Gemini (37 page)

The whole encounter did more.

It confirmed to Nicholas de Fleury that he had arrived where, and when, he was needed. It indicated that he had been given something to do for which he was qualified; for which indeed he had been prepared, by all that had happened to him so far.

T
IME PASSED; AND
the Master Melter, you would say, had stooped to the furnace, and cast all the world into gold. Or so it seemed to the temporary exiles in Scotland, to whom life became fair.

It was a measure, very likely, of past wretchedness that, despite the frustrations and dangers, despite the threat from one vain, silly man, the crowded vennels of Edinburgh became the proving-ground of a new group of companions very close to that once created, out of adventure, out of love, out of pride, in the name of Marian de Charetty in Bruges.

Witnessing concordance arriving at last, Tobias Beventini found himself thinking of the missing members of the Banco di Niccolò—Julius and Father Moriz in Germany; Gregorio in Venice; Diniz in Bruges. But in their place were Robin and Kathi and Dr Andreas, Robin’s father and Wodman, Kathi’s brother and her uncle Adorne. Except that, in the delicate strategy Nicholas had settled upon with Adorne, the bond between all of them was not obvious. Adorne and his family continued to trade as they had done in the past, and to make themselves welcome at Court. Nicholas, with John as his sailing-master and gunner, and partnered by Gelis, spent as much time at Leith as in Edinburgh, and more time than he probably wished riding the Marches or hunting with Sandy Albany. Yet even that was less than true. Nicholas was as ungrudging with Sandy as he was with Kathi’s children, or Jodi, or Robin. His business was managing people.

He came to see Robin often; but was as likely to meet him at the Castle, where the Master of Artillery found it congenial to spend an evening with John and Nicholas and anyone else who liked war, drinking ale and discussing strategems and scratching out scale drawings and maps. Sometimes the gathering was down by the Tron, and you would find a
hard-drinking bunch of masons and hammermen, a Merlioun and a Lisouris and a Bonar perhaps in their midst, bursting with talk about pattrens and deal boards and cornishes, but equally ready to listen. The chair they’d made for Robin had wheels on it, and his own man pushed him about wherever he wanted, often with Margaret or Rankin riding with him, or running screeching with joy at his side. They saw nothing out of the way in it all: they didn’t remember him walking. When he had mastered that, he had bigger wheels made, so that it could bounce really fast down the High Street, and John fashioned another, identical chair, so that they could have races.

By then, Robin had recovered his interest in business, and spent some time across the road, if not quite as much as before, and without the same over-intensity. Adorne had given some money towards equipping a set of butts and a practice-ground at Greenside, beyond the hill on the way down to Leith, and a small club had formed, which called itself the Society of the Unicorn. Youngsters went there—Jodi and Jamie Boyd often among them—and the masters-at-arms gave their time. It was encouraged. These were the leaders of the future. Even the Royal Guard sent someone down now and then to instruct and encourage. Henry de St Pol went once or twice. But by then he had already come face to face with his cousin Jodi.

It happened at Leith, on a day full of wind-gusts and rain, when Gelis was enjoying herself supervising goods lumbering in and out of the warehouse: a task at which, like Marian de Charetty, she was rather good. Nicholas and Jodi had temporarily boarded the
Marie
, which had come in with Tom Yare and a cargo, and was about to leave, loaded, for Berwick. Hindering Gelis were a number of friends, such as Leithie Preston and Tam Cochrane and Alec Brown and Mick Crackbene’s jolly wife Ada, in whom the constant attentions of Mick and the birth of eight children, five of them Mick’s, had engendered a voluptuous increase in bulk, all of it bountifully inviting. Gazing, periodically, at Mick Crackbene and his springing step and solid, satisfied vigour, Gelis was gratified to be reminded, quite often, of Nicholas.

The dulcet voice of Henry de St Pol, insinuating itself through the hubbub, was therefore something of a shock. Gelis abandoned the sledge she was supervising, broke off a raging argument with Tam and Leithie and swung round to locate the speaker, who stood in the doorway. As ever, a small silence fell, in tribute to Henry’s hair, his eyes, his smile and his stance of heart-breaking, insolent grace. ‘Lang Bessie?’ he said. ‘My darling aunt, did I hear you speak in defence of Lang Bessie?’

‘You did,’ said Gelis, recovering. ‘Someone put out the fire under her malt, and she’s raised all her prices.’

‘For beer?’ Henry said. He was looking about.

