The wind was from the east. Even without that, you could tell what was in them.
‘What about oysters?’ Nicholas said. Wodman handed over the flask and jumped down before he did.
There were three sledges, each with two fellows hauling and another couple striding behind. The girls rode with the creels, singing and holding them steady. The men wore skin caps and tunics, with rough over-mantles of felt for the rain. The women were hooded and bundled in hessian and stopped singing as they came up. One of the men delved in a creel and came forward, his hollow hands weighted and dripping. The oysters in them were the finest Nicholas had ever seen: the sensitive shells, thin as a porcelain roseleaf, slowly closed as he watched. ‘They like to be serenaded,’ the man observed. ‘If you will sing to them, they would surely re-open, my lord.’
Nicholas laughed a little, for the voice was educated, and the discreet device to attract them was plain. A clerk, a servant of Church or of state, had at last arrived to collect them. The girls, who remained crouched with the creels, were no doubt genuine.
Wodman had realised it also. Dismounting, amused, he was accepting the gift with bravura. Nicholas gathered his reins to do likewise. The same well-spoken man smiled, and stepped round to help him, still speaking. ‘But you will need something to open them with.’
The something was naked steel, flashing from under the felt and driving expertly upwards.
It was so fast that only instinct could help. As Nicholas swerved, he shouted to Wodman. They hadn’t indulged in an escort, but they weren’t crazy enough to have come on this ride unprotected. The swordpoint bit into his cloak and grated across the cuirass underneath, bringing the swordsman close for a moment, his face blank with surprise. Nicholas kicked him under the chin, so that he blundered back and hit someone else while Nicholas dragged out his own sword. The horse wasn’t his, but it was a powerful beast and alarmed enough to be ready to rear. Nicholas wrapped the reins round one wrist and hauled, using the bit to drag the horse threshing on to its haunches, and then allowing it to plunge forward kicking again. It couldn’t last very long, but at least he didn’t fall off, and enjoyed the whistling sound his blade made as he slashed it down on one side, then the other as the oystermen mobbed him. He could hear Wodman making loud breathless noises, but couldn’t see him, which meant he hadn’t managed to remount. He tried to steer towards him, but it was like jousting in a cone of molasses. Too many men. And he was not at his best.
It was now very noisy, with a lot of shouting and cursing and the flat sound of steel against steel from his blade and Andro’s. All their assailants seemed to have weapons. There were three less than there had been: two fell back, bloodied, and someone was screaming continuously. Far from summoning help, the uproar had probably frightened off every traveller for miles. Jolting about in the saddle, fending off the blows to his legs and his horse and the inventive characters who wished to mount up behind him, Nicholas kept track of the sound of Wodman’s swordplay, and heard his yell of triumph as someone was spitted. He had never fought beside Wodman before, and was glad to have the benefit of an expert. He wondered if Wodman were wishing he hadn’t come.
He fell off, finally, because they stabbed the horse under him and he wasn’t expecting it, this being an action profoundly alien to professional robbers. His horse wasn’t wearing a cuirass. Nicholas hurled himself off as it staggered, with his sword in one hand and the wine-flask in the other, unstoppered. One man got the force of his shoulder, and two others the remaining wine full in the face while he located where Wodman was and crashed into him, back to back. Wodman said, ‘About time.’ He was covered with blood, but his sparse teeth gleamed: he was happy. They had been about fifteen to two. Fewer, if you left out the girls, screaming, crouched in the sledges. A lot fewer now, when you reckoned the men on all fours in the road, and even one who looked dead. Say eight to two.
It was worrying, for the fact was that they themselves both ought to be dead. The first man had certainly meant to disable him, but no one had tried to do more—and with those odds, and his shortcomings, it should have been easy. So it wasn’t a personal matter. Not handsome David de Salmeton, and his private grudges. Not a minion of the St Pol family, which had thrown de Salmeton out of its business, but shared his hatred of Nicholas de Fleury. Just someone who wanted a ransom, and assumed he was rich, and worth a lot more than a horse. Or perhaps he wasn’t the target at all. He said, panting, ‘Have you bedded anyone you shouldn’t have lately?’
‘I was trying to remember,’ Wodman said. He was slowing.
