They were on the straight, smoother slope now, and gathering speed. The torches were nearer. To one side, he saw a snatch of smithy-red sparks and heard a crack, as an unseen rock snagged the brat’s runner. For a moment the boy’s sledge slewed right and left, then he had it level and running again. The brat would want to win, for his father. The brat’s father was waiting below, probably wishing he were at home by the fire with Henry’s grandfather. De Fleury had saved the fat old man’s life, back at Beltrees. De Fleury and Henry’s grandfather were a pair.
The trees came. Not so many, but wickedly spaced, so that you couldn’t get a clear run. As he steered, he could hear himself gasping from the vibration. He could see the boy being tossed about, and clinging on. He saw the other sledge tip, as his had done, and right itself, and then tip in the other direction. Trying to right it, the brat had failed to watch, for a moment, what lay further down.
Henry saw the tree, and moved his weight to swerve gracefully round it. Then he saw the red capped head flying past him in a straight line.
He only had to do nothing. He was expected to do nothing. He was tired of doing what he was expected to do. Henry de St Pol changed his weight, and his direction, and brought the sledge round in an arc which sheared the roots of the tree and crashed full tilt into the other hurtling sledge, which fell on its side, throwing its occupant into the snow. The brat yelled ‘Zot!’ and vanished into a snowdrift. His sledge slewed and slithered and stopped. Henry stopped his and stepped over into the drift. He found an arm and a collar and hauled. He said, ‘Have you never done this before?’
The snow was nearly knee-deep. Climbing out and back to the sledges, they both slipped from time to time on the crust: soon, that kind of spill would crack bones. The brat said, ‘You nearly went over too. Do we go on?’
Henry said, ‘Well, we’d look a bit silly if we stayed here all night.’
The brat gave a grunt and a passing grin, and knelt back on his sledge. Then he got up. ‘I’ll push you.’
‘Why?’ Henry said.
‘You saved me,’ the brat said.
‘More fool me. All right,’ Henry said, and lay down, and allowed the brat to push him. After that, it wasn’t a bad slide to the bottom, although he never reached such a good speed again. It pleased him to think of the brat behind, scrabbling with his pathetic feet, trying to get the sledge to run off. Serve him right. If he couldn’t sledge, he shouldn’t have accepted the challenge.
Almost immediately, it seemed, the ground levelled off, there was a blaze of torches ahead, and he could hear some ironic cheering, and even some genuine shouts and applause. He felt stiff, and bruised, and cold, and shaken, and triumphant. That for you, Uncle bloody Nicholas and Fat Grandfather Jordan.
IT WAS COLD, too, at the finishing post, despite the people crowded there and the fire someone had started. Indeed, the company and the light were a mixed blessing, as it made the hill itself all the darker, and nothing could be heard through the noise. Standing behind the broad back of Nicholas, with Gelis at his side, Kathi wished she had either owned taller parents, or been born with a step-ladder. They had gathered here early, while the others were still climbing the hill. It would take time, once they reached the top, to get ready. She had no idea how long it would take to come down. It would depend on the manner of coming, she supposed.
It was Nicholas who hushed them all, so that they heard the sound of the horn, far away, signalling that the race had begun. Even then, they all resumed talking almost immediately and he didn’t stop them again. Henry was well known, but not wildly popular. Jodi had quite a lot of young friends, but only a few of them were here. The friends of Nicholas and Gelis and Kathi herself were back at the keep, ignorant of what was happening. It was just a typical de Fleury escapade. The excitement was because of the betting.
In fact, the talking began to halt, more or less, when it seemed likely that the two lads had entered the trees. After that, there was a long pause. It seemed to some that there had been a shout, quite far away, but after that, nothing happened. After just so long, Nicholas moved. He had hardly started to run when he stopped. Something glittering appeared in the snow at the foot of the slope and bumped along, while a prone figure knelt stiffly up and began to get out. By then Kathi was in the front of the crowd, and knew who it was before he came forward. It was the blue sledge. It was Henry.
