The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  On the other hand, Sersanders was making it interesting. Being fit, he had recovered well from the earlier fight. He had also, by now, assessed what he was facing. He had further assessed, Nicholas saw with pleasure, that the blows he faced had no malice behind them, and that he was being offered a chance, to his surprise, to engage in a bout of lively and high-quality swordsmanship.

  Which did not make it easy. The swift turns, the bending, the swoops which drew roars from the crowd were not maypole dances, and each exchange of blows, single or multiple, was the result sometimes of a long sequence of movements. By now – twenty-four, twenty-five – they were both slowing a little and losing precision. Of the three metal hasps securing Sersanders’s helmet in front, one had broken. Nicholas tried to keep his swordpoint from catching, and so far had succeeded. They had each, on occasion, inadvertently struck the horse-cloth of the other. His horse wore leather below, Sersanders’s plate. Being accidental, the blows did not count.

  Twenty-seven. Now full dark had fallen, and they trampled upon their own streaming shadows. The rectangle within which they struggled was outlined in light: lamps, candles, high-flaring torches. High on the Rock, window-light sprinkled the darkness and here and there exposed an expanse of broad wall. A flush in the air told of the stair-lamps of the Horse Market.

  The news would have to come up the Wynd and into the Canongate. Then up the High Street and down through the market and here … Pay attention!

  Light exploded into his face: disastrous light this time. The dazzle of Sersanders’s sword, deflected up from his shoulder-plate. And the flash of his own helm, struck from below and torn backwards from his bare head.

  His horse stopped. Sersanders, still in violent motion, saw what had happened and reined his horse hard, dragging his sword-arm up and back. The horse, alarmed and nervous, suddenly reared and Sersanders, unbalanced, found that one hand would not hold it.

  Nicholas saw his opponent’s mount rear above him, black on the stars, and the hooves begin to come down. A single roar from the stands filled his head. He saw Sersanders hurl his sword to the ground and, seizing the reins in both hands, use his weight and the rigour of the bit to try to drag the horse sideways.

  He had no hope of keeping balance. The animal twisted. Its hooves clattered down, missing Nicholas. Its knees buckled. Then it fell, big as a wagon, arid the crash of its steel shook the ground.

  Nicholas, dismounting, hit the ground at the same time. He fled under the flailing hooves and round to where Sersanders had fallen. Sersanders lay free, on his back. As Nicholas reached him, he slowly raised one plated arm and put back his vizor. He said, ‘We only got to twenty-nine points.’ He sounded winded. He looked unharmed. He was unharmed.

  Nicholas gave him a hand to sit up, and then stand. Men were running towards them. He said, ‘We could both get on my horse and hit one another.’

  ‘That nag?’ said Sersanders. ‘It wouldn’t stand for it. I don’t know what knacker sells you his horses.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t ever trust you with a good one. Look what you do to them,’ Nicholas said. They were walking slowly across to the stand. As boys, ten years ago, they had talked to each other like that. Nicholas stopped. He said, ‘You could have cut my throat. No one would have known.’

  ‘I should,’ said Sersanders. Then the marshal of the lists arrived, panting.

  Nicholas stood, while procedures were swiftly discussed, and one horse was being killed, and the other led away. The two maidens, skirts clutched, arrived and clung to the group. The Sinclair girl had been weeping and Katelijne gave her a handkerchief. Anselm Sersanders and Nicholas de Fleury were invited to approach the royal stand, and informed that honours were even, and their fair ladies would present them with what they had won at the banquet that night. A flower fell at Sersanders’s feet, tossed by Margaret. The trumpets, defeating all speech, called for attention, and an announcement was made. The next bout would be the last of the evening.

  ‘But what about ours?’ said the Sinclair girl against a sonorous recital of honours. He saw Katelijne had overheard and was struggling.

  Nicholas said, ‘I think we hold that in private. No, of course I know what you mean. I suppose it’s been cancelled.’ He watched Sersanders walk away with his sister. They had exchanged a sort of salute. Whatever had happened, Sersanders had undoubtedly come off the better. He looked up at the stand, preparing to leave the field, and heard someone calling his name.

