The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Anselm? Save your pity. Anselm Adorne will find a way of safeguarding his family. Meantime, I have told you all this for a reason.’

  She could guess. ‘You don’t want me to serve the Princess again.’

  ‘It would not be politic. Again, Adorne has come to the rescue. He is bringing his own sister’s daughter Katelijne, who has been in royal service in Scotland. That should be enough, together with his wife and the two nuns, his daughters.’

  ‘The Countess might ask for me,’ Gelis said. ‘Perhaps she even met Nicholas in Scotland.’

  ‘I believe she did. It is fortunate,’ said her cousin, ‘that your husband is to be absent this winter. If he has plans to develop in Scotland, a friendship with Thomas Boyd and his wife is the last way to advance them.’

  Wolfaert, a stolid man, was nevertheless always worth listening to.

  Paul, his bastard, was even better. He did not remember, of course, his father’s good-sister Eleanor who had come to Veere for the Guelders betrothal. But after she disappeared to the Tyrol, Aunt Eleanor had exchanged news with her van Borselen relatives.

  He had a list of books he was supposed to be reading. She had sent a gift when his father remarried. He had been fascinated by this man she had hired who could find people.

  ‘Who?’ Gelis had said.

  ‘I don’t know his name. Aunt Eleanor employed him to help them find mines. But he can find people, too. Strangers, even. All he needs is some small thing they owned.’

  She had contracted to stay for a week. Wolfaert was surprised but not, she thought, sorry when she elected to return home forthwith. The ride took most of the day. Arriving, she brushed her expostulating steward aside and went at once to her room, where lay the parcel she had received just before leaving. A parcel and letter from Nicholas.

  The letter told her what she already knew: that he now proposed to make his Alexandrine expedition next year. He was in the Tyrol at present, but would travel south in the spring; when his plans were clear, he would send her particulars. He hoped she had enjoyed her sojourn in Florence, and that she had returned to find her son well. He enclosed a gift for the first anniversary of his birth, whenever that might occur.

  She had read the letter, and found its casual tone disconcerting. She had not unwrapped the parcel. She opened it now.

  She had seen Nicholas at work. She knew better than most his solitary preoccupations, given some scraps of wood and wire, and an objective. Now she saw another example.

  Made for the child named after his most formidable enemy: a little soft toy whose mechanism had been sunk deeper than baby fingers could delve, whose feathers frilled, whose wings fluttered and whose beak, primed by its spring, opened to emit, sweet and shrill, a nursery song from her own Zeeland childhood.

  He must have heard her sing it, long ago. Long ago, when he was getting her sister with child.

  She might, but for Paul, have taken it as a piece of flamboyance. Instead, sick with anger, she carried the thing into the kitchen and cast it into the oven and watched it burn, erratically brilliant, its beak emitting thin screams and flakes and fragments of song.

  The cook stood aside; the cook-boys watched fascinated. Her steward, unexpectedly entering the room, stopped abruptly and was overtaken by a fair man of exquisite appearance, following more quickly than was customary on his heels. ‘My very dear and virtuous lady!’ said Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren. ‘At last!’

  Today the west windows were shuttered and the lamps lit in the spacious room where she and Margot used to sit in the summer. Simon’s hair, as he found a seat, glittered like ducats.

  No one who met Simon de St Pol ever forgot him: the blue eyes and fine, almondine features, the straight back, the tapering hands. Beneath the fur-weighted skirts, the superb thigh-hose and boots, his body – as she had cause to know – was uniformly fair also, although not without scars.

  Scars were all he had in common with the only other man with whom she was intimate, and even these differed. Simon’s had been earned in knightly combat and war. Those of Nicholas were the weals of the servant and the hacks of hand-to-hand combat. Simon had asked her, once, to demonstrate where and how the skin of Nicholas had been marked. The kernel of intercourse, with Simon, was always sunk in a fruit called comparison.

  She had responded, although not necessarily truthfully. It irritated her that, recalling such details with ease, the face of Nicholas often seemed to evade her except as a sculpture of some ancient Celt: the spaced roundels of eyes; the bladed nose; the lax lips; the dimples – those baleful footprints – that straddled them. All that was living about it seemed to erase itself for long spells from her memory, whereas for example she could at any moment have drawn the shape of his hands, which were large, and did not taper.

