Gemini (50 page)

There was no time for more. Wodman left, and Nicholas returned to Adorne, where the private conversation took place that he knew, from Kathi, to be necessary. He left soon after that for his own house and, seeing a lamp in the parlour, entered slowly.

Gelis was alone. She looked up, beginning to smile, and then rose and took his hand, and led him to sit beside her. ‘Can you tell me?’

‘I am not sure,’ he said, ‘when I became wholly transparent, but it does save a lot of trouble. I have just been told by Adorne what you probably know already.’

‘It wasn’t my secret,’ she said. ‘I hoped he’d tell you. Except that it means they are now sure. Was he very distressed?’

Anselm Adorne had been distressed, but his voice had been steady, and his composure had been unbroken from beginning to end.

‘You know my daughter Euphemia is at Haddington now? It seemed better for her to have company. And there is some reason, sadly, for her to have special care. It has taken some months to be sure, but it now seems that her condition is not temporary. Euphemia can hear nothing, not even the loudest of sounds. She is deaf.’

And Nicholas had said, ‘I am so sorry. What would Phemie have done?’

‘It is what I have asked myself,’ Adorne had said. ‘Euphemia is whole; she is beautiful; she has no other flaw. I have everything to be thankful for, and I shall not allow this one circumstance to affect me, or affect her more than it must. If she cannot hear, she cannot learn to speak, but there are other ways of communicating. Dr Tobie is advising me. Your own mother’s father, he tells me, spoke with his fingers at the last.’

Thibault, vicomte de Fleury, the grandfather whom Nicholas had never met, lying paralysed in his monastery of retreat outside Venice, and visited by Tobie and Gelis and, before that, by Adorne and his son. And later, they had been told, by Adorne’s servant who, you would think, might have observed and reported the finger-talking.

Nicholas had asked, but Adorne had not recalled, he said, sending anyone. Compared with this, it was of no importance, and Nicholas did not refer to it now. He spoke instead of the child, and all the measures the doctors were taking. The royal physicians were accustomed to deafness. Joanna, the third of the King’s six aunts, had been sent to find a husband abroad, and had failed because she was deaf and dumb. Married at home, she had raised healthy children who were now of an age to marry themselves.

‘I know,’ Gelis said. ‘Bel of Cuthilgurdy helped the Princess Joanna. Bel is teaching Euphemia now.’

Nicholas was silent.

Gelis said, ‘It’s common knowledge, Nicholas, that two of the six Scottish Princesses were sent to the French Court over thirty years ago, and stayed there while the French King arranged husbands for them. Bishop Spens, who was an Archdeacon, escorted them. One of the Princesses was Eleanor, who left after three years to marry Sigismond of
the Tyrol. The other was Joanna, whom no one wanted because she was deaf. She came back eventually to marry James Douglas of Dalkeith. One of the matrons of honour who served Eleanor and Joanna in their French household was Bel.’

‘And that is commonly known?’ Nicholas said. He kept her hand, to reassure her, and saw that her colour had risen. She pulled a face, as he might have done.

She said, ‘No. But Bel speaks with her fingers, as Tobie does. They have been teaching the nuns. Bel, and Tobie, and Lord Erskine’s wife, who is the Princess Joanna’s daughter.’

Nicholas smoothed her fingers, watching them. She said, ‘I don’t mean to pry. Just to tell you what is known, and what others may guess.’

He looked up. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And as I said before, there is nothing you need be afraid of in all this. There are no dire secrets, just small matters of loyalty and, perhaps, pride. But I’m glad to know, for Bel’s sake, what is being said. And doubly glad that the child can be helped. Adorne will be so thankful.’

He broke off. He said, ‘We should be so thankful.’

It was true.

The gold had gone. It was better gone. It had caused little but death and mistrust and bitterness, and he could secure for himself all it offered. He had his brain, and his two hands and his health, to provide for the future. He had a strong son—two strong sons—and Gelis. He was free.

S
ANDY RETURNED, AND
Nicholas set to work on him. It was like dealing with Jodi. Liddell was easier: Nicholas respected his loyalty, which had to struggle all the time against his better judgement. That said, he could be an idiot like Sandy at times. That was why Sandy liked him.

