To Lie with Lions (70 page)

‘He does? Or you do?’ Nicholas said.

Her colour had risen. She said, ‘I do, as well. I wouldn’t tell you, if you weren’t a friend. I know what it’s like when everyone tells you what to do.’

It was enough to shift his thoughts from himself. He said, ‘Who are telling you what to do? The
nuns?
Because –’

She gave a genuine laugh. ‘Don’t worry. Father Moriz has almost excommunicated himself, putting my case. But there is a strong feeling I should enter a nunnery. The Patriarch of Antioch suggested it first.’

Nicholas said, ‘What in God’s name would you do in a nunnery?’

‘Then what should I do?’ Kathi said.

It was a plain question, asked without coquetry. Asked by a friend, and not by a young sexless person to be protected. He said, ‘What is your illness?’

For a while she was silent. He saw that, unusually, she was not surrounded by work, the traces of a dozen fleeting occupations that might be currently filling her day. She said, ‘I don’t know. I have no warning of tiredness, as most people have. I do too much. I make extravagant use of my energy and call on all my reserves until I collapse. Bad for me, bad for my heart.’

He said, ‘So they want to limit what you do.’

‘That is what they say, Dr Andreas and Dr Tobias.’

‘But that is not how you want to live.’

She looked at him. ‘That is not what life is for.’

‘But there will be no life,’ Nicholas said. ‘You will burn yourself out. The nunnery would be another sort of death, in your case. You need a regulator; someone who will let you do what you want, but stop you from excess. Is there no one?’

She did not answer. She said, ‘Does Gelis stop you?’

‘Me?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I told you what Dr Andreas said. Are you not driven as well? To waste no time, to take every chance, to try everything?’

He began to say, ‘But I am never –’ and halted.

‘Never harmed by it? Tell that to your doctors. Tell your doctors that you never have waking dreams, that nothing ever confuses you. If I know, Gelis knows; but while you are competing against one another, she won’t help you. So I say what you have just said to me, but I’ll go further. You need protection. You need Gelis. Make peace with her.’

Her gaze, level on his, was clear as peat water. Good advice. Sensible, unbiased advice. He said, ‘She won’t stop until it is resolved.’

‘Until what is resolved?’ Kathi said. ‘Until she has proved herself cleverer than you are? She may be. If she will only be happy when she thinks she is, then give her that happiness now. Once she has proved herself, then the race will be over.’

‘Will it?’ Nicholas said. ‘And what if she discovers she has been permitted to win? Also … it isn’t merely a race. I am receiving a punishment.’

‘Which you think you deserve,’ Kathi said.

‘Which I know I deserve.’

‘And you are throwing away happiness, both of you, because of that?’

‘Happiness?’ It stunned him, to be talking to anyone about this.

The girl looked at him, astonished. ‘Nicholas, you love her. You must know it. She must know that you do. Why on earth would you have wasted these years if you didn’t? Bring yourself to think of her. You nearly didn’t come back from Iceland. You’ll be in the field with your army this summer. If you don’t stop it all now, you will be dead before the race is ever finished.’

‘I do think of her,’ he said. He spoke to himself.

After a while she said, ‘I have said too much. Will you forgive me?’

‘I expect so,’ he said.

She was standing. She said, ‘And if I need your help, may I come to you?’

It brought him to his feet. He said, ‘Kathi, of course. I am sorry. It was like Hekla and Katla at once.’

‘Someone had to say it,’ she said. ‘Before you go, I have something to show you. Did you know that Jordan was riding at Dean?’

It was hard to concentrate. He said, ‘Yes. I thought of buying him … Kathi?’

‘I guessed you might. I have a pony,’ she said. ‘In the stables. If you like him, I’ll sell him to you. He seemed just right for Jordan. But from you, not from me.’

He said, ‘Jordan won’t bring us together. He is the barrier.’

‘No. You are wrong,’ she said. ‘You are wrong. When she is free to love you, she will love Jordan.’

Later, he rode into Antwerp with Diniz, the pony trotting beside them; and took the child out, and visited the warehouses, and had supper with Gelis and Diniz. Afterwards, he broke the news to her that he could stay for only a day, and then must leave for a visit to Arras. He tried to speak as he normally did, and thought he succeeded. He had attempted to set aside all that had been said that morning, for otherwise he could not continue with what had to be done. He would have to think of it some time. He supposed he would have to think of it some time. But he didn’t see how he could expunge the plan of four years on a whim. He didn’t see, as of now, how he could bring himself to discard it for any reason, for he was afraid he would discard himself with it.

