The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  When Nicholas, back from Africa, had taken Gelis van Borselen to wife, the union had not been unexpected. She had followed him overseas; she had been compromised; she had powerful relatives. Nevertheless it had been a surprise when, the bridal night over, Gelis had dutifully followed the Duchess of Burgundy, while her husband had attached himself, after an unexplained absence, to the train of the Duke.

  Then he had reappeared in Bruges with an entourage of new and highly trained followers, and had commanded Julius to come with him to Scotland.

  The merits of such an expedition were reasonably obvious. The master of the Banco di Niccolò had not, as yet, visited the agency opened for him in Scotland, or studied how to exploit and protect it. Added to which, the fair Gelis van Borselen had once been an attendant of Mary, the King’s married sister, and a bridal visit to Scotland should please her. Except, of course, that Nicholas had come to Scotland and Gelis had stayed at home.

  ‘A pity,’ explained vander Poele cordially now, between the laden dishes at Master Lamb’s table in Leith. ‘Did I not threaten her with divorce? But the Duchess had commanded her presence, and you don’t have to remind a van Borselen how important the English may be to a Bank. Gelis went with the Duchess, for my sake. But I expect her to join me.’

  His voice expressed simple confidence. Anselm Adorne said kindly, ‘I am sure that she will. I expect she writes to you daily. You will have more news from Bruges than I do.’

  ‘Not unless it’s coming by pigeon,’ Nicholas said. ‘Ships are slow in bad weather. But I hope to hear from her soon.’

  Julius continued to eat without catching anyone’s eye. Ships from the south had been remarkably frequent that autumn. He himself dealt with the numberless packets which managed to find their way post-haste to Nicholas from Venice and Florence, Rome and Catalonia; the letter-bags arriving from Bruges with the familiar superscriptions of friends and colleagues and – over and over again – Gregorio’s fierce legal script. Julius had read them all. And among them had been no message from Gelis van Borselen.

  Albany, leaning forward, broke in. ‘Can your wife swim? Who taught you?’

  Of course, the King’s brother knew Gelis from childhood. Nicholas said, ‘My lord Admiral, I shall try her in water as soon as may be: up to the present I had not thought to ask. I was taught to swim by a black man. He is dead, but there are plenty of others.’

  ‘You will teach me,’ said Albany.

  ‘Why, tonight, if you like,’ Nicholas said. ‘We can light a bonfire. Once you have learned, we can play tzukanion in the water.’

  Albany’s officer Liddell exclaimed, and Albany’s voice rose, overriding others. Guests’ faces turned, including that of Adorne’s athletic niece Katelijne, her long, sticky hair in a caul. Beside her, Julius saw, were one or two sturdy figures he recognised from among the golfers. Adorne said, ‘Is vander Poele drunk?’

  ‘No,’ said Julius. It was true, and untrue. Returned from the sea, they had all been served with spiced wine, as promised. All except Nicholas, who had been drunk on nothing but water since Bruges. Julius added, ‘You know his style.’

  ‘I knew his style, if you could call it that, at eighteen,’ Adorne said. ‘But nine years later, I expected maturity.’

  ‘Surplus energy,’ Julius said. ‘He has a lot to spare, now the feud with Simon is over.’

  ‘It is over?’ said Adorne.

  Nicholas was smiling, a danger sign. He appeared, however, to be listening to Will Roger, the man they all called Whistle Willie, who had come to lean, sent by Albany, at his shoulder. His green doublet was a mess. Julius turned his back. ‘The feud?’ he said to Adorne. ‘Of course it’s over. It finished in Bruges. Simon and Jordan are of no interest to Nicholas now. He doesn’t even use the name vander Poele any more.’

  ‘Why?’ said Adorne.

  ‘Because I thought it sounded vulgar,’ Nicholas said. He had been listening. The whistler had gone.

  Adorne said, ‘It has earned more honours now than the name of St Pol. You know Simon is at Kilmirren?’

  ‘And his father,’ Nicholas said. He speared a fig and regarded it.

  ‘The vicomte? How do you know?’

  ‘It rained frogs in Kilmarnock, and the monks’ wine in Paisley turned sour. The vicomte is undoubtedly there. In fact, I trust I shall meet him in Edinburgh. Cry the peace of the fair: we’re all merchants, we ought to be friendly. You’re here to patch up the Scots’ trade in Bruges?’

