Gemini (110 page)

‘Not necessarily. She came here from Eccles because someone thought she was spying,’ Nicholas said. ‘The Bishop her brother lived with the young Sandy in Bruges. But in other ways, as you’ve mentioned, she’s been helpful.’

Kathi gazed at him. ‘She should be. She’s one of Efemie’s godmothers,’ she said. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas, and gave a grunt halfway between appreciation and laughter. The Prioress, who had been watching them, sent him a sardonic smile, but no more. Nor did she impose herself on them when, at the end of the meal, her six principal guests resorted to the day-room they had been given to make their final plans before morning. Kathi returned to her children, stopping on the way to reconnoitre the cellars. There were four, and their doors gave on to the garth. The keys, trustingly, were all in the locks. She left them there, but noted the cell she would choose. It was a precaution. She was not afraid of what might happen after Nicholas and her uncle had gone. She was blinded with terror and pain over what Nicholas and her uncle would be facing at Whitekirk, tomorrow.

O
UTSIDE, THE SNOW
gleamed in the dark. Behind the kirk and cloister of St Mary’s, North Berwick, six hundred feet up on the Law, Crackbene’s lookout saw the stirring of movement beyond the Heugh, but at first put it down to stray sheep. A moment later, he grasped that he was
looking at a large force of armed foot-soldiers in white, travelling in the direction of the Priory, and accompanied by some twenty white-shrouded cavalry, their harness muffled and their hooves silenced by snow. He leaped to raise the alarm, but the advance scouts had climbed the hill earlier, and attacked him from behind. A moment later, and he was lifeless. A dog barked, and then stopped. The other animals had already been silenced. The troop, of two hundred foot and eighteen cavalry, was composed of Douglases and other men who called themselves supporters of Albany. It included John Douglas of Morton, David Purves, Gifford of Sheriffhall and the second Lord Boyd, who had been born in Anselm Adorne’s house, and who believed that he was simply preventing tomorrow’s meeting at Whitekirk, which might lure Sandy back to the King. His captain, Alexander Jardine of Applegarth, held the same view precisely, in a slightly different form.

Through the falling snow, at four hours to midnight, St Mary’s lay warm and secure behind its high walls; below a sky ikon-gold from the lamps from its chapel and kitchen and little infirmary; from the dormitory and the rooms of the Prioresses; from the occasional window in the range of guest-chambers and the cabins where the house-servants lived. There was a haze of smoke, and the smells of peat mixed with spiced food and incense.

It looked secure but was not, for the main gates stood unbarred, and the superb inner door had already been opened, from the inside.

Of the two hundred unmounted soldiers, only fifty slipped past the lodge at the gate, which was unguarded. With two exceptions the gentry, with the horse, stayed outside. Of the fifty, most deployed themselves quietly along the inner wall, in what cover they could find; while six of their number, bent low, ran across the outer precincts and followed their leader noiselessly into the Priory.

Upstairs, in the day-room, Mick Crackbene returned to his chair beside Nicholas, having deposited Julius in the infirmary, where he was being re-bandaged by one of the prettier nuns. Adorne looked up, and then returned to the mild conversation he had initiated with the Bishop and St Pol of Kilmirren. Jordan said, ‘It’s snowing!’ Crackbene’s flat cap was wet.

‘Maybe, but you’re not going out,’ Nicholas said. He glanced at Crackbene. ‘Unless there’s anything you’d like me to do?’

‘Such as what?’ Crackbene said.

‘Only a suggestion,’ said Nicholas.

A short time later, the door opened again, on a tap, and Dame Euphemia’s servant stood there, looking round till she found my lord Cortachy and M. de Fleury, both of whom were wanted, she said, in the Prioress Euphemia’s room.

Bishop Prospero, who had not been invited, bent a friendly eye on
the woman. ‘Why not ask the lady Prioress to join us all instead? Go and ask her, my dear.’

Adorne rose and stretched. ‘She may have in mind something private. If not, I’ll bring her back. Nicholas?’

‘It
is
something private,’ said the maid.

Jordan looked at his father, who grinned. ‘I’ll tell you later, if it’s anything interesting. Meanwhile, do as Mick tells you, or else.’

