Gemini (8 page)

Awaiting him, Katelijne Sersanders, aged twenty-three, had moved with her children into the Hôtel Jerusalem, the great mansion of that elegant man, her widowed uncle, Anselm Adorne, whose own surviving sons and daughters were now grown, and elsewhere.

She did not delude herself that he wished his household better run, or to be diverted by the prattle of children. No one could have maintained a great house better than Margriet, who had borne him sixteen infants and, dying, left a régime that ran sweetly still, five years later. Accordingly, lodged out of sight with Mistress Cristen, her nurse, and her family, Kathi devised and maintained a life that was busy, but separate from his. But when France stood to arms, and the fires of dissent and revolt began to flicker through the leaderless Burgundian states, she was glad to be here for her uncle.

Those were the weeks when the little Duchess was held fast in Ghent and, desperate to raise a fresh army, made lavish undertakings to her towns, while swaying in private between the policies of her late father’s wife and high officers. One of the latter was Louis de Gruuthuse of Bruges. Another was his trusted Chancellor and hers, William Hugonet. In the initial, cautious approaches to France the little Duchess employed the brains and experience of both, as well as those of Wolfaert van Borselen of Veere, who was the brother of Gruuthuse’s wife.

These were all friends of Anselm Adorne, and the problems of Bruges were both his and theirs. Shuttling between Bruges and Ghent; returning angered and drained by the narrow-mindedness, the greed, the confusion, Adorne found in Kathi the most patient of listeners, and one who had admired him from childhood for his intelligence, and his looks, and his integrity.

She was glad to be there. And as a further consideration, she was where the first news from Nancy would come.

She was not without support or distraction. The children loved Clémence, who came often, and had been nurse to Jodi de Fleury before marrying Master Tobias, now gone to help ransom back Robin. So, while she spent time with the children, Clémence was ready to talk also of Robin, and Tobie, and Julius, whom Tobie had taken with him. But Julius, of course, had no wife now to worry over him.

Before leaving for Scotland, Nicholas de Fleury had told Robin’s wife all he could remember of the shots which had caused Robin to fall. Tobie, also present, had been alarmed by his frankness, Kathi thought. Nevertheless, after a moment, he had quietly taken Nicholas through his account once again and then, after clearing his throat, had explained the
kind of damage such wounds might inflict. He was a military doctor, and could quote lucky and unlucky cases.

She had wept in the end, but in a way it was over: she had nothing left to imagine. And it meant something to her that Nicholas had thought her strong enough to bear the whole truth, and that Tobie, who had not been so courageous, yet recognised that Nicholas was right, and had treated her with enlightenment in his turn. And if she knew the nature of the unhappiest outcome, she also knew what to expect of the best. She had a son and a daughter, the elder just two. Robin had wanted a house full of sons.

Kathi had another friend, too, in Gelis van Borselen at the Hof Charetty-Niccolò, home of the Bank and dyeworks which Nicholas de Fleury had formerly owned, and where his wife and son, Jodi, still lived. Kathi went there, on the day she heard that Dijon had fallen to France. Dijon, encompassing Fleury, from which Nicholas took his name, if nothing else. Being in Scotland, he would not even know it had gone.

Gelis, who had been working with ledgers, put the last one away and came to sit down. Viewing herself from the outside, as ever, Kathi was entertained once again by the contrast they made: herself small, brown and sinewy, and indefatigably active, and Gelis fair and supple and shining, and never visibly active at all, while all the time quartering Flanders on behalf of the business. The owner now was Diniz Vasquez, to whom it had fallen three years ago, when Nicholas had divested himself of his holdings. Nicholas had then taken himself to other lands, from which act of understandable but wilful stupidity he had come back, altered, to resume his marriage to Gelis.

To begin his marriage. Even now, weeks after he had left, you could see the incandescence in Gelis: the fires that had been lit in the short time she and Nicholas had had together. They had burned for Nicholas, too; and for that, Kathi was deeply thankful. She did not wish to imagine the force of will it must have taken to sever himself from that haven; to walk away knowing that, once in Scotland, he might not live to return.

