Gemini (34 page)

In short. Argyll began peeling an orange.

‘These indeed are the issues,’ Avandale said. ‘So what of his character, Will? He performed his office of Conservator, as I recall, with integrity, and without ruffling too many merchants—apart, that is, from those who thought him too close to the King.’

Will Scheves set down his cup and rubbed his classical nose: a comely-faced, round-shouldered medical man whose even humour and
quick wits and energy had brought him within sight of the Metropolitan’s chair. Colin Campbell enjoyed an intellectual skirmish with Will Scheves. Master Whitelaw had less use for frivolity, but set aside time, now and then, for a long, civilised conversation with the Archdeacon on some abstruse subject. Fortunately Will, although privately pretending to wilt, could give Whitelaw good measure. And, because of his student friendship with Andreas, Will Scheves could draw on an insider’s view of Adorne.

‘Dr Andreas is of his household, and loyal, but is not alone in his good opinion of the gentleman. In Bruges, Lord Cortachy has always been severe but respected. The town may have discarded him for the service he gave to the Duke, but no one has ever proved him dishonest. If he settles here, he will serve this country as well. On the other hand …’

‘He loves his peers?’ Avandale said. Though born illegitimate, Drew Avandale was of royal Stewart blood, and had suffered his share of sycophancy. And all of them knew, Will Scheves most of all, how readily this King responded to a personable man with a confident manner.

‘We all do,’ the Archdeacon said. ‘But there’s a little more to it than that. This is a nobleman: his kinsmen are Genoese dukes. He is drawn to remind them, perhaps, that he walks in the same eminent circles. But the book he presented to the King was by Jan, his son, and I think that patronage for his son was what he chiefly hoped for. I’m not sure what my lord of Cortachy now expects of the King, but I can promise you that it will take very little to revive the King’s liking for him. And after that, you will not be able to reject him.’

Argyll said, ‘That was what I was thinking. It was what we feared with de Fleury.’

‘Our decision, as I understand it, was to encourage my lord of Albany’s friendship with de Fleury,’ said Whitelaw. He had taught the King in his day, but not Albany: Argyll sometimes wondered, with amusement, how he’d got out of it.

Avandale said, ‘That, I think, is where my reasoning is tending. If we trust these two men, then there is something to be said for placing them in opposite camps. One will balance the other.’

‘And do we trust them?’ asked Colin Campbell. ‘What did our agile young Burgundian say, in this latest friendly encounter? I trust it was friendly?’ His hands were sticky. Scheves stretched out an arm and proffered a bowl and a napkin from the side table. The water was scented. Avandale’s house always had everything.

Avandale said, ‘Encounters with de Fleury could be said to be wearing but friendly: I am sometimes made to feel, Colin, that I am conversing with you and Archie at once. I am sure he will address me in Gaelic one day. Meantime, he reports regularly, which was the condition of our arrangement. On the business side, he has put in place a skilful structure,
supported by Nowie, which co-ordinates the landing and marketing of salmon along the length of the east coast of Scotland, from the Moray Firth down to Berwick-on-Tweed. It will be run by Adorne’s nephew, in partnership with the Berecrofts family and with Wodman’s blessing. He will contribute ships, managed from his own second tenement in Leith, and then from overseas if he goes back. He talks of links with Dumbarton, through Colquhoun. He is also looking into Darnaway timber.’

‘A word of warning,’ said Whitelaw. ‘As I have frequently mentioned. De Fleury has displayed these qualities before. His performance before was inconsistent. You say he has changed. But the greater his success, the more our native merchants will lose by it.’

‘Unless they join him,’ Argyll said. ‘I hear that Berecrofts will consider anyone who wishes to make the minimum investment. Tom Yare will tell you. Several of the shipowners have joined, and some well-known names from St Johnstoun of Perth and Dundee. Others think it too risky.’

‘And Adorne will join this?’ said Whitelaw.

‘That is something no one knows,’ Will Scheves said. ‘Or not yet. It would fit. Adorne and his nephew were burgesses of St Johnstoun of Perth at one time. His family church has Charterhouse connections. I imagine de Fleury is waiting to see what Adorne himself wants. And what we want, of course.’ He paused. ‘I should say that de Fleury has asked me, quite recently, about the health of his lordship of Mar.’