  ‘If I can. Why are you here, Nicholas?’ said Anselm Adorne.

  ‘Figs! Fegs, why kittle your belly with figs, when there’s beef and ham and deer collops afore ye?’ It was John Lamb, their host, half-risen and calling.

  ‘Because I’m full of seawater. John, why am I here? Master Adorne has been asking.’

  ‘To buy houses,’ said Lamb, sitting down again and wiping his chin. It was a large one, and gleaming with bristles in the light of his best candelabra. His hat-shadow loomed on the painted wood ceiling. ‘Ye ken this lad has bought yon fair little house with the orchard in the High Street of Edinburgh? Or the Bonkle family for him. And now do you ken what he has done? He’s taken two of Old Berecrofts’s tenements. Berecrofts, ye ken? Him who made a fortune from salt-pans and coalheughs? That’s Robin, his grandson. Aye, well, Master Nicholas has got some good competent ground, and is building himself a stone house in the Canongate.’

  ‘In the thick of the Abbot’s merchant colony. I heard. So you are contemplating serious trading in Scotland?’ Adorne said.

  ‘Julius and Jannekin are,’ vander Poele said. ‘But I’m not here for that at all. I thought I was, but I’m not. Did you know the King is getting married?’

  Everyone knew that the King, aged sixteen, was getting married to a Scandinavian child-bride of eleven. Half the Court was in Denmark concluding the deal for the dowry. The voice of Adorne’s nephew said, ‘Nicholas? You’re going to do them a Burgundian wedding? Oh, my God!’

  ‘They’ve had a Burgundian wedding,’ said vander Poele. ‘Her grace the late Queen Mother was Guelders-born, wasn’t she? But I might contrive a fresh fancy or two.’

  ‘Pissing wine,’ ejaculated Sersanders. ‘You didn’t see what Nicholas led into –’

  ‘Most of us did,’ said his uncle. ‘My lord Duke will think us uncouth. But I can recommend Nicholas to you. I have seldom met a more ingenious engineer. And when is the royal wedding?’

  ‘Ask the wind and King Christian of Denmark,’ said Jamie Liddell. ‘He’s got to get the money together. It’s winter. Next year at this rate.’

  ‘Time to practise the jousts,’ said vander Poele thoughtfully. ‘You know, my lord, that Master Adorne and Master Metteneye are both famous jousters? And young Sersanders. Does Maarten indulge?’

  ‘Maarten is to take minor orders,’ his father said. ‘He will be at the Bishop’s court at St Andrews. As for the rest of us, it is a long time since we first rode to the barriers, but we should be delighted, of course, to join in the sport. You have some fine exponents yourselves.’

  ‘Simon de St Pol,’ said Sersanders with malice. (Young!)

  ‘And Master Julius and you, Master Nicholas,’ said the Duke of Albany.

  This time vander Poele laughed. He said, ‘That would be sport indeed. No. I can hold my own on a battlefield, but I shouldn’t waste Simon’s time in the lists, either with him or against him. Are you disappointed?’

  He spoke, Julius thought, to Sersanders beside him, but it was Adorne’s dark-robed doctor beyond that who answered. Andreas said, ‘Unthinking persons might accuse you of cowardice. You must not feel compelled, under pressure, to fight.’

  ‘I shall quote you. Cedere rather than contendere,’ Nicholas said pleasantly. Julius flushed. It had been an insulting remark. He wished that Tobie had come, and not this talkative Flemish physician with the fuzzy ash-coloured hair and large-featured face. The eyes in it were clear as two radishes. He went on talking while Nicholas smiled, with one dimple. He didn’t know
Nicholas.

  ‘We have a mutual friend,’ Dr Andreas was saying. ‘The lord Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli told me that he stayed in this self-same house when in Scotland. You remember him? He has a wooden leg. You and he talked about Volos.’

  ‘I remember him,’ Nicholas said. ‘He would have given me advice, I am sure, about this jousting matter.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said the physician. ‘He would have drunk only water, as you and I and the demoiselle Katelijne have been doing. So who taught Master Anselm’s young lady sister to swim? The same black servant you mentioned?’

