To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  It was then, moving up to the date of performance, that he engineered a moment alone in a room with his wife. She came to it bearing a list. In conference, they had been discussing a mountain of details: chains and straw for the streets of approach; turf to mask the trap-tops; ale for the erectors of awnings; and a request on behalf of the pulleys for a supply of pork fat from the butcher. Someone reported the theft of their piss-flasks and tournesol, which deprived them of blood. Blood was discontinued.

  ‘Grass,’ Gelis continued, proceeding down her column of dubia, ‘for the donkey called Abraham. When am I going to see all these performers?’ No one had been allowed near the rehearsals.

  ‘Not until the day, and by paying full price. Guild rules,’ Nicholas said, shutting the door. They were alone.

  ‘No special family rates?’ Gelis said. Her heart beat like a drum at a hanging. She had always admitted the force of his physical presence, but had found methods, in public at least, to resist it. She had been less prepared for the strain of being coupled, however briefly, however selectively, with his mind. On shipboard, his companionability had been a veneer; here, it was genuine. For the space of this project, she, too, had become part of his team, and had been treated to the same magical mixture of mischief and concentration. For nearly two months, she had fought against the enchantment. It was temporary, temporary, temporary. When the Play was done, it would stop. She would stop it.

  But now, she thoughtlessly followed his mood. She said, ‘Family rates and good seats. Or I’ll ask Willie Roger to smuggle me into the Trinity. I could begin singing the tunes so that people don’t want to hear them again.’

  ‘That for certain,’ said Nicholas. Then, perhaps regretting the insult, or the joke: ‘You’ll hear enough of them afterwards to deafen you. Joy plays the organ and Memory works the bellows and the Suffering Servant hangs himself from the bell-rope. I wanted to ask you something about Jordan.’

  ‘Young or old?’ Gelis said. She stayed calm.

  ‘Both are continually in my thoughts, but in this case the younger.’

  ‘He calls you Doc-Doc,’ Gelis remarked. ‘It began while you were away.’

  He smiled immediately, forgetfully using both dimples. ‘Origin, Pasque, I should guess. A local nickname. Not obscene, to my knowledge.’

  ‘Doctor?’ she guessed. She was curious.

  ‘More like Odysseus polymetis, the sort of knave who makes deals under carts. I am flattered, I think. Gelis, I should like to take Jodi somewhere when all this is finished. Bel of Cuthilgurdy is here. Here in Edinburgh.’

  She looked at him. Since they had resumed their notional life as a family, he had always asked permission, like this, to take Jordan away. It was part of the unspoken pact. If he did so, so must she. But this time, she had to consider his motives. Bel, neighbour and friend to de Ribérac’s family, had been close to Nicholas and to Gelis in Africa, but had since lost her trust in them both. An affectionate visit from Nicholas might well re-attach Bel to himself, while underlining the transgressions of Gelis. Odysseus polymetis, indeed. Gelis said, ‘Where is Bel staying?’

  ‘In de Ribérac’s house. I noticed smoke, and asked who was there.’

  ‘Fearing, of course, it might be Fat Father Jordan or Simon. My dear! What a bad moment it must have been!’ Gelis said. ‘A nasty bite for the ass called Brunellus. I have no objection to your taking Jordan to Bel’s. She will mother you both.’

  He said, ‘I want Bel to see him, that’s all. He needs godparents.’

  ‘Godparents?’ she echoed. A pain ran through her and vanished. She said, ‘You are thinking of a sort of insurance policy, as with a ship? If we sink, Bel of Cuthilgurdy will rescue your offspring? A regular contract, I suppose, with negotiated increments annually. Or is that risky? She might dispose of us both and lift the money.’

  ‘Would you consider Bel as a guardian for Jordan?’ he said.

  She said, ‘You are serious.’

  Nicholas said, ‘You raised the subject yourself, after Hesdin. I know Bel is close to the St Pols, but I trust her. And Mistress Clémence would go with her, if you agree. She is very good.’

