Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  The rest of his time, Adorne of Cortachy spent in conference with Louis de Gruuthuse and the other officers of the Duchess and of the town. When he could not avoid it, he went home.

  In the recesses of her mind, his niece Kathi registered his absence, and understood it, and was grateful for the prayers that she knew had begun, and would continue, wherever her uncle had friends. For the rest, the King of France and his armies might be ruling Bruges from inside the White Bear, for all she knew or cared.

  At first, Robin remained at the Hospital and, hour by hour, Tobie taught her how to care for him. While Tobie slept, John le Grant took his place at her side. It was as if he could not keep away; as if, weary as he was, his only relief lay in maintaining the same dogged routine that had kept Robin alive through the long weeks of their joint captivity. It was Tobie who persuaded him that Robin belonged to his wife, and that John should seek proper rest and recuperation in the Hof Charetty-Niccolò. Then, also at Tobie’s suggestion, Kathi brought her invalid back to the Hôtel Jerusalem. There, better than her own house, she could keep the children’s household apart, and the nuns who looked after her uncle were at hand. So, too, was Mistress Cristen, the children’s own nurse, and Clémence came often, in between the visits of Tobie. At first, indeed, Tobie had continued to stay all day, every day, until she took him aside and asked what he thought she was doing wrong. John le Grant and Gelis, who never came without sanction, were the only other persons she admitted. This was not a matter for communal management. This was between Robin and herself.

  She knew, because she understood him so well, that now was not the time to be bracing and jocular. It was not the time, either, to be tender and warmly compassionate. They were two people with a difficult problem, in a situation which involved, or could involve pain and resentment and anger, or at the very least an unending affliction of petty embarrassments; leading to lessening confidence, a growing sense of inadequacy.

  They held no soul-searching talks; they did not need to. They took the situation and worked at it together. Then, at the end, they would admit the public. In those days, it was their friends who wept, not Kathi or Robin.

  THE DAY AFTER he came home from Nancy, Tobie wrote a letter, with Kathi’s consent, to Robin’s father in Scotland, and another to Nicholas. He hoped Nicholas was alive to receive it, since no one had heard from him since he left. But then, it was still barely March.

  It was still early March, and the repercussions of the Duke’s death had not stopped. Going about her business, with the silent company, on occasion, of John, Gelis brought back fragments of information to add to that already reaching the counting-house. It was, as ever, from Ghent, where the departure of the Dowager Duchess had been followed by an upsurge of French-fostered suspicion. Who were these men, asked the Gantois, who were making pacts in the name of the state, but without its sanction? Causing towns to surrender to France, arranging unsuitable bridegrooms for the Duchess, betraying their office? Once more, executions began: of minor malfaisants, or former unreliable officials who had abused the town’s trust. Gruuthuse rode between the two towns, and Adorne, it was known, was deeply anxious once more about his son.

  ‘They won’t do more,’ Gelis said. ‘Easter is coming.’

  Easter was coming, and the Governor of Bruges sent to Middleburg to import cannon and gunpowder. Easter came, and the people of Ghent, invoking the law, arrested not an elderly alderman, but the great and learned ducal Chancellor William Hugonet, lord of Saillant, Époisses and Lys, Viscount of Ypres, close confidant of the little Duchess and her father; staunch adviser at Trèves; saviour of the Duke’s reputation in crisis after crisis. And with him, they had arraigned another of the Duchess’s suspect inner circle, the Knight of the Golden Fleece Guy de Brimeu, sire de Humbercourt, who led the élite squadron of ordnance at Neuss and who, with Hugonet, had taken part in the negotiations with France, and so could be blamed, however groundlessly, for the consequences.

  Arrested them, questioned them for six days on the rack, found them guilty, and, on the third day of April, hanged them on the public scaffold in Ghent, which also saw the slaughter of the papal protonotary, the ducal Treasurer for Ghent, and sixteen other servants of the late Duke.

  The news came to Bruges, accompanied by a summons to action. Now is the time to clear your town of the miserable agents of ducal corruption! You too have been exploited! You too have been asked to shed your blood for your country while those noblemen laugh in their palaces, who took your money, took your young men to die for the whim of the Duke! Act as Ghent does! Refuse to fight until your town has been cleansed! The burgomasters of those years, the Treasurers: all, all must pay!

