Gemini (12 page)

Nicholas remembered the cabins, put up when the new church of St Matthew was started, and since grown into a small village for the wrights, the masons, the plasterers who were slowly perfecting it, at a speed dictated by the input of interest, money and indeed whimsy by the reigning Sinclairs of Roslin. The nave, not yet started, was meant to be ninety feet long, positing a church as big as St Giles. They had been building for thirty years and had got the choir nearly done, all forty feet of it. As they got to the top of the path he said, ‘Lights! Is someone working?’ And someone else said, ‘It’ll be Big Tam and his cutters. Ye mind Tam? He built ye Beltrees?’

He remembered Tam, too. Thomas Cochrane, master mason and architect who, for him, had transformed a crumbling keep into a handsome building, which Nicholas had relinquished, and which had subsequently been bought—deliberately bought—by David Simpson. Since then, it was said, lavish additions had been made, but not by Tam
Cochrane. Nicholas wanted to meet Tam Cochrane again, and when he said so, his companions rollicked with him up to the church and deposited him there, with instructions to join them all later. Then they went off downhill, taking his horse. They had all started singing again, but he had stopped. Someone he thought he knew stepped out from the wooden wall that protected the building, and then went back inside without greeting him. When he walked slowly forward, stumbling over the rubble, he found the access door in the wall still ajar. He went in, and stopped in the fretted dark, feeling the building itself staring down at him. Then he moved forward to the deeper dark of the north door, and opened it, and took the single step down into the unfinished church.

He had been here before, too; although not at night. Viewing this, the interior of the chapel at Roslin, he had experienced, and recovered from, amazement and amusement, admiration and exasperation, and finally settled for good-natured acceptance. This ode to the Sinclairs, truncated at either end, aspirationally based on the plan of Solomon’s Temple, was not quite of the dimensions to carry the emblems with which it was loaded, coated and smothered, as in a kiosk in Tabriz. Except that here, you would say, the carvers had not been of uniform mind, or indeed of uniform training. The clustered shafts, the carved arcades, the canopied niches, the traceried windows, the figured and foliaceous capitals, the storeyed entablatures celebrated, as was to be expected, the triumphs of every known member of the family St Clair, since it left France to multiply in every promising corner of somebody else’s land it could reach, ending up several hundred years ago here.

But among the armorial devices, the country-style Biblical figures—the Dance of Death; the Seven Virtuous Acts—were other strange faces, wild and pagan and snarling, which had more to do with the dark empire of the great Viking Rognvald the Mighty, Jarl of the Orkneys, from whom all Sinclairs claimed descent. Good-natured acceptance was the attitude that Nicholas had chosen in the face of such wanton eccentricity. Acceptance of a benignity that allowed simple craftsmen free rein. A pride, an exuberance that had no fear of excess. The spirit, perhaps, of the Sinclairs.

Now it was dark. It was hard to imagine, indeed, what light had attracted him, for there was almost none now, and no sign of human activity. Seeds in the darkness, working lanterns swayed in the draught from his door, plucking monsters from the gloom. A stone demon sprang into being, and behind it a wild man, with foliage in his teeth. A mask leered. A grinning animal moved. An avenging sword flickered.

Nicholas said, ‘My God, you haven’t got on very far, have you? Leave you four years, and it’s shakier than it was when I saw it last. That pillar’s going to fall down.’

The pillar fell down with a smack, rousing all the dust on the floor.

‘I told you so,’ Nicholas said, scratching his nose and nearly blinding himself because someone, howling, slapped him on the shoulder and two other people jumped out of the dimness and rattled his arm. He grinned, his eyes watering, and shouted back in the increasing noise while, bit by bit, the whole dusty interior came into view as candles were relit and lamps turned up and men gathered round him. There were half a dozen, perhaps: Tam Cochrane’s team; and it was Cochrane who had hammered his shoulder, complaining. ‘Damn you for a cold-blooded bastard, you’re meant to shite yourself then!’

‘Then you’ll have to use better buckram, won’t you? How are you all, Tam?’

‘Wait till I tell you. Can ye stay a bit? What’re you here for?’

Nicholas explained, and the master listened and snorted. ‘More fool you, not to say you were coming. Mind you, Nowie’s maybe away. You can try again the morn’s morn. And we’ve got you the now. Ye’ve time tae come down?’

