The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  What followed lasted no longer than it took to empty a cup, and very few round the fire listened closely, or knew what they were hearing. The whistle held to its part and the girl to hers, leaving to the other singer the freedom to find a third tune to weave about them and, maliciously, some new lines of verse for the girl to reply to. She did, changing her descant and forcing him to change his. Then he altered his tempo as well and, while she kept the old pace, began to double both the words and the notes, weaving faster and faster about the core of the tune. She doubled too, but could not quite match him. Then the whistle changed also, and became a quotation.

  The girl laughed from sheer excitement, and vander Poele screwed his lips. But when she began to sing, he sang with her, and went on singing when the whistle stopped altogether, and was replaced by Will Roger’s own rich voice, held well down. The piece, though intricate, was not long, and ended quietly, with the three voices blended in unison.

  Then Roger drew breath and said, ‘My God, that’s enough. Are we to work for you all night? A dance! A dance, your honours!’ And, readily, the company scrambled to its feet while the trumpet lifted and flashed, and the drum began to thud out its measure.

  Roger, whistle in hand, was not dancing, but had crossed to snare his two singers. The child Katelijne was there, but vander Poele had sprung off to join the light-hearted column, a comely noblewoman on either arm.

  Julius, who had been late finding a partner, came and sat by Adorne and Sersanders and followed their gaze to the dancers. He said, ‘Bravo, my good knight de Fleury. What was the last song they made up?’

  ‘They weren’t making it up. It was from the Divine Office. Tenebrae, darkness. De Fleury, you said?’

  ‘His mother’s family name,’ Julius said. ‘I told you. He decided at Bruges to bury the family feud; to forget he wanted Simon and Jordan to recognise him as one of their blood. So if he isn’t St Pol, he isn’t vander Poele either. That’s how I understand it. The Duke’s started calling him Nicol. You know they’re going to roll barrels? Ten in a row, on the highway from Leith to Edinburgh? When the dancing finishes, we have to get torches.’

  ‘Aren’t you tired?’ Adorne said.

  ‘No. Well, a bit. But what a night! They’re an energetic crowd, the Scots,’ Julius said. ‘It should suit M. de Fleury.’

  Soon after the rolling of barrels, Jamie Liddell led his lord the King’s brother to bed in the King’s Wark at Leith, and Master Lamb was able at last to retire, and his weary Flemish guests with him. Quiet at last was bestowed on the strand and the river of Leith. Quiet, and soulful oblivion.

  No one forded the river that night to Berecrofts’s house in North Leith. Julius found a corner pallet with Lamb. Nicholas de Fleury, three months wed, was elsewhere; having lately had at his disposal the bed and the person of Beth, a minor laird’s giggling daughter.

  Chapter 4

  THREE WEEKS AFTER that, Jordan de St Pol, vicomte de Ribérac, rode across Scotland to his house in the Cowgate of Edinburgh and from there made several calls. His last was to the Burgundian Envoy.

  Anselm Adorne received him calmly in the large chamber of the merchant’s house whose hospitality he now enjoyed in the High Street.

  Like all Burgundian Flemings, Adorne traded with France despite everything. His eldest son spoke not only Italian and Flemish but the French of the professors of Paris. He himself knew the names of all the Scots of noble blood who had fought in France against England, and who had remained to serve sly, brilliant King Louis in return for fortunes and titles and territory. The d’Aubigny. The Monypenny. And de Ribérac. He knew, too, the campaign this elderly, gross man had conducted over the years to deflect the claims the apprentice Claes vander Poele might have tried to impose on his family. Nicholas, born of Simon’s first wife, whom Simon repudiated.

  Now Adorne said, ‘I am glad to see you, my lord. Your fells and hides are among the best that we import. I hope we may count on you to help us settle this difference of opinion about the needs of Scots traders in Bruges. We are merchants, men of the world. Quarrels damage us all.’

  ‘Then I must warn you,’ said the fat man opposite, seated in the only large chair, a cup in his broad, beringed hand. ‘The damage will be greater than you can imagine if our mutual acquaintance vander Poele gets his way. He is no friend to Genoa. He could close his business in Flanders tomorrow and retire to Venice, leaving Scotland to trade with the Hanse, or with Florence and Venice through England.’