‘Well, that too,’ Gelis said. ‘Did you want Nicholas?’ It was called
taking the bull by the horns. Nicholas had always convinced himself that since Henry, as a boy, had been murderously jealous of Jodi, his two sons were better apart. Cornered, he had agreed that, since they were both in one town, Jodi should at least be prepared for an encounter. Further cornered, he had agreed to speak to him, and had done so. After all, the boys were supposed to be cousins. They
were
cousins, born to Gelis and her sister. They didn’t know that Henry’s father was not Simon but Nicholas.

Henry said, ‘I’ve just put some fells on the
James
. I wondered what you were loading for Berecrofts. Won’t Bruges refuse to take goods from Adorne? I thought he was nearly hanged for misappropriating ducal funds.’

Big Tam Cochrane had finished her job on the sledge and was now planted, hands on hips, gazing at Henry. ‘Weel, man, ye maun tell the Duchess of Burgundy. She’s made Lord Cortachy her personal envoy. But then, no one’s free of mistakes. I heard you were thrown out of Veere, but I dare say you’re still hoping to trade there.’

Henry reddened. Gelis said, ‘If you want to see what we’ve got, Nicholas is on the
Marie
just now, and could show you. Master Brown here will take you. He’s sailing it.’ She ignored Alec Brown’s stare. The Browns were related to the Berecroftses, and protective.

Henry said, ‘I dare say I can find it myself. Don’t trouble.’ He walked out.

After a moment, Brown said, ‘I’d better go,’ and followed him. Gelis gazed after them both. If Henry knew Nicholas was here, he would know that Jodi was with him.

Leithie Preston said, ‘They should have drowned that one at birth.’

It was a common view. On the other hand, all the Prestons talked like that. They were a strong-minded family. Gelis said, ‘I don’t know. I expect they said that of all of us at that age. I think we should find him a girlfriend.’

‘Lang Bessie,’ said Cochrane. ‘If he can afford her. What are you grinning at?’

‘Man,’ said Leithie Preston, ‘if ye could hear the note in your voice. Mope away. Yon same wee rutting bantling’s hardly been out of Lang Bessie’s skirts since that time with Johndie Mar and the pig-asses. And according to rumour, it’s
her
that pays
him
.’

The loading finished. Tam and Leithie left. Gelis went to the office and became lost in the paperwork. No one came. The guard who always protected her eventually tapped on the door and brought in one of Tom Yare’s men, with a bit of paper and a message. The message, from Yare, was to say that the
Marie
had sailed, taking Ser Nicholas and the two young men with it. The note, from Nicholas, said,
Gelis, I’m sorry. Only to Berwick, and I’ll bring him back safe
.

He had reassured her about Jodi. Perhaps he didn’t realise how disturbed she felt about Henry as well. It seemed puerile, after all that, to experience a sudden, deep pang at her next thought, which was that she was bereft of her lover, for the first time since she had found him again.

T
HE THOUGHT HAD
occurred to Nicholas also, inducing a surge of involuntary protest that perhaps even exceeded her own. But it was too good a chance to forgo. He knew it as soon as he saw Henry approaching, his fair face upraised, and Alec pointing to where Yare stood at the top of the companionway, with Jodi beside him. They were in the outermost part of the harbour, and would cast off when Brown was aboard, and Nicholas and Jodi had left. The gangplank shifted up and down as the ship swayed. The
Marie
was big as Leith ships went: a hundred tons, requiring sixteen mariners to handle the sails and the oars and the freight. There was a pilot boat waiting to ease her out of the shallows.

Henry was on board. He spoke to Yare, and then glanced at Jodi, throwing him a word as he passed. Jodi said something, looking after him. Then Yare had taken Henry by the shoulder and was directing his gaze to the top of the mast, where Nicholas rocked. Nicholas waved, without moving, and Yare shouted up. It was something about tides, but it didn’t matter. Ten minutes wouldn’t hurt. He had climbed to the basket, as he often did, to give himself a last view of the ship, and the wharves, and the port. Of these, as he sometimes recognised, it was the ship that meant most to him. These last weeks he had been surprised—and shamed by the surprise—to find that it was the same with Jodi. With both of the boys, he was beginning to think.

He leaned out, signalling, and when Yare sent up a man, dispatched him back with an invitation. Would Henry like to join him aloft? There was room. There was room for more than Henry.

