Gemini (42 page)

He himself had found it sufficiently oppressive to send the same news to his former manager Gregorio who, although now happily married with his own son, had once had a fondness for Phemie. He had had to use less discrimination writing to Diniz in Bruges and Moriz in Germany, neither of whom would be over-surprised. Julius, of course, would not only be unsurprised, but avid for details. Nicholas trusted Moriz to keep Julius fully occupied in Cologne, and not where he could rampage about upsetting the delicate balance in Scotland.

Relating now the essence of the journey with Albany, Nicholas had cause to remember just how fragile it was. He was not interrupted by either listener until he mentioned Melrose, upon which Adorne caught him up suddenly. ‘Davie Simpson had been there?’

‘Supposedly on Newbattle business. Of course, it’s the daughter-house. I couldn’t find out why. Alec Brown’s kinsman the Abbot was away, and Alec and both his brothers have this love-hate relationship with Newbattle over the salt-pans and Bathgate. There was also some talk of John of Scougal, the laird, and a law suit.’

‘That wouldn’t be surprising,’ said Adorne. ‘They’re a litigious family. And friendly with your Alec Brown among others.’ Adorne was also friendly with Browns. He had lodged one of them in Bruges, when James had wanted him taught to master the lute. The tasks of a Conservator were multifarious.

‘Fertile ground for our Davie,’ said Nicholas. ‘Andro, both the Browns and the Scougals have sent sons to be Archers in France. Do they know anything about Simpson that we don’t? Do you know anything that we don’t?’

There was the usual silence. Adorne said, ‘Nicholas. For the hundredth time. Simpson did nothing in France that could give us any hold over him. He contrived to leave the Archers when Andro did, in order to share a lucrative post with St Pol. Now that St Pol has turned against him, don’t you think he would have exposed any misdemeanours by now? I sympathise. We know that Simpson is planning something. We shall find out what it is. And meanwhile, there is the
Star
. It should be there by Christmas, Gelis says. It is at least appropriate.’

‘And Camulio comes when?’

‘The word is,’ Adorne said, ‘that the Reverend Father in God, the new Bishop of Caithness, will return to Scotland in the spring. So Simpson will act between now and then.’

‘Or, most likely, between Twelfth Night and then. Good,’ said Nicholas.
‘I think it is time we finally parted company with Davie Simpson. A public parting. The kind of parting that even the Princesses and Albany will have no qualms about. And then we can begin to bring them all into the fold.’

‘You have Albany now,’ Wodman said. ‘Or most of him.’

‘No one has most of him,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not even Sandy. But losing Simpson will be a beginning.’

Q
UICK AS THEY
were, it was late by the time Nicholas left, and reached his own home. Gelis forgave him.

After she had forgiven him, she stroked him for a long time, causing him to sink into a beneficent calm. He thought, through the haze, that if he could stand it, he might even leave home more often. Then he laughed, and pulled on his shirt, and found them both something to drink, and asked about Avandale and Colquhoun. Then he told her what he had told Adorne. They had somehow settled back into bed, sitting folded together.

‘It was difficult. Inglis was a great help; Alec less so. Alec doesn’t care what happens, so long as he can trade. And I couldn’t act the schoolmaster to Sandy, or I’d lose him. I had to let him disappear, twice. That was when he met Archie Douglas Angus, Earl of.’

‘You had him followed? Did Liddell help?’

‘Liddell disappeared when Sandy did. I don’t know if he likes Angus very much, but that same Archie Douglas is Liddell’s landlord in Forfar. Angus rents out a lot of property there, next to Cortachy. And Angus’s wife is a Boyd, Tom Boyd’s sister. Adorne got some of their land.’

Gelis stopped drinking. Her shoulders against him were moist. A drop of wine from the base of the cup made a glittering bead on the curve of one breast, and began slowly to find its way down. When he stemmed it with two broad, coddling fingertips, she trapped them against her. ‘No. Listen. Wasn’t the first Tom Preston killed at Forfar? At the sheriff court during a quarrel?’

‘Ask Leithie, Thomas the Second. Yes. Thomas One died five years ago. That was when Adorne had gone back to Bruges, and was about to be sent on Burgundian business to Poland.’

‘So the quarrel was over his land?’

