The chest had not been there before. Nor, Nicholas realised, had the trestle, not quite in that position. A candle-snuffer, travelling rapidly from one end of the room to the other, caught his attention just before he heard Julius’s cry and the whistle of air that meant the sword was in action again. It clanged on the edge of the tray, jarring his shoulder, just as an entire stand of candles went out. ‘Ha!’ said Nicholas, and was answered by the same exclamation, by a much younger voice, from under the table.
He could hear Julius being sick, and Simon gasping and swearing, and a lot of other sounds he didn’t immediately pause to identify, being happy enough as it was. He wondered if it was a regression to childhood, or something he had forgotten in Bruges that made everything seem wonderful as soon as it was smashed up or spilt. He was aware of being covered in sauce, and could trace Simon’s passage in terms of sweet milk and almond and cinnamon. It was almost the only way he could trace it, as most of the lights had gone out. Then he saw the cauldron of soup.
He couldn’t have tilted it quite by himself, but a pair of younger hands helped. The soup fell on Simon, and Simon fell over Julius, and Nicholas took the sword from Simon’s hand. There were two muffled rounds of applause from two doors which appeared to have unlocked themselves from the inside.
Nicholas paid no immediate attention, being engaged in a solemn ceremony of self-congratulation with Jodi. Julius, wiping his mouth, clambered to his feet and joined in. Both doors swung fully open and someone carried in lights. Simon, whether conscious or not, had the wisdom to remain where he was, on the floor under the cauldron. Nicholas left him to other people and walked to the nearer door with his tall son who, breathlessly explaining, carried Simon’s great sword at his shoulder.
In the doorway loomed a vast and familiar figure. Nicholas and his son stopped. Turned towards Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, the two pairs of grey eyes, expectant, self-possessed, were identical.
The fat man said, ‘Nicholas. It seems that your son has a native ingenuity that has escaped mine. Whose sword is that?’
The boy swung it down and held out the hilt. ‘Will you take care of it, sir? It belongs to M. de St Pol. I think he has a great deal of ingenuity, but today he is not very well.’
Nicholas glanced at the boy, a smile in his eyes. The old man looked first at Nicholas, then at the young face of his generous namesake. St Pol said, ‘He has other swords. If he is unwell today, he has no need of this one. You may keep it.’
Nicholas sucked in a short breath. ‘My lord. It is too big. And too much.’
‘And will cause trouble, you think. You may be right. But after tonight, I feel you are capable of dealing with Simon. The gift marks my dislike of incompetence. It is not, in any sense, Nicholas, the presentation of a family heirloom. As for its size, Jordan will grow into it. Unless he takes too many risks. Or is unwise enough to behave as his father does.’
‘My lord my father—’ Jodi began, and then stopped; for his father’s hand pressed on his shoulder.
‘You have performed enough rescues today,’ Nicholas said. ‘Thank my lord of St Pol, and tell him that you hope to deserve it.’ Then he walked past, followed by Jodi, and did not turn back to see in what manner Simon de St Pol was taken away.
IN FACT, THEY consumed their deferred meal that night in the fresh rooms of the Berecrofts house next door, regaling Adorne and Sersanders and Andreas with the tale of Jodi’s triumphs and Simon’s discomfiture all over again. ‘He will never forgive it,’ said Adorne. ‘But his father can control him, I think. If he is wise, he will take him off to Kilmirren. And it is the end, I am sure, of any interest in the girl Bonne.’
Listening, half asleep, Nicholas was inclined to agree. Is she to be your next wife, or your next bedfellow, Nicholas? Simon didn’t therefore know the tale about Bonne that Julius had been spun by his wife. And after tonight, it was unlikely that Julius and Simon would ever find themselves exchanging confidences about Bonne. Or, indeed, about Simon’s marriage.
It had been the first thing Kathi had said to Nicholas tonight, when the fuss had died down and they had a few moments together. ‘Now at least Julius can’t hope to badger the St Pols for their family secrets. But you know he’s still addicted to exhuming your past. I took the chance to point out that you weren’t likely to thank him, if it was going to bastardise everyone else.’