And it was unfair, too, to describe this operation in terms of the upbringing of Jodi, although there were parallels. Sandy had had nurses from birth, as Jodi had. The caring families, the Sinclairs, the Prestons, gave their nurslings all the continuity that they could not expect from their parents, and the children responded with love. The great René of Anjou had erected a statue to his nurse. The absences of Jodi’s mother and father had been no more or less than the separations Sandy had experienced.

But, of course, the time for nurses came to an end. Royal princes lived in separate establishments, both as youngsters and later. Louis of France had no idea what his son looked like, they said, it was so long since he had sent him away. The boy was locked up in Amboise, to prevent his being exploited against his own father, as Louis had been. And many of Sandy’s first personal relationships had been shattered by death. His widowed mother had died while he was in Flanders, and the following year, aged only ten, he had lost Charles, his adored older cousin in Veere,
and then Bishop Kennedy, his near-uncle. A proud boy, speaking a different tongue, he had found himself a prisoner at the English Court, and thrown into the equivocal companionship of Gloucester. From there, he had come back to Scotland to compete for attention with an older brother who was King, and a younger who rampaged at will. He had been given a Sinclair wife because it was necessary, and had resented it, and had been allowed to annul it in the hope of something better. It was no wonder that he was hard to control, or that his own children, legitimate or otherwise, were not much in his mind. He took more interest in his sister’s son, young Jamie Boyd.

And yet he was not out of reach, or uncivilised. Sometimes, Nicholas could bring him round to a new point of view, or induce him to pause a little and think. The rest of the time it was no good, for there were other factors at work. There were bad influences, such as Simpson had been. But mostly the trouble lay with the imbalance in the family itself, and the friction it brought.

Adorne, most often at the Castle, was able sometimes to mediate. The Councillors exerted what pressure they could. Nicholas, after long months of handling, had achieved only some of the acceptance he had hoped for in Sandy: his position was simply that of a person in whom Sandy would often confide, and whose affection he could count on, for most of the time. As Sandy’s steward, Liddell had greater authority. But in essence, he and Liddell were to Sandy what Josaphat Barbaro, that wise envoy, had once put into words. They were his boon companions, with whom a prince might relax, after work with his serious councillors, but who were debarred from all matters of state. The trouble with Sandy was that he didn’t have, or want, serious councillors.

The winter was hard work. Complaints duly arrived from the English Wardens, and were given soft answers, to Albany’s fury. Yule and Uphaly, always useful distractions, spawned that year a series of ferocious entertainments, masterminded by Roger and Nicholas, which dazzled the young and were admired by the more thoughtful of their elders. Those who did not share in the profit were heard to wonder whether the Burgundians were not out to line their pockets again. Roger sent his singers out by the cartload for nothing, and the grumbles died down, except in Newbattle.

The end of the January festivities brought the pest; not the direst variety, but one that encouraged families to move to their country estates, if they had them, while the forests became crowded with hunting-parties. Kathi took her three children and their attendants to stay with their great-grandfather at Templehall, but Robin remained with Sersanders and Archie, while Tobie and Clémence became busy, as did all the physicians. The Court jogged about between Linlithgow and Stirling and
Falkland, with Will Roger in attendance, and Adorne, and Nicholas, if Sandy was there. Gelis stayed at the Leith house. The Lords of the Council for Civil Causes held one well-fumigated meeting in the Tolbooth, and dissolved themselves until spring, so that the number of disputes in abeyance began to overflow into several bags. The King subjected himself to a number of meetings with his better-liked councillors, and called a meeting of Parliament for March. In theory, Edinburgh would be healthy by then, or if not, the meeting could be transferred elsewhere. It would not be cancelled, for its chief purpose was to raise money for the lady Margaret’s contracted wedding to the Earl Rivers, the King of England’s good-brother.