  ‘She is very good,’ Gelis repeated. Then she said, ‘What is this? A tragic revelation? You perceive yourself as a vessel of death? I shouldn’t expect to need Bel even if you were to perish tonight, to the ruin of four hundred men and a donkey. Wolfaert and his wife would rear Jordan with their own children. A van Borselen upbringing, away from anything Simon could do.’

  ‘Simon might frequent Bruges,’ Nicholas said. ‘Henry might be sent to train in some ducal household.’

  ‘They are back from Portugal?’

  ‘Not so far. But they won’t stay for ever. Shall we agree on a compromise? If you outlive me but pine from remorse, Jordan will go to Wolfaert in Veere on your death. If I survive, then I may ask Bel to take him.’

  Since it began, she had been growing more puzzled. She had plans for after the Play. She thought she knew his. There were always risks in his life, but none that quite explained this sudden ordering of his affairs. She said, ‘Nicholas? What are you expecting?’

  ‘A genteel argument,’ he said. ‘Otherwise nothing of note, even though I am in your room, and we are married. Virginité voluntaire, like Mary and Joseph. How timely.’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ She refused to be deflected.

  ‘Or might there be a delicious, remote possibility of union charnelle if I suggested it? Does it move you when I soak a bed, or shut the door firmly and sit down like this? Would it move you if–’

  ‘It would not move me, except to make me depressed, if I had to bear your whole weight here and now on my bed.’ She snapped, in response to that insulting, deliberate voice. By no remote chance did he mean what he said. The end would not be permitted to happen that way, and he knew it. She said, ‘How can I discuss Jordan’s future unless you tell me what threatens it, and how soon?’ She paused. ‘You want me to think you are going away after Yule.’

  He laughed. ‘I want you to think I want you to think I am going away after Yule.’ He was smiling directly at her, without the dimples.

  ‘But you are going to take Jordan to see Bel.’

  ‘After the Play. Yes. Otherwise you might think you know what I am going to do. And you don’t, Gelis,’ he said. ‘But if you want to play on, then so be it.’

  ‘Of course I want to play on. I am practising Comedy,’ Gelis retorted.

  He smiled a little and rose, collecting his satchel. It was so smooth. Suddenly, it was all much too smooth for her temper. She said, ‘What a callous fool you are, Nicholas. Have you ever given this a thought until now? What would your Jordan have done if I had listened to you on Mount Sinai? What if you and I still die together? What then?’

  ‘Bel could go and live in Veere. Wolfaert would love it,’ he said.

  It still sounded smooth, but it was not: he had gone rather white. It might mean little. It might mean that he had nothing like the defences that she had imagined. And, unexpectedly, he didn’t stop, but went on, as if under compulsion.

  ‘I thought of Jordan as much as you did that day. I made the same choices that you did, over and over. If you forget that: if you forget why we are together at all, then we should have walked over.’

  She rose slowly, her gaze locked in his. Her view of him shimmered. She heard him take a single short breath; and then he turned and walked to the door.

  She stood, watching him leave. He was on his way, she knew, to a score of different places, ending at Holyrood. In the doorway he met and spoke to someone, clearing his throat. The other voice was that of the Sersanders girl, Kathi. By the time the exchange ended, Gelis was ready for her, but for the tremor that could not be stilled in her hands.

  From pique or from tact, Katelijne Sersanders had gradually stopped coming to the house in the High Street as the enterprise matured, and with it Gelis’s involvement. She had also abandoned Willie Roger. Nicholas, wholly immersed, had not particul
arly noticed her abstinence: just now, as Gelis had heard, he had paused chiefly to ask after her aunt, who was within six weeks of her delivery. Almost immediately, he went on his way, and Kathi knocked and came in.

  ‘Chess?’ Gelis said brightly. ‘I was eavesdropping.’

  The girl shook back her hood. Her hair was short, like Gelis’s own, though caught up and pinned to look longer. It was easy to forget that this large-eyed child had travelled as she had through the Egyptian wilderness, and was just eighteen, and interfering, and marriageable.

  Katelijne Sersanders said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you, but Archie of Berecrofts wants you to come to supper tomorrow, and his housekeeper has sent a bundle for Robin, and there’s a treat for the parrot, but he has to sing for it first. The chess is just a sort of joke.’