Now there were two faces peering up. Then came Jodi’s young voice, and a movement. Jodi had repeated the invitation to Henry, and Henry had suggested, languidly, that if Jodi’s father wanted company, Jodi should ascend. Which, as it happened, was no trouble to a boy whose father had a ship and a house and a warehouse in Leith. Jodi laid hands on the ropes and swarmed up.

He didn’t look down, but Nicholas, handing him up the last foot, saw Henry’s expression. He saw it alter. And, as, breathless and proud, Jodi settled beside him, Nicholas saw Henry begin the long climb.

He had done it before. Living on the Atlantic island of Madeira, he must have spent half his leisure on the ships of what had once been the cane-sugar company of Vasquez and St Pol, and which Simon de St Pol still ran in the Portuguese island. Henry would have climbed rigging, but of a different kind of ship, and in calm, blue waters. And not perhaps for
a year. It was a gamble. But against that was the co-ordinated, beautiful body, and the will-power, and the pride.

Henry de St Pol was pale when he arrived, but he arrived. And Nicholas, pulling him in as if his own breathing had not stopped, began talking at once of the rigging, the cargo, the sailing qualities, punctuated after a moment by breathless comments from Henry, and Jodi’s eager voice. Then Yare shouted again, from below, and Nicholas said, ‘Mind you, it’s even better out at sea, but perhaps not with this wind.’

‘I’ve been out in worse,’ Henry said.

‘I suppose we all have,’ Nicholas said. ‘But if we sail, we couldn’t get off until Berwick. The King would dismiss you.’

‘I have three days free,’ Henry said. ‘More, if I wanted. I could send a message.’ His knuckles were white, his eyes dark.

Nicholas said, ‘Wait a moment. No clothes! And Jodi and I were going home.’

‘I like Berwick,’ said Jodi. ‘Master Yare or Master Brown would have clothes.’

Nicholas looked at them, frowning. ‘Dammit,’ he said. ‘Shall we sail?’

The ship leaned over and back. ‘I don’t mind,’ Henry said.

N
ICHOLAS DIDN’T KEEP
them long on the top: only for so long as it took for the
Marie
to edge out of the Water of Leith and head south. Then he took them below and remarked that he was hungry. So were they. Jodi said, ‘I’ll tell Master Yare,’ and went off.

Nicholas, peeling off his boat-cloak beside Henry, said, ‘Thank God he’s reasonably good at this stuff. You don’t mind keeping an eye on him? You must have done a lot of small-boat sailing as well. What’s the water like round Funchal?’

Then food came, and ale which Henry rather indulged in, so that when Nicholas, his meal over, left to make a quick round of the ship, he returned to find the representative of the King’s Guard fast asleep on a bench, with someone’s old cloak wrapped about him. Tom Yare had carried off Jodi.

Tom Yare said, ‘No, I don’t mind, and neither does Alec. But I thought the St Pols were after your hide? You might woo the boy, if you’re lucky, but what if something goes wrong? Accidents happen. If Henry is buried at sea, his grandfather will have you buried on land.’

‘You sound as if you can’t sail this ship,’ Nicholas said. ‘Nothing will happen. Neither are we going to fall in love and marry each other in three days. Henry may not commit actual murder, but he’ll still offend the crew, and madden Alec and you, and snap at me or Jodi whenever he’s worried. On the other hand—’

‘I know. You can’t help admiring him. There were sixteen men down here watching the style of him as he worked up those ropes, however nervous he was. A comely man draws the eye, and makes men lenient.’

‘All right,’ Nicholas said. ‘So long as no one gets too excited. His grandfather will bury me also if he finds I’ve diverted his line by implanting a new taste for sailors.’

All his predictions were correct. He kept Jodi beside him, so that he had some protection when Henry lost his nerve or his temper. But Henry let fly with his tongue, not his sword or his fists, and never at any time was Veere mentioned, or anything that had happened between Henry and Nicholas in the past. And Jodi had been well primed. When an argument arose, he just opened his grey eyes on Henry and said, ‘I don’t agree,’ and walked out. And when Henry said, ‘Oh yes! Run to your father!’ Jodi just said, ‘Well, you’re older than me.’ And quite often that silenced him.

The best times were the times of danger when, triumphant after some crisis, Henry would joke with the crew, as he heard his captain joke with the Guard after a contest, and join Tom or Alec or Nicholas over a tankard in the cabin and talk it all over. Once Nicholas said, ‘Does everyone call you Henry? No short name?’