‘I think he anticipated something less final but thoroughly actionable,’ Gelis said. ‘Treasonable protests and threats, tears, a cuckold’s protest tailored to your present diminished condition, which I trust is not permanent? Or have you returned privily sealed, Lion Sans Vilainie, a wax lion from your wars?’
‘No more nor less than Simon, I am sure,’ Nicholas said. ‘You colluded with him?’
Her eyes, chilly blue, closed and opened. ‘Did you think it was all aimed at you? He has been attacking Jordan and me for six weeks. Ever since you elected to go to the Loire.’
He refused to digress. ‘But you must have known the King’s interest was being titillated, and by whom. Why did you think Simon was doing it?’
‘To nauseate me and mortify you. I wasn’t nauseated,’ Gelis said. ‘Quite the reverse. And I knew you would have no objection, since you had done the same thing yourself. Although I dare say you were not interrupted so rudely. I think I must claim a repeat engagement for that.’
‘I am not sure who with?’ Nicholas said.
He saw she had forgotten. Then her mind worked and she said, ‘If I am thought to be infected, then so are you.’
‘I don’t see how,’ Nicholas said. ‘We haven’t lain together since you descended on Simon, or vice versa. My doctors forbade it. I lied, naturally, to preserve your good name, but I’m afraid people have noticed our abstinence. If we are both ostracised, the options are certainly limited. You will have to resort to Simon for life, and I to Simon’s old mistresses. Although I don’t know about Ada. Crackbene would be very distressed.’
He stared at her blandly. He wasn’t going to throw things this time. It went too deep for that, to a level he wasn’t going to penetrate. She said, ‘You seem to feel that really, it was all for the best. I’m so glad. And Simon is dealt with.’
‘I’m not glad,’ he said. ‘Simon was supposed to be the subject of a long and brilliant campaign, culminating in a definitive foot on his throat and thirteen penitential Our Fathers in February. Now I have been compelled to excise him. I think perhaps it is worth bearing in mind. Abrupt changes can cut into a programme, and subject the players to premature hazards. All the players.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Gelis. ‘I am inviolate. I am your game, and your life.’
Her words faded and she said nothing more, nor did he for a long time. Then he said, ‘I must go and see about Jordan.’
‘And that is all? You have no answer?’ she said. She was sitting up.
He said, ‘Gelis, I gave you my answer on Sinai.’
She remembered.
Walk over with me.
Die with me, if we cannot live without hurting each other.
Chapter 40
IN TOKEN OF his gratitude that winter, the most noble and right victorious Prince James, Third of the Name, was pleased to appoint Nicholas de Fleury, Baron Beltrees, as one of his councillors and chamberlains, and to add to his barony those lands which were necessary to round off his property. No complaint was heard from the generous donors, one of whom had already forfeited land to my lord of Monypenny, another clever man much in favour with King Louis.
James was grateful to William, first lord of Hamilton, as he was grateful no doubt to the amenable sieur de Fleury. It was popularly agreed, in an undertone, that it was not a bad thing, on the whole, to have one’s lady wife surprised with the King. Especially as the candidature was now so very limited.
Following the same contrary code, the lady de Fleury was likewise allotted a cautious increase of esteem. Convinced that her friend was a victim of Simon, the King’s elder sister was endlessly thoughtful. Gelis attended Court in the Countess’s train, although never close to his grace; and accompanied her husband on as many formal occasions as he had time for, with all his new labours. The sabotage ceased, and in time she moved with her son back to the High Street, although very well guarded; while Lord Beltrees shared his time between that home, his Canongate house and the Castle, unless he were absent in Stirling or Perth or any of the other parts of the kingdom to which he was giving his attention.
Of Simon nothing was heard, and probably nothing would be. He had been banished to Kilmirren. One indiscretion on his part, and the banishment would become exile or worse. His self-appointed ally Martin, in the course of his travels for the Vatachino, kept Simon discreetly informed, but did not recommend action while guilt over the Burgundian was fresh. He could afford to wait. The first thing Simon had done, anyone could be sure, was to send a scream of complaint to the vicomte. And the next thing that would happen, for sure, was that the vicomte would come. As soon, of course, as King Louis would let him.
