But it’ll do?’ said his Aunty Bel hopefully.

He put his arms round her neck. ‘It’s really just right,’ he said.

Afterwards, he carried it away in his arms, while his father lingered a moment. He said, ‘You see two blithe men.’

‘Aweel. I like the gender,’ said Mistress Bel. ‘Come and see me in Stirling. Bring Gelis and Jodi.’

Nicholas said, ‘When Jodi was young, I planned to confide him to you, if I lost Gelis.’

She stood very still, there on the threshold, with her hands like two balls of yarn clasped before her. ‘I would have reared him,’ she said. ‘I would take him now, but he needs a man’s house.’

‘Your son is lucky,’ Nicholas said.

‘My son is dead,’ Bel of Cuthilgurdy answered. ‘That was what kept me away.’

The life of the street swirled behind him. He believed her. He even understood, he thought, the terrible impulse that had forced her to blurt
it out now. He signed to Jodi and slowly came back, stepping up to the dim hall beside her, where he took her by the hand, drawing her away from the light. ‘How, Bel?’

‘A fever. It was quick. I dinna want to say more.’

He tightened his grip. ‘You have grandchildren,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes. But I have a wee place for Jodi as well, if he ever wants it. And for Gelis and you. And that’s enough on the subject. Looking backwards makes for poor steering.’ She took out her hand, looking away.

‘Bel,’ he said again. He thought of Umar, and Phemie, and what she had said, and drew breath. She turned back to him, smiling.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I was talking blethers. You canna mourn a lad you don’t know. Come again. Send Jodi. Tell me when he wants to go coursing. Those moulting bitches need exercise.’

She had collected her courage again, and he would not disturb it. He kissed her dry cheek, and left.

L
ATER THE SAME
day, Colin Campbell, Earl of Argyll, left his lodging over the tavern he owned in the High Street and took the same path Nicholas had earlier taken, down the steep incline to the grand house of his colleague Andrew Avandale in the Wellgate, that they now called the Cowgate. He took two torchbearers with him, to protect his dignity and light his way back, for although the sun blessed the land through the long redolent evenings of summer, Archie Whitelaw and Will Scheves were joining them, and the meeting was not likely to be short. On the other hand, Drew Avandale kept a good table and a range of reliable clarets, imported regularly direct from Bordeaux. It was a thing you could do, when you came from the Lennox and had shipping friends on the Clyde at Dumbarton. Argyll had one or two such arrangements himself.

In the event, there was a cushion of veal, and a piquant stew done as he liked it, together with such dainties as hot pears and wafers; and an hour and more had gone by before the four of them settled down in Avandale’s own private chamber, with the rest of the claret and some platters to keep starvation at bay: nuts and apple-oranges from Spain; cherries and lumps of coloured glazed fruit of the kind Archie Whitelaw could never resist. Will Scheves was a good raconteur and Argyll himself was a better: it was with a showman’s reluctance that, as the laughter died down, he acknowledged Avandale’s glance and, sighing, reverted to the voice of MacChalein Mor, King’s Justiciar and Master of the Royal Household. He was the youngest man there, but not the least powerful.

‘Yes, we forget, so hospitable is our host. I apologise. There is business to do. So you saw de Fleury, Andro. And Will has spoken with Adorne briefly at Roslin, and has had a session with our good Dr
Andreas. So now we are here to decide what to do about our Burgundian friends. Will?’

Will Scheves said, ‘The poor man was in no state to question at Roslin. But it’s my understanding that he’s here for temporary sanctuary. I see no political purpose in this sad affair with Euphemia. The child has been placed in a convent, and both the Dunbars and the Sinclairs seem to have agreed to forget what has happened. I would guess that with nothing to keep him, Lord Cortachy will return to Bruges as soon as he thinks the new rule will accept him.’

‘But meanwhile he is here, and perhaps for some length of time. In what capacity, we must ask? As an asset, or as a liability?’ said Whitelaw. He had a grating voice: in a Gaelic-speaker’s opinion, all German-trained orators enunciated like corncrakes. There was a drip on his gown. Nevertheless, behind the chopped pied hair and the croak existed several decades of experience, which no one, under that abrasive black gaze, could ignore. Whitelaw continued.

‘Financial standing. Ser Anselm Adorne has presumably brought no bullion with him. Nevertheless, he was once much esteemed by the King and the Princess Mary his sister. If Adorne retains their favour, he may expect a modest continuing income from his life-rent from Cortachy and his other lands. He might supplement this by joining his nephew, and sharing in Andro Wodman’s consular work. He is likely, therefore, to be self-supporting and no more a charge on the kingdom than he has ever been.’

‘So long as the King continues to allow him the barony,’ Argyll said.

‘That is so. Secondly. Is he potentially useful? So long as he has the regard of the Duchess, he forms a diplomatic link between Scotland and Burgundy. He is an experienced administrator and judge, and adept in both financial and military matters. He has a son in the Curia, and another who is a Knight Hospitaller of Rhodes. He himself is well thought of by many rulers abroad, including His Papal Beatitude. He has traded in England, and his late daughter served the English King’s mother. The answer therefore is Yes, the potential is there. But, we must ask, is the implicit risk worth it? In short, he is either a paragon on limited leave, whom we may wish to tempt to remain; or a paragon with personal ambitions to fulfil, and a young and impressionable monarchy through which to fulfil them. In which case we devise a reason for him to depart.’