  The voice came from the stand. As he hesitated, a page in royal livery came running, important with the command. It sounded like a summons to heaven. Perhaps it was.

  He had to go as he was, bare-headed, his sallet under his arm. The steps to the royal enclosure were covered with velvet, the rails gilded and carved. He had provided the craftsman himself. And the central chair with its emblazoned awning, from which James the King had just risen. The regal face was unevenly flushed, and a man in riding clothes stood, head bowed in deference behind him.

  The news had come.

  You made three obeisances, as in Trebizond. Then this King, seventeen years old, said in his uneven voice, ‘It has been in our mind to send for you before this. We are pleased with what you have arranged for our nuptials. So is the lady Margaret, our future consort. The lady Margaret also wishes to thank you.’

  Above the belt and collar of jewels, the ermine fichu, the stuffed, golden sleeves thick with embroidery, the lady Margaret’s hairless face regarded him winsomely. He bowed and, when she held out her hand, kissed it and spoke to her. All merchants knew the Hanse languages. She smiled, her eyes widening.

  The King said, ‘She thanks you. Master de Fleury?’

  Out in the field the last pair of combatants were meeting. They had already made several strikes. No one in the royal stand was watching them. Nicholas said, ‘Yes, my lord King?’

  ‘I owe you for more than that,’ said the youth. He wore a magnificence of ruby satin. They all did. The colour, burning under the lamps, strove against the rows of fiery Stewart polls and eyebrows, and lost.

  The King said, ‘The traitor has fled. You warned us. You were right. We have uncovered the plots of his father. And now the man has proclaimed his guilt. He will never come back. If he comes back, his head will be forfeit.’

  ‘Your grace?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran,’ said the King. ‘He entered the town, saying nothing. He took to his chamber, feigning sickness. Now we learn he has sailed. He returned to the harbour last night and took ship. For where we do not know.’

  ‘And took Mary with him,’ said an accusing voice. Nicholas turned. Margaret, the King’s red-headed sister from Haddington. Her lip stuck out.

  The King said, ‘So it appears. She, too, was said to be unwell. Her husband has overthrown her proper judgement.’

  ‘My lord,’ said Nicholas de Fleury. ‘Had we known, your friends should have tried to detain them both.’

  ‘No! No! It is his flight which has proclaimed his guilt! Had he remained, who knows what lying witness he might have produced to try and save himself! That we are spared. We had a canker at the heart of the kingdom, and now it is gone.’

  ‘With Mary,’ said the inexorable voice.

  The King turned his back on his sister. ‘We have therefore much to thank you for. In the months ahead, it will lie in our power to show proper gratitude. In the meantime, we wish to enhance something you already possess. You are a Knight?’

  ‘Of the Order of the Sword, your grace,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘And is there a sword in this place?’ said the King.

  There was a rustle. Outside, someone was counting aloud. Twenty-one. Twenty-two …

  Numbers. Make friends of numbers, and they will never let you down; never weary you; never sicken you. A sword was brought. ‘Kneel,’ said the King.

  It was the Order of the Unicorn to which he was being admitted: the Order of which Anselm Adorne was already a Knight. The chain laid round his shoulders
was borrowed from another, until his own could be made. ‘But you are no less a knight of this kingdom for that,’ said the King as he rose. ‘And will use your title forthwith, for it is not some mean order of Cyprus, but one known to the world. As for your chain, Wilhelm can make it.’

  ‘My lord King,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have no words. But look. I have arranged the heavens to speak for me.’

  They thought him a magician, but he had seen, in the dark, the glimmer high on the Rock where he knew to look for it. And it was time. It was his fortune that it was also just time.

  The explosion was glorious. The great golden ball hung in the air jetting sparks and then, as every eye watched, it began to spin, throwing off garlands of light. A great sigh arose and the King’s face, turned upwards was golden. He said, ‘You have arranged fires of joy for our wedding. Indeed, indeed, we love you tonight.’

  All the way back to his tent the skies over his head flamed and crashed and exploded in drifts of crackling colour, and men crowded round as he walked, shaking his hand and clapping the shining metal on his shoulder. His armour was a carnival of light in itself.

