Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Now? Not while?’

  ‘An informed guess. And I’m not throwing Robin and you to the wolves. You’ll be safer from Simpson the closer you are to the Court. Whitelaw and Avandale and Argyll will look out for you. There are some others as well: officials, advisers, doctors. I’ll tell you who they are.’

  ‘You’ve discussed all this with them?’ It was like the Play. It was like unwrapping the canvas, and opening a coffer of dazzling secrets.

  ‘About Simpson and Albany, yes. I saw some of them this morning. It’s important, of course, that none of the royal brothers and sisters know that their councillors discuss them with foreigners. These are the men who have kept the kingdom steady for twenty years, they mustn’t lose the King’s trust.’

  ‘And Tom Yare is in touch with them?’ Kathi said. ‘So why do they need you in Berwick as well?’

  ‘They don’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘But Albany thinks he does. And Liddell and Purves and one or two others. I had to choose whether to associate with the King or with Albany, and I had some influence with Sandy to build on. The pity is that there is no one except Davie Simpson attached to the King and, indeed, the Queen.’

  ‘But James has his personal merchants, and he trusts Avandale and the rest, surely?’

  ‘He needs someone closer than that. The … the boon companion,’ Nicholas said.

  She waited. When he didn’t go on, she said, ‘A dangerous role. Do boon companions ever die in their beds?’

  ‘Do they want to?’ he said. And because he had followed her thought, ‘Whatever kills me, it is unlikely to be Albany’s excess of affection.’

  ‘Where have you lived?’ Kathi said. ‘Excess of affection always kills.’

  Then they were at Roslin. For an hour, for the first hour since January, she had thought of something other than Robin.

  NICHOLAS, SENDING AHEAD, had arranged that they should see Phemie first, before anyone. Phemie herself accordingly had some small warning, and received them, labouring up from her chair in the sunny room, her eyes moving from Kathi to Nicholas, but resting on Nicholas. The cordial, wimpled colleague of the Priory had gone, but the same positive mind read his smile. Few men could radiate happiness as Nicholas could. Phemie opened her arms and he moved forward and caught her and hugged her. Then he set her apart and looked down. ‘Phemie? He is so delighted. He loves you. He has written to you.’

  Later, when she had read the letter, they talked about Seaulme Adorne, and about the rising in Bruges. Listening to what she was told, Phemie was disturbed, but not unduly apprehensive. Men like her uncle, Kathi said, might be subjected to a token imprisonment but, by now, it might well be all over. Of course, Phemie could not travel at present, but had begun to speak of joining Anselm after the birth. It was only two months away. He might even travel to fetch her. Then she asked about Robin.

  There, Kathi held back nothing, but balanced the bad news with the good. He could never walk, but could be strapped in a chair. One side would always be dead, but the other was not, and the living intelligence that made him was unimpaired. Kathi was in Scotland to stay, but her life henceforth would depend on Robin’s determination to rediscover his place in the world. Phemie, she thought, understood.

  Then it was time to open the door, and announce Phemie’s news to the world. For whereas yesterday she was an earl’s daughter, illicitly pregnant, today she was the promised wife of Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, and could now quietly reshape her life.

  Nicholas stayed for a while, as did Kathi. It was partly because Phemie wished it, and partly to savour the moment when Nowie was told. Consummate performer that he was, Sir Oliver moved from relief to chaste satisfaction, expressing delight at his dear cousin’s choice, mixed with the faintest censure for the gentleman’s hastiness. He gave her his blessing. It was even possible, since he had certainly guessed it all beforehand, that the satisfaction was genuine. Reminded of recent events, Kathi murmured to Nicholas at her side, ‘You made her very happy just now.’

  ‘I wanted to,’ Nicholas said. ‘I knew how she felt.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘When I first heard I had a son.’

  He spoke very softly. It was so unlike him that she thought at first she had misheard. She said, on a light breath, ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In a convent. I left. I was thinking about him when they attacked me, or I should have escaped. Abrupt awakening.’ He gave a laugh, still very soft.

  ‘Who attacked you?’

  ‘Men of Jordan’s. Jordan de St Pol. It doesn’t matter. But I know how she feels.’

