Gemini (69 page)

Nicholas walked through the door and slammed it shut with a report that made the walls shudder. The shouting sharpened, diminished and stopped. The voice of Julius was the last to fade, as he belatedly turned. But before that, blue and white and gold, incandescent with anger, Simon de St Pol had dropped his arms and focused his gaze on the door, and then, with increasing satisfaction, on the man standing before it.

Julius hiccoughed.

Katelinje Sersanders said something under her breath, and Tobie closed a hand on her arm. John le Grant sent a swift glance to Crackbene, and Gelis remained where she was, between Robin’s chair and the motionless figure of Clémence. Only Jordan de Fleury, aged nearly twelve, quietly set down the mugs he had been filling and, crossing the floor, went to stand by his father. Nicholas smiled at him.

Simon said, ‘What a big bang, my poor Claes. Was it to bring your
other men running? Well, there is young Jordan, at least, to protect you. You didn’t dare come to me.’

‘I could come tomorrow,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or now, when we have eaten. Will you join us?’

It sounded almost normal, even to Kathi. In fact, he was raising a screen; picking words that would guide them all, not just himself, through the dangerous, secret-filled ground.

Simon laughed a little. He was dressed for the field, and still armed. He had probably been called out on duty, as they had. He said, ‘Eat with you? Hardly. I want a word with your sad henchman here, and one with you, and then I propose a fair fight between you and me. The King couldn’t object, could he, to a fair fight to wipe out an insult? Jordan, did you know that your mother’s a whore, and your father fornicates with the cripple’s wife?’

Everyone but Nicholas moved. But before the first flash of steel, Jodi had shot from his father’s side and flung himself over the room to the speaker. He had snatched a mug as he raced. Now he hurled the contents full over Simon’s smiling face.

Simon’s arms locked about him, a man’s powerful arms, impervious to the struggles and kicks of a boy. Simon licked his lips, in exaggerated appreciation of the ale. Simon said, ‘At least Henry would know not to do that. Heigh-ho. So clear the room, please. I want the boy, Claes and Julius to remain. Nobody else.’

Robin said, ‘I am not going. He has insulted my wife.’

Gelis drew in her breath. Simon de St Pol said, ‘As you please. I’m only one man. I’ll kill the boy first, and then as many of you as I can. You decide.’

Robin’s eyes turned to Nicholas. The same uncertainty held them all silent. Nicholas answered them all, but looked only at Robin. ‘It’s best if you go. Robin, no one believes that for a moment. It was one of Simpson’s lies. Will you leave your honour in my hands? If you please?’

Tobie stiffened. Kathi said, ‘Yes. We go.’ Gelis had already begun to move to the door. For a single moment, her gaze had met that of Nicholas, but neither spoke. Robin turned his head aside and Clémence, taking hold of his chair, began to push. Simon spoke, and the door to the next house was locked. The shutters were already closed. Looking back as she left the room, Kathi saw a sudden movement close to the door, as if the boy had tried to grasp Simon’s sword. As she watched, Simon struck the lad to the ground and, kneeling, unbuckled his belt and began to shackle him with it. Julius exclaimed, and then subsided at the look Nicholas threw him. When the door closed, and then locked, she was left with a picture of Nicholas and Julius standing together, facing Simon, at whose feet the boy lay. Julius was swaying. Like Nicholas, he carried no arms. They were at Simon’s mercy. That is, any axeman could chop
down the doors. But before they got very far, Nicholas’s son at the very least could be dead.

She wondered if Simon was really prepared to be killed if that happened; or if he thought that none of these men would dare. She knew that if Nicholas had not allowed Jodi to run, Simon de St Pol would be dead, not to mention the inebriated Julius. She wondered by what law of retribution Nicholas was being brought, over and over, to weigh one life, one responsibility against another. She wished she were a man.

I
NSIDE THE DOOR
, Simon de St Pol stood with the boy at his feet, his hair an aureole of gold, and his sword resting point-down next the boy’s face, like that of a crusader in effigy. The candles burned, and the thickened air carried the odours of the uneaten food on the trestles and the ale in the litter of mugs.

Without excitement, Nicholas spoke. ‘All right. That’s enough.

‘Julius, sit down. St Pol, I am not as unarmed as I appear, and if you touch that boy again, I shall kill you. Now say what you want to say, and let’s get it over. Is it about Julius’s step-daughter?’