Tobie, accustomed to Nicholas’s industrious guile, had never seen anything to compare with the four months that followed. Ignorant of Scotland, he spent them at the other man’s side as Nicholas managed, extended, corrected all the projects originally launched with the aid of John and Moriz, Gregorio and Julius. Dr Tobias Beventini of Grado stared mesmerised at mining and draining experiments, trotted round boatbuilding yards, and met incoming ships bringing timber for the new wharves and wagons, and iron for the fine wheels and gears. He was dazzled by the splendour of the King’s building plans, which lay within the competence of one Thomas Cochrane, who also provided masons for smithies and stone balls for all the new cannon. He helped check the incoming herds of draught oxen, as well as the King’s special imports: the magnificent horses; the hunting dogs fine as those of King Louis, whose hounds had their feet bathed in red wine, and were set to sleep, robed in silk, in his chamber.
He helped supervise the outfitting of the King’s new-bought caravel The Lion, and the furnishing of James’s personal chambers and chapels. He rode round the acres of land where experimental crops were being planted. He saw vines. He saw hemp. Occasionally, when tired of Nicholas’s more cavalier answers, he took his amazement to Govaerts.
‘At least he isn’t doing another Nativity Play,’ Tobie said. ‘I heard about that.’ He saw, to his astonishment, a gleam enter the manager’s eye.
‘It’s what finally made all the difference,’ Govaerts said. ‘That, and what he did for them in Iceland. The Vatachino may do well enough, and so may Sersanders, through his uncle’s new post. But of the three foreign merchants in Scotland, the Banco di Niccolò is held in greatest esteem by the Court.’
Hence the dogs. Hence the furs. Hence the roaring silversmith’s booth in the basement. Hence, infuriatingly, the commercial reason for two of the very few ventures that seemed to Tobie to offer hope of some sort of redemption.
Katelijne had shared the same view, in the talk – by no means all about Nicholas – which they had had before he left Haddington. ‘There was a change, both times.’
‘But it didn’t last.’
‘Not on the surface. It is all there below.’
‘Like Africa?’
‘I think so. He’s afraid of it sometimes. That’s when he will only drink water.’
‘Perhaps he is right,’ Tobie said. ‘Violent extremes of emotion are dangerous. That kind of self-control is fairly rare.’
‘Dangerous? Glass-breaking murderous dangerous?’
‘Kathi,’ he had said. ‘I am a doctor. No. I know why that happened, and he will know it as well. I meant dangerous to the person he has made of himself.’
Just after that conversation he had gone to see the child Jordan, a visit previously discouraged. He was escorted by the two ladies Sinclair, and was able to make his bow on the way to the Countess of Arran, and ask how her children did. She remembered him also from Bruges. In the nursery, he was received by and passed into the domain of Mistress Clémence and an elderly nursemaid called Pasque, who curtseyed tittering. On the floor was a child with an apple. It looked up.
Tobie’s nose warmed and swelled, and he sneezed. The child blessed him in French, with two dimples. Prompted by Mistress Clémence, it scrambled to its feet, bearing the apple which dropped as it made to shake hands. Tobie caught the fruit a
nd placed it on his bald head, crossing his eyes.
‘Papa did that,’ said the child. ‘Hear my poem.’
‘Your poem?’ said Mistress Clémence.
‘Papa’s poem,’ said the child. ‘But I did some of it.’
Tobie didn’t stay long. He was used to children, but not necessarily devoted to them. He had seen all he needed to know about this one. And he didn’t wish to tarnish the golden event of the day, which had clearly been already provided by Nicholas. On the way out, Mistress Clémence surprisingly suggested a turn in the herb-garden and, taking a cloak, led him outside to a bench. They were immediately surrounded by chaffinches, to whom she absent-mindedly sprinkled some crumbs from her apron. Through a casement he could hear Pasque squawking and the child chortling with laughter.
He said, ‘He is a credit to you, Mistress Clémence. A charming, vigorous child.’
