The Unicorn Hunt (37 page)

He said, ‘I thought I should be the first to congratulate the proud mother. Did you have a difficult labour?’

She drew a short breath, and then appeared half amused, half resigned. ‘Why the concern? You haven’t asked me before.’

‘I thought you ought to practise some answers. For example, when was he born?’ He returned the smile, spreading his cap with its plumes on the bed and sinking into a seat. ‘Oh, not, of course, the real date.’

‘After midnight,’ she said. ‘An hour before sunrise. Through the night, in the dark.’ Her lips were still smiling, but she spoke with her eyes fixed on his. The words came slowly and stopped.

Before he replied, he measured the carpet and priced it. Then he said, ‘That was the truth.’

‘Yes. Why not? I do falter in vice now and then. Nicholas …’ She seemed to consider. ‘The child is the only subject you speak of. This one, or others.’

‘What else is there?’ he said. He picked up his cap and revolved it. The jewel flashed, and roused light from her wedding ring.

She said, ‘There are, surely, some other things we should talk about.’

‘Well, no,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think that would be rash. I think the less talk between us the better.’

‘And yet you have decided to have children by me? When you have conquered your –’

‘I must apologise,’ Nicholas said. ‘It was not an appropriate word. But you have announced some decisions quite as arbitrary. Unless you have altered your mind? You can still repudiate the boy and the marriage. You would find it difficult, though, I should warn you.’

She said, ‘You don’t even know why I did it.’

‘Don’t I?’ he said. Some of it, he had guessed. He didn’t want to know more. He had no intention of putting any of it into words. It would sound odd if he did.
Your sister chose me, and I obliged. She had my child and passed it off as her husband’s. You devised a singular punishment. You planned to do the same in reverse
.

He supposed that was it. There would be other reasons which were better not spoken. She knew that as well. Already, he thought, she was regretting the question. It was not to her purpose to explain, to accuse, to encumber the situation with needless emotion. With any emotion. He agreed with that, while reserving the right to frighten her when he must. It was all a question of control.

He imagined the convoluted journey she had planned for them both as if it were a battle plan, a tough and delicate model, its bridges, gulleys, pitfalls all carefully constructed and tested. She would give nothing away, risk no words that would weaken it. He understood that, as well. He said, ‘Then you had better not say any more, in case I decide to divorce you after all. Meanwhile, you are still of the same mind?’

He waited. It was a risk, but a small one. Whatever end she proposed, he believed that the path towards it would be a long one; that she meant to continue as she had begun, rather than end it too
soon, immolating themselves and the boy – and the boys – in some self-destructive public confession. He credited her with having entertained that idea, among others. Above the gauze, the aquamarine eyes were assessing him. He was used to that, too.

Then she said, ‘I am your wife. You are prepared to call Jordan your son. If that is what you want the world to think, I agree. I will come to Bruges. For the rest, I may need a little time. So, I gather, do you. It may not be a bad thing if you were to go to Scotland without me. How long will you stay?’

‘Long enough,’ he said, ‘to do what I have to do. I am building now by Kilmirren. A hall.’ He had risen to move to the door.

‘For your children?’ Her voice, following him to the threshold, remained idle.

‘Oh, no,’ he said, looking back. ‘I shouldn’t think so. No. It will do until I have finished in Scotland. And before you ask, you will know when I have finished. Everyone will.’

He spoke absently, his thoughts moving into different languages which he had forgotten she knew. He had no doubt, of course, that she would discover the meaning, if he spoke the phrases aloud.

What is brought by the wind is carried away by the wind
. That was one.

At night, a cotton-seed is the same as a pearl
. That was the other.

She said, ‘I did not want him to die!’

She was weeping. She had no right to weep.

He lasted one week before he left Bruges for Scotland. And he left before Gelis arrived.

There was some logic, he could say, on his side. His ship was to hand, and the wind – rare in March – was in his favour. If he went, he could return all the sooner. And he had given a magnificent banquet in Bruges to celebrate the birth of his heir. His wife, being frail, had not attended.

He had left his business in order. Instead of taking Diniz from Tilde, he had given him full control, for the first time, in Bruges. To Julius, dazzled, he had restored the charge of the Ca’ Niccolò, Venice (but had not mentioned the other disposition he was hoping to make). To Gregorio he had proffered a choice: Flanders or Scotland.