He did not tax her then with her other visitors, although he knew she had had them; and further knew who they were.

Chapter 32

M
ISTRESS CLÉMENCE SAW
the visitors, but it was not her place to remark on them; nor on the arrival of the extremely valuable pony, of which on the whole she approved.

Pasque had no such inhibitions. ‘At last, he treats the boy as he should! Remind him what a baron’s son is due! There are those – you know them – who would have silver harness by now. A miniature helmet.’

‘A page?’ suggested Mistress Clémence. ‘And therefore no further need of his nurses? Pasque, the bath has to be emptied.’ There was no point in explaining. This was a father who did not give bribes. The pony, therefore, represented something else: an apology for a long absence past, and another to come. Perhaps a very long absence.

The day of his arrival from Bruges, there had been something about their employer’s appearance which she did not like, taken in conjunction with Lord Beltrees’s apparent inability to avoid life-endangering activity. He had displayed a little too much attention to Jordan, shaking Jordan’s sense of security. His wife had not noticed, which was rare for her. Mistress Clémence sometimes wished, watching the Lady watching her husband, or keeping vigil during his absence, that Gelis van Borselen would have some care for his health. Some gentlemen, unevenly matured, went all their lives in need of a little nursery discipline.

Nicholas took John le Grant with him to Arras, but left Moriz and Robin at Bruges. If there was to be war, there was a lot of planning to do.

And there was to be war. The first sight of the tumult in Artois confirmed it. At Arras, only forty miles north of Amiens and thirty-four east of Hesdin, the Duke received him at St Vaast in a room jostling with captains and messengers, and crashed his fist on the table.

‘What is this man doing here?’ His long, full face, glaring at Nicholas, was crimson. ‘You took my gold, and turned Scottish whore for a barony! You said they would never raise an army against us, and they are sending six thousand soldiers to France!’

‘My lord,’ Nicholas said. ‘When the army comes, kill me.’

The Duke paused. ‘It is not coming.’

‘They cannot afford it,’ said Nicholas.

‘My lord of Cortachy believes otherwise,’ the Duke said. ‘Anselm Adorne brought us sulphur. What do you bring?’

‘The man who will use it,’ Nicholas said. ‘Master John le Grant, who might otherwise be fighting the Turk. We place our souls as well as our hearts at your service.’

Later, alone in the rooms they’d been given, John said, ‘The man’s crazy. Does Scotland really owe you that much? I thought they’d raised the gold for the army.’

‘They have,’ Nicholas said. ‘But James wants to lead it, and they won’t allow that while he’s childless. Dreams of Alexander and Hercules. Rubbish.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said John le Grant. ‘What it is to be young and romantic and have well-travelled friends. The Duke is childless. That is, he’s only got the one girl from his previous marriage. Whoever marries her is going to do well, and make a few changes. Perhaps in the long run we’d be better backing France.’

‘That’s all right,’ Nicholas said. ‘We’re doing that, too.’ The Duke was crazy: rich and impatient, and greedy for honours and land and a name that would match that of his warrior forefathers. A triple invasion of France was one of his dreams for the future. His more immediate desire was to retrieve the two border towns he had lost the previous year to the King of France. He had published two manifestos accusing Louis of France of killing his own younger brother by
poison, sorcellerie et machinations diaboliques
, and had some new banners made inscribed
VENGEANCE!

To Nicholas, the future looked mildly promising. He rode into Arras. The following morning, racing ahead of his cohorts, Captain Astorre burst into his patron’s rooms like a ready-spurred cock from its basket.

‘Claes! My boy!’

‘Nicholas de Fleury, Lord Beltrees, to you,’ said John le Grant acidly. ‘Have you got any decent gunners there yet? One who can strike a spark from a flint?’

Everything flowed off Astorre when there was a battle in prospect. He embarked on a ten-minute lecture on strategy. Louis was currently five hundred miles away with his army. When he came north to
attack, he’d choose Brittany. ‘Scare them into surrender, he’ll think, and then turn back to us, before we’ve had time to do all that much damage.’