If they could get to the cabins …
They couldn’t hide in the cabins. There were children there.
They were being forced towards the cabins. Their assailants wanted them there. They were going to be killed, but at leisure. Wodman suddenly swore.
‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Any suggestions?’ It emerged in gasps, for his strength had suddenly gone, and he had no reserves. His limbs belonged to somebody else, and one eye was shut, he trusted not permanently. With mixed hope and dread, he caught sight of a flash from the cabins: one of the low doors had opened, and men were running out, carrying weapons. Several men. Enough almost to balance the odds. Wodman said, ‘Oh deary dear.’
And it was Oh deary dear. The newcomers hurtled straight to the sledgers and joined them. Nicholas was cross enough to try quite hard to kill one or more, but this time he had no real strength, and neither had Wodman. In the end there was too much against them, and it finished quite soon. They were disarmed and flung on the ground, their cuirasses shed, while someone brought rope-lengths to bind them. One or two others embarked on a kicking, which he unwisely resisted. He saw Wodman doing the same. Then the kickers were stopped by a new voice, very gentle, speaking half in English, half in a language Nicholas de Fleury had known all his life.
‘Mais non!’ it said. ‘You must not let them die yet. Foolish men! There is no hope of rescue. Who will interfere in a fisher-feud? Everyone knows the mettle of oystermen; how those who own the scalps of Inchkeith will fight the dredgers of Musselburgh. The men who walk this path later will find broken sledges, and blood, and two wayfarers who became sadly embroiled in the dispute. But they will never, of course, find the oystermen.’
The French was irreproachable, with an accent as familiar to him as his own, although it was not Burgundian. The speaker was one of the girls from the sledge, cloaked and hooded in hessian over a fine gown of green. He could not see her face. He could not speak.
Wodman said, ‘You didn’t even fight, you. You set fifteen on two. If we die, we die with honour at least.’ He spoke in English, so that all the others could hear.
Nicholas used English also. Sitting stiff with his bound hands before him, he sustained the gaze of the invisible face with his one unbloodied eye and spoke in a clear, level voice. ‘You have planned well, but not well enough. There are men coming to meet us who will not be deterred by a fight, but will feel it their duty to stop it. Also, Andro Wodman is a royal official, Conservator of Scots Privileges in Bruges and the King’s familiar squire. The King will not rest until his killer is found.’
‘In which case,’ said the girl, ‘the deed had better be done indoors.’
‘But not by you,’ Nicholas said. ‘You devised this, but others will hang. What will you do when the bailie or the King’s men arrive? Are there horses for everyone? Look, your men are worried already.’
It was true. One man had glanced at another. Their momentum was failing. Nicholas addressed the girl evenly. ‘There is my sword. Kill me yourself.’
Wodman growled. Even the sodden ground beneath him seemed to stir with unease. The rain stuttered on the uneven group round about them, and on those who had left it, unbidden, to search out the dead and the wounded. The other girls had all gone.
One of the girl’s henchmen looked up. A single horseman was racing towards them; not by the road but crosswise, over the hillocks. He was shouting a warning.
N
icholas said, ‘The bailie’s men are coming. I told you.’ The ground was vibrating. It was obvious that he was speaking the truth, even before the outrider arrived.
The girl said, ‘Get the horses.’ So the mounts had been concealed in advance. As he had said, it had all been well enough planned. If you had resources, you could arrange matters. The men ran; the girl stayed. She had picked up the sword. She had capable hands.
Wodman said, ‘Damn you. If she kills you, she’s got to kill me as well.’
‘But that would be an injustice,’ Nicholas said. She had come to stand at his side. The sword, gripped in both hands, reflected into her face, which was swathed to the cheekbones under the hood. All he could see were her eyes, fringed, wide and lovely. All he could hear in his mind was her soft, husky voice. Nicholas said, ‘I could have killed you, but I didn’t.’
‘Because you are a coward,’ she said. ‘Which I am not.’ And slowly raised her arms holding the sword.
Nicholas kept his eyes open, upon her. Kept his single eye open. It seemed fitting that, at this, the ultimate moment of his preposterous life, he should be staring one-eyed at his killer. Like his captain, Astorre, who had died for the Duke. He was probably about to meet Astorre in Hell, and be lectured into eternity about military privies and pasties and women. She might not have time to kill Wodman.
