Gemini (46 page)

‘So,’ said Wodman, ‘it’s not worth talking about, because he’s got a head start, and the chances are that he’ll get into Beltrees long before dawn, while my men are still trying to track him. In fact, he may not be going to Beltrees at all. His prisoner may be somewhere quite different, and we are not going to get there by daybreak.’

‘So we go home,’ Henry said. The sneer was familiar.

‘We could,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or we could think it through a bit further. Beltrees is where Simpson has protection, on a route that he knows well at night, and far enough away to dodge large-scale pursuit. He’s likely to go there. And he’s likely to have told us where to go, because above all else he wanted me to follow. Now he’s got Andro and Gelis and Tobie as well, he’s going to be ecstatic.’

‘Why?’ said Gelis. The streaming torchlight showed Wodman looking surprised. Men.

‘I suppose because he wants them all dead,’ Henry said. ‘I rather think I come into that category too. So we may have to storm the tower? We could do with more men.’

‘I thought of sending to Semple,’ said Nicholas. ‘He’s the sheriff of Renfrewshire. We’ll get there before he does, but it might help.’

Wodman said, ‘I told you. I sent to Semple while I was waiting for you. Then I wondered if I’d done right.’

‘I’m sorry. It must have been the soup,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. I’m sure it was right. We’ll get there first to negotiate. Then the heavy troops can come up.’

Very soon after that, Wodman’s first henchman appeared out of the darkness to tell them that Simpson had been seen. He was still riding west, and on a route that would take him to Renfrewshire.

The messenger was reeling with tiredness. Wodman kept him for a bit, then sent him off to beg an hour on the hay in some farm. Henry helped him find one.

While he was away, Gelis moved beside Nicholas. He said, ‘Are you tired?’ There was no weariness in his own face. He looked calm, and steady, and competent. He was concerned for her. He did not show what he might be feeling for Robin.

Gelis said, ‘Yes, of course, but not beyond reason. Nicholas? This is
all because Davie wants you to face him. Wants you more than his own life, perhaps.’

‘It’s the one problem,’ he said. ‘What will Henry do when he discovers, too late, that the prisoner isn’t a prince with a marriageable daughter?’

‘Blame you,’ she said. ‘Then act like any careless superior, throwing a crumb to some once-favoured cripple.’ She paused. ‘Not as good for his character as you’d like.’

‘You can’t have everything,’ Nicholas said. Behind, a faint drumming told that Henry was now catching up. Gelis prepared to drop back. Nicholas said, ‘No. Stay. To hell with Henry and his character. It’s one of the privileges of being married, to ride with one’s wife. Especially when being shown so much leg. I like that one.’

‘I’ve got another just like it,’ said Gelis.

He smiled: the great, glorious smile she remembered from Bruges, and suddenly she was fresh, and supple, and tireless once more.

‘Remind me, some time,’ he said.

She loved him. She loved him also for what he had said without words.
You are my beloved wife. You are one of this group, upon which a man’s life depends
.

F
ATIGUE, HOWEVER WELL
managed, cannot be held off for ever. Towards the end of that night, the cold deepened, and the mud stiffened, so that the worn horses stumbled and slid, and riders, half asleep, were jerked awake. Nicholas increased the number of halts, and then didn’t. Simpson was racing somewhere ahead, and ahead of him rode the soldiers carrying Robin, chilled and jolting and helpless. If Robin had survived the long night at all.

Travelling west, Gelis noticed, Nicholas avoided not only the route of the Newbattle monks but also the castles which might have been expected to succour them. Templehall, the ancient home of Old Will of Berecrofts, was thirty miles to the south-east of Beltrees, and too far away for a messenger. Nearer but also ignored were Hamilton’s Draffane, and Avandale’s place by Strathaven. It was partly, she supposed, for Robin’s sake, for Simpson’s capture would matter more to these men than his prisoner. It might even have been for the opposite reason: that the position of Simpson, of Albany, of Nicholas himself was not yet legally clear, and the King’s men should not be asked to commit themselves.

As their destination drew nearer and the hour became later, however, Nicholas did call on some friends. The Cochranes, where they crossed the Black Cart, provided their last change of horses, and a Johnstone brought out wine and would have given them arms, if Nicholas had
allowed him. Their previous stop had been a short one at Paisley, where Gelis had been brought indoors by nuns, but had refused to stay. When Nicholas left, he had a sheathed sword at his saddle-bow, and had given another to Tobie. Gelis didn’t ask any questions. Nicholas had once presented a window, she recalled, to the Abbot. In honour, she further recalled, of the now disgraced Archbishop replaced by Will Scheves. On the other hand, Paisley traditionally cared for the sons of the monarch, and those who befriended them.