‘I couldn’t find out. Someone in Edinburgh knew there was going to be trouble at Forfar and tried to cancel the meeting, but the message didn’t get through. Again, justice courts are notorious for dangerous squabbles, and Preston might have been killed by mischance. No one else died. Like everyone else, Preston had been raising money for trade by handing over recoverable assets to people he could trust to return them eventually. People like his own Craigmillar family, and James Shaw, with
bits of the old Colquhoun lands of Sauchie. When Preston died, they got to keep them, of course.’

There was a pause. Gelis said, ‘Jordan de St Pol’s wife was called Shaw.’

‘So are a lot of people. She was dead long before Preston was killed. I don’t think it’s relevant,’ Nicholas said.

‘But you don’t know for sure. Did you know that Bel’s last name is Erskine?’ She had not lifted her eyes to observe him. Her head pillowed against him, she was watching the pulse in his throat. The two joys of living with Gelis: the challenges and the love.

Nicholas said, ‘Yes, I knew.’ He stirred his fingers within hers, so that this time she looked up. He said, ‘Gelis. I know what we agreed. The only safety for you, for me, for Adorne, for all of us is to be open with one another. To lodge a record, in triplicate, of everything that we do. You know all that matters about me, except for one or two secrets that aren’t mine; and nothing about them will ever worry you.’

She held his gaze for a long time, and then smiled. ‘No other children with dimples?’

With Gelis, there were no barriers now when he was conveying a truth. Shaking his head, he let his smiling eyes answer. Then he returned freely to nonsense.

‘How did you guess? Five in the Curia alone, all upstanding young priests.’

It sounded flippant. No one else could know that something caught in his throat as he spoke. Something very small and remote, like a secret.

It was strange, then, that she lay still at his heart, and didn’t smile, or retort, or embark, as only she could, on another complex, ardent, sensual triumph. It was strange and mortally comforting that, instead, she said only, ‘I’m here.’

D
ESPITE KNOWING WHAT
everyone else knew, Tobie also was happy.

His charges were well. The birth of Hob had transformed Hob’s young father. What had been done grimly before was now done with exuberance, including a robust way with his wheelchair which had added astonishing power to the muscles on his active side. With an attendant, he roved Leith and Edinburgh and even, with a contrivance of John’s, got himself on a horse. The attendant was as irresponsible as he was, and not much older; they got into scrapes from which Kathi would herd them both home, trying to sound stern while dissolving in thankfulness.

Clémence assisted, while comfortably dividing her time amongst the infants Hob and Efemie, and the older children. She also regularly helped the Princess Mary, which meant that she could be continually astonished by the progress Jodi was making, while checking his lapses in
manners. It made Jodi feel safe, if the casual visits of his father had not already done so. Tam Cochrane also dropped by, and bullied him.

Now that he was less needed at home, Tobie had begun to establish a practice. Some physicians, preferring not to lodge in a great household, operated from their homes. Most followed the custom of Bruges and rented rooms in a tavern, which were also used by other professionals, such as scribes or lawyers or notaries. Himself, he liked the Argyll inn, because he admired the great Campbell who owned it. He claimed to be astonished at Clémence when she suggested that the chief attraction might lie with the hostess. But truly, you would search St Johnstoun of Perth and Stirling and Edinburgh before you found a brewster-wifie as good as Lang Bessie.

It was an innocent dream, for a once-randy doctor. As a medical man, Tobie admired the splendours of Bessie, but that was all, for he was also part of a team. Argyll’s tavern made just the kind of meeting-place Nicholas wanted, when he needed John or Andro or Tobie to tell him what was happening, or to meet Colin Campbell himself, or Scheves or Whitelaw or Avandale outside their houses. Women couldn’t so easily come there, or Robin, but other places were found. It was like it used to be: a team of experts in Bruges. It was better than it used to be: for Nicholas was at the centre, well liked and well supported; with even Anselm Adorne content to be his partner. Burgundy had been too big; so had France. Tobie himself had once chosen Urbino. Scotland was like Urbino: it was the right size for them all. They could help, here.

He even got to appreciate Conrad, the formidable doctor who had once looked after Jodi. He respected Scheves, not because he was now an Archbishop, but because of the medicine he had studied at Louvain. As for Andreas, the other Louvain graduate, Tobie had long since identified a common streak of levity which had banished all their old rivalry, although he shied from the other man’s charts and would not let him talk of astrology. Nicholas plumbing the earth had been bad enough. Tobie was thankful, he mentioned to Clémence, that the lad’s divining had stopped.