And yet—she underrated him, to think of him like that. However fierce his longing for home, he would, characteristically, find some zest in what he was doing, create something worth while, because he could not help it. He was there because he owed Scotland something. Driven by personal hurt to extremes, he had used the most sophisticated of his gifts against a community, simply in order to injure a single family—the St Pols of Kilmirren—which had caused hurt to himself and his mother. Once, when he was a boy, Nicholas had hoped, Kathi knew, to have himself proved a St Pol. Later, it did not matter to him whether he had a claim to legitimacy or not. He had wanted, like a child, to become their friend. And the three generations, Jordan, Simon and Henry, had responded with cruelty, and now threatened his life and his family.

He had gone to Scotland to deal with that, and to make amends for what else he had done. It was something that Gelis understood, as she understood the sacrifice that she was being forced to make also. She must wait, while the way was cleared for her to join him. For he did not only face the St Pols. There was the other enemy, David.

One did not, then, begin to talk to Gelis of Scotland, but of what was happening here. And, listening, Gelis said at the end, ‘I’m sorry that Dijon has gone, but I think Nicholas had got quite used to the idea of not being the next vicomte de Fleury. It makes life simpler without titles. Just think, Jordan has lost Ribérac too, so he is merely St Pol, lord of Kilmirren.’

‘It still sounds quite grand,’ Kathi said. ‘Anyway, I shan’t let you sniff at the Scottish orders of chivalry. My uncle likes being a Knight of the Unicorn, and I suspect Nicholas doesn’t mind all that much. If he thinks about it at all.’

‘I don’t know what he thinks about,’ Gelis said. ‘He is so used to being alone.’

Kathi was silent. Until a few months ago, Gelis too had lived behind ramparts. Then the defences had been broached. And now she talked, with moving honesty, of what she cared about. But the reticence Gelis had shown had been different in origin, surely, from the fierce and solitary silence of Nicholas, which could be dissolved sometimes by awe, but not significantly by physical pain or euphoria. Wherever he was, no one would know, would really know what he was thinking, unless he wished them to. Or, rarely, it would happen by chance, as when one accurate note resonates with another. But then there would be no need of words.

They talked. Kathi had chopped up and painted something for Jodi: a miniature tabard to wear in the jousting-field. Nicholas had been amused, in the few days he had been at home, at his son’s addiction to military training, and even Gelis tended, laughing, to sigh. But Kathi knew, as Nicholas probably did, that it arose from hero-worship: adoration of his large, fond, magnificent father, who fought against Turks; and love of Robin, the mischievous playmate who invaded his house in the Canongate, and who laughed and fought like a dancer. Jodi had never really taken to Kathi, who had stolen his Robin and married him. When Kathi left gifts for Jodi, they were always in Robin’s name.

Gelis put down the tabard and held out a kerchief. ‘What brought this on? Don’t tell me. I’m avoiding Jodi just now because he reminds me too much of Nicholas. Would you like to talk about weddings? Paul and Catherine have drawn up a contract, but have to wait for a dispensation from Rome. Weeks, in this kind of weather. Children could be born, if Catherine weren’t so prudish.’

Kathi laughed, blowing her nose. There was some nominal kinship, for sure. Catherine de Charetty was related by marriage to Nicholas, and
Paul was son to Gelis’s cousin. Dispensation would come, but Catherine, who once flouted every convention, would behave until then like a nun.

‘Poor Paul,’ Kathi said. Then she remembered that Paul himself was not exactly legitimate, which might very well tend to make him as cautious as Catherine. She thought it all rather a shame.

S
HE WENT HOME
soon after that, and saw by the bustle that the baron her uncle was home. She was on her way to her room when he sent for her.

Anselm Adorne sat at his desk, in the finely wainscoted room splashed with colour from the armorial glass in the windows and pinned benignly with unicorn heads. Just before leaving, Nicholas had attended several meetings here with her uncle and the late Duke’s advisers, debating how to handle this turbulent interim; how to prevent all that was good in the past from being swept away before the grand marriage came, which would throw what was left of Burgundy into the hands of the Duchess’s future husband, whoever he was.