Nicholas passed her, going to greet him. Everyone ran forward, and flung Henry’s arm up, and then chaired him. Kathi saw him smile down at Gelis. He looked happier than she had ever seen him: his hat pulled off, his tangled hair tarnished with sweat; his colour flaming; his eyes a deep and brilliant blue. They took him back to the fire and the ale-keg, while half the company stood, waiting for Jodi.
Gelis, who had been talking to Henry, came back and spoke to Kathi and Nicholas. ‘The other sledge skidded. He says Jodi wasn’t hurt, but might have trouble getting started again.’
‘So he just left him there?’ Nicholas said. The anger, Kathi knew, was for himself as well as Henry. The next moment, without a word, he had left the island of light and was forcing his way to the trees.
Kathi said, ‘I think we should stay. Jodi may not come down the same route. Nicholas will shout if he needs us.’ In fact, seeing him go, others were following. Then they all halted, for a second large object had slithered out on the snow and was grating its way to a halt. A battered sledge, with half its rail torn off, and an energetic figure releasing itself into the snow, red cap bobbing.
‘I told you,’ said Henry. He had come to stand behind, a mug of ale in one fist, his face still brilliant. ‘Couldn’t drive a sledge if you paid him.’ He lifted the hand with his ale, and Jodi saw it and waved back. Gelis had gone to meet her tardy son, in a kind of hurrying stroll with which Kathi had every sympathy. It did seem, however, that no one was injured. The men who had set out floundered back, except Nicholas, who made off in the opposite direction. After a moment, Kathi set her jaw and waded after him, making (as seemed only fair) a great many bouncing, slithering noises, some of them unintentional.
She thought he might elude her, but he didn’t seem to have thought of it. She found him sitting hunched in the base of a tree, his arms so tightly furled that it made her want to shiver herself. He said, ‘What did you think I’d be doing?’
‘Catching your breath,’ Kathi said. ‘Now come back, Banco. It’s too cold.’ They were not dressed for extremes as they should have been. Not as they had been in Iceland, where they had expected to die, and Robin had saved them. Robin, young and determined and agile, come at the risk of his life through the cold snow to rescue them, without knowing that one day he would marry her. She shouldn’t be thinking of Iceland. Not here, not now.
She knelt to help Nicholas, and he unclasped his arms and drew her close, her cold cloak against the chill of his jacket. He said, ‘I know. That was the past. This is the present. It’s all right. It’s all right.’ And he had followed her thought; as she remained for a moment, her cheek pressed under his hand, he resurrected something else from that time, and murmured it over and over, as a physician might, or a priest: ‘Guds frida veri med ydr … guds frida … guds frida …’ The peace of God be upon you, my dear one.
And something in English from that time, also incomparably soothing. ‘All ills shall cease; Baldur shall come.’
‘Poor Baldur. How embarrassed he will be,’ remarked Henry de St Pol, looking down on them.
Light-footed and silent, he had given no warning of his arrival. ‘So Simpson’s stories were true. Dear me, Uncle, are you deaf to God’s thunder? No wonder you didn’t care what happened to Jordan. The race was just an excuse.’ His face, in the glimmering light, was full of contradictory hollows; his eyes dark. Kathi opened her mouth, and then stopped. Gelis was right. This was for Nicholas only.
The arms round her remained. Then Nicholas set her carefully apart, steadying her still with one arm. He had stopped trembling. He said, ‘Well, of course. I always make
assignations at night, in deep snow, with my wife within call. Is Jodi with you?’
‘No. I came to tell you. He collapsed and died after you left,’ Henry said. He made no effort to make it sound credible. He added, ‘Can I do anything for you? Build you a fire? If not, I think I’ll go back.’
‘If you know the way, we’ll come with you,’ Nicholas said.
‘If I know my way? Is that going to be your excuse? You lost your way, and the demoiselle came after to find you?’
‘Well, no one would believe anything else,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’m a shy man. We all get caught short sometimes. Then afterwards, I was walking in circles when the demoiselle found me, and we were both very cold. Aren’t you cold?’
‘Who will believe that?’ Henry said.
‘Everyone,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’d be amazed.’