He caught the eye of Argyll, who treated him to a sardonic smile. Argyll had said all along that there was no point in counting on secrecy. A man had only to look at the number of royal physicians to know that something was wrong. And grotesque things were happening. Instead of an unpleasant feud between de Fleury and the St Pols, the old man had left town, de Fleury had reached some sort of truce with young St Pol, and Johndie Mar was the fool who was attacking them both. Argyll said, ‘As I have frequently mentioned—’

Scheves grinned. Whitelaw looked up and grunted. Avandale said, ‘I still propose to say nothing yet. They may guess: they don’t know. I want them deeply committed, Adorne and de Fleury, before I will present them with secrets of state. Now. We have gone over the ground. What is your advice? Does Adorne stay, and if so, on what terms? Do we continue to accommodate Nicholas de Fleury, with the provisos laid down? He has brought his wife and son now.’

‘A beautiful woman. Why not send de Fleury away, and keep the family?’ Argyll said.

Whitelaw plunged his hand into his finger-bowl and then used the napkin, muttering, to mop up his lap.

Lord Avandale said, ‘There is something to be said on both sides.
But my inclination is to propose that we continue to review de Fleury’s position each month, and that we invite Adorne to join us at Court and in council, with appropriate emoluments. It will please the Duchess, and enhance his standing if and when he does return home.’

‘Also, he will renew his acquaintance with both their graces. And if a difficult decision has to be taken,’ said the Earl of Argyll, ‘here are two clever Burgundians who may help us to take it.’

‘E
ND OF SYNOPSIS
,’ Nicholas said. ‘That’s what Avandale said. That’s what he’ll discuss with the others tonight. And that’s what I think they’ll decide.’

‘You’ve been casting runes,’ John le Grant said. ‘Along with Andreas and Scheves, and every second gargoyle from Nowie’s chapel at Roslin. And you’re wrong. They won’t let us stay. They’ll send us home.’

Nicholas wished he were drunk.
They’ll send us home
. As he’d outlined it, there was no question of anyone being expelled from Scotland except himself and Adorne. In the eyes of the Lords, John was an asset and Robin was nothing.

Robin lay, his eyes open on John. They were alone, the three of them, in a room in Tobie’s house. Nicholas had come to have this settled once and for all and he was going to do it. He said, ‘Do you want to go home?’

It was blunt. Robin flushed, but John answered. ‘You want to stay, Nicholas, for your own reasons. Everyone understands. But we’re not needed here. I’m glad to have come and met old friends. Robin is grateful to have seen his father and grandfather. But there is work for us back in our own country.’

‘This is your own country,’ Nicholas said.

John said, ‘It used to be. But I’ve made my career, as you have, elsewhere.’

‘Doing what? I thought you’d given up war.’

This time, John’s freckled skin reddened. He said, ‘I thought I had. But there are mercenary companies. Or gun-casting. Or sailing.’

‘Robin can’t sail,’ Nicholas said. He didn’t look at the paralysed boy.

‘What do you know of it?’ the engineer said. ‘You would have him lying here in the dust, counting barrels and pennies in ledgers. That’s no life.’

‘He didn’t say so in Iceland,’ Nicholas said. ‘I assumed he wouldn’t say so in Scotland. Especially when I tell him what is happening. He and his father are going to hold in their hands the greatest salmon monopoly ever known. The stakes are so high that ordinary merchants can never compete. But we can. And from salmon, the contracts spread to salt and to coal and to timber. Have you never wanted to be rich, really rich? We
can buy land. We can buy up businesses. We can build ships and arm them, for offence or defence, like Benecke did. And then, when we want, we can leave.’

‘Is this true?’ John le Grant said.

Robin was staring at Nicholas. He said, ‘We’ve drawn up a plan. There has been a plan to acquire fishing rights and …’ His voice died. His nostrils were wet, and there wasn’t a handkerchief he could reach. He said, in a clear voice, ‘But not to drive out everyone else.’

‘But surely that was understood?’ Nicholas said, with smiling patience. He took out his handkerchief. ‘There is no point in taking over half an industry if you can have it all. And then it could be run perfectly well from Bergen or Veere.’

He laid the handkerchief within easy reach. Robin ignored it. He said, ‘We didn’t give sanction for that.’

‘You’ve forgotten,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or you didn’t happen to get to the meetings. If you aren’t interested, then you ought to go home. Your father will send you your profits.’ He could see the boy straining to move and, of course, failing.