Margot had not come back to Bruges. Margot was not even with Gelis in her convent. Margot, they now knew, was with the infant, Gelis’s son whom (Gregorio had learned with reserve) Nicholas still intended to rear as his own.

It worked quite well. Gregorio said, ‘I am not your spy. Nor is Margot.’

Nicholas said, ‘Why snap at me? Do you think Margot cares for this arrangement? Do you think that I do? The legitimacy of the boy is the problem, and Margot is trying to protect him.’

‘It seems hard on Margot,’ Gregorio said. ‘And, unlike you, I find lying difficult.’

‘Then don’t lie,’ Nicholas said. ‘Tell everyone the child may be Simon’s.’

There was a silence. Then Gregorio said, ‘You know that I can’t.’ Then he said bitterly, ‘I’ll come to Scotland.’ Which was exceptionally convenient.

Nicholas threw away Tobie’s pills and filled his head full of numbers. He sailed as soon as he could, and left behind an echoing empire of men who had once been his friends.

He had seen her. He had laid down his terms: so had she. The second stage
(thank God, thank God)
, was now over.

And now there was Scotland, and the third, ready waiting.

Chapter 18

B
Y MAY, THE
Kinneil salt-pans were long free of snow, although further upriver the hills about Stirling were streaked, and the plain in which the castle rock stood was soggy and flooded in places.

Will Roger didn’t mind, except that it gave his choristers coughs. Jogging between Edinburgh, Haddington, Peebles (where his little sinecure eked out his salary) and the chapel royal of Stirling, he actually began to have hopes that he would have a musical programme worth the name for the King’s wedding. Standing on a box, nursing his altos, he was so intent he was unaware of his visitors until a familiar voice copied, with unfair accuracy, what he was trying to explain.

He turned. Nicholas de Fleury, of course, the dimples foully provocative. Beside him was a youngish man in a lawyer’s cap and black gown, with a comic nose and a startled expression. Will Roger roared, ‘The father! The father! The loins that have sired some croaking heir that doesn’t know its A from its elbow! Come and kiss me!’

It wasn’t entirely wise: he could feel the choir’s communal stare, fascinated, faintly disapproving, wholly jealous. Conducting choirs was a pastime with heavy sexual undertones, which one ignored at one’s peril. He disengaged and said, ‘And who is this?’

‘Your new fiddler,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’ve just come from Secretary Whitelaw. Your lodging, whenever it suits you?’

The startled expression was a fair reflection of Gregorio of Asti’s state of mind, now that he had emerged from the interminable voyage of the Bank’s caravel, the
San Niccolò
, which, far from sailing direct to Scotland, had delivered Nicholas de Fleury first to Southampton, then to London.

At Southampton, he had received news from Florence, Naples and Venice and interviewed merchants with business in Bristol.

In London, armed with a safe conduct from Governor William in Bruges, he had been received by the Duchess of Burgundy’s mother and saw her maid of honour, Anselm Adorne’s homesick daughter. The sieur de Fleury had letters for both, and in return was invited to spend an hour in their parlour. An hour that had stretched to three, there was so much news to exchange.

He also had some introductions to merchants. He talked with them all. After a while, Gregorio sent a mental apology to Julius. Whatever had brought Nicholas north, it was not a simple evasion of matrimony. Something very large indeed was afoot. Something to which, so far, he was not being admitted.

After that, the ship made two further calls, one to Newcastle and one to Berwick. So far as Gregorio could see, the Berwick call had no purpose except to let off Mick Crackbene, who disappeared for a night. It was a hybrid border town, presently Scots, with more than the usual rough trade on the wharf.

Nicholas had allowed the crew an evening on shore and, after a while, had unexpectedly followed them. Unlike Julius, Gregorio felt no wish to know about that side of his life. He himself didn’t relish abstaining but he did; and he was just as young – well, two years older than Nicholas. But he wasn’t married to Gelis van Borselen.

Then had come Scotland proper, and Leith, where Jannekin Bonkle had come on board, bursting with news, with the result that, instead of landing, they had left ship and transferred to another which took them up the Firth and then dropped sails to navigate the narrowed, wandering river that brought them here for a stay of one day. Here, to the King’s castle and burgh of Stirling.