  ‘You think him so dangerous?’ Adorne said. He was pleased, on the whole, that Sersanders and Metteneye were out. Neither would ever be a match for this elderly man, whose intelligence lived, shrewd as a fox, behind the pursed eyes, the many-chinned face, the giant bulk swathed in velvet. Adorne added, ‘I heard that, in Bruges, he made an end to his dispute with your family. He has even changed his name from yours to his mother’s. And I have heard him utter no threats since he came here.’

  ‘You mistake me. Whatever his name, vander Poele could never be dangerous,’ de Ribérac said. ‘But disruptive, yes. Wilful, yes. Irresponsible, yes. If I were a lord of this country, I should encourage him to go back to Venice. I called at his house to tell him so, but he was not there.’

  ‘He has been north, as I have, with the Court. In any case, he seldom uses his Edinburgh house, I am told. It suits him better to live down the hill, in the Canongate, in the Abbot of Holyrood’s parish. He is building, and lavishly. Even if he were to leave, his agency would remain with a considerable presence.’

  ‘Including men like Mick Crackbene?’ said the fat man. ‘I, of course, have no objection if vander Poele’s clients have none. I should have thought he would have shrunk from employing him.’

  ‘Crackbene?’ said Adorne. The man was a seaman, a mercenary, equally serving a man and his enemies. Adorne said, ‘I am surprised.’

  ‘You didn’t know? The bastard Bonkle, the fool Julius, and Crackbene, the professional turncoat. That is vander Poele’s Scottish company. They will do what he wants. Suppose he turns the King’s mind against trading with Bruges? Offers to bring his army here? Persuades Scotland to increase her support to the Yorkist side in this evil English war between kings? Might vander Poele – I am only suggesting it – become a danger to you?’

  Shrewd as a fox. But de Ribérac was not dealing with Sersanders, or Metteneye. Anselm Adorne smiled, and said, ‘How on earth should he, could he threaten me? I take no sides in the English war, unless you think it a commitment to have placed my daughter at Court. She serves the English King’s mother. Perhaps I should balance my interest with some gesture to the Lancastrian side? Or is it hardly worth the trouble?’

  The vicomte did not blink. He said, ‘The King of Scotland is young.’

  ‘The King of Scotland is sixteen. His advisers are not. The Court, as you must know, is better regulated than its lack of functionaries might suggest, although it has to contend with youthful exuberance. The rulers of this kingdom will not be influenced by an outsider. And his army, you must know, is fighting for the Duke of Burgundy on the borders of France. Captain Astorre will not lightly give up that contract, which in turn relies on the presence of the House of Niccolò in Bruges. I am not going to hurry vander Poele home, even for you. He is not at present even trading.’

  ‘Then why is he here?’ de Ribérac said. ‘Apart, that is, from treating the place as a brothel? No wench, no lady, no burgher’s daughter, I am told, is safe from his attentions.’

  Anselm said coolly, ‘Of that, I know nothing. He came here, I assume, to offer his services as a banker, a merchant, a dealer. He has been asked, I believe, to help direct the royal Christmas and wedding festivities.’

  ‘I could understand it,’ said the vicomte, ‘were his own marriage not so very recent and so hastily consummated. His wife, they say, has left the Duchess’s court for the country.’

  ‘I have heard nothing of it,’ said Adorne. This time, it was not quite the truth. According to Julius the lawyer, Nich
olas had had enough of black girls, and now was bent on a little variety. Gelis (he had remarked) wasn’t a nun. Nicholas and she seemed a good enough match: Julius hadn’t heard that they’d tired of each other. They were, the Lord knew, the most pig-headed pair Julius had ever encountered, but if there had been anything wrong, Nicholas was the sort who would have gone back and settled it. Which he hadn’t. Which meant there was nothing.

  Adorne had listened and nodded, since nodding was cheap. To de Ribérac now he spoke mildly. ‘I can only tell you what everyone knows: that vander Poele and his wife were already close long before marriage. Hence a parting such as this, beneficial to business, might be tolerated if not welcomed by both.’

