The Unicorn Hunt (19 page)

At the end, they all politely thanked her, including the servants outside, and Henry, taking his leave, submitted to two or three questions to which he gave careless answers.

She found the answers disturbing. She continued to find them disturbing all evening. After an uneasy night, she rose in the dark before dawn and rode out the short distance necessary to satisfy herself that she was wrong.

When, presently, she left home again with her maid it was daylight, and she was warmly clad for a long journey, and accompanied by a party of men from the Kilmirren estate and its farms. Some, like young Andro, she had known a long time. The rest included the new steward appointed by Jordan, and the man
from the east coast, from B roughton, whom Simon himself had selected. They took dogs and spare horses and food. They also took weapons. It was by then a fine day: full morning, with the sun in her eyes, dazzling white from the hoof-printed snow.

It was a good morning for hunting. The same sun roused the King’s Court at Edinburgh, where the Castle seethed with restless young men. It was a good morning for hunting and moreover the
Ghost
, this Flemish ship with the fabulous cargo, had arrived, they had learned, and was lying within easy reach at Blackness.

The King had already conferred with Alexander his brother, or possibly the other way round. By the time the sun had climbed in the sky, a royal hunting-party had left for a day’s sport to the hills west of Edinburgh.

They planned to hunt. They planned to descend for food upon the King’s Palace of Linlithgow. Before turning homewards to Edinburgh, they planned to ride across to Blackness and inspect the
Ghost
and its wonderful merchandise. Among those who accompanied the King were Anselm Adorne and Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren.

By midday, the royal party was close to Linlithgow, and Bel of Cuthilgurdy was eight hours away.

Nicholas de Fleury waited.

It was only the first stage, that was all. It was only the first knot in the snare, the first flick of the hook; the first hint of spin in the arrow. The first letting of blood not his own.

Chapter 8

A
DORNE HAD BEEN
to Linlithgow Palace before. The drawbridge thudded down in a sunlit cloud of snow speckled with dust and the hounds, brown and black and white, poured past the horses like salmon. Above the carved lintel, the scaffolding stood against the pellucid blue sky, marking the advance of the masonwork.

The new rooms were to be ready by the time the King’s bride came from Denmark. Through the winter, James had ridden out now and then to look at them, but not to stay. No one stayed there at present but the artisans and the Master of Works and their cook and, some of the time, the Keeper of the Palace.

Even to pause here for noon dinner had meant sending off a train of wagons at dawn, with food and trestles and benches and barrels of ale, and dishes and pots for the kitchen, and cloths and buckets and braziers. There were supposed to be spits already provided, and charcoal, and logs to heat the stone rooms. A host of servants in thick hooded mantles had travelled the sixteen miles with the baggage, glumly packed between kegs.

It was as well they had sent something to eat, for the morning’s hunting had been indifferent: a few score game birds and some hares, which had hardly diminished the Princes’ energy, or that of Sersanders and Adorne’s niece, for that matter. The countryside was white with last night’s snow: even the loch above which the Palace perched was smooth as a blanket, and the air crackled with redeeming frost over the workmen’s latrines. Beyond the entrance passage and portcullis, the inner yard of the building was stiff with mud. The Keeper stood in it waiting, cap in hand, his beard fixed in a block like winter fodder. He had just finished sneezing.

Anselm Adorne thought of the Great Hall as last he had seen it, a hundred feet long and thirty wide with unshuttered windows and
bare walls and stone seats and a black fog of fumes from the hearth. And that had been in autumn. He wondered if the well froze. Maintaining a lofty Burgundian calm, he exchanged a silent flicker of woe with Jehan Metteneye.

Behind, the rest of the party, losing animation, had fallen pettishly quiet, in the way of those about to blame someone for something. Katelijne was among them, with the nuns and her mistress, young Margaret. Adorne could hear Mistress Phemie’s encouraging voice, supported by the rich tones of Will Roger. He smiled.

The stables at least were prepared, and the hounds were led off. Adorne greeted the Keeper, and took his place of honour in the cold procession shedding mud and snow up the flight of stone steps to the hall. Andreas was behind him, and Scheves. He caught sight of Kilmirren, clad in a sober wool cloak and black cap, taking the steps two at a time.