The lady Margaret was not present to comment, having formed the mutinous habit of departing from Court and staying in the homes of her friends’ parents, or with Mary her sister. Kathi, descending occasionally upon one or other of the Hamilton castles, took occasion now and then to hold mild discussions with the lady Mary on the advantages of keeping on the good side of England. Like Nicholas, she soon learned her own limitations; and took instead to sitting with the Princess’s elderly husband, whom she liked, and whose sickbed was always surrounded by clever sons from his earlier marriage. She saw, with pleasure, how well Jodi de Fleury fitted into that household, and how his confidence had grown. He appeared to be drawing again: one of the Hamiltons always seemed to be teaching him something. Kathi took Margaret with her more than once, to please Jodi, and enjoyed writing long letters to Gelis. She wondered if it was mortally wrong to be pleased that David Simpson was dead. They were all free. And Nicholas might be discovering what he wanted, at last.

The pest was over by March, and everyone came home. The Three Estates convened in Edinburgh on a Friday, in solemn procession, in all their great hats and long robes, and crammed into the hall of the Tolbooth to sit before their sovereign and hear who was to pay what towards the Princess Margaret’s wedding. The answer, shatteringly, turned out to be more than twice the sum proposed seven years before to send an army to Brittany, a fifth to be paid by the burghs, and two-fifths each by the barons and clergy, the first instalment to be paid up by June. It would mean, at the very least, two shillings in the pound of a property tax. To farm out Margaret.

She was present, in velvet and furs, with her long, unbound red hair crowned by a jewelled circlet that cost someone, such as the exchequer, quite a bit. Her attendants and her sister Mary sat beside her.

Johndie Mar, their brother, was seated nearer the throne, and on his cheek was the red mark that spelled trouble. Johndie Mar, everyone knew, didn’t want his sister married in England, but that wasn’t going to
change anything. Violence wasn’t the answer. Procrastination, there was a great word, now. And once the marriage took place, there were certain advantages. That girdle cost a pretty penny. And her shoes.

The rest of the decisions were the kind that could be rattled through: to pursue new trading measures with Burgundy; to arrange to keep the peace between the dense crowds of quarrelling families who had abandoned litigation in favour of force. It was just as well. It was just as well to get through it all quickly, after Johndie Mar had had his say.

What had happened was not at first clear to the crowds who waited to see the King emerge from his Parliament (‘He’s an awful wee man, is he not? And where’s Margaret? Where’s Bleezie Meg? How d’ye fancy a sonsy big Englishman, hen?’). But as the delegates emerged, and spotted their wives, and began to call out, everyone knew soon enough.

That Johndie Mar. Standing up and shouting that they were selling his sister. And the officers of the house thumping their staffs, and the King going as red as his brother, and Argyll (it was always our Colin) leaping forward to get hold of Johndie and take him away, shrieking still. The Guard helped. (See that bonny yellow-haired lad, I’d buy
him
).

And then Meg had burst into tears, and been taken out by her sister.

And then Drew Avandale had stood up and made a speech about how the nation had prospered in these years of peace with England, and how important it was to strengthen the links between the two countries, at a time when trade with Burgundy was at its most prosperous, and mischievous intrusion by others should be repelled. Which everyone took to refer to the French, who didn’t want England to trade with Burgundy at all, and especially not to feel free to ally with Burgundy to resist the French advance into Flanders. For, of course, there was that. You might feel sorry for wee Meg, but she was performing a patriotic service, going to England, as well as getting her girdles paid for by somebody else. Well, that was what most thought. But here was someone shouting outside the Parliament door, and they had to silence him. Poetry, he was talking. Collecting for Blind Harry, maybe. Here, that was a joke.

The procession afterwards was all the way down to Holyrood, where there was to be a banquet, with guests. The Burgundians were to be there: Adorne of Cortachy, who was a handsome man, the lassies all agreed, with his nephew and niece, and the big fellow, Nicol de Fleury. The one that sang, and put on the plays, and dressed everyone up. He was all right, was Nicol. And a right marrow of Sandy’s. Where was Sandy? Where was Nicol, come to that?

Avandale said, ‘Speak in a low voice, if you will. You are telling me that it is as we feared? Albany has set out for the Borders?’

Adorne said, ‘I am sorry, my lord. With Liddell attending Parliament, nothing so rash was expected But the Duke has collected some men and is riding south, gathering more. He has made no public proclamation
of intent, so that there has been no excuse to stop him. Dispositions have been made: there are bands of men at various places who will try to divert him in innocent ways. But we know that he himself has secretly contacted others.’