He walked out after Adorne. The servant had vanished. The quiet way to the Prioress’s room was empty as usual. Outside her door, Adorne turned to him, his face shadowed. Nicholas said, ‘I have no regrets,’ and received a resigned grimace, with no bitterness in it. When Adorne knocked, and obtained leave to enter, Nicholas followed. He would have shut the door, but it was wrenched out of his hands by two men who immediately blocked it, unsheathing their blades when he jumped. When he turned, he saw that Adorne had continued steadily forward and stopped, as if before a tribunal, at the place where the Prioress sat, her clasped hands on the table before her, her black eyes trained first on him, and then Nicholas.

Adorne said, ‘You sent for us, Reverend Mother.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. A frightened servant sent for you, induced by a group of silly ruffians. They think you will obey them to save me. You will not. If I see you weaken, I shall take my own life, with the full permission of God. Do you understand me?’

A man had stepped out from the shadows behind her. He had a knife in his hand. Nicholas said, ‘Jardine of Applegarth.’

‘So I deduced,’ Adorne said. ‘The gentleman who sent the unflattering message about you to Lochmaben, and who would prefer to see the Duke of Albany on the throne, with English overlords. I am right?’

‘Well enough put,’ said the man. He sat on the desk. He didn’t look crazed, or evil, or personally vindictive. He just looked like a swarthy, unshaven man with a permanent, puzzled frown. He said, ‘It seems better than a mad King with two Burgundian overlords. Others think so as well. I’ve nothing against the Prioress or the Priory. I’ve just come to make sure that neither of you can interfere in this country again.’

‘Interfere?’ said the Prioress. She sounded amused. ‘How can two foreigners of this kind interfere?’

Applegarth glanced down. ‘By manipulating the King,’ he said. ‘That’s what Adorne does. By killing Johndie Mar with magic and poison. That’s what Master Nicol and your Dr Andreas do. And by enchanting Sandy Albany away from his duty tomorrow. But you won’t do that now.’

‘Three against two?’ Adorne observed with mild sarcasm. ‘Impossible odds.’

The man smiled. ‘What do you think that I am? A man with a grudge
and six cronies? There are ten more men inside these buildings alone. And if anything happens to me, there are five hundred outside, with orders to enter and burn down the Priory.’

‘Two hundred,’ chided Nicholas. The Prioress pursed her lips. Behind, he heard one of the door-keepers shuffle. ‘And none inside, I’m afraid. You didn’t know about our fifty soldiers? It has been quite an exciting few weeks for the nuns.’

‘Nicholas?’ Adorne said.

The Prioress said, ‘Curb your tongue.’

‘No,’ said Applegarth. ‘Let us hear more. Where are these invisible warriors? You have a lookout, I accept. But you can’t have believed we would be able to walk into the convent. If you have any men, which I doubt, mine will have killed them by now.’

‘How did you walk in?’ Adorne said. ‘Someone climbed over the wall?’

Applegarth smiled. ‘Someone let us in. I told you that others think as I do.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Adorne.

‘Would you like to meet him?’ Applegarth said. He raised his voice. ‘Open the door.’

The two guards were still there. One of them brought out his sword, and the other jerked open the door. Mick Crackbene was standing outside it, holding his sword with its point on the floor. The blade was red. He surveyed the room, beginning with Nicholas and Adorne, and ending with Applegarth. He said, ‘I was just coming to tell you. All the bastards are dead but these two.’

Grinning, he lifted his sword. The grin, swinging round, was for Nicholas. The sword was for the first of the doormen, who took it through the chest, just as Nicholas kicked the legs from under the second, and Crackbene dispatched him as well. Adorne made a move to the desk, and then stopped.

‘Very clever,’ said Applegarth from his perch. ‘And do I kill the Prioress now, or will you let me escort her to the gate? I think you should. As I said, unless I appear, my whole force will make themselves very unpleasant. And some of them, I fear, are vigorous men of the land, with primitive urges.’

The Prioress said, ‘And the Duke of Albany is employing men like yourself? It saddens me.’ The knife laid at her throat unflatteringly reflected the wart on her chin. Her expression, of faint distaste, didn’t change, but her eyes had moved from Nicholas to the door, and back again.

Nicholas stirred, in an unthreatening way. He said, ‘I don’t suppose Albany knows that he’s here.’

He had barely got out of the way, when the door swung open quietly.
‘Oh there you are,’ Julius said and, walking forward, cast the knife in his hand straight at Sander Jardine of Applegarth. It sank into his chest. Jardine’s eyes and mouth opened. For a moment, his knife continued to stand against the Prioress’s neck, then it slackened, and Applegarth fell.

Nicholas sprang round the desk. Adorne was already there, between the Prioress and the body. After a moment he rose and turned to care for the Prioress. The anonymous note-sender of Lochmaben was dead.