‘A normal-enough child,’ she said. She could have been any age. She looked older than she probably was, with her hair strained out of sight and her lean, erect figure. Her ankles were good. She had a nose that would make two of his snout. He had met a lot of nurses like her.
He said, ‘I was speaking to the demoiselle Kathi about the accidents, and the attack on yourself. I hope they will cease now. I wanted to tell you that I met your kinsfolk at Chouzy.’
‘The sieur de Fleury mentioned it,’ said the nurse. ‘I am glad they were able to send for you. Broken bones badly set can lame an active young man.’
‘You have known him long?’ Tobie said.
‘For twenty months,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘I was appointed, with Pasque, by the child’s mother. Both parents appear satisfied with my services and I have no other plans at the moment. About the wagon.’
‘The accident?’ Tobie said.
She said, ‘I have told Lord Beltrees that I agree that the descent of the wagon was deliberate. The boy Henry is spoiled, and was perhaps excessively punished. The family were moved to retaliate.’
‘The boy Henry’s bones were not broken,’ Tobie said. ‘He was not excessively punished.’
‘You were there?’
‘I was in the camp where it happened. He betrayed the men who had befriended him. But for your master, he would have been hanged.’
There was a silence. ‘I see,’ said the woman at last. ‘I am glad. I had conceived the sieur de Fleury to be a moderate man, generally managing well under some stress. I had hoped I was not wrong.’
Generally. Tobie looked at her. ‘You are not wrong,’ he said. ‘But if you ever have doubts, send for me.’
She was curious, which was fair enough. She knew of more than one lapse, and was uneasy about her small charge, which was commendable. She knew enough about Gelis and Nicholas to wonder what was going to happen. He shared the feeling, but had no intention of telling her so. He felt on the whole reassured.
The winter fled past, bringing extraordinary snippets of news, some amusing, some not. Two deaths occurred. Bessarion, Cardinal Patriarch of Constantinople departed life in December at Ravenna, ill and broken and too weak to return to his haven at Rome. He had achieved more than any one man in reconciling the two Christian Churches, but died unfulfilled.
The second death, mourned by suffering princes, was that of Giammatteo Ferrari da Grado, the famous physician and uncle of Tobie. Having wasted more time than he thought reasonable at his sickbed, Tobie declined to go to his funeral. His money was willed to other nephews, and his books were partitioned between them and the hospital of Pavia. His printing presses Tobie had already appropriated.
In November, a flotilla of ships conveyed Catherine Corner from Venice to Cyprus, there to take up her long-deferred position as Queen to James de Lusignan, known to his familiars as Zacco. Catherine was visibly delighted from the very first sight of her husband. The King, observers noted, was speechless. It was left to that accomplished courtier David de Salmeton, whose trading company had paid for the wedding, to articulate the King’s indisputable rapture.
The usual truce for the winter was completed between the armies of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and Louis, King of France, and the Duke filled in the time by sending an envoy to England to discuss a combined April attack on King Louis, together with a prize list of potential partitions of France. The envoy, Louis of Gruuthuse, who had sheltered King Edward in exile, was feasted day and night for two months in Westminster and Windsor, sleeping on cloth-of-gold beds in rooms hung with white silk, and being presented with the monarch’s own charger and crossbow before finally being ceremonially invested with the earldom of Winchester, supported by two hundred pounds annually from the revenues of the port of Southampton. Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, in whose house the Earl and Countess of Arran had stayed for very much longer, remained Conservator of the Scots Privileges in Bruges, from where he sent regular missives to Scotland.
Katelijne Sersanders his niece continued dutifully to be seen in the marriage market. Willie Roger was derisive. ‘John Bonkle! My God! Why not his uncles, his father? I’d get the Trinity to rehearse in for free! Liddell. Napier. Muir. David Arnot and Conn Malloch – now those I’d approve of, if you didn’t mind living in Fife or the Borders. At least you’d be able to sing duets with them.’
‘That, I believe, is not the whole purpose and object of matrimony,’ Kathi had said. ‘What do you think of Ben Bailzie?’
‘I saw him hanging about you. Do you really want to know?’ Roger said. ‘You’d be better off with me.’
‘I know I should,’ Kathi said. ‘Let’s run away. Where shall we run to?’