He had. ‘Down’ meant down the steps to the sacristy, the drawing-office, the booming underground cavern with the stools and the trestles and the mattresses where the arguing, the gossip, the eating and drinking went on as the work progressed and different experts came to serve their time in the dusty gloom far above. One day it would be the awful, chill heart of the church. Now it was the place for refreshment, creation and recreation: a haven of light and warmth under the ground. Trust masons.

Nicholas lingered as the others began to clatter down the stairs at the side of the Lady Chapel. He had been prepared by Abbot Archie for the changes in Cochrane. He looked as he always had: like a big florid Renfrewshire farmer, keen to drill you into the ground with detail about sheep prices and foot rot and fencing. Thomas Cochrane might have ended like that, for he came from a decent West Scotland family, with several brothers and dozens of cousins of fair education. But then he fell into the company of builders rather than estate managers, and found plenty of places where his knack for numbering made up for his youth. He picked the best masons as masters and travelled wherever they went, beginning with Paisley Abbey and Glasgow Cathedral, and then a lot further afield. His family let him. He worked at St Andrews, at St Salvator’s. When a French master mason came over, Cochrane made himself indispensable, and no one saw him for two years after that. Then, when he came back, he was not just building, but designing.

That was when Nicholas last saw him. But an aptitude for organising and detail spills over into other things, if the owner is good enough. Masons need to manage money, and men, and to quantify and import materials. Masons often become perforce their own merchants and dealers and shippers, and the stone and iron and timber, the gunpowder they import for their quarrying are all useful for other things. Good masons
make cannon balls and gun-carriages and build and fortify castles. The change in Big Tam Cochrane was not a physical one: it was the overlay of satisfaction and confidence which comes to a man who is extended as he was meant to be extended. And all his enthusiasm, his earnestness, his attention to detail were still there underneath. Nicholas envied him.

It was time he joined the others below. When Cochrane reappeared, Nicholas thought he had come to collect him. Instead, the mason banged noisily past him and shouted into the gloom of the opposite corner. ‘Willie! Are ye no done yet, man! Look who’s here!’

Nicholas stood where he was. There was a screen at the end of the Lady Chapel. He could hear a mutter from beyond, and then a light appeared: a lamp, borne by a stranger with a willing expression. He was introduced, but did not shake hands. The man’s fingers were covered with charcoal.
‘Willie!’
bawled Cochrane. His voice, for a big man, was not deep.

‘I hear you,’ said the man he was calling, and came sulkily out from the same place.

His hair had turned grey: that was the first thing about him. It was no tidier: heaped round his large-boned, lugubrious face with its lips as flexible as two springs. His eyes were angry. In his arms were a rebec, a recorder and a set of bagpipes, and round his shoulder was slung a small drum. There was a glint from something stuck in his shirt cords: a whistle.

Nicholas said, ‘I stayed away because I found someone much better than you. Better voice, better pieces, and a damn sight better on the drums, which wouldn’t be difficult. Are you playing in churches for halfpennies, now?’

Cochrane said, grinning, ‘See our model. We want some angels with instruments up on one of those capitals. About there. He’s got a portable organ.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Nicholas said. ‘You don’t have to go home all the time. Are you sore with me?’

‘Yes,’ said Willie Roger. He was the King’s master musician. He had taught Nicholas all he knew about music and, more than anyone else, was liable to have been hurt when Nicholas left. Roger said, ‘How long are you here for?’ The instruments winked all about him.

‘For quite a long time,’ Nicholas said. ‘Which is just as well, because you need a porter or you’re going to dent all that bloody brass. Give me your organ.’

‘You bastard,’ said Whistle Willie; and laughed.

Down in the Sacristy, it was about as good as it could be, but necessary to tear himself, hoarse, away from the talk and the laughter to fulfil his obligations to the folk in the cabins. They offered him a bed in the church but, when he explained, they elected to come with him instead,
and walk to the village, bearing lanterns, with Willie playing his pipes in the lead
(Cibalala du riaus du riaus
/
Cibalala durie!)
. All the builders turned out at the noise, and were both flattered and flustered to find the master mason and his team among their guests for the evening. Then they found they had brought their own food and drink and a choir and a consort, and settled down in the dormitory for the best evening yet.

There wasn’t much privacy. Alone with Cochrane for a moment, Nicholas said, ‘I hear Davie Simpson is at Newbattle. David de Salmeton.’

‘Aye. He is. He doesna like you verra much,’ Cochrane said. ‘Nor me. I wouldna play up to his fancy notions. Plenty of money, though.’

‘That’s surprising,’ Nicholas said. He waited, then said, ‘But he didn’t buy the rest for a barony?’