  This time, hearing the roar of the crowd, Gelis van Borselen did not go seeking help, because no help could reach Bruges in time. On the other hand, the waterways were now clear, and the Hof Charetty-Niccolò had a boat that could be carried down to the canal and launched, with herself and John le Grant and eight armed men to propel it. She had left Jodi behind, in a house that was full of men, and well protected, and in no danger of serious attack. Diniz had never held civic office. In the Hof Charetty-Niccolò he was safe, and so was she, wherever she was. She was a van Borselen.

  The walls of the Hôtel Jerusalem were manned, but she was recognised and allowed into the grounds. In the house, they were met immediately by Kathi. She said, ‘Go back. The town guard is coming, and we are not to defend ourselves, or resist. Our men are there only in case others try to burst in.’ She was without colour, her eyes enormous as they had been in the Hospital.

  Le Grant said, ‘Where is your uncle?’

  ‘Here,’ said Kathi. ‘They are coming to arrest him. They have found some authority; he says it is necessary to let the law take its course. He is here to surrender, so that there will be no reason to harm the rest of us.’

  ‘You have a boat,’ Gelis said quickly. ‘We have ours. We could take you all and escape.’

  A little of the starkness left Kathi’s face. She said, ‘Thank you, but no. We should be caught, and it would only cause bloodshed. And there are the children, and Robin.’ She paused and said, ‘You are such good friends, to have come. I’m sorry to seem ungrateful. I thought Uncle should escape too, but he won’t. He says he will stand by his record. After all he has done for Bruges, they will surely be ashamed, and release him.’

  John le Grant said, ‘I don’t understand how they can make a case of any kind. Is he the only one?’

  ‘No. He isn’t the only one,’ Kathi said. ‘They’re rounding up the magistrates, the burgomaster who worked with him—Paul van Overtweldt, Jean de Baenst, Barbesaen … everyone in office when the Duke was raising money for his wars. My uncle gave money himself—do you think they have forgotten the forced levies? Two hundred, two hundred and fifty pounds he paid for the Duke’s wars out of his own pocket. Even Dr Andreas had to pay.’ She broke off. ‘They’re not all mad. He has only to stand up in court, and it will all be judged in his favour. But it would be best not to be here when they come. Please go, John. You saved Robin for me. I can’t let you do more. He’d blame me if you did.’

  John le Grant was red-headed, and Scots. He said, ‘I’ll go if Adorne tells me to go.’

  ‘You know he will,’ Kathi said. ‘Not to resist is our best protection. And as someone who fought at Nancy, you can speak for him better outside prison than in it. Do you want me to wake him, do you want me to disturb Robin so that they may both tell you that?’

  ‘No,’ said John. ‘If you’re sure.’ Since he came back, he had changed.

  Gelis said, ‘John has to go. But, Kathi, would anyone object if I stayed? An innocuous female? Would you mind?’

  ‘No,’ Kathi said. ‘Please stay.’

  John le Grant went, silently, taking Diniz’s men. Gelis waited to make sure that he did. Then she turned back into the house, where Kathi waited. She said to Kathi, ‘Does Robin know what is happening?’

  Kathi said, ‘It would be rather hard for
him not to know.’ It sounded like a rebuke, and she caught herself suddenly. ‘I mean it’s best, if you think of it, to tell him everything. He isn’t fond of being protected.’

  Of course he wouldn’t be. Gelis thought suddenly of how he must feel, a man helpless in the presence of another man’s crisis and even, by his impairment, preventing the other from flight.

  But no. Adorne had stayed not because of Robin, but because he was a magistrate, and had spent his life upholding the law. He must trust the law to uphold him now.

  They stayed in the public rooms, she and Kathi, from which the road could be watched. They talked, in a desultory way. Occasionally Kathi would leave, to reassure the rest of the household, to visit the children and presumably Robin. Gelis thought that Adorne was in his own room, and was startled when, drifting over the courtyard alone, she opened the door of the church and, walking into the quietness, found him there.

