The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘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

  BY 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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  ‘It should be wine; I’ll get some later. Gentlemen: I give you Nicholas de Fleury, Knight of some God-forsaken Order of Cyprus, and his wife and his son. What’ve you called the brat? James, I wager.’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll cut you in, if you like. The first man with a ten-figure order gets to choose his own name for the child.’

  ‘Then there’s your man!’ exclaimed Whistle Willie. His calloused forefinger appeared to point through the window. ‘You don’t mind a combine? A ten-figure order among the whole castle? Hey! Lancelot! Would you like to christen a vander Poele?’

  A passer-by, puzzled, turned round. Nicholas, breathless, was pulling, one after another, a series of pitiful faces. ‘Lancelot vander Lacu!’ Whistle Willie bellowed, elaborating his point. The farce played itself strenuously out.

  Gregorio listened in silence. You thought that, for a while, he had forgotten the bitch. But, of course, he had not.

  *

  Later, someone sent out for food, and the talk lurched about between topics of high and low interest, such as women, and horses, and arrows, and women and plate gauntlets and women. Then Whistle Willie began to sing under his breath, and someone else took him up, and soon they were chorusing away in unexpurgated versions of a number of ditties Gregorio had heard, at night, in Jehan Metteneye’s house after a supper.

  In the course of it, someone near the door scrambled up saying, ‘My lord Duke!’

  But the red-headed youth, slipping in, said, ‘No, it’s Sandy. Go on.’

  They broke up half an hour later, royalty being an inhibiting guest, and Nicholas accompanied the King’s brother of Albany into the courtyard. When he came back to collect Gregorio, they had all gone save for the man they called Whistle Willie who was sprawled in a settle, a broad smile on his earthy face. He said, ‘Well, Nicol. You got what you wanted?’

  The malice was friendly. Nicholas pulled another of his comfortable faces and sat down, pushing a litter of ale-mugs out of his sight. Gregorio, heavily relaxed, brought a cushion and sat on it. What Nicholas had wanted and got from this meeting was gossip.

  To wit: that Hugo van der Goes and the rest of his imported craftsmen were going to be worth what he had advanced them, because the Danish dowry money seemed likely to come, and the royal wedding would take place this summer at Holyrood Abbey next door to Nicholas.

  That one of the results of the royal wedding was Sandy Albany’s new crop of pimples; due, it was said, to the marriage he was going to have to make with an elderly half-sister of Betha Sinclair’s. There was a prince, Willie Roger had said earlier, and now repeated, who would be glad if Nicol de Fleury’s good friend dropped dead in the next week or two.

  Gregorio lifted his lids. ‘Not you,’ Will Roger said. ‘Although I might as well tell you that you can’t get through bottles like Julius. No, not you. The hairy Franciscan who’s trying to bring the Pope’s peace to Denmark and Sweden.’

  ‘Called?’ said Nicholas. His dimples, for once, looked involuntary.

  ‘Called Ludovico da Bologna. He’s been in Sweden for weeks. And if he settles the war, Denmark won’t need to worry too much about Scotland, and Sandy won’t have to go to the altar. Which reminds me. I have a note for you from the Hamiltons. They heard you were here. So, what English gossip have you got?’

  ‘What kind do you want?’ said Nicholas, taking the paper and reading it. ‘There’s been a rising in Yorkshire. It may not come to anything. On the other hand it might, and the York-Lancaster fight for the throne break out all over again. Which side do you support?’

  ‘The winning one,’ said Whistle Willie. ‘I left England because there didn’t seem to be one at the time. What are the merchants saying in London?’

  ‘Keep in with everybody, send away your ships, and invest your money in cannon. The Queen has just had her third child, another daughter. Edward isn’t as secure on the throne as he thinks he is. You’ll lose your English pension.’

  ‘Don’t try it,’ said Roger. ‘I haven’t got one. I could name a few Scotsmen who have, and so no doubt could you. You saw Mr Secretary Whitelaw, you were saying.’

  ‘Do you think he has one? No. I’ve shipped him some dogs and some jousting-horses, that’s all. I brought you a book.’

  Will Roger frowned. He said, ‘I want a really good bribe. A book?’

  ‘It is a really good bribe,’ Nicholas said. He stretched to his satchel and fished in it. The book he drew out was a strange shape, and cheaply boarded.

  Will Roger crimsoned. He said, ‘What you promised? Burgundian?’

  ‘The whole thing, and three other pieces. Plus.’

  ‘Plus?’

  ‘Plus what they’re going to play at Lorenzo de’ Medici’s wedding in Florence. Do you want it?’

  ‘Christ, I could marry you,’ said Whistle Willie. ‘God-awful dimples and all. Do I want it? Do I want perfect pitch, and perpetual reeds, and a harp that doesn’t mind draughts, and boys that stay boys for ever?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got that one,’ Nicholas said. ‘You were born one. We must go. What was that about Sersanders earlier?’

  ‘I think he wants to kill you. Don’t worry. He’s in Aberdeen. When he comes back, Katelijne’ll protect you. She’s off to Edinburgh too, with the King’s fearful sister. Have you got to go? Oh yes, you have.’

  He ushered them out, having answered his own question. Outside waited one of their men with a lantern. Stumbling down to their lodging, Gregorio attempted to solve one of many puzzles. He said, ‘What are you bribing him for?’ He added, ‘Where are you going?’

  Nicholas, who had come to a halt, said, ‘Over that way.
I might be late. Govaerts will see you back safely.’

  ‘What …?’ said Gregorio.

  ‘That’s what I’m bribing him for,’ Nicholas said. ‘He hands me notes, and doesn’t tell you what’s in them. Edinburgh tomorrow. I’ll have you called early. Good night, Goro.’

  He was back before dawn, but not much before. Gregorio, contending with other afflictions, attempted no comment.

  Of the two parties leaving Stirling that morning, the first to assemble was that of the King’s sister Margaret with her attendants. The second, inadvertently meeting the first, was that of Nicholas.

  ‘You look disgusting,’ said Katelijne Sersanders, calling from one side of the street to the other. ‘I know why, as well. You took Master Gregorio to Whistle Willie’s last night.’

  ‘We looked disgusting when we arrived,’ said Nicholas de Fleury, leaving his companions and riding slowly across. He was still dressed in black.

  ‘No, you didn’t. I saw you when we came back from hunting with Sandy. With – Sandy. I expect you celebrated the baby. How is it?’

  ‘Celebrated,’ said de Fleury. As the two parties rode on, he kept pace with her. ‘I have made peace with your uncle. Have I made peace with you?’

  ‘And my aunt?’ she said. She could see poor Master Gregorio trying to place her. She turned and said, ‘Anselm Adorne’s niece. Sister of Anselm Sersanders.’

  Master Gregorio bowed, carefully, in the saddle. De Fleury said, ‘Your aunt belongs to that glorious sisterhood who revere the first-born of a marriage. For the sake of mine, she forgave me.’

  ‘My brother doesn’t like babies,’ said Katelijne. ‘We didn’t think you’d come back.’

  ‘So what should I do about Sersanders?’ he said. He sounded interested. He was again the careless rider of Leith strand, not the bright-eyed man, soaked in blood, who had tried to drive the life out of St Pol, and had taken cold steel to her uncle.

  ‘Apologise to him,’ she said. ‘He knows what it is to get battle-silly. Then agree to meet him in a fight. That will salvage his honour, for those people who suspect what happened.’