To Lie with Lions (23 page)

If Gelis had music. If, like Anselm, she had not, the handicap was truly unfair. Katelijne Sersanders stared into space, filled with compassion and exasperation combined, and then laughed at her own naïveté and jumped up. For of course, unlike the Sersanders family, Gelis had no need of music. She knew what she had.

Part II

Autumn, 1471
JOYOUS ENTRY AND FARCE

Chapter 10

I
N LATER TIMES
, men were to say that spring came in August that year, along with Nicholas de Fleury.

It sounded wistful. It was not really true. No land such as this, with its powerful neighbours, its loosely knit far-flung communities, its small towns battling towards civic development could afford to be seduced into lunacy: Scotland was not Rome or Milan. The truth was a mixture, as it usually is.

On the one hand, the chameleon M. de Fleury might initiate the younger members of the Court into the game of Florentine football: a public disaster. On the other, he might provide useful advice to those travelling to England that autumn, to treat on matters left in contention through the Lancastrian wars. Matters such as piracy, and the family Boyd, and Coldingham Priory on the Scots side of Berwick, historically a dependant of the cathedral priory of Durham until liberated (to the delight of King James) by the family Hume. The Humes, the monks, the King were all aware that the revenues of Coldingham Priory were rich. So was the Pope. For four years, nothing decisive had happened. Resolution needed a miracle.

It was M. de Fleury who pointed out that, this time, the delegates might expect some concessions. A reconciliation between France and Burgundy, brought together by Scotland, was the last thing that King Edward wanted. They did obtain some concessions at Alnwick, and the miracle occurred. When the belated news of Pope Paul’s death closed the meeting, the returning Scots sped to consult the Burgundian, a man who had spent part of last winter in his own accommodating bureau in Rome. The value of his past loans and his present counsel almost paid for the cost of rebuilding the site of the football match.

Equally, the news of the election of Sixtus took precedence over the plans for the Mystery Play the King had demanded for Christmas. The King and his Council, which had been progressing rather well in
the direction of independent ecclesiastical appointments, retired to replan the future, and Will Roger took Nicholas off to his room in the Castle to rehearse.

While Nicholas sang, Roger picked up his cittern and composed (in a different key) an extempore requiem for Pope Paul in the futile hope of pushing the singer off pitch. He talked as he played. ‘Poor Bishop Patrick, he’ll never trust melons again. He was relying on Paul to forgive him all his annates and those who annated against him. Look at the music, you fool. We’re troping. You’ve missed out the tropes.’

‘I saw your bloody tropes,’ Nicholas said. ‘And they stink; you couldn’t sell them to Judas. Poor Bishop Patrick? What about poor Jan Adorne’s promised post, gone for a melon? The Baron Cortachy will weep into his money bags. And before you try to cover it up, I know you got some of the Boyd land. I’m going to win it off you at cards. I’m tired of this. Where’s the drum?’

They wrangled, and the room filled up as usual with people and wine fumes and music. Those present had found out, as Roger had, that Nicholas bore no grudges towards friends who had done rather well while he was away. He had come back the same casual, competent man he had been, and bringing his voice. His precious, beautiful voice.

Much later on, when he had drunk enough and laughed enough, Roger sat down beside the voice’s owner and said, ‘Nicol? You’ll get the King to see he can’t go ahead with this Passion thing? It takes ten months to set up something that big, and it can’t be done on the cheap.’

‘I brought a lot of stuff with me,’ Nicholas shouted. He was rousing his new drum into a frenzy, the way he used to do with the old, and everyone else was yelling at him to stop.

He stopped. Roger moderated his answering shout in a hurry. ‘Even so. It would be crazy.’

‘Don’t you want to do all the music?’ Nicholas said. ‘The Dufay of the North? I don’t know about crazy. Getting the King to tamper with Coldingham Priory is crazy.’

‘We need the revenues for the Chapel Royal,’ Roger said, alerted suddenly. ‘Bugger your Passion. I want James’s money for a proper choir and a set of proper musicians.’

‘Contradiction in terms,’ Nicholas said. ‘Say I get both, what’s it worth? Say I get your Chapel Royal and my impossible Passion?’