  He had been kneeling at the altar, alone. He raised his head with composure and turned. Then he said, ‘Ah Gelis, my dear,’ and rose to his feet.

  He did not look very different. The fine bones of the face were perhaps starker than usual, and the amusement gone from his mouth and his eyes. But the well-cut doublet in rich, sober cloth, the velvet cap on the crisp silver-fair hair were the choice of a well-born man of authority, not a self-seeking petty official. He wore none of the emblems of the King of Scotland or the Doges of Genoa, but only a crucifix. And he knelt in the church whose foundation stone he had laid as a child, before the bonewhite sculpture of the Passion; beside the rectangles on the floor where his wife’s sarcophagus and his own would eventually lie, if mob rule did not first destroy both his home and his church.

  Gelis said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. Forgive me.’

  ‘No. Stay,’ he said. ‘You have come to be with Kathi? I am glad. But it is dangerous outside. You might have been better in Scotland after all. Although I still think that Nicholas took the right decision. He must deal with those who have threatened you, or who would use you and your son as a weapon. And here, anyone from Veere will be safe. Have you heard from Nicholas?’

  There was a cross-stool by the wall which he held for her, before taking another himself. He was not booted, like a man about to ride far: his calf and thigh, extended in the fine hose, were shapely. She wondered how often Kathi was brought up now by something as trivial. Robin, loose-limbed and agile, would never wear fine hose again. She said, ‘Nicholas? No. But they will tell me if a ship comes with a letter.’

  ‘It might come into Veere,’ Adorne said. ‘Send to Wolfaert. He will make sure the message comes quickly, no matter what’s happening. You wouldn’t go to Nicholas then?’

  ‘No,’ Gelis said. ‘It would only make it less easy for him. And I want to be here.’

  ‘I’m glad you are,’ he said again. He had been listening. ‘But now—’

  Behind her, the door had opened again, to the sound of booted feet. It must have been what he was waiting for when she came. A man started to speak. Adorne rose. He said, ‘I know why you are here. I am coming. Only let me take leave of my niece. The lady with me is leaving.’

  She stood beside Kathi and watched as he left. She said, ‘He will be back. They will let him go. Nicholas will come and plough Flanders with salt if they don’t.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Kathi said. ‘It is what I was thinking as well. I suppose it is a tribute to something. Simple, childlike, hot-headed justice, which everyone expected of Claes. But he does things rather differently now. And in any case, he’s in Scotland, doing them to David de Salmeton and others, I hope.

  THE LETTER FROM Nicholas did come to Veere, and was sent by her cousin Wolfaert to Gelis by courier. By the time she received it, Anselm Adorne had been in prison for some time, and facing, with his fellow accused, a process of questioning which did not rule out the possibility of torture. The date for a tribunal had not been fixed. To all the protests and demands of the ducal officers, the magistrates simply replied that there was a case to answer at law, and that the law would decide.

  Well, they would see about that. Wolfaert van Borselen would see about that. Sitting in her room in the Hof Charetty-Niccolò, breathing shakily, with the packet in her hands, Gelis thought of all the times that Claes, the happy-go-lucky apprentice, had been beaten and thrust into the Steen by edict of Anselm Adorne. They had been on opposite sides, Nicholas and Adorne, many times, but Nicholas had never borne grudges for punishment he knew he deserved. In those days, he tolerated even undeserved punishment with good humour. But not now.

  At first she gripped the packet without tearing it open, deferring the moment, euphoric only that he had written, and so must be safe. Then she cut the strings and unfolded the outer paper to find, surprised, that inside there was less than she thought: a small note of one page for herself, and a larger one folded in half, and covered with a very fine drawing of a fox and a dog and two hares, signed by T. Cochrane, and obviously destined for Jodi. Well, thank you, Tam Cochrane. Without you, he would have sent a much smaller package. She unsealed the note to herself.

  It was in code. Busy Nicholas. Market secrets already?

  She was good at codes, and hardly had to look up anything. It was one particular to themselves, so that she translated the last few lines first, which proved to be the only personal ones in the note, but which could hardly have been more specifically personal. She flushed, and choked to herself as she read them, because he would know very well the disturbance he was causing. She hoped he felt as frustrated himself when he wrote it. Then she deciphered the rest of the letter and sat, deep in troubled thought, for a long time. Finally she turned back, with rather more care, to Master Tam Cochrane’s generous drawing.

