Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘He’s off sick,’ said Henry. ‘But I’m told that if I make you come with me to Eck Scougal, I’ll find the horses all right.’ He looked down at his wine, and suddenly drank some.

  ‘Deliberately placed there?’ Nicholas said, half to himself and half to Gelis. ‘No. Eck would never allow it. In any case, the horses don’t matter: someone will have locked them up somewhere and we may or may not find them again. It was all just to get you to call on me, and hope that youth would prevail over a failed out-of-work mercenary.’

  ‘You were meant to fight one another?’ Gelis said. It was hard work.

  ‘I suppose so. Henry, who told you I’d taken the horses?’

  The boy set down the cup. ‘No one. I still think that you did.’

  ‘All right,’ Nicholas said. ‘Then you make a proper complaint, and the Lords in Council will conduct the enquiry. We’ll go now.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Gelis said, ‘that something else is going to happen.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Henry, did you say something about a squad of armed men?’ She could see them through the panes of the window. Lowrie was outside, expostulating once more. She looked at Nicholas, who had very seriously poured himself a second cup of the extremely strong wine. She knew how he felt.

  Henry said, ‘I didn’t tell anyone to come.’ He stood up.

  The door crashed back on its hinges. A man, rather more heavily armed than Henry and considerably older, stood on the threshold. ‘Ser Nicholas de Fleury of Bruges? I have an order from the Reverend Abbot of Blackfriars to take and place you in detention forthwith.’

  ‘Why?’ said Nicholas, rising.

  ‘It isn’t horses?’ said Gelis. ‘I can see horses outside.’

  ‘Is it horses?’ said Nicholas. Henry’s head turned from one to the other.

  The armed man said, ‘These are horses, yes. They brought us. We are to escort you to Blackfriars.’

  ‘But the horses came from Kilmirren,’ Gelis said.

  The man was becoming impatient. ‘They are from the stables at Blackfriars. I do not know where they belong.’

  ‘Henry?’ Nicholas said. ‘Could the Abbot have stolen your horses?’

  There was a moment’s pause. Then Henry said, ‘By mistake, of course. But it’s always possible. Could I see them?’

  ‘Could he see them?’ said Nicholas. His face was alight. Henry’s blue eyes had started to sparkle.

  The captain said, ‘Why? I am not here about horses. I have orders to—’

  ‘But you have come at the right time. We are investigating the theft of some horses. A little wine?’ Gelis said. She held the cup under his nose, whose ripeness she had already registered.

  ‘Well …’ said the captain, sitting down. ‘Mind you, I can’t help you about horses.’

  From the door, Gelis gave certain orders and returned. There was a glint of a tray, seen among the squad outside the window. Gelis said, ‘There’s been a theft of horses from Master Henry’s home at Kilmirren. As a member of the King’s Guard, he would naturally feel beholden to helpers. Perhaps you could pass round the word, if he describes them?’

  Henry described the horses. Nicholas and the captain both drank. Gelis kept her eyes demurely on her lap. After a while, Nicholas said, ‘By the way, I’m sorry, you came to tell me something?’

  The captain, with some trouble, adjusted his expression but did not rise, as his fourth cup was still full. He said, ‘As to that, I’m sorry, m’lord. But the arkshekels went mishing, they say, just after your lo’ship called on the Pipple-Pebble Collector. And I have sworn statements that all of them have been seen in this housh.’

  ‘What kind of articles?’ Nicholas said.

  The inventory meant nothing to Gelis, seeming to consist of various flagons, flasks and pots, chiefly of silver.

  Henry suddenly said, ‘Could I see the list?’ The captain handed it over. Nicholas’s eyes wandered over the room, without meeting hers. The boy said, ‘But these weren’t stolen. They arrived in this house as gifts.’

  ‘How d’you know?’ said the captain. He said it in a mannerly way. This St Pol might be no more than a lad, but he wore the royal cipher.

  Henry said, ‘I was living here when they arrived. I saw them all.’

  ‘A gift, who from?’ said the captain.

  Nicholas brought his eyes down, and Henry met them. Henry said, ‘No one knew. They came directed to Ser Nicol, along with small unsigned notes.’

  ‘Oh? ’Sha pity no one kept ’em, then,’ said the man.

