‘Sire,’ said Argyll. Below, men were falling silent.
‘Shall I tell you something?’ said Mar. ‘Shall I tell you why Meg will never marry in England? Why my sister the most serene Princess, lady Margaret, has twice been summoned to her great English wedding, and twice has failed to arrive?’
‘My lord,’ said the Earl of Argyll, ‘are you coming, or do you need assistance with this young man?’
His voice was helpful, not threatening. He had not used the sword Nicholas had flung him to bring Mar to order. Instead, he was reminding the Prince of his quarrel, to divert him from whatever he had been going to say.
The Earl of Mar said slowly, ‘No. I am not coming. Not until I have finished with Master Randy St Pol, and taught him not to take what does not belong to him.’ And, turning, he advanced on the youth.
It was a small room, lit by guttering wall-sconces, with one unshuttered range of windows giving on to the street and a low ceiling, unsuited to swordplay. Within it, Henry stood quite still, presenting his sword to his enemy, and to Argyll who stood at the door, with Nicholas now silently by him. Like Mar, St Pol wore only doublet and hose, without other protection, and his bright hair was uncovered. His stance, like Mar’s, was that of a highly trained swordsman, but there was a physical balance about him, a grace that Mar lacked. Mar had the advantage of age, and also a knife which Henry did not possess. But as one looked at the two, it was not impossible that the unthinkable could happen: that the youngest member of the King’s Scottish Guard, to save his own life, might be forced to kill the King’s brother.
With a flash and a clatter, it began. Engagement; disengagement. A click as sword parried dagger; a slur of shoe upon wood as someone ducked; and a whine as someone swiped and missed. Fast, irregular breathing; an imprecation; Johndie’s furious laugh. From outside the windows, the murmur of a gleeful and increasing crowd (It’s Johndie, right? And Lang Bessie’s bonny wee pet fighting it out); and the same sounds below, rounded by the confines of the tavern. Argyll’s men still barred the stairs and the cause of the fight, Lang Bessie, had long ago been spirited away.
Nicholas watched, his face impassive, his hands clenched. By now, he knew Henry’s style, having witnessed it in practice at Greenside, and heard Robin’s judicial assessments. Since there was nothing he could do, he stood back from the jumping figures and the massive swings of the heavy blades. It was Mar’s dagger hand that he followed, and he saw that Henry was watching it too. Then came the moment when Mar feinted and lifted the short blade as well as the long. Henry ducked, missing the sword by a long hissing fraction, and struck at the dagger instead.
It fell. And as it struck the floorboards and hopped, Argyll sprang forward and scooped it up, retreating immediately to the door, where he tossed the little weapon to Nicholas. Mar gave one amazed glance at the Highlander, then he whirled to defend himself against Henry’s swung blade. They were even.
They remained even. Circling, swiping, slipping the length of the room, ducking, returning, there was no advantage lost or given for a long time. Young, well exercised, angry, they were more able than most to bear the weight of the great swords, and the jar of repeated impact along their shoulders, their wrists, their backs and their arms. Only Henry, driven by necessity, kept his head, while Mar, as the minutes went by, was seized by mounting waves of fury and resentment and disbelief.
You could see his attention waver. And you could see Henry watch for his opening.
It came. His dark auburn hair wet, the red flag of his inheritance burning over one cheek, John of Mar made a single wide swing that left his heart open, and Henry swept his blade forward.
The killing blow never fell. Nicholas made a single, vigorous gesture and the little knife left his fingers in a whistling arc that ended with a thud in Henry’s body, between shoulder and neck. Henry’s sword dropped to the floor, and Henry himself went crashing back against the unshuttered windows of the gallery. For a moment he swayed there, his eyes closed. Then his weight tumbled him over the sill and back downwards into the street, where the crowd’s chatter rose to a roar. Mar stood, looking surprised. Nicholas swept past him to the window, and looked down.
The storeys were low. Henry had not fallen far, and the packed heads and shoulders had cushioned his landing. Already their battered indignation was giving way to good-natured concern. Nicholas looked down and saw Henry’s body tumbled amongst them. As he watched, it began to unfold. Henry’s shocked face appeared. His upper doublet was sodden with blood and his face was chalk-white, but he was not dead or dying.