  It consisted of more than one folded sheet. Sealed between them, and freed only by a very sharp knife, was another note, addressed, in handwriting she did not recognise, to Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy.

  Gelis rose and went to find Tobie’s wife Clémence, whose wisdom she respected, and who could keep a secret, as he could, to the grave. Clémence went out. Later that day, it became known that Lord Cortachy seemed unwell, and Dr Tobias had undertaken to visit him. His visit was short. Leaving, he made his way, as might be expected, to the Hôtel Jerusalem, to reassure the sick man’s niece, Katelijne.

  To Kathi he said immediately, ‘He isn’t ill. It was a ruse, to let me hand him a letter from someone. This letter. Your uncle wants you to see it.’

  He watched her read it: young Kathi, whom he knew so well, and who had shouldered the burdens of others all her short life. And then Robin. And now, this.

  He had found before that men of a certain class, of a certain birth, were careless in the matter of bastards, as servants were not. Or were hungry for heirs, even base-born ones. Or sometimes a girl would fib about taking precautions, in the hope of a child. Or yet again, sometimes love, or lust was so intense that the experience was supreme; the consequence nothing.

  Whatever the cause, the consequence now was painful to contemplate. Phemie Dunbar of Haddington Priory was with child by Adorne, and would give birth in July to a bastard child whom everyone would know to be his. Dispensation could not be summoned in time, even if it were deemed proper to give it. And support from Adorne there would be none, for he was here, and on trial for his life.

  Kathi said, ‘Where was he when he read it?’ She hadn’t looked up.

  ‘Alone,’ said Tobie. ‘I paid for a room.’ He had been inescapably there as Adorne read the letter. The doctor had stared hard through the bars of the window until he heard Adorne force his breathing under control. Then Tobie had turned and said, ‘What do you want done?’

  ‘Or undone?’ Adorne had said. His lashes were wet, but his face was as disciplined as his voice. And had added, ‘I would have nothing undone. I would have made her my wife. I will do it still.’

  And Tobie had said, ‘Then will you give me a letter for her? And do you want Kathi told? No one else knows, but Gelis a
nd Clémence.’

  ‘They should all know,’ Adorne had said.

  After that, he had written a letter, a short one, with the writing materials that Tobie had brought. Tobie had been shown it. A formal acknowledgement of the child, and of responsibility for its upbringing. A promise to marry. And words of love, no less believable for being restrained. When he had finished, Tobie had said, ‘I have some bad news. Barbesaen has confessed on the rack, and has been condemned. He is to hang.’

  ‘And so may I?’ Adorne said. ‘You are asking who will look after the child?’

  ‘No. I shall, or I shall find someone. Leave it to me.’

  The man had been whiter than white, but still intent on mustering his thoughts. ‘At least, not Kathi. She has enough. She ought to go away as it is. I have told her already. If they turn on me, they may turn on her next. And Robin should be with his family. If he can travel?’

  ‘He could sail,’ Tobie said. ‘But they wouldn’t go.’

  ‘They will, if I make them,’ said Adorne.

  NOW, TELLING KATHI, Tobie awaited her answer. He could see her weighing it up. She knew Adorne, and his pride. She knew when to override it. She also knew Robin. She had children, in a town full of danger. And there was something else which Adorne had not asked of her. There was Phemie and her child about to be born. Adorne’s child, Kathi’s cousin.

  After what seemed like a long time, she said, ‘I think we should leave, if he really wants it. Does he?’

  ‘Yes, Kathi, he does. He has a hard way before him, and it will be easier if he treads it alone.’ He thought, saying the words, that it was what Nicholas in Scotland had also chosen. Then he said, ‘Gelis will be here, with all the van Borselen power to help him. Gruuthuse will move heaven and earth. Andreas will be back, as a friend and a doctor. And he has his family.’ He ceased speaking. Adorne’s family. His older family. But not, of course, his eldest son Jan, who was employed in Rome by the brother of that Chancellor Hugonet who was now dead, executed in Ghent. Who remained obdurately at Rome.