Roger stared at him. ‘My bloody tropes,’ he said. ‘I’d give you my bloody tropes for the chance of both. Or another drum. But you won’t. It’d be ruinous.’

‘It’s a wager,’ Nicholas said.

Later, when the Burgundian had gone off at dawn with the others, entwined and indistinctly chanting downhill, Roger realised, thinking it over, that Nicholas hadn’t said what he’d pay if he lost.

After two months of it, Gelis had become used to Nicholas returning home late, sometimes drunk, sometimes sober, sometimes in between. It was not to say he was wholly absent. He used the Canongate mansion a great deal, as a base for his work and his meetings. She became accustomed to finding one or other of the resident officers installed at her table: the correct figure of Govaerts the manager, or John le Grant arguing percussively about his multifarious projects, or Father Moriz making known his requirements or the duties of Nicholas, which were usually the same thing. Occasionally a battered man in a black apron appeared and talked German in a hoarse voice with Father Moriz. He was a goldsmith from the Tyrol called Wilhelm.

The men who lived elsewhere, like Crackbene, seldom came to her part of the Casa to eat. There were many of them, she knew; and other projects which were taking shape on the business side of the edifice, where the bureau and counting-house were, and the clerks’ sleeping rooms, and the office of the padrone her husband. It had a separate entrance.

She did not feel unwelcome. The house was well built and meticulously furnished to a high level of comfort; Govaerts, a steward by training, had established an excellent routine and collected a good, willing staff. Her own chambers, and those of the child and his nurses, were fresh and pleasant, and she learned early to value the amiable goodwill of the Berecrofts family, on whose tenement holding their house had been built. Archie in particular had struck up a friendship with Jordan since the first day of the whistle, and often crossed the wall from his house to her own to bring something or suggest something that might divert the child. In return, she let his own son Robin spend as much time as he wished in the nursery. The boy was fourteen and lonely, she judged. Jordan liked him and, more to the point, so did Mistress Clémence.

She saw Nicholas from time to time. His chamber, adjoining her own, contained a bed and a desk and a number of presses for books and nothing else of great interest, although all of it was of good quality. Entering the house the day after their arrival in Leith, he had come to knock on her door and ask after her comfort. He had already called to see Jordan; she had heard their voices together. Now, coming in, he must have read her expression. He said, ‘I admit everything, but I didn’t bring him a present. Will this suit you?’

She said, ‘I see your room is next door.’

He sat down on her fine cushioned settle. He smelled of horse and looked unslept, but quite tranquil. ‘That doesn’t please you? I have a bed in my office, but I can’t pursue my conjugal duties from there. That’s all really that still interests the populace. Once they are reassured, I shall remove myself and my books to my quarters. You should see your face.’

‘I imagine it expresses my feelings,’ said Gelis.

‘I suspect I knew them already,’ said her husband. ‘Your chastity will remain strictly inviolate. I shall come to see Jodi, and you and I shall make some ceremonial visits. Inquisitive ladies will send their chamberlains to you, and I expect you will bring yourself to visit them. You have horses and servants and money, your own and mine, and must use it all as you please and go where you wish – so long, of course, as you are discreet. Alonse will tell you what I am doing and when we have any mutual engagements. If you want anything, tell him, or Govaerts, or me.’

He rose without haste, preparing to leave. She said, ‘As you have devised, so it shall be done.’

‘I should hope so,’ he said. The door closed. She felt like an overwound wheel, as after all their meetings alone. There had only been a handful since Hesdin and all had been equally brief, tailored to the span of their mutual tolerance. The span would lengthen, no doubt, as their nerves calmed, or their indifference strengthened. At present the ark of their marriage was secured by a line made of hyphens.

She lay in bed listening for many nights after that, learning how often he came home and when, and in what condition. She won, in time, the reticent acceptance of Govaerts, but failed with Alonse.

In October, when it was known that, despite everything, Anselm Adorne was coming to Scotland, Katelijne Sersanders paid her first visit to the Ca’ Niccolò in the Canongate since its owner’s return. She carried a cage with a parrot.

Being inquisitive but not having a chamberlain, she had already examined both the child and its mother from a distance. She approved of both, but thought that M. de Fleury’s rearranged marriage would have a better chance of success if the person who purloined his son did not feature in its earlier stages.