John le Grant said, ‘You’re doing it again, aren’t you? Damn you, Nicholas, you’re making a midden of Scotland again. Then to hell with it. I’m going. So’s Robin. If he can’t sail, I’ll find him something to do.’

‘No!’ said Robin

‘What, no?’ said le Grant. ‘You hate it here. You’ve told me. There are grand things still to do in a war. Your bairns will grow up in their mother’s land, and you’ll be out among men, as ye should be.’

‘And what will be happening here?’ Robin said.

‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I can probably manage without you. Although I don’t quite see what Robin is going to do among men on the battlefield. Are they supposed to run about carrying him? Or do they put some stones in his hand, and let him throw them till captured? Or might he even have to lie in the dust, counting barrels and fodder in ledgers?’

‘You cruel bastard,’ said le Grant. ‘Stop your mouth.’

‘Why?’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve talked about war. You’ve wept upon one another’s bosoms. You’re cured of your anguish. That’s good. But Robin isn’t cured, is he? All you’ve done is arrange to make a freak of him. He can’t move. There’s no point in taking him anywhere.’

Even then, Robin didn’t cry out. But John’s temper had long ago snapped. Nicholas saw the fist coming, and made a half-hearted gesture. He didn’t realise quite how much he had miscalculated until the blow landed, and the next one, and several more. He was lanced by excruciating pain, which doubled and redoubled until he stopped thudding about, and lay supine. Robin was screaming, and John was gasping something over and over. Nicholas heard the sound of the door being wrenched open, and Tobie’s voice, at its angriest, saying
‘What?’

What, indeed. Thankfully, Nicholas experienced the departure, one by one, of his senses. The last thing he heard was Robin’s voice crying, ‘It was my fault, all my fault, all my fault.’

S
OMEONE WAS SAYING
, ‘It was my fault. It was all my fault. I’m sorry.’

John.

Nicholas opened his eyes. He said, ‘I should bloody well think it was.’ He was in John’s bed, and John was kneeling beside him, pounding the bed with a freckled fist, which he then pressed and squeezed over his face. Behind him stood two of Nicholas’s grandmothers. Tobie, naturally. Kathi, even more naturally.

Kathi said, ‘Well, it was your fault in a way, but Nicholas didn’t give you a chance. At least, he gave you too much of a chance. But he didn’t explain.’

‘Explain what?’ said Tobie.

‘Well, that Nicholas would have dropped just as fast if he’d breathed on him.’

‘Why?’ said Tobie. You could tell that Tobie’s mind, to that point, had been on other things. Rigid with bandaging, Nicholas felt like Tam Cochrane’s collapsed buckram pillar. Lying flat in the dust. Reading ledgers. To hell, to hell with it all.

‘Why did Nicholas want you to hit him? To make Robin feel sorry for him,’ Kathi answered herself. ‘He’s gone grey again.’ She spoke calmly. Her eyes had darkened.

John said, ‘Nicholas?’ and Nicholas opened his eyes with reluctance. He was trying to breathe very shallowly. He even thought of dumb language, translated by Tobie, but his hands were trussed up. He said in a secretive voice, ‘It’s all right. I meant you to do it. Look, of course it’s all right if you want to go home. But Robin has a Sersanders wife; it would be dangerous. And if Kathi went, Adorne would have to follow them both.’

John was still masking his face with one hand. He wiped his lips with the back of the other. Nicholas said, ‘You saw what I didn’t see. He doesn’t want to be a merchant; he wants the excitement of war. You gave him back his dream, for a bit, and he came close to trying for it. If he decides against it, then it’s his own decision, not yours or mine.’

‘Based on a piece of play-acting,’ Tobie said. He sneezed furiously.

Kathi said, ‘But we are all acting, Robin included. We’re pretending to attitudes that haven’t yet come about, to bridge the gap until they do come about. Do you think Robin doesn’t know the trials, the humiliation that his dream would really entail? Now he has an excuse to stay. Now Nicholas must make sure that he creates a life for him that makes it worth
while. War has a lot of different faces. Chivalry is one of them. Teaching is another.’

‘I could help,’ John le Grant said. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Nicol, the hurt that ye cause.’

‘It was probably the only way,’ Kathi said. ‘But though we’ll all help, it’s Nicholas who will have to take the responsibility for Robin. And for himself. I gather you are grinding the faces of the poor once again?’

‘It was havers,’ said John. ‘I knew it was. I just thought he was making it up to punish Robin. And, by God, it did.’