  Julius groaned. Nicholas smiled in a meaningful way. Nicholas said, ‘And if so, what else did he teach her? Anselm, why is your sister in Scotland?’

  Julius kicked him under the table. The smile didn’t waver. Sersanders said, ‘What? Katelijne? She’s going to that Cistercian foundation in Haddington where all the princesses are sent. Where Whistle Willie – where Will Roger teaches.’

  ‘She’s being sent to a nunnery?’ Nicholas said.

  Julius kicked him again. Dr Andreas said, ‘I thought you would have known that.’

  ‘He does,’ Julius said. ‘He needs another game of tzukanion. Or a swim, perhaps.’ He felt like the Charetty notary once again, making excuses for Nicholas.

  He was saying something to that effect when a horn blew in the darkness outside. Nicholas said, ‘You were useless at excuses, and as a notary in Bruges. Anyway, you can’t use your notarial seal in Scotland without being a priest. Godscalc’s a priest. He could be a notary here, except that his handwriting is frankly appalling. That’s the horn, and Albany’s on his feet. Aren’t you going?’

  ‘What’s the horn for?’ Julius asked, rising because Albany did. No one answered. Everyone seemed to be leaving the house, so Julius went with them. He was relieved. Sometimes, in the company of Nicholas, the random fire became dangerous. It reminded him of a field manned by broken artillery.

  Which was mad. He was trained. He could curb – he could always curb Nicholas.

  The horn summoned them outside the house, but it was the whistle that led them all to the beach.

  The house had been warm. Outside, the October moon lit the strand and silvered the waves as they crashed on the shore. The bonfire which burned on the sands was red and gold and enormous: in all the Lowlands, only the stackyards of Leith could have supplied it with timber.

  The scores of people lolling, weaving, chorusing round the bonfire were also from Leith, Adorne’s nephew Sersanders could see. Dogs yapped and bayed, and someone was playing the pipes to the merry patter of several drums. While the lords had been indoors, decorously eating from platters, the families who belonged here had brought out their food and a barrel of ale, and were continuing, in their own cheerful mode, the pleasures of the King’s play.

  Clouds of smuts, billows of heat swirled from the fire. Outside its range, the air was fresh but not piercing, although the sullen waters sounded cold. Sersanders began rather quickly to look about him for the youth Alexander, for Nicholas, and especially for Katelijne his sister.

  They were with Will Roger on the other side of the fire. Sersanders saw the King’s brother, secure within the sturdy group of his household, and the young women of title were there, laughing as well. They were harnessing dogs to the porters’ ship-sleds and the young people were climbing aboard – his cousin Maarten, the Scots boy Robin, his own Katelijne. And Alexander, the heir to the throne. Older people strode about, lending a hand. He could hear the wagers being laid, and see the families leaving the fire to crowd round.

  If the heir to the throne was to take part, surely the rest would be safe. His uncle Adorne, standing quietly behind, said, ‘I don’t think you could stop it. Maarten will take care of your sister. Don’t you want to join in? You used to do things like that with Nicholas.’

  He had, long ago, when he was twelve and Nicholas a sophisticated sixteen, an apprentice called Claes who knew every kitchenmaid and was the source of every inventive exploit in Bruges. Sersanders had known Julius too, partly as the Charetty lawyer who could chastise them both; partly as the young man who, off duty, was not averse to some adventure himself.

  Today, he had exchanged hardly a word with Julius or with Nicholas vander Poele, once Claes, apart from that silly exchange about Katelijne. The camaraderie had gone. With his uncle, too, there had been a change in the old kindly relationship. Of course, wealth and power made men cold, even cruel. It wasn’t surprising. Only he found himself thinking of the man by his surname this time. He was vander Poele: he was not a friend you called Claes. Sersanders said, ‘At least they don’t seem to be going to swim.’

  He missed the first race, but joined the next one, and did quite well, with Maarten this time running beside him and yelling. They had a donkey race next, and then the pinners’ men took them on at the tursing, which meant a race with a two-hundredweight load on your back. The professionals won that, but vander Poele and Julius led the laymen behind them, and vied with each other over the last hundred yards, using every dirty trick of toe and knee and shoulder anyone had ever heard of, accompanied by a stream of unquotable badinage. The boy Duke had tears streaming from his pale eyes, and Katelijne was white with delight and exertion.