  His expression odd, Nicholas was gazing at Henry. He said, removing his eyes, ‘As a matter of fact I did keep them. I have all the notes. I hoped, of course, to thank the sender, but never found out who he was. So I passed the silver to the Abbot of Holyrood.’

  ‘Eh, what?’ said the man.

  ‘To the Abbot of Holyrood. They were really too expensive to keep, and I could think of no one better. Good Lord,’ Nicholas said with surprise. ‘If I’d chosen Blackfriars instead, then all this nuisance could have been avoided.’

  The man left, his cup empty, and the soldiers outside helped him into the saddle and left. Nicholas had not been arrested. A visit would be paid to the Abbot of Holyrood, and the two monasteries would reach an accommodation in private. The captain was heard to remark, with queasy laughter, that knowing those two wily bashtards, he wouldn’ guarantee it wouldn’ all end in blushet-blushid’n’ murder.

  Coming back from the door, Gelis said, ‘I think you were both a disgrace. The Church will never recover. Henry, seriously, what do you want done about the horses? It wasn’t Nicholas, but then you’d expect us to say that in any case.’

  ‘I was mistaken,’ Henry said. ‘That is, the person who told me was mistaken. I’ll look for them myself.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Nicholas said. ‘So will that poor man-at-arms you beguiled. And Eck has brood mares coming from Flanders. If you send to one of the Browns, they’ll keep back some for you at Berwick. Have you been down to Berwick yet?’

  ‘I thought of going,’ said Henry.

  ‘Well, the Karel’s busy,’ said Nicholas. ‘But you’d get a ride on the Marie or the James, if you keep out of the way of John le Grant.’

  It was risky. Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not afraid of John le Grant.’

  ‘No. But he’s bloody afraid of you,’ Nicholas said. ‘In fact, he’s forgotten what happened. You’re in Scotland, your own country now. You can’t put a foot wrong. You can’t put a foot right, either, after all the drink that you’ve had. Neither can I. Gelis, we need to be helped.’

  ‘Whenever didn’t you?’ Gelis said.

  IN BED, HOLDING him in her arms, she said, ‘Davie Simpson?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. It was warm, and the bedding was all over the floor. ‘At least, he sent the silver, although I can’t prove it. I suspect he stole the horses and set Henry on me as well.’

  ‘Henry spoke up for you,’ Gelis said. She turned her head. ‘The first time. The very first time.’

  Against her skin, his face became still. His eyes were open. Then they flickered and he said, ‘Don’t count on it too much. It comes and goes. He didn’t report that the silver was Simpson’s, although he knew it.’

  ‘He doesn’t want his grandfather to know,’ Gelis said. ‘One hint of that unholy alliance, and Jordan de St Pol would kill Henry, or Simpson, or both.’

  ‘Perhaps we should tell Grandfather,’ Nicholas said. There was a strand of bitterness in it.

  She said nothing. His rough hair, damp from exertion, lay under her chin, and below that she could see the sturdy curve of his cheekbone, and the scatter of lashes, so unlike the thick, silky sweep of his son’s; and the severe nose with its curling, fastidious nostril which was yet another part of his chaotic heritage.

  After a long while, he said, ‘Of course not,’ and after another short space: ‘I couldn’t do this without you.’

  She said, ‘You can. You have done.’

  ‘But not by
way of laughter,’ he said. ‘He let himself enjoy that. He can’t be my son, but perhaps he could be …’

  ‘What?’ She was very gentle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. A friend. Gelis? I love you in so many ways.’

  ‘I know. Lie quiet,’ she said.

  HE TOOK HIS other son, without Gelis, to see his wee Aunty Bel.

  Now Jodi did not have to be lifted to rap on the front door, and he took off his cap without being prompted as he entered the parlour of the St Pol house over the road.

  His wee Aunty Bel looked much the same: short and plump inside a lot of wide cloth, with her face like a loaf set to rise, and her hair all bundled into white napkins. She held out her hand, and kissed his cheek when he came over, and then sat with her arm still about him, looking up at his father. She smelled tasty, like fruit cooked in sugar. He turned his head to sniff her neck better. His father came to her other side, and when she lifted her face, bent quickly and kissed it, almost as he kissed Jodi’s mother. Aunty Bel said, ‘Well, well. So ye’ve got yourself sorted out at long last. Go and sit there, and here’s a stool for your big son.’