Gregorio had known what to expect: a collection of stone and wood buildings crowning a rock, with the thatched houses of burghers and nobles and craftsmen on the descent to the river. A natural fortress, very like Edinburgh, and very likely with all the same disadvantages of climate reported by Julius.

He had packed his heaviest cloak, as Margot would have wanted. It was a kind of lucky token, the cloak. If he took it, he would be back in Bruges before winter and he could find Margot and talk. Either Nicholas would have come to his senses or he wouldn’t, in which case Gregorio would leave him. He knew quite well that Nicholas understood that as well as he did.

It was in the high winds of Stirling that the brave Bruges cloak
began to lose its homely whiff of nostalgia. In the castle of Stirling, within the working offices of the kingdom, the lawyer Gregorio saw for himself how men received the returned Nicholas de Fleury: as double burgher and merchant, as investor, as a man active in business whose wellbeing – although he lacked the ducal remit of Adorne – was a matter of interest to both Scotland and Flanders.

The events of four months ago – the unseemly brawl, the wretched mishap that followed – had not been forgotten. But Nicholas de Fleury had been useful, and would be again. And, of course, his prompt action had saved the young prince in the lists. It was as well that the St Pols, father and child, had taken themselves out of the country. It meant that the Flemish banker and Scotland could settle down to some business. For one day, before anyone else got hold of him, that was what the high officers of the kingdom were doing.

And one other. A red-headed youth dressed for hunting had detached himself from his companions and stopped Nicholas on his way from the Secretary’s room. The exchange was short and Gregorio was not introduced, but the huntsman, from his flush, had been pleased. When Nicholas had produced a court bow on leaving, Gregorio copied him. He had identified the badges. This was Alexander, Duke of Albany, the King’s brother. The one who had stayed at Veere. The one who knew Gelis van Borselen.

He sighed. That time, although not wearing his cloak, he did think of Margot.

He followed that day most of the calls that Nicholas made. They ended in the warren of cabins where the canons, the chapel servants, and the musicians were lodged. There he was introduced to a passage stacked with musical instruments and fluted with glittering trumpets which proceeded to a room of no very great size, but so full of peat smoke and ale fumes and noise that he flinched on the threshold.

‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’ Nicholas said and, stepping back, took down the first instrument he could see, which was a shawm. ‘Which end do you blow?’

‘Give it to me,’ Gregorio said. It had happened once before, on the
Ciaretti
. His heart suddenly lifted.

He took it, while Nicholas reached for another. A trumpet. One of the royal trumpets, in silver. ‘You begin,’ he said. ‘I’ll sling the bells round my neck. Can you reach one of the drums with your feet?’

They didn’t get very far before the doorway was crowded with figures. A tall man strode forward, swearing, and, depriving
Nicholas of the trumpet, proceeded to replace his toots with swooping notes of earsplitting brilliance. Blowing, he retired to the room. Nicholas followed, tinkling morosely, a kettledrum under his arm. Will Roger said to Gregorio, ‘That’s not bad, give me another,’ and fell into step beside him. Then he said, ‘No, they said yours was a fiddle?’ and handed him one, giving the shawm to somebody else.

The somebody else was Hugo van der Goes the painter, from Bruges. Behind him were two other men he knew from the same place. They all went back into the room and sat down. You couldn’t hear yourself think for Nicholas on the drum, setting the changes of rhythm. It went on for ten minutes and then Will Roger blared out a discord and threw his instrument down, collapsing on the floor. ‘It’s all very well for you bastards, but I’ve been at it since dawn. Nicol,
be quiet
.’

The kettledrum rose to a deafening rattle, and stopped. ‘You think that’s loud?’ Nicholas said. ‘You’ve gone rotten since I’ve been away. Where’s the other drum?’

They hammered him heartily, taking the drum away, and he gave as good as he got. His own friends were roughest, Gregorio noticed. The rest enjoyed it as well: he had entertained them before, you would guess. But he was still an important man, and a foreigner. When, reduced to their shirts, they were all lying back laughing and panting, Will Roger presented him with a flagon of unspecified liquid.