  The third stage – the third stage was coming to its full promise at last.

  In his tent were his household, their eyes shining: the pages rushing to unfasten his buckles, the serving-women clasping their hands. Friends crowded the doorway. Shedding the last of the weight, he stood in his sodden jerkin and was helped into his robe, with the silver sword embroidered at cuffs and at hem. His old Order. The insignia of the new one had been laid again on his shoulders.

  ‘Well?’ said Gregorio.

  ‘Come,’ said Nicholas. He cleared a way to the back and, sending for wine, made for them both a moment of privacy. It was a time for wine. He hadn’t thought it would be, but it was. When it came, he poured it, and spoke. ‘Set your conscience at rest. It was going to happen. If Arran had stayed, it would only have added to the carnage. And if his father had had his way, still more would have died. As it is …’

  ‘As it is, you have a knighthood. And come this autumn, Boyd land. Boyd land next to Kilmirren.’

  ‘And more,’ Nicholas said. ‘The wedding has to be paid for out of something.’ The heavens rang, and colour flooded into the tent. ‘That is why I am staying. I can do anything now.’ The wine, after so long, was unbelievable. He said, ‘Did you see the man who came in just now? The man with the gardens at B roughton?’

  ‘He sells me herbs,’ Gregorio said. ‘What of him?’

  ‘He sells me corn-marigolds,’ Nicholas said. The chain blazed. The unicorn flashed blue and gold and red in the light.

  ‘Gule?’ Gregorio said. ‘The weed? The weed that destroys healthy cornland? Why? Where …’ He broke off.

  ‘Here and there. The rough land between Kilmirren and Beltrees, for example. Every mile of it. He tells me it’s a matted blanket of fierce orange flowers, all ready to burst into seed. Why so glum? Why fight with swords,’ Nicholas explained, ‘when you can do it with flowers?’

  Gregorio sat looking dazed. Nicholas refilled his cup and strode out to his friends. They closed around him. Soon Sersanders would come, and offer his congratulations, and perhaps mean it. Katelijne would arrive and Betha Sinclair, who had brought up the little Countess and helped prepare the castle for her lord’s coming home. But Mary Stewart and her husband were together. It was what she had wanted.

  Then the banquet. Then the dancing, the speeches, the prizes, and Will Roger playing the simpleton and making music fit for Pythagoras. Then the weeks to the wedding, with all their concocted, mechanical marvels. Then the autumn, and the King’s coming to power. And his.

  Someone said, ‘There you are.’

  Crackbene’s voice. Crackbene, who should be in Leith. He stood, the light flashing on his bulk and his fair, impassive face. Nicholas said, ‘Come into the tent.’

  Gregorio was still there. He looked up, and then stood. The unicorn sparkled but Crackbene ignored it. He said, ‘I have a message for you from Bruges. They’ve sent others that seem to have failed. This one came on a ship. Life or death. You have to go back at once. There’s Todrik’s Margaret at Leith, ready to set sail at once for Newcastle. You can find another ship there.’ He stood, his face composed and full of quiet sympathy.

  He hadn’t said what was wrong. It meant he had noticed the chain and was not averse to disrupting someone else’s reward for his work.

  Nicholas said, ‘If it is my wife or the child, you will be sorry.’

  ‘No,’ Crackbene said. His pale gaze steady, he pulled out a creased packet and offered it. ‘It’s the old priest. Father Godscalc. They want you.’

  ‘He’s sick,’ Nicholas said. He was reading. He said aloud, ‘No. Worse than that.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Gregorio.

  It was in Tobie’s writing, and explicit. Godscalc’s life could be measured in weeks. He would survive until Nicholas came.

  ‘I’ll pack,’ Gregorio said. ‘Get the horses.’

  He looked back. ‘Nicholas?’

  Crackbene hadn’t moved. Nicholas said, ‘Look at the date on the letter. It’s taken too long. It will be over.’

  The fireworks had stopped. The trumpets proclaimed the end of the contest; a voice boomed; another fanfare announced that the King’s procession was about to form up and leave for the banquet. Everyone was standing outside except themselves.