Henry stared at him. Then he turned abruptly and plunged off.
Nicholas prepared to get up. He said, ‘Now we’ll have to find our own way back.’
Kathi said, ‘What will he do?’
‘Nothing. Everyone knows he and I have been quarrelling. I joined Mar and Argyll against him; I stabbed him, for God’s sake. I deprived his family of Beltrees. I saved his grandfather’s life, which to some might seem yet another heartless blow against Henry. Whatever he claims, Henry knows he would be regarded as a young man with a grudge.’
‘But he thinks it is true,’ Kathi said. He was standing, and had bent to pull her up.
‘Yes. Do you mind that?’ he said. ‘Even shown absolute proof, he wouldn’t change, and Robin could be dragged into the argument. As it is, it may do some good.’
A way that puts into their heads, silently, whatever he wants them to do. Kathi said, ‘Not to your relations with Henry.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’ He was slow in answering. Then he said, ‘But it’s better this way.’
She said, ‘They were waving to one another, Henry and Jodi. That’s what you meant?’
‘It is better,’ he said again, as if convincing himself rather than her. ‘Slower, but better.’
Then they went back, to collect Gelis and Jodi and leave. Henry had rejoined his party and could be seen, noisily drunk, celebrating his victory by the fire. He shouted at them as they left, but his words were too slurred to make out. And by the time the company broke up next morning, Henry and his grandfather had both gone.
Chapter 27
Now be the scheris sall ze wnderstand
And be this knyf he beris in his hand.
AFTER HAMILTON, THE journey back to Edinburgh was light relief. They travelled in vast, semi-royal convoy, but even so, they stuck in the snow on the way, and had to improvise shelter in and around a small, worried hamlet, initially visible only as three arms of a windmill and eight or nine bleating spirals of smoke rising from mounds in the unbroken snow.
Argyll’s men, sent ahead, soon found the unblocked doors in the lee which admitted them, readily enough, to the ripe darkness within; although a few provident scythes could be seen glinting among the folk packed round the fires, and the inside doors to the byres were mostly shut. Once informed of the size and quality of the company, its peaceful intentions, its generosity, and the fact that it carried three cartloads of food, drink, canvas and mattresses, the hamlet dug itself out in a trice, and three of the unmarried girls washed their faces. By nightfall, there was a comfortable camp with braziers, lamps and latrines, and a feast to which the cottagers were invited. Some of the beasts had been invited as well, and turned rosily on the spit, while the chime of coins sang out instead through the thatch-smoke.
It was a sociable affair from the outset. While Nicholas hopped about with Tam Cochrane, hammering stakes, directing the labour force in the setting of planks, lying on top of flapping canvas, with a self-important Jodi streaking about with hammers and hatfuls of nails, Gelis settled herself in one of the cabins with Bishop Spens, and rocked a cradle with one foot while talking across him about teething and then, on the Bishop’s initiative, about the effect of the bad weather on planting. When Lord Erskine’s wife came and joined them, the talk switched to weaving, and they transferred themselves to the next house, which held a loom with work still in progress. They were still discussing it when they were called out to see their new accommodation. Tramping over a yard with soaked skirts, Bishop Spens addressed Gelis. ‘You know a lot about dyes, demoiselle. Ah! The Charetty dyeworks.’
‘She knows a lot about a great deal,’ said Joanna Douglas. ‘We meet at Haddington, to help with Cortachy’s little deaf daughter.’
‘And does the child progress?’ said the Bishop. ‘Your royal mother learned quickly. The lady of Cuthilgurdy would make a good teacher, if you have not asked her already.’
Gelis said, ‘Of course! You were with them all in Paris, the two Princesses and Bel. Did you stay with them long?’
‘Long enough to see them settled,’ the Bishop said. ‘Not till they were married, of course; that took some time. The lady Eleanor went to the Tyrol. Very young she was. A clever girl, and well read. She missed Bel, I’ll be bound. She always supposed Bel would go with her.’
‘You know her son died?’ Gelis said. She ignored Jodi, who was jumping and calling.