He sounded different. He sounded like Whitelaw, or Avandale, or Nowie Sinclair. Julius blinked. Jodi’s eyes became very bright. Simon de St Pol said, ‘I think you should speak when you are spoken to. I will ask the questions.’

‘Then ask them quickly,’ Nicholas said. ‘Wodman will have got to your father by now.’

Simon went red. He lifted the sword.

‘And if you do anything, you and he will be sent back to Portugal. At the very least,’ Nicholas said.

Julius, although bleary, had heard Nicholas mention his step-daughter. He gazed at him. ‘Bonne? Do you know about Bonne? He was trying to make out that she’s here.’

‘It’s a long story. She arrived at Kilmirren House while you and I were away. Adorne heard about it, and had her taken to Haddington Priory. I didn’t know about any of this until just now. St Pol thinks I did.’ He wasn’t really speaking to Julius.

‘I know you did,’ said Simon de St Pol. ‘Or why force her away from my house? It wasn’t her idea to go. She says you pay for her clothes and her keep. She doesn’t know why, but one may speculate. Is she to be your next wife, or your next bedfellow, Nicholas? The Prioress ought to be warned of your character. I could give her a list of your mistresses.’

‘I believe you,’ Nicholas said. He was becoming tired of it all, or he wouldn’t have said it. It referred to a piece of history about which Julius was ignorant. To him, therefore, it was quite amazing that a simple
remark should goad Simon into swinging his sword and, abandoning all his point of vantage, launching himself over the room against Nicholas.

Unfortunately for Nicholas, he was exactly as unarmed as he appeared. He escaped the first swipe by vaulting over a trestle and keeping it between himself and the swordsman. He said, ‘Julius. Untie Jodi,’ and ducked. There was a crash and a splintering of dishes above him. A gelatine slid down his shoulder and he could smell sauce in his hair. Simon tugged his sword free of the wood of the table and was lifting the blade when Nicholas rose, picked up a ham and rammed it on the point of the steel. Then, as Simon lunged, he slid to the end of the table where the pewter cups were, and began to throw them. Simon fended them off with an arm, shook his sword free and advanced.

Further off, there was another crash. Either on his way to or from Jodi, Julius had slipped on the tiles and now lay groaning where he had fallen. The groans sounded more liquid than painful. Simon’s sword, glittering, drew Nicholas’s attention suddenly back to the matter in hand, and he jumped aside just in time. A chair back exploded in splinters as he wheeled round it and snatched up a stool. Simon’s swordpoint drove straight through it, and Nicholas dropped it just in time, backing. The second trestle, which he had feared to find barring his way, turned out instead to be close to one side, with a selection of puddings. He missed with the first one, but the second joined the dried ale on Simon’s face and blinded him just long enough for Nicholas to snatch up a tray and another stool and get out of the way as Simon cleared his eyes and thrust forward. He stumbled over a chest.

The chest had not been there before. Nor, Nicholas realised, had the trestle, not quite in that position. A candle-snuffer, travelling rapidly from one end of the room to the other, caught his attention just before he heard Julius’s cry and the whistle of air that meant the sword was in action again. It clanged on the edge of the tray, jarring his shoulder, just as an entire stand of candles went out. ‘Ha!’ said Nicholas, and was answered by the same exclamation, by a much younger voice, from under the table.

He could hear Julius being sick, and Simon gasping and swearing, and a lot of other sounds he didn’t immediately pause to identify, being happy enough as it was. He wondered if it was a regression to childhood, or something he had forgotten in Bruges that made everything seem wonderful as soon as it was smashed up or spilt. He was aware of being covered in sauce, and could trace Simon’s passage in terms of sweet milk and almond and cinnamon. It was almost the only way he could trace it, as most of the lights had gone out. Then he saw the cauldron of soup.

He couldn’t have tilted it quite by himself, but a pair of younger hands helped. The soup fell on Simon, and Simon fell over Julius, and
Nicholas took the sword from Simon’s hand. There were two muffled rounds of applause from two doors which appeared to have unlocked themselves from the inside.

Nicholas paid no immediate attention, being engaged in a solemn ceremony of self-congratulation with Jodi. Julius, wiping his mouth, clambered to his feet and joined in. Both doors swung fully open and someone carried in lights. Simon, whether conscious or not, had the wisdom to remain where he was, on the floor under the cauldron. Nicholas left him to other people and walked to the nearer door with his tall son who, breathlessly explaining, carried Simon’s great sword at his shoulder.