  Gregorio said, ‘I didn’t, I think, hear you speak. It doesn’t matter how the letter is dated. This is Godscalc, departing life, and calling you home.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. He heard himself say the word. It was not a rejection of Godscalc. It was a rejection of what going back now would mean. Whom he would see. What would happen, before he was ready for it. He thought, in a moment’s odd desperation, that even Godscalc wouldn’t ask him to do that. He tried to hold on to the thought.

  Crackbene said, ‘You won’t persuade him by force.’ He was speaking to Gregorio, who had made an impulsive movement. Gregorio, who was never impulsive. The tent wavered, and Nicholas wished, with a surge of bitterness, that he had managed to keep to his rule about wine just this once.

  It would have been satisfying to smash everything he could see, including Crackbene and Gregorio. It would have been a release beyond measure to find himself alone.

  He said, ‘You go. Or Bel. Why not Bel?’

  ‘There isn’t time,’ Crackbene said. ‘I don’t mind going. But I’ve worked a long night at your bidding already.’

  It was like watching a hare racing over a field, watching the mind of Gregorio following that. Gregorio said, ‘A long night?’

  Outside, the tent-makers waited. The crowds, by the sound, had begun flowing home. The royal procession had gone to the Greyfriars whose establishment, as memory served, was the only one qualified to contain so large and prestigious a company.

  Crackbene glanced at Nicholas, and away.

  Gregorio said, with sudden comprehension, ‘You arranged it, both of you. You arranged for Boyd to escape. You helped his wife to go with him.’

  Never underestimate Crackbene. Never. Never. Never.

  Gregorio said, ‘Go to Bruges. Or I tell the King what you did. And why you did it.’

  ‘Try it,’ said Nicholas pleasantly. ‘Crackbene would thank you. I imagine they’ll hang him.’

  ‘No,’ said Crackbene. ‘I think I’ll be on the high seas with you and with Master Gregorio long before that. But, of course, you couldn’t come back, if Master Gregorio chooses to tell them.’

  Nicholas had men within reach. What of it? He couldn’t silence his own shipmaster or his own partner by force. If he didn’t go, Gregorio would do as he said. He knew Gregorio.

  The unicorn, lightless now, had nothing to say. The crowd was silent. The King, entertaining his future bride at the Greyfriars, would be surprised at his newest knight’s absence and then perhaps a little relieved, since certain accounts might not be presented at inconvenient moments.

  Nicholas s
aid, ‘You will know when I call in this debt.’ He spoke to both of them, but he meant it for Crackbene.

  The third stage was not over. Born, it was frozen at birth because of the innocence of Godscalc, the naïveté of Gregorio, the duplicity of a Scandinavian shipmaster. And because of them all, he had to face Godscalc, and the mirror which Godscalc embodied.

  Which – Do you hear me? Do you hear me? – if he had to, he would smash.

  Part II

  High Season:

  DOUBLING

  Chapter 23

  DEATH WAITED, his hand on Godscalc’s shoulder, and was patient. Father Godscalc, untouched by doubt, woke each thick, aching morning to a patient day which might bring him his last benison, his last opportunity for grace, his last words with the child Claes, the man Nicholas.

  It had not become, he would not allow it to become a house of mourning. His spiritual battle had been fought and won in Africa; his mortal one was of minor importance. Tobie, pressed for honesty, had told him a long time ago how matters stood. It was why the book-printing had not progressed, to the annoyance of Nicholas. But he had asked Tobie to say nothing of it. If others stepped forward instead, the world would still be enriched, and Nicholas had no need of wealth. Mortal wealth.

  He had many visitors. His friends of the cloth brought him comfort and filled his room with incense and prayer. The paint-stained followers of St Luke, whose guild chaplain had once been his brother, came and talked (although his brother had been dead these four years). They brought him their work, and helped Tobie hang it. It lined his chamber like fish-scales: the gold, the ultramarine, the alizarine glowing. The Hanse merchants came, bringing honey and good beer and fur for his shoulders: he liked to speak German. And a German confessor and a monk from Cologne, who happened to bring information about paper and alum. Anselm Adorne arrived with his priest, whom he knew, carrying jellies from Margriet.