Nicholas stood gazing at Julius, whose face, after a number of false starts, could be seen as conveying nervous pleasure. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ Nicholas said.

‘I know. Kilmirren wanted the privilege. I’ll confess that I did it, not you. But that solves it, doesn’t it?’ Julius said. ‘Once they know Applegarth’s dead, that mob will go home.’

‘Will they?’ said Adorne. Below his eyes, Dame Euphemia was kneeling, gravely, her hand on the brow of the dead man.

Crackbene said, ‘They might. We took one hostage. Jamie Boyd is here, Nicholas. Jordan is keeping an eye on him, with Bishop Prospero and Kilmirren. Applegarth’s men wouldn’t want to face Albany without him.’

Jamie Boyd was younger than Jordan. Jamie Boyd was the second Lord Boyd, the King’s nephew, who admired his uncle Albany, and had been persuaded to join this grandiloquent foray.

Adorne said, ‘Very well. Then I think we have an announcement to make to Applegarth’s troops. Their captain is dead, after breaking into the Priory and threatening to kill the Prioress Euphemia. The law and the Church will hold all his companions equally accountable, if they remain. They are therefore ordered to leave. If they do so immediately, no further steps will be taken, and no harm will come to Lord Boyd, who is at present here, in our custody.’ He looked from Nicholas to the Prioress, and to Julius. ‘Does that seem suitable?’

‘It sounds convincing,’ Nicholas said.

‘Then we do it. Returned by all the black beans. Who would best act as our orator? I think Prospero. Don’t you think, Nicholas? The Bishop will speak for us.’

O
NLY
PROSPER DE CAMULIO
, man of diverse experience, would have taken so calmly a request to walk into the dark and order two hundred armed men to depart without protest. Adorne went with him to the door, and he was preceded by a Priory servant with a flag. Nicholas was not there, having been told to go and speak to Jamie Boyd.

The lad was in a room, under guard with his own son, and Fat Father Jordan was installed with them both. The boys, when Nicholas entered, were not speaking, but both were flushed. St Pol of Kilmirren, on the other hand, looked merely bored. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The expert with children. Hale in hide and hue, despite everything. And who gave you the right to kill the man Applegarth?’

‘Julius killed him,’ Nicholas said. ‘The Prioress was quite pleased, although she might have preferred her throat cut, had she known how annoyed you would be. Jamie? Are you all right?’ The boy, his mouth shut, was glaring.

‘You won’t get a reply out of him,’ Kilmirren said. ‘He thinks the Whitekirk meeting is nothing but a trick to kill Albany. In other words, the good Lord Cortachy is a rascal, which, of course, my young Lord Boyd and his mother ought to be able to judge better than anyone.’

‘He’s the King’s man,’ said the boy. He spoke with contempt. Young Jordan looked at him, then at his father.

Nicholas sat down with a thump. ‘Well, that’s true,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t mean Lord Cortachy hasn’t come in good faith. If you think of it, why in God’s name should he choose this elaborate way to kill Albany? And what would it gain him, other than coalesce all the opposition against the King? And if that doesn’t make sense, look about you. There
is a small band of trained soldiers here, and a number of holy persons, and six fairly experienced men, like Adorne. At Whitekirk tomorrow there will be three. But even if we cheat and smuggle in everyone, including the nuns, they’re going to be outnumbered by his grace of Albany’s men, armed to the teeth, to any degree that he wishes. Does that sound like a trap?’

No one spoke. The boy’s face was bloodless. He was a nice enough lad, but had yet to come into the virile attraction that went with the heavy Boyd build. There was red in his hair from the Stewart side. Then he blurted, ‘You’ll bring in reinforcements.’

Nicholas said, ‘Do you see them? Don’t you think they would be here by now? No, we shan’t. That would endanger the nuns—and my own family if you like. Jordan is here, and the demoiselle Katelinje, did they tell you? And the children. Struggling a little, as we all are, to do the right thing. I’d like her to be safe.’

‘Shall I fetch them?’ said Jordan. ‘She’s in … She went somewhere safe with the children, but I expect it’s all right now.’

So she had gone to the cellars. Nicholas said, ‘Let’s be sure first. We have to await Bishop Prospero’s triumph.’ And, to the boy, ‘I’m sorry it happened like this. But if it’s any consolation, you may have saved some very wretched things happening in a holy place, which really wouldn’t help the Duke’s case. Without a leader, men sometimes get out of hand.’