  He said nothing more. Kathi thought crossly, No one knows. No one knows what has happened to him. He hardly knows himself. Only this moment of happiness suddenly came back to him now, because of Phemie.

  Then she had to step forward, for Betha rushed in, followed by young Will Crichton’s mother, another cousin. And that was only the beginning. As word spread, the castle would fill up with relatives. No one, dear God, could say the Dunbars were not well connected. Among her second cousins, Phemie counted some of the King’s staunchest friends in the north-east. The Earl of Moray was once a Dunbar; a Dunbar was Keeper of Darnaway Castle. Phemie’s sister Cristina had married into a family that held the rents of all the royal fishing on Speyside, for which at Lammas each year they had to present to the King three and one half lasts of salmon, full, round and sweet.

  So Nicholas had told her. The same rights, of course, obtained in salmon rivers elsewhere. Tom Yare held tack of the River Tweed fishings for life. The Knights of St John held salmon rights in Peterculter, Aberdeenshire. Monasteries, great and small, all had their privileges: the extraction of salmon, which then required to be salted, barrelled, and shipped to their markets. Andrew Lisouris, that peripatetic carpenter of noble birth, shipped down the King’s salmon with timber from Darnaway forest for barrels, for building. Timber often accompanied salmon, and coal, to fire up the salt-pans.

  The keys to the future of Scotland, Nicholas called them: what would weld guild-brethren together, what would fill the royal Treasury; what would draw the eyes of the siblings from England; what should occupy, above all else, the attention of the Berecroftses and Robin. And now Phemie and Adorne would be at the heart of it. And their child.

  Before they left, she overheard a single exchange between Sinclair and Nicholas which was not about salmon, or timber.

  ‘Adorne is in prison?’

  ‘He was, in April. Gruuthuse and the little Duchess were determined to have him released.’

  ‘I am told,’ Sinclair said, ‘that the Duchess ran crying into the square when they executed Hugonet. It did not stop them … You know that Albany has begun a consanguinity divorce against my half-sister? Ostensibly so that he may marry the Dowager Duchess?’

  ‘But your reading is different?’ Nicholas had said.

  ‘I may be wrong,’ said Nowie Sinclair. ‘I am sure that if a miracle happened, Sandy would bed the Dowager with equal delight. But if she declines, he is then free in the marketplace.’

  ‘But not as the heir to the Scottish throne,’ Nicholas said. ‘King James has two sons.’

  ‘Both called James. How fragile is life. How unpredictable is life,’ Sinclair had said.

  RETURNING TO EDINBURGH with Nicholas, Kathi allowed the conversation to find its own level, and soon it dwindled to nothing. Ahead lay the long, rolling range of the Pentlands; beyond the plains to the right lay the sea. From time to time she glanced at Nicholas, who was riding at a hard, steady pace, his face absent. They passed Newbattle, and rode down and up from Dalkeith. She kept what she wanted to say until they were close to the green crag beside Holyrood, and the Castle shone, small and clear on its rock.

  ‘Nicholas? Why did Jordan allow Henry to join you?’

  Then, he glanced across. ‘I told you. I threatened him.’

  ‘And he agreed meekly. I know. So Henry is spying for Jordan?’

  ‘And I am feeding him false information. Yes, all of that.
’

  She hesitated. ‘I thought he tried once to claim you molested him.’

  ‘In Bruges, when he was young. It didn’t stick. He’d look a fool trying it now: an armed Royal Guardsman unable to escape the advances of a man twice his age?’ His voice lightened a little. ‘In fact, it’s the other way round. He was kind enough to mention that his wittier friends had accused him of falling in love with me. I won’t tell you what answer he gave them.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ Kathi said, ‘that you won’t tell me anything. I am able to direct my weakened mind to subjects other than Robin: I’ve proved it. Now I want to know what is wrong about Henry.’

  ‘John of Mar tried to kill him,’ Nicholas said. ‘Avandale and Sandy have gone to see Mar, and I have locked Henry up, until he agrees not to challenge him.’

  It had been the only way to get an answer. With Nicholas, you didn’t do that very often, and it hurt. ‘I am suitably abashed,’ Kathi said. ‘That, then, was what you were doing this morning. Was Henry injured?’