It was there that they heard of a horse litter, travelling fast, which had called at another hospice that night. It had been making west also, but very much earlier. Poor soul, a sick man having to journey that way, in the dark. God be good to him.

Gelis heard Nicholas’s voice as he thanked them, and saw Tobie’s face. She felt like that, too. They were following Robin, and he was alive.

The sky was lightening.

Nicholas said, ‘It’s all right. We shall be in time.’ He must know, as she did, that the Cochranes would now rouse their neighbours and that, inescapably, armed men would join them sooner or later. All Nicholas was really concerned about was reaching Simpson before them.

She had realised, long since, what the bargain was going to be. So had Tobie and, she thought, Wodman, although his manner throughout had been one of reserve: a powerful, silent lieutenant. Henry, the youngest, the least tired, had made his opinion known several times. ‘I’ve told you! Simpson has twelve men, twenty at most! All these families will turn out and help us take them!’

‘So you stay and bring them,’ Nicholas had said, the last time. ‘I want to get Robin out first.’

‘
Robin!
Robin who?’ Henry had said. Tobie and Wodman had exchanged looks. It was the first time the name had been mentioned. In the ensuing silence, Henry’s face had grown scarlet. He had said, ‘Berecrofts! The living corpse who thinks he helps with the training at Greenside? I’m here—You got me to release Simpson because of one cripple who happens to be married to Anselm Adorne’s niece?’ Then he said, ‘And you knew it?’

‘I knew it,’ said Wodman. ‘I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think that it mattered. I want Davie Simpson brought to justice. So does everyone else. Getting Robin out is Nicol’s affair.’

‘Why? Because he cuckolded him?’ Henry said.

‘Of course. That’s why I don’t want him killed,’ Nicholas had said. ‘So you stay behind and come with the local reserves. It isn’t your fight.’

‘Yes it is, since you made me free Simpson,’ Henry said. ‘He might escape you. I’ll see that he’s taken.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Nicholas said. She could make out his eyes as he said it. And the deepened lines by his mouth, and the deliberate set
of his shoulders, moving only to the gait of his horse. She could make out woodlands from moor, and then sky from a line of low hills in the distance. In a long black hollow, water glinted. By the time they reached it and turned their horses up the slope from its banks, points of light could be seen, and the shapeless smoke of newly stirred fires, grey in the darkness.

She knew where she was, for she had taken this way to Beltrees with Bel. The path they were climbing led to the ridge above Simpson’s castle, which had once belonged to Nicholas. And the dark blur they had passed at the loch-end was Elliotstoun Castle, the home of the Semples.

It was empty. They knew as much from Wodman’s second scout, who had discovered it lightless and unresponsive when sent ahead to find out what he could. The same man, casting about, had found a herdsman to tell him that a party of horse had arrived some hours since, and made its way up the same ridge they were climbing, followed after some time by a single rider.

It could be anyone. They had to believe that it was the detachment carrying Robin, followed by Simpson himself. In which case, Simpson’s plan had succeeded. He was locked in his tower, waiting to bargain with Nicholas.

Nicholas said, ‘I think we dismount. Henry, you glitter. Stay here with the horses and Andro’s man. Gelis—’

‘I’m coming,’ she said. They spoke in murmurs. The harness chinked, and was still as the tired horses drooped. Their footsteps sank into grass. It was so quiet that a raucous pulsing of gulls’ cries was shocking. A blackbird uttered a query, and was answered, and far below, on the water, a line of duck rose with a paddling splash. Tobie trudged up the slope with her, and they lay down beside Andro and Nicholas at the edge of the ridge. Below, she recalled, was a gentle hollow, sunlit by day, but a pool of darkness by night. Beyond was the sky, free of cloud to the south and east. The stillness before dawn in the country; the hour that refreshes the soul.

Of course, they were expected. Approaching, they had put out their torches, but the sound of their horses would carry. Simpson’s scouts would have seen them, and reported back to the fortress. We can negotiate. There is only a handful of men, and a woman. Gelis closed her eyes, and opened them, and looked down not into darkness, but into the searing bright bower of elfland, standing open, and vile, to receive her.

She choked. Then Nicholas’s hand closed over hers, and she looked again, with her mind.