Before coming at all, she had consulted four different people at Haddington. Her brother Anselm held that Gelis the wife was a bitch, but that she regarded Kathi as no more than an officious young meddler, which is what she had been. Her friend the equable Mistress
Phemie thought that it was time for a friendly, impersonal call so long as Kathi didn’t make too much of the child. In this Kathi concurred. Will Roger, the royal musician, emerged from working on the high notes of the lady Margaret and the chest notes (deeply rewarding) of the servant nurse Ada to express doubts.

‘I thought they were reconciled,’ said Kathi, puzzled. She was learning to knit. ‘Just because she isn’t sharing his business …’

‘More than his business,’ Roger said. ‘Who the hell taught you that?’

‘Bishop Tulloch’s housekeeper,’ Kathi said, sticking her needle back into her waist and beginning to flicker her fingers again. ‘What do you mean? I heard they were together.’ The son of Archie of Berecrofts came to Haddington for his lessons.

‘Well, tell me what you find out,’ said Will Roger sarcastically. ‘But pick a time when he’s sober.’

She laid down her needles. ‘Ah.’

‘It may just mean he’s happy,’ said Roger. ‘In fact, he
is
happy. Don’t go and spoil it.’

The last person she consulted was her physician. Dr Andreas said, ‘Of course you must go. But remember. You are bad for each other. No escapades.’

She had smiled. ‘I’m not fourteen any more, Dr Andreas.’

And he had gazed at her with the intentness he sometimes applied to his charts before saying, ‘Katelijne, there is a fourteen-year-old in the oldest of us; in men like M. de Fleury as well. Let it sleep.’

Walking up the turnpike stairs and from room to room of the Ca’ Niccolò, Katelijne saw immediately that nothing had changed – something unremarkable when a man moved into a woman’s home, but unusual when the other way round. The manservant called Alonse walked before her, courteously bearing the cage. The parrot under its cover was silent, although it had once belonged here, and occasionally still repeated a phrase of M. de Fleury’s, as well as the wrangling voices of the family Boyd. When the manservant halted, it was not to introduce either her host or her hostess, but because he faced a white-coiffed, white-aproned woman who could only be the child’s nurse.

The woman said, ‘I am Clémence de Coulanges, demoiselle. I shall see to her, Alonse. Give me the parrot.’

‘You know about it?’ said Kathi, pleased. The woman, thin as a scaffold, had the same look as Phemie Dunbar: a tutelary look. It could be good, or it could be bad. If she had survived eight months with M. de Fleury, it was probably good. Kathi added, ‘Perhaps you would give it to Jordan? I’m really here to see his mother and father.’

‘M. de Fleury is away,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘He thought you might bring the bird. Madame is here. I have to take you to her in the orchard.’

A door opened behind her. ‘But since you are here,’ the nurse continued calmly, ‘I am sure that Master Jordan would like to be presented. Jordan, this is the demoiselle Katelijne Sersanders.’

‘Demoiselle Kathi,’ said Katelijne. The child came forward, instantly friendly. Since Venice, his resemblance to his father had grown. She knew he would not remember her. He smiled, nevertheless, with both dimples, although his eyes were already fixed on the cage.

‘Bonjour, demoiselle Kathi,’ he said. ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’

‘It belongs to your father,’ said Kathi. ‘I hope he will let you have it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘We shall place it here, Jordan, and you and I will show the demoiselle Kathi how to reach madame your maman in the garden.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kathi, turning to follow. The child, parting from the cage with reluctance, ran ahead. She added, ‘He looks well.’

‘The climate suits him,’ said the nurse. ‘Children are resilient creatures, so long as they receive sensible treatment. He has made a great friend of the boy Robin.’

Kathi grinned. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘there is nothing you don’t know about me. The parrot swears.’

‘In Greek and Spanish, I am told,’ said the nurse. ‘As yet, Master Bouton is not conversant with these tongues.’

‘Bouton?’ said Katelijne.

‘His father’s name for him. Mademoiselle?’

The nurse had stopped walking. ‘Yes?’ said Kathi.

‘Forgive me, but as the lady Margaret’s attendant, you must visit the Castle at times?’

‘The King is fond of his sister,’ said Kathi slowly.