In the doorway loomed a vast and familiar figure. Nicholas and his son stopped. Turned towards Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, the two pairs of grey eyes, expectant, self-possessed, were identical.

The fat man said, ‘Nicholas. It seems that your son has a native ingenuity that has escaped mine. Whose sword is that?’

The boy swung it down and held out the hilt. ‘Will you take care of it, sir? It belongs to M. de St Pol. I think he has a great deal of ingenuity, but today he is not very well.’

Nicholas glanced at the boy, a smile in his eyes. The old man looked first at Nicholas, then at the young face of his generous namesake. St Pol said, ‘He has other swords. If he is unwell today, he has no need of this one. You may keep it.’

Nicholas sucked in a short breath. ‘My lord. It is too big. And too much.’

‘And will cause trouble, you think. You may be right. But after tonight, I feel you are capable of dealing with Simon. The gift marks my dislike of incompetence. It is not, in any sense, Nicholas, the presentation of a family heirloom. As for its size, Jordan will grow into it. Unless he takes too many risks. Or is unwise enough to behave as his father does.’

‘My lord my father—’ Jodi began, and then stopped; for his father’s hand pressed on his shoulder.

‘You have performed enough rescues today,’ Nicholas said. ‘Thank my lord of St Pol, and tell him that you hope to deserve it.’ Then he walked past, followed by Jodi, and did not turn back to see in what manner Simon de St Pol was taken away.

I
N FACT, THEY
consumed their deferred meal that night in the fresh rooms of the Berecrofts house next door, regaling Adorne and Sersanders and Andreas with the tale of Jodi’s triumphs and Simon’s discomfiture all over again. ‘He will never forgive it,’ said Adorne. ‘But his father can control him, I think. If he is wise, he will take him off to Kilmirren. And it is the end, I am sure, of any interest in the girl Bonne.’

Listening, half asleep, Nicholas was inclined to agree.
Is she to be your next wife, or your next bedfellow, Nicholas?
Simon didn’t therefore know the tale about Bonne that Julius had been spun by his wife. And after tonight, it was unlikely that Julius and Simon would ever find themselves exchanging confidences about Bonne. Or, indeed, about Simon’s marriage.

It had been the first thing Kathi had said to Nicholas tonight, when the fuss had died down and they had a few moments together. ‘Now at least Julius can’t hope to badger the St Pols for their family secrets. But you know he’s still addicted to exhuming your past. I took the chance to point out that you weren’t likely to thank him, if it was going to bastardise everyone else.’

‘But he wasn’t convinced?’ Nicholas said. Now it was all over, he had begun to feel very tired.

‘He just repeated, with patience, that it could all be taken care of by dispensations. Which is true. But, of course, it takes time.’

She was asking him something. He answered it. ‘I don’t want to belong to them, Kathi.’

‘But you do belong to them,’ she said. ‘Tonight, you forced yourself to be as much a St Pol as Simon is. You even let him take Jodi hostage. You cleared the room so that bystanders wouldn’t be hurt, but also so that bystanders wouldn’t hear more than they should. Whether you are their descendant or not, your conscience forces you to behave like one of them. You have all the burdens and none of the privileges.’

‘I don’t mind,’ he said.

‘And that is why you are so tired,’ she said. ‘All that, and Jodi to think of. But, you know, you gave him his chance. He was all he should be, tonight. Go and sit with Gelis, and celebrate together. You deserve it.’

He smiled, and went. She was dear to him, and dearly percipient. His method of dealing with the St Pols was a strain, and sometimes it drained him.

That, and the everlasting pressure of lying.

T
HAT WINTER, THE
English Parliament empowered its King to raise the massive army and fleet necessary to invade Scotland.

The detail was very soon known. Earl Rivers, once proposed for the Scottish King’s sister, was to supply three thousand men, and the Marquis of Dorset six hundred. The Lord Stanley, with a family interest in Man, was to produce three thousand archers from Lancashire. Ten thousand pounds were voted to pay the Duke of Gloucester’s troops already in action in the north. There was separate provision for the fleet. This would sail under that excellent state servant and naval commander Sir John Howard. The land army would be led by King Edward himself.