  Simon was sitting at ease. He always sat consciously well (so did Nicholas). He said, ‘Why didn’t you come to Scotland? I was hoping your husband would bring you, but I realise he may have some misgivings. So you have settled for a future in matrimony?’

  ‘You mean, why have I not ended the marriage?’ said Gelis.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Simon said. ‘I mean that you are rich, and are living in a manner that suits you. The day of your marriage! Nicholas, oblivious, solemnly releasing me from every commitment! When did he find out? You might have warned me.’

  ‘It slipped out,’ she said. ‘Did it matter?’

  His expression deepened into one of rebuke. ‘Not to me. But if you marry a savage, you have certain responsibilities. He murdered Lucia my sister.’

  ‘I heard –’ said Gelis.

  ‘You heard she drowned in an accident. She drowned because he thought she was me. I shouldn’t blame you. What should a well-bred woman know of primitive impulses?’

  She stared at him. He brought his gaze down from the ceiling and spoke warmly. ‘But you aren’t afraid? He made no threats? What did he say? I wish I had been there when you told him.’

  ‘Do you?’ Gelis said. ‘Oh yes, I see. At least he would have killed the right person.’

  ‘Acid as ever,’ he said. His voice was comfortable. ‘Well, at least you have come to no harm. And now, let me see this wonderful child.’

  She had never thought he would come. She had weighed it – put yourself in the other man’s place – and concluded that she was safe: that Jordan, if no one else, would stop Simon proclaiming this connection, or claiming whatever child she produced. The trading power of the van Borselens would protect her. And the damaging power of Nicholas, capable of informing the world that this was the child of his wife and his father. She said, ‘I’m afraid the child isn’t here.’

  Her voice must have been strained. Simon said, ‘Oh come! What do you think? I don’t want to steal the brat: Henry would kill him in a moment. I just want to see what he looks like.’ His smile deepened. ‘A father’s natural pride. What have you called him?’

  She was composed enough now. ‘Jordan,’ she said. ‘I named him myself. And I’m afraid he really is not here. He will live with his nurse until he is older.’

  ‘Jordan!’ he said. He had white, unbroken teeth; unusual in a champion jouster. ‘You do dislike Nicholas, don’t you? Forced to pass off the child as his own, or admit he can’t satisfy his own wife. Forced to rear a son of mine whose very looks –’ His voice quickened. ‘Is that why the child is not here? Nicholas hates it so much?’

  ‘He has never seen it,’ said Gelis. ‘That is why it is in the country. There is no need to concern yourself. He doesn’t know where it is.’

  ‘He knows where you are,’ Simon said. ‘I’d spend some of that money, if I were you, on good bodyguards. You can’t hide a young lad for ever.’

  ‘No. But at the moment, as you’ll understand, the place ought to be secret. I have protection. He has his own way of punishing people, but he has not tried to harm me so far. And my sister, of course, is dead already.’

  ‘You’re an amazing woman,’ he said. The lines left his brow and he shifted the
hand at his chin so that one finger lay along the line of his lips. He spoke through it. ‘Of course, he wants you.’

  ‘He is in the Tyrol,’ she said. Her breathing calmed. She rang the bell at her side and ordered spiced wine of the kind that he liked. He was smiling. It had all happened so quickly that she was still wearing her riding boots and short gown. Servants came and went.

  ‘What is he doing in the Tyrol?’ Simon said.

  She shrugged. ‘Promising Captain Astorre and his army to Sigismond. Unless the Duke gave him different orders. He went to Brussels before he went south.’

  ‘Really?’ said Simon. He recovered. ‘I’m told the Burgundian commissioners are the most hated men in Alsace. The cantons are becoming alarmed. Was Nicholas the right man to send?’ His expression now was amused.

  ‘It’s a rough country. It should suit him,’ she said. ‘And, of course, there is the silver. He has taken John le Grant with him, and another man. If Sigismond becomes rich, he can seize back all his Swiss land.’

  ‘I heard a rumour,’ Simon said. He had begun sipping his wine.