‘Oh Kathi, Kathi,’ said Roger. ‘I wish that you meant it. But since you don’t, I’ll make you another proposal. You write down the names of your followers and I’ll set them to music. Suitable music, with suitable lyrics.’
‘Starting at once,’ Kathi said. ‘Willie? May I say something?’
‘No,’ said Roger.
‘Then I will. I don’t mind giving half measure to some people, but you would mind more than they do. Music is better.’
The one person who didn’t call on her was Nicholas, and when they met it was by accident, when she was in her brother’s house in the High Street, and Lord Beltrees was unexpectedly announced. Sersanders jumped up and welcomed him smiling: in Iceland, he had altered his opinion of Nicholas. Nicholas saw Kathi was there, and came forward.
They had met briefly when she came back to Haddington, on the day after his disastrous return. Then, she had hidden her pity, as he had concealed whatever he felt behind a routine display of good acting. Now, she thought, his behaviour appeared natural. He even seemed delighted to see her.
She said, ‘I’m not going to say Ey. Jà, ha, ho! perhaps. And how is Wound Man?’
‘Neglected,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. I can’t sit on anything green.’
‘Well, there’s a red cushion,’ said Sersanders, who always lost some of his solemnity when Nicholas was about. ‘She’s been husband-hunting. We’ve just had another list, full of Dorias.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t pick a Genoese,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not with what’s about to happen in Caffa and Chios. Is Mar bothering you?’
The King’s brother was fourteen. ‘He isn’t bothering me to marry him,’ Kathi said. ‘He’s fallen out with the King and wants to make a statement, in which I was to be a comma. I told him to wait until he could punctuate.’
‘Kathi!’ said her brother.
‘Well, tell me if he gets into colons. I’ve got something to show you both.’ It was an embroidered bag, which Nicholas laid on the table. ‘Open it.’
The cloth of the satchel was wadmol, and she recognised the embroidery. Kathi opened it, and drew out one by one what she found wrapped inside. They were chessmen, so old that the whalebone had yellowed and there were cracks in the knights’ shields and the queens’ tunics and pigtails. There were runes cut very small in the base.
‘From Constantinople,’ Nicholas said. ‘Handed down through the centur
ies to Glímu-Sveinn, who has sent them to me. He has recovered. Crackbene has just come back from Iceland, with news of them all.’
‘You sent him?’ said Kathi.
‘There were things that they needed. And, of course, there was always the chance of picking up a little sulphur or some more fish. It isn’t as bad as it might have been,’ Nicholas said. ‘The lava left them most of the pasture, and they got some of the herds out. There are salmon, and the fowling has been good. We took them meal. Shining armour and solid gold crown. I’m telling you this so that you won’t mind the other news Crackbene has brought me. We’ve sunk the Unicorn.’
Her heart bumped, and then bumped again. All the bonhomie left Sersanders’s face. ‘Where?’
Off La Rochelle, I believe, in the very shadow of Oléron. On its way back from Bordeaux with twenty-seven tuns of Gascon wine and a book on the Laws, but Crackbene’s friends never could read. I’m sorry.’
Sersanders said, ‘Burgundian sinking Burgundian? Duke Charles wouldn’t like that.’
Nicholas said, ‘Anselm, three-quarters of that ship is Vatachino. I have to protect myself. And although we are friends, or I hope we are, we are each fighting for our share of the trading in Scotland, and your uncle is my rival in that. He proved it in Danzig. Benecke is still very cross with you all. I am perhaps trying to show your uncle and you that association with the Vatachino can bring trouble.’
He was good with Sersanders. Kathi watched them both. A man of Martin’s had been leaving as he arrived; she supposed Nicholas had seen him. She didn’t like Martin, nor did her brother. For Sersanders, nevertheless, business was business. He said, ‘We shall sue.’
‘You can try,’ Nicholas said. ‘You won’t find any connection between the pirate and Crackbene, or me. And of course, this conversation never happened. I just wanted to say that in one way I regretted the necessity. I shall never forget Iceland.’
Kathi said, ‘You risked something, telling us.’
To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 66