  ‘You are going to tell me that Nicholas plays,’ Gelis said. Speaking his name was an effort.

  ‘I expect he does,’ Katelijne said. Her voice remained, as ever, perfectly sensible. It occurred to Gelis what a good nun she would make. She listened to Kathi explaining the joke about chess. It concerned an English translation of a book by Jacobus de Cessoles, in which everyone from the Duchess Margaret in Ghent down seemed to be taking a hand.

  ‘The French is so difficult? What is it called?’ Gelis said. She relieved the girl of her bundles and brought across a platter of sweetmeats. The plate shook and she lost one.

  ‘The Game and Playe of the Chesse. No, the translator’s forgotten his English. He’s in Cologne, hence the appeal to the Banco di Niccolò. Master Julius tried to help by sending a verse or two to M. de Fleury, and M. de Fleury just made it worse. That is, you couldn’t print it. You couldn’t even repeat it.’

  ‘You couldn’t?’ said Gelis teasingly. She had almost recovered. She realised suddenly that Kathi knew it.

  ‘Oh well,’ the girl said, and gravely began to recite.

  It was Nicholas at the top of his bent: scurrilous, witty, engaging. She could hear every shade of his voice in the words. Gelis said, ‘You should tell that to your uncle. It would cheer him. What do you think of the Nativity Play? Are you going to watch it?’

  Katelijne Sersanders hadn’t seen it; no one had, but as far as she knew, the whole of Edinburgh and Lothian was going to watch it. People were coming from everywhere. Her aunt couldn’t attend, but Katelijne and her brother would describe it all to her later. ‘It would be nice,’ Kathi said, ‘if her child came at Christmas. It might be born hearing some of the singing. A gift of music from Magus Will Roger.’

  ‘And a gift of poetry from a somewhat inebriated German fatiste, I gather,’ said Gelis. She paused. ‘You are not going to shame and astonish me with the news that Nicholas has translated the text? While playing chess with one hand and beating a drum with the other?’

  ‘I don’t know whether he writes,’ the girl said. ‘Phemie does, and my uncle. I think a lot of people have helped. But we shan’t know till next week. Won’t it be dull when it’s over? What are you going to do?’

  In her head, in her heart, Gelis stifled an inclination to desperate laughter. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That rather depends upon Nicholas.’

  Chapter 18

  hITHERTO, WHEN SET in the highest gear with every wheel spinning, Nicholas had been taking his share in a war, or contributing to a scene of international negotiation, or at the very least deploying whip and reins to preserve the multiple concerns of his Bank during some heinous crisis.

  Now he was exerting the same extreme concentration of skills for the sake of one brief event: an ephemeral work which, once over, would leave nothing behind it except, of course, bills. It was his belief and intention that, subjected to such an overwhelming concentration of effort, something unique might be born. Something not only unique but superb. Something not only superb but close to a vision he had, but had never put into words: something soaringly wonderful. From this area of his thinking, all cynicism, for once, was debarred.

  He knew by now his own gifts. As the weeks went by and the hour of completion approached, he saw every task duly executed; the ocean tamed; the advancing waves drilled into order. In the days before the performance the lists shrank, ticked off one by one, and the shouting began to die down, and the yard of the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, veiled by its awning, emptied of arguing men in cloth tunics, became a silken pavilion, a mysterious cavern where the spoken word lingered like incense, and trumpet peals mixed with the tassels, and a voice sang, inward and solitary, from a tunnel of cloud.

  It was too soon to slacken, and too soon to hope, and too soon to wonder. Nicholas worked, smiling, even-tempered, a never-failing source of solutions and calm. During that last week he did not go near his business, but slept in snatches on a truckle bed in the Abbey, and ate what people put in his hand.

  The Secrets had come. Many of the experiments were his own, devices to play on the senses. The lighting was put into place, misty, magical in the grey air; and the smoke in its dusky colours; and the palette of incense and spices. Below the covering turf, John’s gleaming wheels turned without sound. Screened off, alone, Nicholas watched the Angel of the Annunciation spread his swan-wings and float, his yellow head bent, while his son’s childish voice swayed at his side, a silvery air-thread in water. Nicholas stood, considering sound and its trajectories, and Will Roger walked about with him, and the players.