Kilmirren was in favour today, having driven the game the King’s way, and refrained from taking the best. Kilmirren, working hard since his son’s joust, had devoted his time to pleasing the King, and no less to warmly befriending Adorne who, as it happened, felt no pressing need of his company. He usually passed him to his nephew, who talked to him about jousting.

Now Simon, having sprung to his side, produced an apology for their surroundings. ‘Linlithgow is not the Princenhof, I’m afraid. But even the Duke of Burgundy’s palaces are stripped in winter, and cold.’

‘It is so everywhere,’ Adorne said. ‘When his grace the King and his mother lived here, I make no doubt it was handsome, and will be more magnificent still. We understand: we are dining alfresco.’

The Keeper had reached the top of the stairs with the King, followed by the King’s two half-uncles with Alexander of Albany behind. Mantled in quilted pourpoints and jackets and furs, they looked from below like a press of cattle, jammed fast at the neck of a gate. Adorne heard upraised voices.

‘The wagons holding the wine have overturned,’ said Metteneye, who had exceptional hearing. ‘And the water has frozen. They suggest boiling the snow.’

The voices above became louder, and the press slackened. The King had walked into the Great Hall, with the Keeper following. The hunting-party, including Adorne, ascended and entered behind him.

The Great Hall was as stark as before – worse, for the shutters, chimney-cope and embrasures were thick with debris and dust.
Only the rushes were fresh and, this time, there were whole tree-trunks on the distant great hearth, burning bright with blue flames. There were trestles and benches, and a cross-table on the dais by the fire for the King, but no cloths and no cushions. The boards were half empty and half set with pewter. More than one wagon, you would say, had overturned.

The King was addressing the Keeper of the Palace in a part-broken, furious voice. ‘And the food? I suppose the wolves have taken the food? What is your office worth?’

The man, his face pallid, said, ‘The food is here, your grace, and being cooked. You came – We did not expect your grace so soon.’

‘I think you did not expect me at all,’ said the King. ‘Perhaps I, too, was to be overturned on my way? It is not unknown. It has happened before. So mark you, if I ride back to Edinburgh as I intend to, without wine, without food, there will be a reckoning. And you, sir, will be the first to pay it. There is not even ale?’

‘Unless …’ said the Keeper.

‘There are other houses nearby,’ said the King’s half-uncle James. ‘Where is Hayning? Where is Hamilton? There will be wine at Kinneil.’

‘There is wine here,’ said the Keeper. ‘But it belongs to –’

Katelijne Sersanders, in her uncle’s hearing, said, ‘No!’ Her voice expressed tremulous ecstasy.

‘– but it is part of the cargo of the
Ghost
. The ship of M. de Fleury. I gave leave, since the warehouse at Blackness is insecure. The merchandise is below, in the vaults.’

‘Here?’ said the King. ‘We don’t have to go to Blackness?’

‘No. Here. But locked. M. de Fleury is due to bring the keys when your grace should have finished his repast.’

The King looked at his brother, and at his two sturdy uncles, who were smiling. The younger lord (Hearty James, he was nicknamed) said, ‘He can be sent for, your grace. Meanwhile, we can no doubt find a locksmith.’

‘Or a hammer,’ said Albany. Colour blended once more with his freckles, and his sister Margaret tugged his arm, her eyes shining. ‘What are we waiting for?’

Anselm Adorne stayed above, while the rest swept down the stairs to the courtyard and across to the steps of the cellars. Not quite all the rest: Metteneye remained at his side with the nuns, and Maarten his son with Bishop Patrick, and Knollys, the Preceptor of the Knights of St John with a group of older barons and clerics. Will Roger, whistling silently, had also remained in the hall.

But the children were all out there, jostling through the mud. The young people. Adorne stood by the open window and watched them. The King and Alexander of Albany and the young men of birth capering about them. The rotund Margaret, their juvenile sister. His own nephew and niece, walking quickly. And James of Auchterhouse and John, Earl of Atholl, not yet thirty, representing avuncular seniority and restraint. From above, their hats strutted like partridges.

And the sober black cap of Kilmirren, who had held back at first. Of course, thought Adorne, he had reason to hesitate. In sparing Henry, Nicholas de Fleury had for the first time achieved some ascendancy over Kilmirren. But it seemed the comradeship of the young King counted more. In any event, Simon had gone.

In the half-emptied hall, Will Roger said cryptically, ‘I doubt.’