Johndie Mar said, ‘What did you do that for? I’ll go down and kill him!’
‘Do you think so?’ said the Earl of Argyll doubtfully. ‘That is, there is no doubt, my lord, that you won. He was disarmed. Men will see that he has been adequately punished. Is it worth any more? As I mentioned, my rooms are upstairs, where we can sit comfortably with some very good wine.’
The King’s brother stared at him, coughing at intervals. Sweat shone on his face and he stood unevenly, as if in pain, although there was no sign of a wound. For a moment he resisted with petulance; then, driven perhaps by discomfort, he followed Argyll upstairs to his parlour. After a moment, Whitelaw discreetly came down.
By that time, Nicholas was out in the street. Dusk had deepened to darkness: breaking through the flickering circle of torches, Nicholas de Fleury dropped, a shadowy, anonymous figure, at the wounded boy’s side. St Pol’s eyes were closed, but every time someone touched him, he swore. He had no broken limbs, and you could see that the wound was deep but not threatening. Nicholas rose and stepped back, still unnoticed, as Argyll’s men came running out, followed almost at once by an apothecary. Then Henry was expertly lifted and conveyed, not to the tavern, but further uphill, to his grandfather’s house. Shortly after, the apothecary emerged, packing his satchel. To enquirers he said, ‘Nothing too serious. He was lucky. He is young.’ And added, sotto voce, to someone he knew, ‘Damn the boy. A little more enterprise, and we might have been rid of Johndie for ever.’
Nicholas went home.
IT WAS NOT, by that time, going to be the second homecoming that Gelis had personally envisaged, but she was far too charitable to object. Even when, stirring at last the following morning, Nicholas greeted her with shame-faced apology, she smiled, coming forward, and, sitting on the edge of the bed, took his hands. ‘You asked if I minded if you got very drunk, and I didn’t.’
He had told her, in essence, what had happened. Now she said, ‘I sent Lowrie to ask how Henry is. The answer seems to be extremely angry, and in some pain, but not in any danger. Bel has been sent for, and word has gone to Kilmirren. The old man may come over, they say.’
‘With a knotted whip,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. At least he will appreciate what would have occurred if Henry had actually killed the King’s brother. The joke is that this isn’t the first time. I once stopped a quarrel between Henry and Mar, and Henry retaliated. Now he will suppose that I have duly taken my revenge. I don’t seem to get very far, do I?’
‘You’ve reassured Mar,’ Gelis said. ‘And that is surely worth something. As for Henry, you can never hope for too much. You know that. Godscalc would understand it as well.’
‘I know. I’m an idiot,’ Nicholas said. ‘And especially when there are so many other, attractive outlets to hand. One of the few advantages of excess is the rallentando it brings to normally urgent affairs. In place of prompt completion, there is an opportunity for leisurely courting, for subtle incitement, for—what?’
She didn’t answer. He made a stifled sound. She continued to do what she was doing. He gave an involuntary shout, and then repeated in his ordinary voice, ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Pick your own pace, rallentando,’ Gelis said. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’m making for prompt completion, sforzando. I’ll tell you what it was like.’
‘Like hell you will,’ Nicholas said, and crashed her over.
Making love, they always talked non
sense. Afterwards, if they spoke, it was heart to heart, whatever the subject, as if a passkey had been exchanged for a space. At other times, they lay without speaking, enfolded and silent, sharing comfort.
That morning, he was quiet, and she knew he was thinking of Henry. She was dwelling on something else: something that he had told her of his visit to Damparis. He had talked of it quite simply. ‘It confirmed what the family told you. Marian had a daughter, who was stillborn or died, and who was buried with her. She did not want me to know.’
‘And Adelina’s story?’ Gelis had said. ‘That the child lived, and was really Bonne, whom Adelina passed off as her daughter?’
‘There is no evidence,’ Nicholas had said. ‘I went to see Bonne. She could tell me nothing.’
Then Gelis had said, ‘She was younger when I saw her last. But she had no look of you, or of Marian.’ She paused and said, ‘Did you like her?’