‘But he wasn’t convinced?’ Nicholas said. Now it was all over, he had begun to feel very tired.
‘He just repeated, with patience, that it could all be taken care of by dispensations. Which is true. But, of course, it takes time.’
She was asking him something. He answered it. ‘I don’t want to belong to them, Kathi.’
‘But you do belong to them,’ she said. ‘Tonight, you forced yourself to be as much a St Pol as Simon is. You even let him take Jodi hostage. You cleared the room so that bystanders wouldn’t be hurt, but also so that bystanders wouldn’t hear more than they should. Whether you are their descendant or not, your conscience forces you to behave like one of them. You have all the burdens and none of the privileges.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said.
‘And that is why you are so tired,’ she said. ‘All that, and Jodi to think of. But, you know, you gave him his chance. He was all he should be, tonight. Go and sit with Gelis, and celebrate together. You deserve it.’
He smiled, and went. She was dear to him, and dearly percipient. His method of dealing with the St Pols was a strain, and sometimes it drained him.
That, and the everlasting pressure of lying.
Chapter 31
Frendschipe for micht is lyk to caf of corne
And bocht to-daye and saulde agane to-morne.
THAT WINTER, THE English Parliament empowered its King to raise the massive army and fleet necessary to invade Scotland.
The detail was very soon known. Earl Rivers, once proposed for the Scottish King’s sister, was to supply three thousand men, and the Marquis of Dorset six hundred. The Lord Stanley, with a family interest in Man, was to produce three thousand archers from Lancashire. Ten thousand pounds were voted to pay the Duke of Gloucester’s troops already in action in the north. There was separate provision for the fleet. This would sail under that excellent state servant and naval commander Sir John Howard. The land army would be led by King Edward himself.
In Scotland, the basic counter-measures were already long in place. For Nicholas, one of the headier satisfactions of the past months had lain in the preparation for this war. Plans had always existed, changing week by week and month by month as secret pacts came to light, and balance shifted between England and Burgundy and France, and, outside that close triangle of power, among the more distant states whose accommodation and markets they depended on.
Every country had spies. From long experience abroad, Nicholas had a knack for interpretation, for disentangling what was false or misleading. Added to that was his numeracy: the fast, effortless calculations upon which war logistics relied. His team had other skills.
In Burgundy, he had been an outside adviser within a structure which was already firmly in place, and headed by a strong-minded wrong-headed leader whom none could contradict. Scotland was different. He had been here now for four years, eight times as long as any previous visit. In pursuit of his own business he had explored every part of the country, and met all those of importance within it. In these last months, in common with the macers and heralds, he had quartered the country, carrying orders, seeking information, holding consultations. He was part of an active, intelligent group surrounding a King who might be as ambitious as Charles or Louis, but who had none of the abundant energy, the charm, the innovative imagination that could have drawn the men of worth to his side and made every corner of this small country his own. The well-intentioned lessons in style, in self-confidence had failed. After decades of quarrelling, the loss of Albany and of Mar had left the King isolated and astray. His unruly sister Margaret had deserted him for a lover. His
sister Mary, now free of responsible advisers, had relapsed into emotional planning for the welfare of her first husband’s children, and sent him demands instead of sisterly compassion. Resentful of guidance, he brooded.
Will Scheves spoke of it to Nicholas. ‘Cortachy has been a courtier and adviser to great lords, and is a delightful companion to men of his own world. But this young King of ours will not confide in a paragon. We should have made you the King’s man from the beginning, instead of Albany’s.’
These days, he looked oppressed, as did Andreas. Nicholas thought of the King of France, and his physician-astrologer, whose reputation, too, depended on the health of his patient. And, of course, his financial wellbeing. It was said that when Louis fell ill, he paid his doctor ten thousand crowns monthly to encourage him to prolong his life. Nicholas said, ‘I think worse might have happened if Albany had been left un-supervised. At least we knew what to expect. And the King has some friends.’