Tobie didn’t realise how much Clémence worried, on his behalf, in case anything happened to Nicholas. Or that in Iceland, long ago, Kathi too had been struck by the place Nicholas held in their lives, and had been afraid for them all, and still was. Kathi, active and chattering, often helped Tobie with his visits. Margaret also wanted to come, but was to wait until she was four. Margaret didn’t like being without Jodi.

Yule came, and they all received presents.

The King gave his physicians thick scarlet gowns, and caps with lappets.

The Queen got a new hat from five murders, the King having discovered
that he could raise money by pardoning crimes. He had begun (he jested) to pursue some slight misdemeanours for small clothes.

Tam Cochrane received a gold chain. So did Adorne. Nicholas got a fancy engraved ring from Sandy, and another, elegant in its restraint, from Adorne. He felt embarrassed by Sandy’s and touched by Adorne’s. He wore neither.

Gelis gave him a drawing, once torn and now lovingly pieced together. It was of himself, young and laughing and nude, and it was signed by Donatello, who had added a certain word under his name. Nicholas showed it to John, who went away and didn’t come back for a while.

When he did, it was simply to say, ‘It’s all right. I’m not going back. Or not yet.’

The lure, the enchantment of the world they had left. The enchantment of beauty: of glorious buildings and exquisite gardens, of fabric and carvings; of music and poetry and paintings. The sublime significance of the sea, and the snows, and the deserts.

Nicholas said, ‘I know. I know. Some day perhaps. But not yet.’

Sod beauty. The messy significance of sorting out people.

T
HE SIRE DE
F
LEURY
and his friends were invited to join the Court, which had settled at Craigmillar Castle for the festive weeks following Epiphany.

It had been an open winter. Ships sailed into Leith with tall stories. Lowrie brought a messenger to speak to Nicholas. He had ridden straight from the port, and was frightened and breathless.

‘The Star of Bethlehem!’

Sir John Colquhoun’s ships dealt in French wine and salt, and usually returned to the west coast, not Leith. But, of course, any news from the Narrow Sea would speed, skiff by caravel by barge, to these parts. ‘What?’ said Nicholas.

It was all that he hoped. The news would have reached Simpson by now. Nicholas sent word to all who should know, and presently set off, in grand cavalcade, for royal revelry at Craigmillar Castle. With him went Gelis and Tobie, John le Grant and Andro Wodman, robed and gloved and jewelled as the festival required, but avoiding Venetian extravagance. Arms were not carried. Anselm Adorne was among the many already in residence at the castle, as was his niece Katelinje, lady of Berecrofts. They had already met the Procurator of the Bishop-elect of Caithness, David Simpson.

•  •  •

C
ROWNING ITS OWN
hill to the south-east of Edinburgh, Craigmillar had been built by the Prestons of Gorton, who had come from Roslin more than a century since, and who guarded their doors with the Roslin device of a bridge over rock. Craigmillar was halfway between Roslin and Leith: from Craigmillar, as from Roslin, you could see the Pentland hills and the sea. From Craigmillar, you could also see the crag of Arthur’s Seat and the David’s Tower of Edinburgh Castle, upon which Craigmillar was modelled. The Sinclairs and the Prestons were kinsmen, and had been King’s men since before the first King James and his Sinclair guardian were imprisoned in England together. The Prestons’ heraldic device, repeated all over the castle, was
argent three unicorn heads erased sable:
hail James Stewart and Anselm Adorne and the late Duchess Eleanor. And, of course, Nicholas de Fleury.

Both Prestons and Sinclairs had houses in Edinburgh. The defensible keeps were outside, on their baronial land, useful for war and for feasts and as a bolt-hole from the pest. Craigmillar, being healthy and convenient for Edinburgh, was frequently commandeered by the Court, which used its secure rooms for its treasure, and caused to be erected massed ancillary buildings for its household. In return, the Prestons enjoyed well-deserved favours, most of them to do with profit margins on luxury goods, but encompassing such imponderables as forgiveness for outspoken females. They shared the same type of posts as the Sinclairs: Nanse Preston now nursed the Queen’s children. As a family—a prolific family, fruitful in Thomases and Simons and Wills—they were also rich. A generation ago, a Sir William Preston of Craigmillar had brought back the armbone of St Giles for St Giles. Bruges already had an armbone of St Giles in its St Giles. Edinburgh was almost upsides with Bruges. One of these days, Edinburgh would be the equal of Bruges. Only Gibbie Fish, who fashioned the reliquary case, could have told them that both were left arms.