  The costumes arrived. The actors, word-perfect, were permitted to leave their chambers of study arid be shown to their places. Nicholas had sat by their desks many times. Now he used all his knowledge of them to help carry them through this last stage. The prompts and signals began to receive their rehearsal: he had not allowed the intrusion of placards. He had not permitted anything which would destroy the fragile illusion: the awe, the pity, the beauty, the triumph of the birth of a child.

  He did not think of his son, his mother, the women he loved and had loved. But soothing the boy who played Mary, his fingertips on his shoulder, he was conscious that shadows were present; that far off in Venice a woman in travail with her first child was also here in his thoughts. And somehow the intensity of his conviction seemed to transfer itself to the boy, and the blood returned to his face.

  Battle pitch can be sustained for only so long. In every campaign, success depends on the skill of its timing.

  The day before the performance, Nicholas worked without respite from long before first light, as did all his henchmen. Even Sandy, pale, with glittering eyes, was no longer the King’s brother, but a willing part in something close now to mystical. That night, Nicholas sent everyone home but the guards, and walked up the hill to his house in the High Street.

  Gelis was awake, and opened her door. The house was silent. He stopped.

  She said, ‘Take my bed. I shall wake you.’

  ‘Will you?’ he said; and came in, as if he were a friend; as if all distrust had been neutralised. He stumbled once, reaching her bed, and meant perhaps to rest there and untie his doublet and shirt, but in the event he simply sank back and slept as he was.

  The brazier whispered. Its dull red and blue light touched the cushioned settle to which she retreated, her eyes on the low curtained bed. A single candle stood by his pillow, illumining the dense, springing hair, the ends of his lashes, the bridge of his nose. His hand, smudged with dried paint, lay open as if appealing for something. His face was closed in the absolute peace of dreamless sleep; she could not hear him breathe. All the vigour, all the intelligence, all the cruelty were in abeyance, till he should wake.

  She had watched him like this once before, during the long agony of their duel in Venice. His sleep had been unnatural then, and full of torment. And she, watching him, had been tormented as well; consumed with anguish and bitterness, for fear he would wrest back his child.

  He had taken Jordan. Then he had sent for her.

  I made the same choices that you did, over and over. She knew that he had. She knew why he had.

  In time, the candle guttered, and she
rose stiffly and went to extinguish it. She paused at his side.

  His face was invisible, but he was still deeply asleep. He had turned once, half constrained by the close-fastened doublet. It would be the task of a moment to free him, leaning circumspectly, unloosing the buttons. When she last eased the clothes that he slept in, it had been long ago, and she had been unmarried in Bruges. Then he had lain warm and resistless like this, closer than this, and smitten by sleep for a sweeter reason than this, or the pains of divining. She could do it again. He would not waken, but he would know, when he rose, what she had been thinking of.

  She snuffed the candle, and left without touching him.

  He slept for four hours, rousing of his own accord an hour before dawn and presenting himself, freshly dressed and new-shaven, to apologise and thank her as any normal man might. Leaving, he turned to ask her if she meant to come to the play and bring Jordan, and smiled when she said yes. She would not see him again until the performance was over.

  She felt tired but content, even triumphant. His day had come, and hers with it. She had been put to the test. And there was nothing, today, she could not do.

  In Edinburgh that day, the house of Anselm Adorne was one of the very few still to be occupied. From end to end of the town, the crooked streets were all empty; their inhabitants tumbled down to the foot of the Canongate and flushed up the mountain behind, as if the ridge were indeed the chute that Nicholas once had called it. The buildings lining the ridge were hung with banners, to honour the guests of the King.

  It had come to James some weeks before that, instead of grudging the cost, he should be exploiting what promised to be the finest single work of prestige he could show, outside Mons Martha the cannon. One did not invite crowned heads to such an event. Those who came, however, represented their lords, and themselves were powerful noblemen, who would take back to their shires, their duchies, their kingdoms the reports of what Scotland could do. And when a funeral loomed, God forfend, or a marital feast, or a coronation, James would be pleased to consider the loan of his musicians, costumes and experts to those princes who lacked them.