  ‘So they are still fond, you are saying? And this exhibition of lust is merely the result of a cruel deprivation? It is a theory,’ de Ribérac said. ‘I must bring Simon to Court, and see if he cannot advise vander Poele in his predicament. It is an area in which he is well qualified to a fault. And one of your sons is here? Maarten is now at St Andrews?’

  The inquisition took a different course. Adorne bore it all with undisturbed candour. His son was indeed to study under the Bishop. His niece Katelijne was likewise happy in her royal post, so like that of her cousin in England – a symmetry which did not need again to be stressed. The conversation faded; the vicomte was rising when the door opened on Dr Andreas.

  The two men had never met face to face. It was surprising, therefore, that the physician should halt on the threshold, and that the fat man should markedly pause before completing the movement that brought him upright. Adorne presented them to each other.

  The vicomte’s greeting was cursory. The doctor ventured to add a remark. ‘You have a grandson, Diniz Vasquez, monseigneur?’

  ‘According to Simon my son,’ said Jordan de St Pol, ‘I have several.’ He began to walk to the door.

  ‘No,’ said Dr Andreas. ‘By him, monseigneur, you have only one.’

  The vicomte turned. ‘You have private information? I am fascinated. Or I hear that you study the stars? Tell me more.’

  ‘I know no more,’ said Dr Andreas. ‘But perhaps that is enough.’

  ‘Well, certainly, it is good news,’ said the vicomte reflectively. ‘Indeed, you must inform Master Henry de St Pol, when he is older. He, too, will be relieved. Meanwhile, I suggest that other parts of the firmament might prove more rewarding than the area that shines on my family? We possess, I think, lustre enough. Sir Anselm?’

  He left. Adorne closed the door and looked at his physician. Andreas, from Vesalia, served his household, and the Guild, and the Hospital of St John at Bruges. Adorne was not in awe of him as the Guild members were, although he respected his peculiar skills. Now he said, ‘I think you will have to explain that exchange. You disturbed him.’

  Andreas said, ‘It was not my intention. Sometimes, a truth comes to the tongue and must be spoken. He did not question it. But the grandson’s name is not Henry.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Adorne.

  ‘I cannot tell. My lord, I came because of the vicomte. What did he ask of you? Your reasons for coming?’

  One did not need special powers to divine that. All the same, Adorne thought it prudent to sit the man down and then to describe the encounter. He omitted nothing.

  At the end: ‘Ah,’ said Dr Andreas, easing his well-covered shoulders. ‘Yes, I see. And now, Monseigneur will have gone to fetch his son Simon to Court. Will you warn M. de Fleury?’

  It took a moment’s thought, even yet, to attribute the Burgundian name to the dimpled, rumbustious apprentice. Adorne said, ‘Of what should I warn him? He knows St Pol and his father are here. The battle is over, and vander – and de Fleury ready to bury the hatchet.’ The conversation was fresh in his mind. Cry the peace of the fair. We’re all merchants: we ought to be friendly.

  ‘You are right,’ said Dr Andreas. ‘There is no need to warn him: he knows.’

  The man who, day and night watched Anselm Adorne, slipped down the slope of the High Street and through the fortified gate that divided the burgh of Edinburgh from that of the Canongate. On his left was the road that plunged downhill and northwards to Leith. Ahead was the highway to Holyrood Abbey. Packed between the two was the merchant colony presided over by the family Berecrofts, among which was the house of the Banco di Niccolò; two floors of it finished, the rest in the hands of the masons.

  Julius its lawyer was there, as well as its master and patron. ‘Well?’ Julius said when the spy had gone off. ‘You said Jordan would try Adorne first. Now you know Simon will follow.’

  ‘I am brilliant,’ de Fleury said, being sick, for the moment, of Julius. They had spent the last three weeks on the road with the Court, hunting, shooting, riding, hawking and discussing, among other things, the King’s wedding and the country’s financial wellbeing. In the evenings they had played games and danced.

  M. de Fleury had won, without much trouble, a great deal at cards and had achieved, without much trouble, a mild acclaim for inventing new diversions of a socially acceptable kind. He was, it was established, seldom unwilling to sing, and in private displayed a gift for deadly and accurate mime which had come to the ears of the King and his brother. On the other hand, he had not courted royal attention. His business had been with the royal officials. He and Julius had been intermittent guests in a very large household which also held, at intervals, the Burgundian Envoy and his suite. Anselm Adorne had had several exchanges, always pleasant, with Nicholas de Fleury of Bruges.