And he had said, ‘Liking doesn’t come into it. If she is mine, she is for me to look after.’ But he had not spoken of friendship, as he had when talking of Henry.
She had said, smoothing his fingers with hers, ‘You need to know, and so does she, who she is. There is one step you could take, if you can bear it. The tomb at Fleury. If there is a child in Marian’s arms, then Bonne is not yours.’
And he had said, ‘I thought of that. I went to Fleury. I went to the crypt.’
He had stopped. Then he had said matter-of-factly, ‘I probably couldn’t have done it. I didn’t have to. The tomb doesn’t exist. The church was hit by cannon fire during the fighting, and everything burned to the ground. To below the ground. To ashes.’
His mother. His infant brother. His wife and her sister. And in his wife’s clasp, the little gift he had sent her. And, perhaps, their one stillborn child. He would never know.
Except that, as he had said and as she too believed, Marian would have told him. Had she left a living child, she would have bequeathed it to him, with love and with hesitant pride. If she had given a child to the world, she would have made sure that the child would have Nicholas.
He lay still. She had thought he was dwelling on Henry. As it turned out, he was thinking of nothing personal at all. When he suddenly spoke, it was faintly querulous. ‘Gelis, do you think Bleezie Meg could be pregnant?’
Her emotions disintegrated; then flew, just as quickly, to their proper places. This was Nicholas, not a child or a lunatic, although he could be both. She composed her face. ‘I could try to find out,’ she said gravely. But by then, he had reviewed what he had said and started to laugh, in the devastating way that brought her close to tears, she loved him so much.
Chapter 26
Bot so it be throw awentur he wyn.
THE IMMEDIATE CRISIS with Sandy was over; Mar had quietened. In Scotland then, to those negotiating the wolf-ridden currents in the stout barque of communal statecraft, it seemed that the year 1479 was to slide to its end with nothing worse to fear than the threat of an exceptionally cold winter. Parliament met in October, and continued the peremptory summons of Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, to answer for the garrisoning of the castle of Dunbar against the King and his other transgressions. They then proceeded to repeat sentences of forfeiture against those others who had collaborated with him. Jamie Liddell was not among them. Nicholas went to see him.
Liddell was bitter. ‘How can it be treason? Has he tried to kill the King? Has Sandy tried to kill anyone? Colquhoun’s death was an accident, you know that.’
Nicholas said, ‘The Duke refused to stand down from Dunbar. He fired on the royal forces. He flouted the King’s orders and fought on the Border. You know what else he did. He has to be challenged, or it’s an invitation to general anarchy. Whether he will be condemned or not will be a matter for judges. And meanwhile, note, he hasn’t forfeited anything.’
‘James hates his brothers,’ said Liddell.
And Nicholas said, ‘No, he doesn’t. The King has the family temper, that’s all. He can be guided, just like all of them can. Sandy could hold the highest post in the kingdom if he could bring himself to make accommodation with England. For God’s sake, we’re not taking King Edward as overlord. We’re simply observing a useful pact between neighbours. It needn’t even stretch to another marriage, if the Princess Margaret objects.’
Liddell said, ‘According to Whitelaw, Edward will renege on the dowry for his daughter Cecilia if Margaret’s isn’t forthcoming.’
‘It’s possible,’ Nicholas said. ‘Just as it’s possible that the King will spend all the wedding taxes on cannon, or hats, unless someone persuades him otherwise. What about Ellem and the rest who held out in Dunbar? Can they be helped? Will they make representations?’
‘Do you care?’ Liddell had said.
And Nicholas said, ‘Of course I do. Sandy’s going to come back. We’re all going to have to make things work in the end.’
‘We?’ said Liddell.
‘Well. You,’ said Nicholas mildly.
JAMES, LORD HAMILTON, died during the first heavy snow, in November, and those who went to his funeral, in the collegiate church he had founded nearly fifty years previously, found themselves briefly immured in that western sheriffdom of Lanarkshire which had been his, and which now fell to his only legitimate son, his child by the Princess Mary.