  ‘Captain Cuthbert has a hackbut,’ said Jodi, taking his seat.

  ‘You remember the hackbut!’ said his aunty. ‘And what else does Captain Cuthbert have? Have you tried the crossbow yet, now?’

  He had. They had an interesting discussion about weapons, and hunting, and dogs. The question of dinner came up. Aunty Bel thought, for some reason, that his father must be hungry these days, and she was proposing a little something to eat. ‘So, Jodi—’

  Jodi said, ‘When I’m at home, I usually eat with everyone else.’ He looked at his father.

  His aunt said, ‘Well, of course you do. But since it’s so clement, I thought we might have our wee bite in the garden, and Isa’s bad with her legs, and could do with a hand with the dishes. Can ye set up a table?’

  Jodi jumped up. He remembered Isa, and something to do with marchpane, but the desire for information came first. ‘How is she bad with her legs?’

  ‘You ask her. We’ll be there in a minute. I only want to ask your da here about poor Sir Anselm. Ye ken he’s got a wee baby?’

  ‘It’s a girl,’ Jodi said.

  ‘Do ye like lassies?’ said Aunty Bel. ‘Well, there’s a surprise. Tell Isa I sent you.’

  When the door closed, she turned to his father. ‘A manful wee laddie. Well-grown, well-mannered and happy by nature, I’d say. He’s a credit to both of ye, Nicholas.’ Her smile grew. ‘Ye ken Henry’s taken a keek at him on the quiet? Came back fair cackling because wee cousin Jodi had grown up the image of his common big father de Fleury.’

  ‘I expect he said Claes,’ Nicholas said. ‘And Jordan has gone home? Why?’

  Bel looked surprised. ‘I thought it was something you said. If you dinna ken, I’m not competent tae inform ye. He came back right red-wad after seeing you.’

  ‘And Simon?’

  ‘Is still in Madeira, and we all have to hope that he’ll stay there. The house is empty, Nicholas. You can say what you want to say, and so can I.’

  He rose then, and walked forward, and took his place quietly at her feet, on the stool Jodi had used. She was in her late fifties; old enough to be his mother. Younger than his real mother would have been. He said, ‘What happened at Roslin. I was able to share it with Gelis, instead of having to choose. How did you know?’

  She said, ‘I loved Umar, as you did, and this was no different. You think a man, or a woman, dies only once? They die afresh every time a friend hears of it, and be they ten years in the tomb, that is the day that the new-bereaved friend gets to mourn them. You gave Umar his due: the shame was that you knew he was dead, and Gelis didn’t. I made sure it wouldn’t happen again.’

  He said, ‘You knew Phemie.’

  ‘I didna know she was childering. You were the one she trusted with that. But I was here at the sickbed when Adorne’s wife lost her wee bairn, and so was Phemie. I was there in Bruges with Phemie and Margriet when the Princess had her first son under his roof. I spent time with them all many times over, and I would have been glad to see Anselm Adorne share his life with that lady.’

  ‘Have you told him so?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘You think I should have been at the kirk,’ Bel of Cuthilgurdy said. ‘And so maybe did he. But I’ve seen him, and Archie. I’ve seen Robin, too.’

  Nicholas said, ‘The last time we met—’ and broke off.

  Bel stared at him, her fists on her two knees, her mouth set like a saw. ‘Christ fend us, Nicol de Fleury, is this all that ye can make of it? Four years ago, Robin thought ye were God. I charged you to use your influence right, and you did. Get that straight in your mind. I’ve no time for the self-centred man: him that’s aye off in a corner, squeezing the plukes on his conscience. What you’ve done wrong is done: God’ll judge you. It’s what you do now that everything hangs on.’

  ‘Including me,’ Nicholas said. He started to laugh. ‘I’ve just escaped a charge of ecclesiastical theft. Davie Simpson.’

  ‘Do you tell me?’ said his hostess. She released her fingertips and scuffed absently at some dog hairs, which fell from her chest to her lap. ‘And that’s a hanging matter, you say? I’d say more like being tied to a board at a horse’s tail. So Davie Simpson played a prank on you, the wee naughty man. Ye ken he pitched me out of my house?’

  ‘I heard. He’ll pay for it,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘That’s why I mentioned it. How?’