The tower of Beltrees lay like a courtesan in its gardens below her, coruscating with light; garlanded with lanterns; set with lamps and torchières and candelabra which sparkled and flickered and danced in the clear, icy air. A whimsy; a seemingly innocent gesture; a welcome from a
dangerous man who wished to indicate that he, and he alone, was master here. She understood. Her heart slowing, she set it aside, and studied the buildings.

She had last seen this place as Tam Cochrane had designed it for Nicholas: the old keep restored and embellished; and the guest-houses, chapel and hall added in harmony with it, spare of ornament and simple in line, round three sides of a square. All the extravagance had been reserved for within.

Now she saw what David Simpson had done, through the architect he had employed in place of Tam. Cochrane’s refusal no longer surprised her. In remaking Beltrees, Davie Simpson had debauched his own tastes to achieve a work of outrageous vulgarity. Now the walls, patterned, coloured and gilded, had grown upper storeys with lavish dormers encrusted with foliage and offensive grotesques. False chimneys, gnarled with sculpture, rose into the sky. The stables looked like a brothel, and the old keep itself had lost its discreet ornaments and its dignity in a welter of painted accretions.

At this moment, it mattered to none of them. What mattered now was what the brilliant light was meant to expose: that every door of every building stood open, and every shutter as well. That there were no horses left in the stables or dogs in the kennels or birds in the mews. That there were no men to be seen, for the place was deserted.

The light from the great double doors spilled down the steps, augmented by the bright lantern above them. The yard before them showed the trampling of many boots, and the stable-yard was deep in freshly churned mud. The exodus had just taken place.

Wodman said, ‘You thought he would wait for you.’

‘Maybe he has.’ It was Henry, arrived glittering where there was no point in concealment. ‘Maybe it’s an invitation. So what do you think,
Uncle
?’

Nicholas didn’t answer. Tobie said, ‘I don’t think I can get up. I certainly don’t think I can get on that horse and follow them. Do you think they know that?’

‘I don’t know. Stay here. I’ll go down.’ Nicholas had got to his feet and stretched a hand for the reins. Henry kept them.

Henry said, ‘I rather think that may be what he’s hoping for. Why don’t I go first and see? Since I do have some protection?’

There was a pause. ‘All right,’ Nicholas said. ‘You go first, and I’ll walk behind you. The others can wait. If they have artillery, you might as well all go away.’

‘They don’t,’ Henry said. He should know. Kilmirren was not far away.

Wodman said, ‘Don’t be a fool. We’ll all come.’

Again, Nicholas didn’t argue. She supposed that, like them all, he
was thinking of what he might be going to find. If the nature of the challenge had altered, David would no longer need Robin.

They mounted, and achieved the ridge and rode down to the trampled forecourt, and across to the steps, where there were tethering-rings. Wodman’s man took the horses. Nicholas said, ‘Let’s not walk through the front door to begin with. Let’s start somewhere else.’

‘You’ve done this before,’ Andro said.

It was Andro he kept at his side during that swift and vigilant tour, with Henry strolling behind in supercilious mode, and Tobie and Gelis to the rear. Beginning with the outlying quarters, Nicholas walked through each room, finding no one, and leaving the keep to the last. Then he entered that, from the cellars, and began to make his way up. The rest followed.

They had seen nothing: no vibrating crossbows, no threatening weights. No douches, no iron birds shrilling, no traps that opened, where mattresses should have been laid. This time, Gelis was forbidden to lead, and Tobie held her arm as they walked. There had been kegs in the cellar, labelled and sealed and laid beside other crates, all clearly merchandise. Some of them contained artillery powder, but there was no actual artillery, only a store for hand-weapons, which was empty.

Nothing else had been removed. Inside, the castle was as Davie Simpson had furnished it, which was as a palace owned by a prince. Nicholas, squandering money, had packed this building with expensive objects, now gone, and Bel had done the same, in her dogged efforts to drain his resources. The furnishings purchased by this owner—the sumptuous inlaid patterned beds, the Flemish paintings, the Italian sculptures, the painted coffers, the Turkey rugs and the knotted pile carpets from Naples, the arras, the Florentine glazed terracotta, the velvet pillows and the tooled leather cushions, the tall, carved chairs and the plaster-work, the painted glass, the carved, gilded cupboards, the walnut firescreens and the embroidered Venetian hangings were the
chefs-d’oeuvres
of craftsmen from all over the world, commissioned, chosen, assembled by a master, in deliberate contrast to the carcass that housed it. It appeared priceless. Gelis could guess what it cost. She knew where the gold came from.