Gemini (65 page)

‘You were sorry for him,’ she said. ‘So were we all. But he was ill. He was dangerous. He would have had to be cared for to the end of his life, or face the hangman, as he continued to kill. He may have realised that himself.’

‘I don’t think he even did that,’ Nicholas said. He got up, more deliberately than usual.

Gelis ached for him. Nevertheless, she spoke levelly. ‘There is one other thing. You know that St Pol of Kilmirren is in town?’

Nicholas sat down again. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry. He called this morning to deposit a single piece of wicked news. You remember the Hamilton funeral?’

‘Clearly,’ Nicholas said.

‘In November, Henry left the keep for Kilmirren. There, he wrote and sent off a letter, without telling his grandfather until it had gone. It’s on its way to Simon his father, insisting that he come back to Scotland at once.’

There was a silence. Nicholas said, ‘Can he? He was exiled.’

‘On a medical charge, on the King’s orders. Apparently the King later relented, but Simon’s father didn’t mention it to him. Seemingly, St Pol doesn’t want Simon home.’

‘Which is why Henry has sent for him. What did St Pol say about that?’

‘Just that Henry seemed to believe that Simon was a person before whom brave men shivered in tears.’ She heard the chill in her voice as she repeated it. Simon, athletic and fair as Henry was fair, had once been her despised and unknowing tool against Nicholas. But as a fighting man, Simon de St Pol did not deserve his father’s contempt. And, of course, he would never have Henry’s. Simon’s petty beliefs, Simon’s vindictiveness would immediately be adopted by Henry. She said again, ‘I’m so sorry.’

He said, ‘So am I.’ He sounded uncharacteristically at a loss. She thought she saw in his face the same look he had worn when coming to tell her of Johndie Mar’s death.

She said slowly, ‘It’s winter. Nothing can happen for a long time. And you don’t need to wait for him. You can leave Scotland now with a free conscience. Havens are re-opening elsewhere. Adorne knows it. Even this poor Prince’s death has smoothed the way, and so has Albany’s absence. The kingdom has had everything you can give it for three years, and they need you less now. It is worth thinking about.’

‘And you?’ Nicholas said. ‘Would you leave?’

‘Wherever you go, there I shall be,’ Gelis said. ‘Although, whatever you suggest, I shall probably complain about it.’

T
HE SUDDEN DEATH
of John, Earl of Mar, was announced, but because (as the Abbot of Holyrood said) God in his Ipseity chose to cap the world that winter with ice, it did not immediately cause a furore, even in the country where it happened, although the Princesses Mary and Margaret furiously mourned their young brother, and the King descended into gloom.

The severe weather also cloaked happenings elsewhere. Yule and the following weeks passed in untoward frozen calm, in which families kept to their hearths and saved their energy and their food for the spring and the summer. Only, for good or for ill, Dr Ireland contrived to buffet his way back to France, having warmly recommended to James a reconciliation with his dear brother Albany, and tested the Scottish King’s willingness to abandon his friendship with England.

King James, advised by his Councillors, dismissed an accommodation with Albany, and remarked that he could hardly contemplate breaking the peace unless much better provided with gunners and cannon. King Louis failed to take the hint. As a result, Albany remained rent-free all winter in France, and in January married his Bourbon, a lady of quality distantly related, unsurprisingly, to Charlotte, the wife of Wolfaert van Borselen. It was conveyed to the scholarly Dr Ireland that, come the spring, he might be sent back to continue his kind advisory offices in Scotland. Dr Ireland, who admired Louis in much the same way, he suspected, as de Fleury, agreed peacefully.

Unknown to England, Louis of France made secret approaches to Maximilian of Burgundy.

Unknown to France, Edward of England engaged in exploratory talks with the same Duke of Burgundy, largely to elicit whether, if Edward risked his French pension, Maximilian would make good its loss.

England learned, at last, why the Princess Margaret was not coming south to wed the King’s brother-in-law. England looked at Scotland’s short-tempered King, and at the King’s younger brother in France, perfectly in position to spearhead a French war to oust King James and threaten England on two fronts. England laid plans for the first break in the weather.