‘The land wasna for sale,’ Cochrane said. ‘My lord Semple got some, and the King has the rest. There’s no title or barony now.’ He paused and said, ‘It was a pity you went.’

‘I needed to go,’ Nicholas said. ‘And I needed to come back. Tom Yare told me something.’

‘Oh?’ said Cochrane. It was hard to hear, with the voices and the instruments and the drums. He said, ‘Come out a minute.’

Outside, the cold struck at once: there was a moon behind trees, and the grass they stood on was sparkling and slippery. Nicholas said, ‘I have told no one. I will tell no one, unless I have permission. That is why I am going to the castle.’

‘That is why they didna let you in,’ Cochrane said.

‘I thought you would know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you working for them a lot?’

‘A bit. They’re strong on Speyside; you’ll know, with the fishing and timber and that. And there’s a lot that needs protecting and redding, but young Mar won’t listen to sense. And then there’s the polite war betwixt Newbattle and the Knights of St John—have you come across that? Oh, that’s a beauty,’ Cochrane said. ‘If you want to get to grips with what’s wrong here the now, just ask me some time when you feel you can stand it.’

‘I shall,’ Nicholas said. Then he said, ‘We’d better go in.’

Later, when they were all rather drunk, Willie Roger crossed to drop beside Nicholas. He said, ‘You knew I’d be at the church. You sang as you arrived.’

‘I thought you might want to escape. I wouldn’t have blamed you.’ He had sung all night; sung until the hoarseness had vanished like fog and his voice had come into itself. Not for anything complicated or grand: verses that fitted the whistle and tabor, or an impertinent flute.

‘I might have done, if you hadn’t sung. Has someone been teaching you?’

Nicholas showed the surprise that he felt. ‘I haven’t been singing. I
haven’t wanted to sing until now.’ He paused and said, ‘I am hoping to bring Gelis and Jodi back, when it is safe.’

‘It is not very safe at the Castle,’ Roger said. ‘I play to them, sometimes Spondaic rhythm in the hypophrygian mode. Soothing music.’

Pythagoras. ‘And you think I should sing to them? Soothing music?’ Nicholas said, unwisely captivated by remembered delight.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re back. Be careful,’ Will Roger said.

N
EXT MORNING, PRESENTING
himself with a sore head at the castle bridge, Nicholas de Fleury was admitted, and escorted over the courtyard, and up to the apartments of Sir Oliver Sinclair, whom Thomas Cochrane (who had left early that morning) called Nowie.

Former Vikings, former Normans, the Sinclairs all ran to fairness and bulk, and Nowie was a large man like his elderly father, who had resigned Roslin and much else to this, his third son. Sir Oliver exclaimed, his gentle face marred with anxiety, ‘Your face! What has happened? Is this my fault as well?’

‘Hardly, my lord,’ Nicholas said. ‘An attack on the highway to Edinburgh, already forgotten.’ It was true. He kept forgetting how he must look. Reminded, he discovered that his face ached as well as his head.

Oliver Sinclair said, ‘Then I am doubly sorry. Please sit, Nicol. I may still call you Nicol? Can you forgive me? When I gave orders not to be disturbed, I had no idea you were coming. Did you have an abominable night?’

‘Noisy. I’ve had worse,’ said Nicholas, sitting. He could smell the aroma of the wine that was being handed him: it was of the same quality as the Turkey wall-hangings and the tiles under his feet. He seemed to recall assisting the Sinclairs quite a bit in their extravagances of four years ago: books and salt-pans and similar knick-knacks. They could afford them rather better than his other victims.

Sir Oliver said, ‘I am sorry, all the same, to have so squandered your valuable time. To have first-hand news of Burgundy must make you the most sought-after merchant in Scotland. I hardly dare keep you to put my own questions.’

Payment in advance. Fair enough. Nicholas settled down.

The short exposition he produced was that which, with appropriate variants, he had already delivered to the Abbot, the Lords Three, the King, the Royal Guard and Big Tam Cochrane, even, with music. It had provided a valuable study in reactions. Oliver Sinclair did not react: he asked one or two charming questions to indicate that he was still willing to listen, and at the end fell into a long silence, which Nicholas didn’t bother to break. Nicholas had mentioned Adorne, and the trust placed in him by the little Duchess of Burgundy. The Sinclairs dealt with
Adorne’s nephew, Sersanders. Nicholas remembered that he still had to visit Sersanders, and wished, with sudden violence, that he were somewhere else. He drank off his wine.