There were, of course, many adult Hamiltons to receive those who came to do him honour, from his prolific brothers and their wives to his own illegitimate, talented family. Spread among the several Hamilton keeps and towers at Cadzow, Draffen and at the place now called Hamilton in his name were the well-born officers, young and old, who attended the Princess and her husband, among whom was Jodi de Fleury, brilliant of face and eye, moving decorously in his new sable dress to welcome his parents, but waiting only to be swept inside his father’s encouraging arm and to burst into speech.
The widowed Princess wept in resentful short bursts, and alternately commandeered Nicholas and shunned him. It was natural. He had engineered one aspect or another of both Mary’s marriages. She mostly felt grateful, but she did not want another.
Her Hamilton children were too small to share in the commotion, but James and Margaret Boyd, the son and daughter born to her in Anselm Adorne’s house in Bruges, were little younger than Jodi. They knew their stepfather had died, and walked about, eyes lowered, in their black dress, speaking politely when introduced. They came to life a little when Anselm Adorne himself arrived, with his niece Katelinje of Berecrofts, who had once been maid of honour to their lady aunt Margaret. They came fully alive when Jodi’s father eventually joined the company. Jodi had never understood who gave Jamie Boyd the right to walk by his father and talk to him. Mistress Clémence, tackled once, explained that it was because M. de Fleury was a friend of the Princess’s brother. The Duke of Albany was a hero to Jamie.
Jodi had thereafter followed the doings of the Duke of Albany, which seemed to him more interfering than heroic, and lately had kept his own father overseas for four months. He did not particularly like Jamie’s sister, and missed the other Margaret, Margaret of Berecrofts, who was staying with her great-grandfather and little brothers not far away, at Templehall. Margaret was four and three-quarters, but fought like a seven-year-old.
Gelis, aware of the under-currents, was not surprised when Nicholas took them out of their way to stay overnight at Templehall while on their journey to Hamilton, rather than call on the way back. Kathi and her uncle were there. Set in its own wooded park, Will of Berecrofts’s ancestral home was a comfortable, extended keep, with its stable and service buildings about it, all deep in sparkling snow. They arrived with daylight in hand, and when they had eaten, and talked to Adorne and the old man, Nicholas swept all the active young of the household out into the white sunlit snow for wild sport. Margaret, with her light curling hair and Berecrofts fleetness, shrieked with joy, returning her uncle Nicol’s bombardment, while Rankin, aged three, chopped about in small manic boots, cheeks vermilion, lungs pumping with de
termined effort.
Indoors, it was Margaret who pushed Nicol to this room and that to examine treasures, the high voice swooping and fluting as she dictated, explained and enquired. Round her plump neck was a chain from which hung a lustrous cream pearl, his gift to her. Before she was taken off to her bath, she had him hear her sing to it. She had a cheerful, sweet voice. Rankin possibly possessed one as well, but it was more often employed as a stockhorn, to advise that he was about to arrive at high speed smack into some part of Uncle Nicol’s anatomy: chest or stomach, thighs or legs. Then, clambering, he would wrap his short arms round Nicol’s strong neck and announce things.
Gelis, watching, saw Kathi was watching as well, and smiled at her. ‘What’s the magic?’
Kathi came and sat down. These days, she didn’t look worn any more, but content, and busy, and secure. She said, ‘It’s good for Rankin, rough play. He can’t have it with Robin. And how does Nicholas do it? Ask Andreas some time. Intuition. Animal instinct. A sort of physical love, given to everyone, without even having to touch them. A way of conveying physical comfort, and understanding, and fondness, that also puts into their heads, silently, whatever he wants them to do.’ She broke off, her head to one side. ‘Is that actionable? It probably is. But if you could work out the recipe and bottle it, you could become very rich.’
Her voice had hurried a little. Gelis said, ‘It’s all right. I thought of it too. Esota.’ The woman who had been understanding and friendly—too friendly—to a very young child then called Claes.
Kathi said, ‘It wasn’t all bad. It was just a pity she didn’t find her own Tristan to make love to. Being stuck with King Mark de Fleury would make anyone odd. And speaking of oddities: what do you think the Princess will do now she’s widowed? She didn’t mind being married to Hamilton, but he was the King’s choice, not hers.’
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