She didn’t have time for anything. Her own hired leader, now mounted, had lingered. As she gripped and aligned the sword, the man swore and flung his horse back towards her. She turned, swinging the sword, but he avoided it. Instead, stooping, he grasped her and swept her aside, so that the sword fell and she was pulled away screeching at his flank. He bent and hauled her up into the saddle, and then spurred off, fast, after the others. They took the way towards Edinburgh. The man was not a philanthropist: he simply didn’t intend to be named by some frightened employer.
A moment later, the bailie’s horsemen breasted the rise and slowed and stared, as well they might, at the trampled mud, the cottages with their imprisoned, screaming inhabitants, and the Conservator of Scots Privileges and Nicol de Fleury trussed and half stripped and bloodstained at their feet.
The bailie said, ‘My lords! What has happened? The Abbot expects you!’
Nicholas said thinly, ‘A case of mistaken identity. You saved us. A little salve and fresh clothing, and we shall not disappoint the Abbot, I hope.’ Every bone ached.
He avoided looking at Wodman. Wodman maintained a welcome silence all the time they were being untied, and Nicholas was blocking auxiliary questions, and inventing explanations as they occurred to him. They were given horses and cloaks and some temporary patching, until the bailie’s own household could tend them. The Abbey Farm of Broughton was not very far.
In public, Wodman didn’t utter a word. Wodman was forty, and could pass for being exhausted. In private, he waited until they were riding together. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t a girl.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas, whose digestive organs were obeying him once again. ‘But pretty enough to pass for one. He tried to kill me in Cyprus, and I let him escape. Didn’t you recognise him, your old colleague David de Salmeton? You would have, when he flung back his cloak in that hut.’
He didn’t have to explain. Wodman knew why Nicholas had come back to Scotland, and had promised to help him. To track down some gold. To end a family feud. To kill a man who meant to kill him. A French-speaking one-time royal Archer called David de Salmeton.
Wodman said, ‘You thought he wouldn’t attack to begin with. You thought he would play with you first.’
‘I was wrong,’ Nicholas said.
‘But you didn’t denounce him to the bailie?’
Nicholas said, ‘What, without any proof? Could you swear that was David de Salmeton?’
There was a long pause. ‘No,’ said Wodman.
‘No. And neither could I. But now I am warned. Now I know what precautions to take. And it isn’t all loss.’
‘No?’ said Wodman.
‘No. They’re bringing the sledges. Are you hungry?’ Nicholas said.
He knew, without looking at Wodman, that the words they had just exchanged were like the steps in a dance: a formality. For him, they were bleaker than that. He was watching the sledges jump and slew at the heels of the horses, their creels roused to a silvery rattle, their spillings dancing from timber to timber and sprinkling the unwinding roadway like rose-leaves.
Or like the living creatures they were, male and female at once; lust and tenderness embraced in one heart; each now shut and alone in its shell, because the singing had stopped.
Chapter 2
Get I a gud man as I had in-deid,
Aye of his ded suld I be in dreid.
ARCHIBALD, ABBOT OF Holyrood, said, ‘You don’t look very well,’ and handed over some wine. Simply attired, within the privacy of his own chamber, in cap and gown, cross and rosary, he might have passed for an exceptionally well built, brown-haired monk of middle years, until you noticed the provenance of his crucifix, and the coats of arms (gules, a fess ermine), on the ceiling. The side table was covered with grit.
‘I don’t look well?’ Nicholas said, taking the cup, which was solid gold, in the hand that didn’t hurt. ‘I can’t think why. Nancy? The God-awful voyage from Bruges? The little skirmish with fifteen armed robbers? The flaying I’ve just had from Master Secretary Whitelaw and my lord of Avandale and Colin Campbell of Argyll his own self, at all at all?’
‘You don’t have the Gaelic? Then learn it, don’t treat it lightly,’ the Abbot said equably. ‘And don’t get angry with me. They were only doing their job. They have to be sure, before they decide how to tackle the King. Sure of you, sure of your news, and Wodman’s.’