This was true, for between them they made sure of it. The men of the chamber were not drinking-companions like Barbaro, or elevated dwarves, as in France; but they gave the King companionship, and played cards, and made music with him when he wished it. Had Nicholas not served Albany, he would have passed his days at the Castle in such a role. He didn’t think that the Archbishop was suggesting that he should do so now. He didn’t possess the King’s entire trust, as Adorne did. If he were to influence the throne, it would have to be done in some other way.
Himself, he fretted over his distance from Albany. Twice, there had been letters from Sandy in which, either directly or indirectly, Nicholas had been commanded to come back to France. When he had replied with explanations in place of instant obedience, the letters had stopped. Liddell still heard with some regularity: the Duke’s estates, after all, were in his hands. Nicholas had appointed Julius to act as a link between Jamie Liddell and himself, so that he might have a sense of Albany’s frame of mind, and convey, in turn, what was most useful for Sandy to know. Jamie and Julius had a long acquaintance dating back to Sandy’s childhood in Bruges, when the Liddell good looks had impressed the young Charetty girls, as Nicholas remembered. But that was a long time ago. Tilde was married to Diniz, and Catherine was now the mother of Henry van Borselen, a name to conjure with.
Gelis, welcoming news of that birth, had found it hard to equal his flippancy, even though the pang it concealed was his, and not hers. Katelina van Borselen her sister had also named her child Henry—Nicholas’s child, whom she had carried to Simon. There was no reason, of course, why there should not be another so called.
He had reassured Gelis, he hoped; she had enough to contend with for his sake. But for him, she would not be here, working day and night in the cause of a country to which she, at least, owed no debt. Jodi would not be here, freed from the royal household since the Princess Mary’s bereavement and acting, ferociously, as combined henchman and runner to Robin. It was necessary to remind himself that, for most of the time, they were both exultantly happy. As was he.
In March, the power shifted again, when there came such news from France that all Europe shivered—some with delight, but many with dumb apprehension.
The Great Spider, Louis of France, had been struck down by a fit, and for a space had been mindless and speechless. He had overcome it, they said, but some day he would be seized by another. Louis, who couldn’t bear fools, had been touched by a curse that could make a clod of a genius. And the Dauphin his heir was a boy.
From London, King Edward reminded the world that his army intended for Scotland could be quite as easily deployed against France. His sister the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy had not wasted her summer in England.
To Adorne, as to Nicholas, personal considerations faded to nothing during these packed, breathless months. Adorne’s family were perplexed. From their various religious retreats, his sons and daughters lamented their father’s continuing absence from the house and tomb of his beloved lady their mother. His oldest son Jan, now a canon of Lille like Antoon, had actually left Rome in the expectation of a welcome at Bruges, and had been mortified to find the family home empty, and his brother Arnaud in Ghent, distracted by grief for his wife, and for his newest loss, the death of the baby Aerendtken.
Adorne wrote to them all, and tried not to take pleasure in his visits to the Priory at Haddington where his little deaf daughter, aged three, was the sunny heart of the nursery.
It was, too, where Nicholas had met Bonne von Hanseyck during her brief stay the previous autumn.
He had been busy, as they all were without cease, but he made time to call, and indeed had gone first to the noisiest part of the Priory where, as anyone could wincingly hear, Will Roger and his drums were entertaining the same small Efemie who stood, her round cheek buried in the buzzing drumskins, shrieking with delight. Now she could lip-read, Nicholas was teaching her patter-words.
Bonne, when he reached her, had been judicial. ‘Poor child. One wonders, though, how the Sisters can concentrate. We shall not be sorry to leave.’
They were going to the smaller Priory at Eccles, which to his mind was rather close to the Borders, but which should be safe enough this side of spring. The placement had been arranged by the Cistercians at Tart, partly because Bonne’s late mother had had links with the Priory. As Tobie had so cleverly found out, Sister Ysabeau of Eccles had had a sister married to Thibault de Fleury. Not that Bonne or anyone would learn much about all that now. Sister Ysabeau, now dead, had been too old and deaf in her later years to communicate much about the de Fleury family.