‘Have we time to do all that much damage?’ Nicholas said. Astorre had let his beard revert to black streaked with white. The girls were either departed or dropping like plums.

Astorre said, ‘Depends what kind of damage you mean. You and I could launch a nice little series of sorties, tip out a few garrisons, and begin to hold a good solid line threatening Paris. That’d change Louis’s mind and bring him scurrying up to the conference table.’

‘But?’

‘But you know mercenaries.’

‘We’re mercenaries,’ Nicholas said. He liked annoying Astorre, who turned puce.

‘Are we?’ said Astorre. ‘Are we? I’ve yet to see any body of men under me behaving like Hagenbach’s bloody Alsatians.’

‘All right,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’re saying that the ducal army won’t consolidate without better discipline, and that’s a point I shall make with the others. Now let’s talk about guns.’ He could see John’s hair growing ruddier. John enjoyed sailing, but his heart was really in proper guns, with masons and platforms and carriages, and barrels and barrels of gunpowder.

Much later, when platters were empty and the wine nearly done, Astorre said, ‘The barber-surgeon went off. I’ll get somebody. Unless you’ve someone permanent in mind.’

Nicholas said, ‘Get someone temporary,’ and met Astorre’s one gleaming eye. He did have someone permanent in mind: the same man as Astorre. Jan had spread the news, as he had spread the news about so much else happening in Rome. Dr Tobias, former physician to the Charetty company, was surprisingly about to return to the field. Having successfully brought to delivery the Count of Urbino’s ninth child and first son, he was leaving to follow the Count into action.

Jan had wondered why, with the Count’s thanks in his pocket, he’d bothered. Nicholas supposed there was some discernible reason. Urbino had always been a hero to Tobie. He had been in battle with him before. And from the Very beginning, Tobie had been involved in the Charetty interest in alum. Now the alum mine in the Florentine subject-town of Volterra had occasioned a power struggle between the Medici and those who disagreed with them. Lorenzo de’ Medici, infuriated by the revolt, was calling for troops from Milan and the Pope and the Count of Urbino to help put it down. And where Urbino went, Tobie would go.

Tobias Beventini, physician, had left Nicholas before, unable to tolerate what the others had learned to ignore, because he understood it better. This last year, it had seemed that he had vanished for good. But if he had, it was odd that he should want to return to an army again. And when and if Urbino completed his task, Tobie would have to consider where next to go. Nicholas remembered something Kathi had said. He was a good doctor.

Astorre was speaking. ‘And the boy. You were supposed to be bringing the boy to be trained?’

Nicholas looked at him. ‘Aged three and a half? Trained for what?’

Astorre looked impatient. ‘What do you mean? The boy. The other boy. The son of the merchant. Your page.’

His head cleared. ‘Ah, Robin. I will bring him. He’s worth teaching. Will you do it? Stretch him. I don’t want him coddled, but I’d rather not have him killed.’

‘Killed?’ said Astorre. ‘Men don’t get killed in these wars, except over wagers while they’re sitting down waiting. These aren’t proper wars.’

They spent next day between the camp and the commanders. The following afternoon, leaving John, Nicholas prepared to make his one visit home before the start of the campaign. By home, he supposed he meant Antwerp. It seemed a long way away. From there, he would go to Diniz in Bruges, for he had a business to order as well as an army. He was leaving Moriz to help. And Julius might have arrived, with his chubby Gräfin.

All the women Nicholas knew had speculated about Julius and his new conquest – Julius, who had seemed so devotedly self-centred and single. They didn’t seem to consider, as Julius undoubtedly had, that at a certain stage in a man’s life he would be seen to require an establishment, and a hostess to run it. A rich hostess, for preference. Looks would hardly matter. All the time his friends had known him, Julius had had a very mild interest – almost no interest at all – in what Nicholas had always regarded as the best and cheapest pleasure in life. Perhaps he was about to be converted.

It was then the beginning of June, and the country was bowered in green. Going home, Nicholas travelled by Ghent, the shortest route back, since he had recently spent a great deal of time in the saddle. When he left Ghent on the fourth day of the month, he had something under forty miles still to cover to Antwerp. Nothing warned him to go to Bruges first, for although the thought of Gelis seldom left him – he had told Kathi the truth – he had refrained from divining.