James of Scotland, unimpeded by his Council, renewed (for the third time) his English safe conduct to take one thousand men through that realm on his way as a pious pilgrim to Amiens. An expensive gold medallion was struck by a rich goldsmith at Berwick and sent to Amiens as a mark of intent. Amiens was well known as the King of France’s preferred meeting-place, and the intent, obvious to England, represented a threat which had nothing to do with the shrine of St John.

Spring hovered. On the basis of the last news from Bruges, Anselm Adorne began provisionally to conclude his affairs, which included making secure arrangements for the future of his daughter, who was to remain with the nuns. With his nephew and niece as her guardians, and the goodwill of her aunt on her mother’s side, Euphemia would receive the income from Cortachy, and from the several tenements which her father had purchased in Linlithgow, whose Palace was owned by the Queen. There was also the mill he had built, not far from the port of Blackness. It served a prosperous area, and was capable of a good annual return. As for the rest, his own position of service in Linlithgow would devolve on his departure to Sersanders, who would remain as his agent. That is, if the present mood in Bruges remained the same. If, with the past now forgotten, he could take his place once more in the merchant community, if not in civic life.

Nicholas had made no such moves, but because it was bad business practice to say nothing, had let it be known that he would reconsider his future in the spring. No one was particularly pleased, although the councillors and the traders could hardly fault his reasoning on material grounds. He was a talented man, with the right to take his family where wealth and position were offered. He suffered a series of informal suppers with each of the senior judges and councillors, and was taken out and unsuccessfully plied with drink by all the shipmasters and an assortment of the late Phemie’s cousins. Adorne had always known the extent of his options but had applied no pressure, although his own strongest wish, it was clear, was to see Nicholas return to his calf country of Bruges.

Kathi took no sides at all, nor did Gelis. The most miserable part of the exercise was introducing the possibility to Robin. Although he could sit, and there had been a faint easement in one stricken shoulder, Robin was now as he always would be, without the use of one side. Frustrated, currently immured by the weather, he had fallen into one of his rare fits
of rebellion, when he fought the world as well as his disability. This, one did not treat with sport or diversion, but by becoming an intellectual football. Having floated, at second hand, the subject of his departure, Nicholas waited a day and then hopped and skidded over the packed snow down to the nursery in Kathi’s house. There, having swept Hob on to his back, and played a short, violent game with a screaming Margaret and Rankin, Nicholas left the room and presented himself, breathless, at Robin’s wheelchair.

‘How kind,’ said Robin. ‘What will they do for proper sport, once you have gone? So have you decided? France, or Venice, or Burgundy? Or even the Duke of Lorraine?’ His jaw was knotted through the fine skin.

Nicholas sat down with a bang. He said, ‘I’m going to find the man who took your leg off. And then I’m going to ask him to take off the other one. Will you stop this? I may not go away. If I go away, I’ll come back. And if I don’t, you have a life of your own. We’re not bloody married.’

Robin went very white.

Nicholas said, ‘You’re supposed to think it over, and then give a furious laugh, and then kick me out. That is, you can’t kick me out from a wheelchair. So devise your own bloody response.’

‘You bastard,’ said Robin.

‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘But it’s a fast way of reminding us both how much we hate one another. I’m going to get beer. Line up your questions.’

Afterwards they argued, but not bitterly, although Robin did a lot of objecting. Towards the end, Nicholas said, ‘Anyway, you heard. Simon is coming.’

‘And that really frightens you,’ Robin said. ‘If Henry had known you were leaving, he would never have called Simon back in the first place.’

‘Yes, he would,’ Nicholas said. ‘It’s as much about his grandfather, now, as about me. In fact, they can sort it out better without me.’ This was true. As he thought Gelis guessed, it was the strongest inducement, among several, for leaving.

‘And I thought Julius was coming?’ pursued Robin doggedly.

‘Then Julius can fight Simon for me. Once Simon’s dead, I’ll come back.’

‘You
are
a clod,’ Robin said automatically. He added, ‘You know what they feel, Willie Roger and Cochrane and the Leithers? It’s like the last time. You turn your back and leave whenever you feel like it.’