‘I’m afraid, so do I,’ said Euphemia Dunbar. She smiled at Roger and turned the smile, deepening, towards Adorne beside him. The remorseless line of the wimple exposed the irregularity of her features in which her round eyes were set like bronze pennies.

Euphemia, the Earl of March’s unmarried daughter, might not look like the rhymster of Haddington but, in his regular calls on his niece, Adorne had identified the authoress of the verse that now embellished the unholy alliance of Katelijne’s invention and Will Roger’s music. At Haddington the three had become friends, and Adorne was very content to have it so.

Now he went forward and, easing a bench, made a space for her to sit beside Metteneye. Roger perched on the table by Maarten. Adorne said, ‘You think they will make too free with the wine.’ He returned to the window.

‘With more than the wine,’ said Will Roger. ‘There are fine things in that cargo, I hear.’

The Bishop, standing nearby, stopped gnawing his lips. ‘I shall be interested to see them. M. de Fleury knows how to barter paste beads with negroes, but the lords of this country live as other lords do. Our merchants frequent Bruges. My royal uncle himself imported nothing but goods of the finest of workmanship.’

He was thirty-three and hasty of tongue: an uncertain shadow of the late Bishop James Kennedy his uncle. Adorne, watching, saw Roger’s brows jump, and Maarten redden. He hesitated to intervene, for in some ways Patrick Graham was right to defend his family’s culture. However suspect his political acumen, James Kennedy had been a fearless and vigorous man, which was why the young Albany had loved him; why Anselm Adorne had placed Maarten in the care of his nephew. Some men grew into their office. Some offices transcended the man.

All the same, diplomacy should not be forgotten. Adorne said, ‘My lord, whatever his taste, the young man does not, I believe, mean to impute to this nation a dearth of civilised comforts, but seeks merely to keep them replenished. It is all we merchants offer to do.’

The Bishop grunted, shuffling. Adorne, his thoughts disturbed, averted his gaze to the distant descent to the cellars. As he did so, a row of barrels emerged, and began to traverse the yard in the direction of the kitchen, followed by a man rolling a vat, and others shouldering kegs. He said aloud, ‘The wine has been found.’

Metteneye got up and joined him, followed by Roger. Metteneye said with approval, ‘They mean to heat it.’

‘Well, some of it,’ said the musician. He leaned out, pulling his cloak tight about him. Outside, an odour of warm roasting beef had begun to temper the air to the north. Other smells stirred. The ovens, heated at last, had been loaded with food. From the direction of the cellars came an outburst of muffled laughter and some shouting, followed by the hollow blows of a mallet. It did not sound as if a locksmith had been found, or even sought for. Will Roger gave an exclamation, and strode out of the hall.

Everyone else stood at the windows, the Prioress and the Bishop taking the centre, their eyes fixed on the recess where the cellar steps lay, still in sunlight. A small crowd of workmen and grooms had gathered hesitantly in the yard, giving way from time to time as a liveried servant disappeared down the steps. One of them carried a crowbar.

Adorne said, ‘This is a pity.’ He could say no more. The King was there, with his uncles. It was not for a foreigner to interfere.

The first person to emerge was the lady Margaret, climbing the steps and marching over the mud. Her hat was still intact, tied on top of her furious red hair, but her cloak had been replaced by many ells of black and gold velvet, unrolled from the bale and tied by some means to her shoulders, from which it fell as a train into the occasional grasp of a page. It did not fall in the mud, because someone was walking beneath it. Adorne recognised, choking a little, the legs of his niece. Knollys said, ‘The stupid young wench – the expense o’t!’

‘To whom?’ said the Bishop. ‘Perhaps you would care to go out and help her? Then again, who knows what will come next?’

What came next were three folding chairs, each of velvet-trimmed leather and tasselled, and each borne on liveried legs. After a pause, and a burst of louder laughter, a scroll appeared which, lengthening, turned out to be a long roll of arras succeeded
by a close-stool and a hat-stand. There followed cushions, many of them, and a procession of stand- and field-beds and a mirror. And then pile upon pile of fine linen followed by heavy objects which appeared to be plate-chests. There were coffers, and trays, and a wall-clock; lecterns and sheets; a perfume-burner and a fine Turkish carpet. There emerged Will Roger, grim-faced, supervising the carriage of two objects no one recognised at all.