  ‘A painful mauling, but it could have been worse. Next time it will be.’

  ‘So Jordan will want him back in his house?’

  ‘When I left, Jordan didn’t know,’ Nicholas said. ‘And I promised not to tell him.’

  ‘Because Henry is planning to do something nasty to Mar, and you don’t mind if he does?’

  ‘Because I know that a secret like that can’t be kept. I’ll wager anything you like that Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren is enthroned in my house at this moment, brooding until I come back.’

  There was a silence. ‘Anything I like?’ Kathi said. ‘May I come and see if he’s there?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘Go home to Saunders. By the way.’

  ‘Yes?’ She knew the tone, and was thankful.

  ‘Ask Saunders why he used to go to Berwick so often.’

  ‘Berwick?’

  He didn’t answer. His gaze dwelled on her, restored, and she felt the responsive colour tingeing her nose, not her cheeks. ‘All right. Berwick,’ she said.

  LOWRIE SAID, ‘I’M sorry, my lord. They brought a hatchet. I had to unlock the door.’

  ‘So Master Henry has gone, and my lord of Kilmirren is still here?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Merely to make Master Henry’s excuses,’ remarked Jordan de St Pol from the parlour doorway. ‘You expected it.’

  He filled the doorway. It became light when he retreated and sat down. Nicholas followed him in and took the same place on the window-seat he had occupied only last night. Someone had cleared out the food. Nicholas said, ‘Since I lost my leverage, yes.’

  The fat man was smiling, today. ‘Quite. The law will be happy not to pursue a case against Henry, provided Henry drops his complaint against Mar. The men who attacked you at Bonnington will, alas, remain for ever unpunished.’

  ‘Mar will try again,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Of course,’ said St Pol. ‘What can one do, except hope my poor Henry survives it? You can’t imagine I care?’

  ‘Then why take him back?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘What shall I say?’ said Jordan de St Pol. ‘He reported a few of your minor business dealings but, really, not enough to be worth it. You learned even less, I am sure, and indeed suffered some loss. You have no idea what plans Henry now has for his horses. In fact … I have a theory. I think you were trying to suborn Henry from his grandfather’s bosom. Should I be right?’

  This time, the smile of the fat man was lavish; the eyes bright, the lips a voluptuous rose. He waited. It was so quiet that Nicholas could hear the beat of his own heart.

  ‘No one could do that,’ Nicholas said.

  The snowfield stilled; the hissing springs drained; far off under the glacier, Hekla breathed.

  ‘I should have killed you,’ said Jordan de St Pol; and rose; and walked out.

  Nicholas remained on the window-seat. Presently, since there was a great deal to do, he swung his feet down and went to his desk.

  PRIMED BY THE padrone himself, Kathi Sersanders was able, more than most, to appreciate what was happening during the following weeks.

  Over the road, Robin’s father, in his level way, had resumed business; and the grandfather had retired, at last, to the family estate at Templehall. Saunders, under the impact of the murmured word Berwick, had ceased to be ashamed of his uncle, although he hadn’t brought himself to meet Phemie yet. Nor had he any idea what had happened at Berwick, save to mutter that it was years ago and irrelevant.

  In their own house, the children had settled with Cristen, and Dr Tobie and Clémence had made a home of their building in the same yard. Robin was mobile now, wheeled from one room to another, and often over the road to Saunders’s office. It had once belonged to Nicholas, and had its own door. The counting-house, which was not so easy to reach, was upstairs. If Crackbene was about, he sometimes carried him.

  Once installed, Robin would sit listening with frightening intensity to what was being said, and would take a determined part in all the discussions. To begin with, Archie steered these into areas with which Robin was conversant, but Robin soon noticed, and recognised when his ignorance was being treated with tolerance. Very soon, with ferocious dedication, he had set aside pain to master all they could tell him. And when Nicholas visited, which he did within their old house, Robin would test himself further, disputing over the developing business, which had once taken second place in his heart to the active world he had lost.