  The evening of licence at Leith had not been repeated. The squires in whom reposed charge of the King and his siblings had been smartly dealt with, and exercise on the shorelands curtailed. It told Nicholas de Fleury what he already knew, that this was a well-conducted court, of such a size that a handful of good men could run it. Of all the other actors of that night, he had interest only in Anselm Adorne. The girl Beth, he rather thought, had gone back to her father.

  Since then he had hardly been celibate, but had not as yet managed to coax to his bed, or indeed anywhere, the particular woman he was interested in. The problem pleased him. He found it entertaining to compound his physical assets: to dress as always in black, with a jewel placed each day on his glove, or his hat, or his breast, all of them set in the heaviest gold like the deeply worked chain which crossed his shoulders. His sword of ceremony was Byzantine and inlaid, and old. The Emperor of Trebizond who had given it to him had been a degenerate and a fool, and his courtiers good for nothing but reclining in shadow, debating.

  Nicholas de Fleury was not only far from a fool: he was an artist. Within his dress he moved with a magnificent freedom, as eloquent as if he wore nothing at all. He had been expertly taught and, moreover, had lately spent much of his time in a climate where clothes were an irrelevance. He had no doubt that the one lady he wanted would come to him in the end. By Christmas, perhaps. Certainly before January had ended: he couldn’t wait longer than that. But first, among a thousand delicate tasks, he had to make this visit to Haddington. He thought he would make it soon, before Simon came to town. He supposed he should inform Julius now.

  Julius was drinking claret, while waiting to be told what to think. Nicholas poured himself a cup of water and, when the builders’ dirt rose to the surface, threw it, without speaking, at the opposite wall.

  Seventeen miles to the east of Edinburgh the priory of Haddington, the fourth largest town in the kingdom of Scotland, lay by its river in autumnal farmlands packed with fat Cistercian sheep, grazed by handsome Cistercian cattle, ploughed into soft, rich furrows for healthy Cistercian grain and thoroughly planted with fruit trees and vegetables. The mill-wheels groaned; the bells chimed; the dogs barked; the carts rumbled away to the tan-pits, the weavers, the markets; and the Prioress and her twenty white-gowned nuns were to be seen as often outside the precinct walls among the vast army of lay workers and servants as inside at their devotions. The priory of Haddington was not only a wealthy landed estate, it was rural lodging, salon
and nursery for eminent ladies.

  Katelijne Sersanders approved. She had not quite believed that she would escape the kind of convent her cousins inhabited, wrapped in stillness and piety. Haddington, on the contrary, could afford the luxurious appointments of a court because it was a court: Margaret was not the first royal child to be reared there. The nuns were of gentle birth and hand-picked from sister houses. There was one from Waverley, England; and one from Cîteaux itself. And providing companionship for the élite of the kingdom were other ladies and children who, for one reason or another, had retired (or almost retired) from the world, and could afford to pay for their keep, or were important enough to have it paid for them.

  The priory performed other duties as well. The high officers of the kingdom and the burghs had been known to gather in its capacious Great Chamber. Envoys and couriers lodged there; the King would come to see his young kindred while hunting; the finest tutors were paid to visit and give of their wisdom to the royal infants in tutelage. There was therefore no shortage of entertainment or sport or, of course, work.

  Katelijne Sersanders, royal attendant, had a buoyant if occasionally menacing relationship with the lady Margaret, aged eight, but shared her tasks with several others, from the body-nurse Mariota to the well-bred nun Alisia, who taught the child her letters and manners, a little Latin and French, and some simple techniques of embroidery.

  On the whole, Katelijne preferred the two Sinclair cousins, so unlike each other. Mistress Phemie Dunbar was an unmarried lady of wry demeanour, privately devoted to poetry, and skilled in the art of settling disputes without seeming to try. Her mother’s niece Dame Betha Sinclair had brought up one princess already, and was the widowed mother of three extremely docile young girls who sometimes flinched when she passed them, chiefly because of the volume of her voice. On matters of deportment, Mistress Phemie and Dame Betha were mentors unparalleled, both being the daughters of earls.