  Gelis smiled. ‘Bruges is full of rumours. You know, because of Nicholas, that the Adornes have to lodge Thomas Boyd, the Scots traitor?’

  ‘Because of Nicholas?’

  ‘He helped Boyd escape. And the Princess Mary, his wife. So Adorne’s wife insists. She is a little resentful,’ said Gelis. ‘A change of ruler in England may help. Are you sorry for Anselm Adorne? He is Genoese and invests in Genoese projects. Perhaps in the Vatachino, for example.’

  He said, ‘Is that what Nicholas thinks? He could be right. Adorne put money into the Vatachino’s African venture. He could be the broker behind them. The only names I hear, and I hear them too often, are de Salmeton and Martin.’

  ‘There is a third man,’ Gelis said. ‘The Bank have been competing for contracts against a man called Egidius. From what I know of Nicholas, he probably has him identified by now; and Adorne’s interest as well. Nicholas has very good spies.’

  ‘I shouldn’t mind knowing what he finds out,’ Simon said.

  She put down her wine. ‘I doubt if he would tell you,’ she said. ‘Of course …’

  ‘It would help me,’ he said. ‘It would help Jordan. The Vatachino are wrecking our Portuguese trade.’ He had carried his wine to his lap and settled it there. The light glimmered over the long, undulating line of his limbs, down to the lazy, crossed heels. He looked up. His lashes were gold. He said, ‘I know we are rivals in trade, but the Bank would hardly suffer – and if it did, would you really mind?’

  ‘Where would I reach you?’ she said.

  His fingers moved on the cup, and then began slowly to stroke it. He said, ‘I am going to Scotland, since Nicholas obligingly has left it. You might change your mind and come back. He has two reasonable houses at least, if the women have left.’

  ‘The women?’ She was meant to ask.

  He gave the wine-cup two admonitory taps. ‘Oh, Gelis, you know what you married! All sorts, all ages, in public, in private. Not so many men, since the negro. But Adorne’s niece was a child. Even the Cuthilgurdy woman sickened of that, I was told.’ His voice was deprecating, but not loud. He shifted a little.

  Gelis said, ‘Adorne’s niece? Katelijne Sersanders?’ Wolfaert had mentioned her. She must have been fourteen when she went to Scotland. Just sixteen, by now. She found her eyes were on St Pol’s hand, smoothing round and round the sunken, silver ellipse of the cup.

  ‘In his sickroom, naked,’ said Simon. His fingers stirred, but her eyes had stopped following. Not so many men, since the negro. One forgot that Simon treated candour, too, as a mistress.

  One forgot, too, how noiselessly he could move if he cared. She became aware of his scent, very close. Her hand was gently taken and his wine-cup folded into it; in a soft movement the goblet was laid against her own cheek and held there. It was heavily warm, and an inch from her lips. She felt him stretch, and knew he could reach the door, and the key.

  She wanted – She knew what she wanted, but it was not this. A long passage of arms lay before her, and she could not have Nicholas driven to end it by Simon. She pulled herself free, the wine spilling. He exclaimed. The door flew open. A child’s voice said, ‘It isn’t here!’ A child entered.

  ‘Henry!’ said Simon and, releasing her, straightened. His eyes were black. He said, ‘I told you to wait.’

  ‘I wanted to see him,’ said Henry. ‘I wanted to tell him not to grow up and bother me, because he’s only a bastard. Are you the mother?’ He was speaking to Gelis.

  Her sister’s son. Now nearly nine years of age, the blue-eyed, golden-haired baby of her dead sister Katelina van Borselen, wife of Simon and mistress of Nicholas as, in reverse, she had been. Only the straight brows and the set of the mouth brought his mother to mind. It was Simon who brought him up now. But she had sworn an oath to Godscalc. So had Nicholas. She searched the boy’s face, and saw nothing of Nicholas there but one dimple and a certain stubbornness, perhaps, in the jaw.

  Are you the mother? It was his father’s child he had been searching for and would have killed had he found it, very likely. He had tried to kill Nicholas. She looked at the white, angry face and wondered what madman had made him believe that a half-brother had power to supplant him. Then she thought of the fat vicomte whose name she had used as a weapon. She sat where she was, the wine staining her breast, and said, ‘I am Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury. I am your aunt.’