  As he had been to Kathi, so now Nicholas was candid to Robin. Again, for the first time, he laid before the boy in the chair all his thoughts and his plans, and listened to Robin’s views. With Nicholas, Robin dropped the curt, probing manner he used with his peers, and relaxed into the low-key, speculative style that Nicholas encouraged. Only, as had happened with Kathi, Nicholas did not talk to him of Henry, or of anything personal. In some respects, no one could blame him. But he should, she believed, share some of his apprehensions with Robin—over the St Pols, for example, and Simpson. Robin wanted to help.

  For the moment, though, he was fighting his way along the path they had designed for him, and it seemed to be succeeding, even if Dr Tobie sometimes left Robin’s bed, frowning, after one of the excursions over the road. You would say that Robin was learning to become used to his disabilities, except for those times when, talking business, someone would lift and flourish a paper, or cross the room to a map, and Robin would instinctively make a half-movement. Then he would drop back and lie, his lips tight, his eyes full of cold rage.

  As much as she could, Kathi shared in it, and absorbed the news that came from abroad, much of it from men who still worked in the disjointed establishments of the former Banco di Niccolò. Julius, the handsome lawyer, wrote from Germany and so did his partner Father Moriz and Govaerts their deputy. According to Julius, all business was suffering in the interregnum between the old Duke and the little Duchess’s new husband. According to Moriz, Julius had become the most popular widower in Cologne, to the amazement of his step-daughter Bonne who, of course, was still mourning her mother. They both expressed anxiety about Adorne, and about Robin.

  News came from England: the King’s brother Clarence was under a shadow, and both royal marriage proposals were politely turned down. Meg was free. Kathi, who had made a first, cautious response to the cordial invitations from Court, found that Meg still possessed the attributes of eight, and assumed that Kathi was permanently fourteen. It was quite pleasant, in a confused way. The older sister, Mary, was absent, but Meg presented her to the Queen. It was less pleasant to be called Katelijne Sersanders of Bruges: the crippled Berecrofts boy’s dame, you remember? The Queen, however, had retrieved her good-sister’s gaffe with some skill, and when addressed in her own language, had expressed pleasure, but not the painful relief of her first years. She had been twelve years old when she came from Denmark to Scotland.

  Will Roger dropped in. Once he brought a large hearty choir, and made it sing under Robin’s window. The childr
en cried. Brought indoors, choir dismissed, he performed on the whistle and drank, and exchanged stories with Nicholas, so that Robin’s head switched from the one to the other. Robin said, ‘I’m supposed to have soothing music.’

  ‘Well, if you’re out of your head, I’ll give you it,’ said Whistle Willie, his grey hair on end. ‘But if you’re not, please excuse me. I get enough of that in the Castle. That young Johndie Mar is a devil.’

  ‘With drink?’ Nicholas said.

  Kathi got up from her stool. ‘Do you remember Hugo the painter in Bruges? Hugo vander Goes? Dr Andreas said he’s having to go into a monastery. He drinks, and thinks he can’t paint, and they play soothing music to help him. He’s doing Canon Bonkle’s altar-piece.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if he’s doing it,’ Robin said. ‘So why is Willie playing up at the Castle? Are they all moody?’

  There was a little silence. Kathi glanced at Nicholas and said, watching him, ‘Dr Andreas said something in Bruges. Something he suspected, or divined about their health. He didn’t say what it was.’

  ‘So come on,’ Robin said. ‘You’re the diviner. What’s wrong, Nicol?’ He had taken, recently, to this style of addressing Nicholas, and no one had commented, least of all the man he used to call ‘sir’.

  Nicholas said, ‘Short tempers, poor concentration, varying amounts of intellectual capacity. They’re very like one another. Ask Tom Yare’s friend Scheves. And a streak of lunacy, if you want to throw in John of Mar.’

  ‘And the recently excommunicated Archbishop Patrick Graham, whom your kind offices elevated,’ said Willie Roger. ‘He went clean crazy, and thought he was the Pontiff. And he was a second cousin, wasn’t he, of the King’s?’

  ‘Is,’ Nicholas said. ‘Sad things are happening to him even as we speak. So who’s mad in your family?’

  ‘Me,’ said Willie Roger. ‘When I don’t get what I want. And what I want is that, sung immediately.’