At any rate, the girl Bonne had been determined to make her way to the Priory and remain there, in the belief, as Nicholas understood it, that it would save her from unwanted suitors. He had had no time to thrash it out with her, even though he had not been convinced by the story. He felt, irritably, that it was Julius’s place, not his, to explore the problem. After all, Bonne had been part of Julius’s household. Anyone other than a self-centred, handsome bastard like Julius would surely know how her mind worked by now. He spent some time with the German nun, and impressed on her that she must call on him, if in difficulty. Then he had left.
That same autumn, Simon de St Pol and his father had moved to Kilmirren, and had stayed in the west ever since. The West March reached down to the Border, close to the Duke of Gloucester’s fortress at Carlisle. Gloucester had repaired the walls recently, and even through winter storms, castles such as Lochmaben and Threave could be subjected to perfunctory raids. It was not long before Simon abandoned the boredom of Kilmirren to join Henry at Threave, and supervise and improve the lad’s idea of how to manage a troop.
It did not occur to him that Henry would resist this: they faced one another in surprise and anger and, eventually, an outburst of violence that left Henry withdrawn and sullen for a week. Then Simon, forgetting, called him out on some expedition involving burning and looting that proved rather hilarious, with old goats, human and animal, running about and his father with a whip galloping whooping among them. They took a lot of booty and got drunk, and when he found his father in a barn with two girls, he just shrugged and went off and found one for himself. Henry never had any trouble with girls. He had been initiated into all that, even before he could do it himself.
And after that, it was much as it had been in Madeira. He had lost command of the Kilmirren muster, and his father had ridiculed his venture with horses, but most of the time it was good. Henry made up a band of local youths and took them on raids of his own.
In Edinburgh that April, Parliament passed the statutes necessary to put the Scottish nation on a footing of war, to counter the known resolution of England. The King’s castles and Dunbar and Lochmaben were to be provided with food and artillery, and the same was to be done in coastal castles of power north of Berwick. Towards victualling Berwick-upon-Tweed itself, the Three Estates had bound themselves to raise seven thousand marks in special taxes, one-fifth from the burghs, two-fifths from the clergy, and two-fifths from owne
rs of land.
Colin Argyll was called to the west, where trouble, not by chance, had broken out again in the Isles. The King’s half-uncle Atholl was to sail with him. Before he left, Argyll summoned Nicholas. ‘I have to go. Do you want to come with me?’
Nicholas had paused. ‘Lord Cortachy—’
‘Seaulme can manage without you, unless all your own predictions are wrong. King Edward is still in the south. So are our envoys, with the kind of offers which should hold his in talk for quite a while. And didn’t you report that the Cardinal legate is threatening to excommunicate both Edward and James if they commit their resources to anything other than war against Turkey?’
‘So King James has been told,’ Nicholas said.
‘Therefore he will do nothing rash. Do not feel,’ said the Earl, ‘that you are required to come. I have sufficient men for my galleys. Even Kilmirren the Younger and his son, although I fancy the son will be of more use at sea than his father. It occurred to me that on such a voyage you could patch up your difference of opinion with that very beautiful youth. He stayed in your house at one time, did he not? And Mar is dead, after all.’
‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘There is nothing I should have liked better, but I think I hold with what my lord of Avandale has been saying. We have to prepare for irrational hazards. I want to check the East March without Angus. I am not convinced that the King can restrain his impulses. There is the money. Also, the wind that will be good for you may be less so for us on the east. I may invite you to sail on one of my ships, when you get back.’
The pale eyes had sharpened. ‘If it comes to it, you would take part?’
And Nicholas answered, ‘I am not declining to come, MacChalein Mor, because I dislike the sea.’
HE WENT TO Berwick after that, in one day, calling at each of the east coast strongholds on the way. Julius and John le Grant rode with him, and some of the dozen men-at-arms he now paid. They came from Leith, and were also capable of making themselves useful on shipboard. Crackbene had picked them, with John’s approval.
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