‘So sad,’ said the Bishop. ‘And Cuthilgurdy itself, naturally, is alienated. Andro Charteris has it now. Not that she is without resources. No. Not at all.’
‘So her grandchildren are not in need?’ Gelis said. Now Nicholas was coming over.
The Bishop said, ‘I should suppose not. Do you know, Lady Erskine? No. Forgive me for changing the subject, but is that the Preceptor over there?’
The tall, slightly corpulent form of Sir William Knollys, lord of Torphichen, head of the Knights Hospitaller in Scotland, was indeed, irritatingly, standing motionless in the middle distance.
‘He’s just come,’ Nicholas said. ‘He left after we did.’ Jodi, drunk with enjoyment, stood just behind him.
In Aberdeen, Bishop Spens did business, like everyone else, with the Knollys family. He had had some relatives in the Order. He had even made the Preceptor his executor. It meant that the Bishop admired Will Knollys’s acumen, but not that the two men were friends. The Bishop narrowed his gaze. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Costing it all,’ Nicholas said. ‘It seems we are in one of his bailiedoms. The cottagers pay rent to Torphichen. We’ve just killed his sheep.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said the Bishop. ‘You don’t see the Abbot of Newbattle anywhere? No? Just as well. You remember that distressing dispute over whether Lord Hamilton had pillaged their lead mines. I was afraid at one point that they were about to bring it up at the funeral. And then, pursuing the point, to discover some grievance against Knollys. The Abbot would have enjoyed eating the Preceptor’s roast mutton. I fear we are not as tolerant, we churchmen, as we should be.’
You could, Gelis supposed, describe a Preceptor of the Knights of St John as a churchman. Vowed to poverty, chastity, and devotion to the sick. One of the parties from Rhodes had been the first to annexe Nicholas’s gold. Gelis couldn’t remember how many extremely active sons Sir William Knollys actually had, or guess what the size of his private empire might be, but was sure Bishop Spens could. Bishop Spens had helped arrange the English wedding, and the English peace that went with it. The Order was managed from London, and Knollys traded with England as Spens did, and the Prestons. Whether they liked one another or not, tolerance was necessary for the good of the Crown, as peace with England was necessary.
Nicholas said, ‘They’re calling you over to bless them. The King’s uncles in the best places, then Argyll, then you, Lady Erskine, with your husband. Lord Argyll’s cook will serve, and Tom Yare and Wattie Bertram and I will see to the rest of it.’
‘It smells of horse,’ Gelis said, inside the tent.
‘That’s because we’re sitting on saddles,’ Jodi said. ‘If we were fighting, we’d drink out of helmets, and give our swords to the smith while we eat. Tam says he can
put up a hut in an hour, and plait a horse shelter as well. They train teams and race. They train teams of gun-wagons too. Tam says it’s just as important as training archers, for there’s no use having a gun that can’t go anywhere.’
‘Would you like to build camps?’ asked the Bishop.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Jodi. ‘I think houses are better.’
‘I’m inclined to think so as well,’ said Bishop Spens. ‘Tam Cochrane has given me some very good advice in his time. He likes his joke as well. Get your father to take you to Roslin Chapel. You’ll see my face there. Next to the gargoyles.’
Then came the meal, at which everyone worked hard to make the thing a success. At the end, someone called, ‘Nicol? Well, how about it?’
At most gatherings, Gelis had discovered, sooner or later, silence would fall, and someone would say, ‘Nicol! Well, how about it?’ Every Court had entertainers. Only Scotland possessed a highly trained adviser and business manager whom they also relied on for excitement. It sprang, she supposed, from his original concoctions of music and drama, and had progressed as his inventiveness became known. He didn’t seem to mind. She couldn’t remember if Jodi had ever seen his father in action before, and wondered whether or not to be worried. It was the kind of question that Kathi could have answered at once.
The same thought had occurred briefly to Nicholas, in so far as he weighed up most audiences beforehand. Leithie Preston’s birthday inside a locked custom shed on the wharf was a different matter from a novelty to divert Alexander Leigh after supper at Avandale’s. Colin Campbell was something other again, and he had all these Highlanders.
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