Nicholas had once served the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick, and carried intelligence of many countries, near and remote; at such meetings, he made his own contribution to the state that had reared him. Furthermore, in what time he had left, he had taken Diniz aside and taught him what he needed to know, so that, whatever happened, the business would survive. It should be safe. The new régime would need merchants. And with Catherine’s marriage, it would have the support of the van Borselen family of Veere, whom no one offended.

Now Kathi walked in, and sat, and saw the change in her uncle’s eyes. She said, ‘What has happened?’

And Anselm Adorne rubbed his face and said, ‘I’m sorry, child. Someone will tell you, and you had better hear it first from me. It’s Ghent. Ghent again. Do you remember in Scotland—you were a little maid only—when the news came of the destruction of Liège, and of how the Gantois submitted in fear to the Duke, and were punished? The people secretly blamed their own leaders, but did nothing about it. Not then. Now they feel they have the power to vent their anger, and have done. All those who held office in ’sixty-eight have lost their lives. My son was not touched, but a man of your family, John Sersanders, was among those who died. No one close. I don’t think you ever knew him. But a Sersanders.’

He stopped. Kathi said, ‘No. I didn’t know him.’ Ghent was where she and her brother had been born. It was where all the Sersanderses lived, that radical family into which Anselm Adorne’s sister had married. Her own parents were dead, and her brother now living in Scotland. But there was a Sersanders house in Ghent. She had lent it to Nicholas once.
Before Nancy. She said, ‘But perhaps he was someone you knew? Had you met him?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘He was on the council. Outspoken, of course, like your father, but he didn’t deserve that. I mourn him, but I mourn still more what is happening.’ He looked up and spoke with a vehemence that came close to savagery. ‘I wish you were in Scotland. I wish your husband would come. I have sent again to ask about the delay, but nothing happens.’

‘The weather,’ Kathi said. ‘But look. Those were Gantois. This sort of madness doesn’t happen with Brugeois. You served the Duke, all of you, but you fought for the town and its rights.’

‘So did the men who ran Ghent,’ her uncle said. ‘No. It will settle, so long as nothing hasty is done. There has to be some central control; it is too large to leave solely to the Estates of the regions, when there are all these competing and disparate states. Brabant, Flanders, Hainault, Namur, Holland, Artois, Zeeland—think how different they are. At the very least, the countryside mustn’t suffer because of the power of the towns and the guilds. On the other hand, the central authority must work to be accepted; must be seen to be just, and to be able to defend the states from their enemies. It takes time. But we shall manage.’

‘I’m sure,’ Kathi said. ‘Meanwhile, commonsense suggests that you should leave for Scotland, not me. Have you thought of it?’

‘No,’ said Adorne. ‘This is where I am needed. And indeed, I couldn’t go if I wished: there are no safe conducts for burgh officials.’

‘You are a
prisoner
?’ Kathi said.

‘Do I look like one?’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘Or Hugonet, or anyone else? No. Our master has gone; there is a vacuum, or what is perceived as one; and we remain, men of another régime, answerable to an inexperienced girl. We must stay till our place is decided.’

‘As it was decided for John Sersanders?’ Kathi said. ‘If you won’t leave, I’m going to call Nicholas back.’

‘To take which side?’ Adorne said. ‘What he is doing just now is creating a refuge fit for his wife, and for you and your family, eventually. Do you want to condemn Robin to what is happening in Ghent, or in Bruges?’

‘Ghent or Bruges may not let Robin leave,’ Kathi said. ‘He is a Sersanders by marriage.’

There was a pause. ‘That is true,’ Adorne said. ‘But they will surely allow him a Scots convalescence? You will sail as soon as he comes. I will hear no refusal: I will put you on board with the children myself. As for me, this is the house and the church I have built. This is the country where my family has lived and been respected for two hundred years. This is where I will die.’

I
N SCOTLAND, IT
pleased Nicholas de Fleury to make his public entry into the King’s town of Edinburgh in a royal cavalcade, passing up the incline of Leith Wynd, and turning his back on the house of Archie of Berecrofts and Anselm Sersanders in order to pass through the portals that led to the High Street. The banner of Scotland flew above him, and at his side rode Alexander of Albany, the King’s brother, curtly conversing. Jamie Liddell, politely silent, rode behind him.