  ‘Andro Wodman will tell you,’ said Nicholas. He made it sound like a kindly reminder. ‘At least, I assume he will. You sent him to Flanders, didn’t you, to watch David last year? May I ask you something?’

  ‘Air’s cheap,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Andro and Simpson were in the same company of Royal Archers in France. Wodman killed a man, and he and Davie both left and joined St Pol, who had once been an Archer and was now settled and wealthy in France. I’ve asked Wodman, and now I’m asking you. Did anything happen that would give Simpson a hold over the old man?’

  ‘What did Andro tell you?’ she said. It was a waste of time. He could tell.

  ‘That he killed the man, Cressant, in a hand-to-hand fight over a personal matter and that St Pol offered him a lucrative job that tempted Davies also to leave. He had to pretend to have leprosy.’

  ‘Aye. That’s about it,’ Bel said. ‘And you’re not thinking straight, Nicol. If Jordan de St Pol had anything to fear from Davie Simpson, he wadna have dismissed him. He wouldna even have employed him before that. He would have killed him.’

  ‘But there’s more,’ Nicholas said. ‘There must be more. Why do you always …’

  ‘Keep my own counsel? I’m entitled. But I wouldna hold back what would harm you. This is the truth. St Pol will do just what he wants to do. Davie Simpson has no way of controlling him.’

  ‘But you arranged for him to go to the Tyrol,’ Nicholas said. He felt like saying it. ‘How did Simpson get on with the Duchess?’

  It sounded innocent, but it signalled his discontent. Eleanor, Duchess of the Tyrol, was an elderly Scottish princess who knew Bel, Nicholas believed, far far better than she knew Nicholas himself, even though he had worked for her over a season. He waited to hear what Bel would say.

  She said, ‘Have you ever been chamois-hunting?’

  ‘Once,’ Nicholas said. The hurt faded. Oh Bel, Bel.

  ‘Well, ye ken what it’s like. It’s not the chamois, it’s the corruption and riotous merriment afterwards. Cartloads of lassies, they say.’

  ‘Do they?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Aye. And they had a gentleman’s bonspiel, big fires and bare scuddies, and Davie wasna that smart at the sooping. And the Duchess took him hunting a lot.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘As you say. Also, there’s a strong drink she serves …’ She gazed at him. Her eyes were small, round, and the colour of gravel.

  ‘All right. I had it. I know what h
appens,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Well, I hope she didna make you do what she did with Davie Simpson,’ the dame of Cuthilgurdy observed. ‘She’s a strong-minded body, the Duchess, and unchancy to cross. I canna think why she took against him, but she did. Of course, he and Buchan her brother were there to offer peace on Duke Charles’s behalf: a civil gesture belike; except that no one had told them the Duke had been at peace in superior company these several weeks past, which made them look a wee bit provincial. Well, are ye stuck there, my Ignaures, or d’you want something to eat?’

  She had sent David to the Tyrol, and he had learned nothing. Just as Nicholas had learned nothing now. But now, he didn’t resent it.

  By then, the table was set up in the shade in the garden, and a cloth on it with dishes and flagons, and Jodi had found all the dogs and a few other things besides, including a sturdy bow just his size, with its case and its arrows.

  ‘It was your cousin Henry’s,’ Bel said, stringing and stretching it with one short, formidable arm before handing it over. ‘Mind you, he was a strong loon at eight, and no shame if that’s a wee bit beyond you, but … Well, fancy that!’

  Jodi had shot, and the arrow had flown straight to the wooden target that Isa had put for him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Jodi, in a casual treble. ‘A bit on the small side, perhaps.’

  ‘But it’ll do?’ said his Aunty Bel hopefully.

  He put his arms round her neck. ‘It’s really just right,’ he said.

  Afterwards, he carried it away in his arms, while his father lingered a moment. He said, ‘You see two blithe men.’

  ‘Aweel. I like the gender,’ said Mistress Bel. ‘Come and see me in Stirling. Bring Gelis and Jodi.’

  Nicholas said, ‘When Jodi was young, I planned to confide him to you, if I lost Gelis.’

  She stood very still, there on the threshold, with her hands like two balls of yarn clasped before her. ‘I would have reared him,’ she said. ‘I would take him now, but he needs a man’s house.’