Nicholas said, ‘Do you think it’s like the last time?’

And Robin had the grace to flush, and say, ‘No.’

There seemed little reason after that why Nicholas de Fleury should, once home, shut the door of his office and, with solitary application, drink until he could no longer think clearly. The Donatello pinned above
him had surely no relevance. He had been just twenty, hardly older than Henry, when it was done. And anyway, John le Grant had already defined the situation with punctilio. ‘That was then, when they needed us. Now, they’re fine.’

Sod sorting out people. Sod John le Grant.

T
HE SNOW CEASED;
the rain stopped; the gales abated and, glittering like a new set of teeth, the landscape was found to have changed.

At that precise moment, spurred by hearty cries of incitement from France, Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus, led an army raised by Albany’s friends across the Border deep into England, and for three days set them to burn, kill, pillage and rape, wasting the countryside as far south as Bamburgh.

By the time Edinburgh learned of it, and Angus had been located and brought in for appalled interrogation, the news had reached London. A response was dictated by the King of England himself and sent north, carried by the accustomed if not overjoyed hand of Master Alexander Leigh.

Through many reigns, the measured language of diplomacy had been developed to convey, with the utmost suavity, the outraged demands of the sender. What Master Leigh brought was not a secretary’s work. It was an explosion of anger from Edward himself, abjuring diplomacy and even, perhaps, commonsense.

Nicholas carried the news of Edward’s demands to Lord Cortachy’s house, bursting into the office where Adorne held his weekly meetings with Wodman and Gelis. ‘Listen! Listen!’ He began to collapse into laughter and then caught himself. ‘No. Really. Listen.’

All three looked up from where they sat. Gelis kept her face grave. Adorne closed his ledger with care, and clasped his hands on the table before him. ‘We are listening. King Edward has made his complaint about Angus’s raid?’

‘You could say that,’ Nicholas said. He had come to a halt. By mustering all his considerable height, he had somehow assumed the massive, corpulent form, vast in belly and buttocks, of the once-golden monarch of York. His eyeballs bulged like peeled eggs, and his English accent was conspicuously accurate.

‘Edward to James, right high and mighty Prince and dearest brother and cousin, go to hell.
Before
leaving, you will kindly note the following injuries and make reformation.
Item
, despite the great and notable sums of money received for the assured marriage of his son, the King has allowed his neighbour’s subjects on the Borders to be invaded, murdered and slain, without cause and against all honour, law of arms and good conscience. This is intolerable. Heads must fly.
Item
, after all our many
reminders, James of Scotland wrongfully occupies many of the King’s towns and seigneuries, such as Berwick, Coldingham and Roxburgh, having no right nor title to these. We require them to be returned.
Item
, we notice that the King has not done homage unto the King of England, as his ancestors have done in time past. What is he thinking of?
Item
, having received lavish annual payments towards the marriage of his son to the Princess Cecilia, James of Scotland is required to deliver the Prince into the hands of my lord of Northumberland by the last day of May for the accomplishment of the said marriage. (How old is he? Six?) And
final item
, if, my lord, you are so conscienceless as to object to these demands, we—in our noble reluctance to spill Christian blood—will reduce our requirements to two. Send us the Prince. He’s Cecilia’s. And hand over Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s ours.’

He crashed down. Gelis clapped. Wodman said, ‘Christ!’ And Adorne, stirring, said, ‘Well, at least he moderated towards the end. It’s rhetoric, of course, but perfectly understandable, after what Angus did. What will the King reply?’

‘They’re still discussing it. Chilly disbelief followed by a counterclaim of previous provocation, followed by an offer of compensation, I should think,’ Nicholas said. ‘There’s also an old charge dating from Lisle’s death, you remember, and the temporary capture of Henry Northumberland, whose family think Berwick is theirs anyway. And yes, it was chiefly a stroke in response to the King’s well-advertised longing to travel to Amiens.
Don’t get too friendly with France, or I can make things really awkward
. Bishop Spens agrees, but isn’t too happy.’