  Then Liddell said, ‘Why don’t we sing?’

  So, as the moon shone on the sea, they settled round the red glowing mound of the fire, and the young gentlefolk sang, as Master Lamb had predicted. Now the families had begun to walk back through the sand to their cabins, and the artisans, for whom the day started at dawn, had with reluctance plodded back to the workshops. But many stayed, young men mostly, with a few elders hoping to catch a royal glance, plus a few who had snored themselves into their night’s happy sleep. All the royal party was there, and the Flemings, even to Dr Andreas.

  Anselm Sersanders was not a great man for music, although he had heard plenty of it in church and had a full student’s repertoire of verses and rounds and choruses, dirty and clean. The Adornes, because of their family church, were painfully assiduous patrons, and Sersanders blamed his uncle for encouraging Katelijne’s prejudices. She fidgeted now, consumed with impatience as the flasks were passed round and the songs roared out, to whistle and trumpet and drum, and the bagpipe wheezed now and then, until someone got up and threw it into the sea. Then Will Roger started making up verses.

  His was one of the good voices; as it ought to be, since he’d come from England with the name of musician and stayed because, it seemed, he’d made himself popular with the Court. He was not one of nature’s beauties, having a coarse face rather than an ascetic one, and a barrel chest and fingers like bolsters. But they were agile enough on a whistle, and the words he improvised were as neat as the measure he sang them to. Then he threw both across to James Liddell, and sang a descant while Jamie, no newcomer to the game, hummed and thought, and produced his own verse, and repeated it twice, with some help. Then Alexander made up a verse, not quite rhyming and losing the tune, but everyone chanted it after him, and Will Roger gave it its due before he turned to the girl Katelijne. He said, ‘I think I have heard a sweet voice. Do you want to try it?’

  ‘I need it higher,’ she said, and drew breath, and began. The first line was a joke, developing an idea of Liddell’s. The second was a parody of Will Roger’s tentative start. The third and fourth were evolutions of both. The music was precisely Roger’s throughout, except that at the end she changed the key down to minor, to prepare for lowering the range.

  The applause and laughter had started by then, and almost drowned Roger’s voice as it addressed her. ‘Do it again. Keep it high. I’ll adapt.’ And when the shouting died, it revealed the two voices singing together, one high and one low, with the man improvising to the girl. They used the same words. At the end, they broke off, loudly acclaimed, and the versifying passed to other skittish, everyday voices.

  Anselm Adorne said, ‘She has a great gift. I think we have brought her to the right place.’ His nephew gl
anced at him, and away.

  Julius was singing. His voice was terrible and his verses didn’t scan, but were fertile with waggish allusions. He had wandered off tune. Following him, Maarten (who had a good voice) said, ‘I’ve lost the key. No, all right: I have it.’

  Someone had quoted him the opening phrase at its original pitch. The whistle, which had begun to give out the notes, promptly stopped. The whistler looked round. ‘Nicholas,’ Julius replied to the unspoken question. ‘He carries keys in his head. Like a housewife.’ The fire shone on their red laughing faces.

  Will Roger said, ‘Go on, Maarten,’ but didn’t listen. At the end, he applauded. He said, ‘Why don’t we try something more complex? Nicholas-with-the-keys, can you give the little lady her note? You can. Now let her sing her verse high, and make your own words below her as I did. Or sing the same tune if you like.’

  Adorne said, ‘That’s asking rather a lot. But inventing verse at least will give our friend no pain.’ The girl was singing, her face full of mischief. Then vander Poele joined her, with unbroken good humour.

  Sersanders had heard him roar out the pithy songs they all knew, and had known him improvise words. It was a skill that came to him easily. The words he invented now were pointed rather than coarse, but they rhymed and they scanned; and the notes were, to begin with, the precise harmonies that Will Roger had used. The girl, singing, faced him across the flickering fire. Then vander Poele, without warning, moved into her tune, so that for a moment they were singing in unison. Then the voices divided again. She had taken the harmony, and left him with the original notes.

  A moment later, the sound changed again. The whistle had joined them. Will Roger, his fingers rippling, stood up. Katelijne, her face rapt, also sprang to her feet and vander Poele, singing on undisturbed, did the same. Roger dropped his hand away for a moment. He said, ‘Go on. Never mind the words. I’ll keep the tune.’