  Simon swore. Transfixed as she was, she almost smiled.

  The boy said, ‘That’s what I thought. He got you under him and you grew him a baby. Are you growing another?’ He was looking her up and down. He added conversationally, ‘I do that too. With the cup. They like the wine in little drops.’

  The words, in a child’s mouth, made her spin round upon Simon. He said, ‘He eavesdrops. He was brought up by sluts. A St Pol does as he is told. You were told to stay at the inn.’ He had the boy by the arm. The boy looked at him with hatred.

  Gelis said, ‘Henry? There is no half-brother here you need be jealous of. There never will be another. I will promise. Simon, will you promise too?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Simon said.

  Gelis said, ‘That Henry will be your heir, and no one will ever supersede him. That is all he wants to know.’

  ‘Well, he ought to know that already,’ said Simon. He had become rather flushed. He addressed the child, glaring: ‘Do you want to go to Scotland? Just tell me.’ The child was silent. ‘Because if you don’t, you’re behaving in just the right way. You’ve insulted your aunt. Apologise.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Henry remarked.

  ‘You heard what she said. You’ll leave her baby alone.’

  ‘If you say so, my lord father,’ said Henry.

  ‘Get out,’ said Simon.

  The child looked at Gelis, and left.

  Gelis found she was shaking. She stopped herself. She said, ‘Dear me. Perhaps your father was right, after all.’

  ‘About what?’ Simon said. He was breathing fast, his eyes still on the door.

  ‘In offering to recognise Nicholas as his grandson. Your son.’

  ‘What?’ Simon said. He said it quite slowly.

  She raised her brows. ‘You didn’t know? Your father offered to purchase my child. In return, he would recognise Nicholas as your son. Nicholas would inherit Kilmirren and Ribérac, and young Jordan would follow, not Henry. Unhappily, Nicholas wouldn’t agree.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Simon said, and half laughed. She waited. He said, ‘My father proposed …’

  ‘Ask him,’ she said.

  ‘And Nicholas turned down the offer?’

  ‘He tends to take the long view,’ Gelis said. ‘I suspect that, once your father had got what he wanted, Nicholas would not have lived very long. And, of course, he hasn’t seen the child, as I said. He has persuaded himself he has a use for an heir. Certainly he has money to leave. Are you not pleased abou
t that?’

  He was untangling his thoughts, pacing fretfully. ‘I should be, if you were parting. But you’re not. You may have other children.’

  ‘Was that what Henry interrupted? A precaution?’ she said. ‘Then you heard me give him a promise. He will have no rivals born of me and his father. I think you should leave.’

  Simon looked up. He came across to her and held both her hands. He said, ‘Forget Henry. Promises to children mean nothing. Gelis: Katelina tried to please, but you cannot doubt which of you is more gifted. You are wasted on Nicholas. Come to Scotland, to me.’

  She thought. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘When I have been to Alexandria.’

  Gelis van Borselen was aware, since she had not been invited to Alexandria, that to arrive there would take some ingenuity, and that there was therefore a great deal to do. But before she embarked on her preparations, there was one visit she felt compelled to make time for.

  Margriet van der Banck, arranging the Hôtel Jerusalem for royalty, was pleased to see her, but unable to speak more than two consecutive words without breaking off to admonish, encourage, direct or sometimes chastise the flock of helpers who – hammering, sweeping, painting; climbing stairs with stools and chests and hangings; or staggering towards the kitchens with boxes of platters and pans – were turning the residence of Anselm Adorne into a place fit for the Scottish traitor Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, and his wife, the King’s sister.

  The distraction of Dame Margriet was in fact a convenience: it prevented any but sporadic references to the little baby, and Dame Margriet’s gift to the little baby, and the absence of the little baby’s father. In any case, Dame Margriet did not dwell on the baby’s father, who – Gelis remembered – had been ungrateful enough to wound Anselm in some scuffle in Scotland. Anselm was back now, of course, from his second trip – so successful! The young King so charming, so generous! – and was preparing for the difficult meetings he was to arrange for the spring and the summer: meetings which would decide once and for all the trading arrangements between Scotland and Flanders. Who else could do it but Anselm?