Wodman was in the infirmary, being inspected. There had proved to be a break in his arm as well as his nose. His nose had been broken so often already, it didn’t matter. It had been an interesting fight. Wodman had said, once it was over, ‘You’re not bad,’ which was kind of him. As soon as he was repaired, they must make their way back on board ship, as if they had never left it. And tomorrow the King would hear of their presence, and would summon him, to question him about the Duke of Burgundy’s death.
The Abbot said, ‘Drink up, Nicol. It was never going to be easy, coming back. You made good friends, and left them too suddenly. But I hear you and your wife are reconciled?’
Wodman’s rambling tongue, damn him. Nicholas said, ‘We were only apart because I was travelling.’
‘But you’re going to settle together? Here?’
‘It depends,’ Nicholas said.
‘I imagine it does,’ the Abbot said. ‘You fell out with the St Pols. You know the old man is back at Kilmirren? And he comes here to his town house as well. I’m not having blood and battery break out because you and he are discussing your demerits.’
‘He didn’t set the robbers on us,’ said Nicholas.
‘But you know who did? And if you stay here, you’ll kill them?’
‘No, I won’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘If I stay here, I’ll have enough to do managing the King and his family, from all that I hear. Or am I wrong?’ He had asked a lot of people about the five royal siblings of Scotland, because he had known them when they were young. Adorne’s account had worried him most. Adorne knew a surprising amount, being well briefed by his nephew, Anselm Sersanders, who lived in Scotland and represented Flemish merchants. He was going to have to see Sersanders. And others.
The Abbot said, ‘What more do you wish to know? They are not children now. The King is out of his minority, and the Queen is nineteen. Even the lady Margaret is old enough now to be at Court.’
‘I heard,’ Nicholas said.
‘Yes. Then you remember Mary, the King’s elder sister, who once stayed with Anselm Adorne. She is little seen, being in the west with her children, and having the advice of her noble husband, mature in years. While he lives, all is well.’
‘And the other two?’ Nicholas said.
�
��You heard Master Secretary Whitelaw,’ said the Abbot. ‘My lord John of Mar, sadly, is no less wild at eighteen than before, and sometimes defeats all we can do. The King’s oldest brother is as he was when you befriended him. That is, he is of middling understanding, but can be persuaded to act responsibly on occasion. The King and he do not always agree, but he has the affection of the ladies Mary and Margaret his sisters. He is a man who needs friends.’
He was talking of Alexander, Duke of Albany. Red-haired, impressionable Sandy, now aged twenty-three. Thirteen years younger than Nicholas. And he was repeating what had already been said, obliquely, by the Lords Three in that hair-raising interrogation just now. ‘My young lord was once fond of your company, Messire de Fleury. Is it a relationship you aspire to resume?’ Well, in fact, yes.
He still hadn’t found out what he wanted. Nicholas said, ‘I hear the King can be moody.’
The Abbot did not look unduly disturbed. ‘He has come into authority. You will notice a difference. And yes, occasionally he will give way to passion. The Archdeacon—you remember Scheves? He also went to Louvain—has some excellent palliatives, should his grace become over-excited.’
Nicholas said, ‘All the students got over-excited at Louvain, but I don’t recall any palliatives. I suppose we provided our own. Is his grace calm at the moment?’
‘Perfectly,’ said the Abbot. ‘But this is why weighty news requires to be serenely and clearly presented. Tomorrow, you will explain to him with great care all the recent events in Burgundy, and answer his questions immediately.’
‘If I can,’ Nicholas said. ‘So you think I shall be summoned tomorrow?’
‘I know you will. But you will do very well. And we shall be there. He is still at the Castle.’
Nicholas knew that. The dust here in Holyroodhouse came from the rebuilding of the royal household’s lodgings, which they so often preferred to the windy fort on the ridge-top. Crossing the courtyard to come here, he had had to avert his face, there were so many masons and workmen he knew. Everyone in Scotland seemed to have building-fever. Construction men travelled from palace to palace in jolly companies, like some new, free-drinking monastic order. The Abbot said, ‘If you decide to stay, we might find a room here until your family comes. My lord of Albany often uses these lodgings, and even the Queen and her babes.’
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