SETTLING INTO HER life as a spy, Katelinje Sersanders, lady of Berecrofts, launched into a busy and profitable winter among all her friends, including the ones she was spying on.
Unlike Nicholas, whose qualms she respected, she had no objection to steering her mistress out of trouble. She made no effort to attract the confidences of Jamie Boyd, and was fairly confident that his royal mother would not press secrets upon her lady-in-waiting. Those she proposed to pick up for herself, which shouldn’t be difficult. The King’s elder sister was older but not much more mature than the girl who had fallen passionately in love with Thomas Boyd, her official husband, and who had allowed Nicholas to orchestrate the escape, the exile, the return which had saved her life, if not her marriage, and brought her back to remarry in Scotland. Mary still thought of Nicholas as her friend, but had been shaken by his desertion of her brother in France. Kathi, who never had problems with interfering in Nicholas’s affairs, worked to present the idea that Nicholas, while a firm supporter of Sandy, was deeply concerned to reconcile the absent Albany with the King. This tended to be the view of most of Albany’s friends, including James Liddell. The others lumped him with Anselm Adorne as a self-seeking foreigner who had enchanted all the royal sisters and brothers and had probably slain John of Mar. Kathi killed that rumour stone dead wherever she found it.
She still climbed the ridge regularly to her own house, which was officially outside the burgh, but not far from the Hamilton mansion in the Cowgate. She had told Robin what she was doing. As she expected, his first instinct was to forbid her; his second, one of well-concealed bitterness that he could not do this in her place. His third, of course, was to agree. If she hadn’t told him, he would always have wondered whether she had been afraid to put him to the test. Robin of Berecrofts was a grown man with a disability, wonderfully managed, and there were few things not within his tolerance now. His friends knew what they were. Paradoxically, that fact in itself was the one that wounded him most.
She liked the Cowgate. It used to be full of rubbish and dung, but as the city spilled outside its walls, tumbling down from the ridge to the long ravine on this, its south side, the richer families and wealthier churchmen began to build on both sides of the stream, and rakers came morning and night to clear the droppings of the town cattle, on their way up the slopes to the Burgh Muir, leaving a clear way for the through-burn that cleansed it. The slopes themselves were being built on as well. Apart from the vast sprawling complex of the Blackfriars, houses were beginning to spring up in the wynd of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Field, and the ways that led to the south and the west. The Clerk Register’s house was on the rising ground at that end of the Cowgate, close to that of James Liddell, where Julius obediently spent so much of his time.
All in all, it was a good place to collect information. You never knew who you would meet, from Nowie Sinclair to the Abbot of Dunkeld, who had the richest single house in the street; or from the Master of Soutra to a Cant or a Bonkle or a Cochrane. Then there were the household attendants like herself, to every degree, from the kitchen maids to the stewards and chamberlains who managed their masters’ affairs, including their personal buying. By now Kathi knew, as they did, the best place to go for a pendant, or a piece of red leather, or a casket, or a new supply of fine shoes. As one familiar with Flanders, she was allowed by the lady Mary to place direct orders abroad. Sometimes, the Princess and her sister would prefer to interview the suppliers themselves, and they would be brought to the house—trim, well-doing men and women, not at all shy—to display what they had, and explain it. It was something the King especially enjoyed. His officials might clinch the transaction, but James liked to preside in his closet, animatedly discussing the merits of this chain or those bolts of rare cloth with one of his familiar suppliers, and perhaps treating the man—or goodwife—to some ale, and a suitable gift when a feast day came round. He enjoyed a bit of genuine argument, but he always drove a hard bargain, of course, in the end.
Today, she was going to the Tolbooth, with a commission which she had been saving for a day when key people, such as Andro Wodman, ought to be there. He had lost his brother John recently; snatched away on the verge of a bishopric, and was only now returning to the consular duties he shared with her uncle. He was also returning to the orbit of Julius’s crusade to legitimise Nicholas. As a former Archer and employee of Jordan de St Pol, Andro Wodman must be at the top of Julius’s rota by now.
The quickest way to the crown of the ridge was to climb through the burial ground of St Giles, in summer as crowded with notaries and their clients as with graves. In winter, only the custom-built shelters were occupied, but the barking of dogs came from the homes of the Provost and curate of the church, and the drone of children’s voices from the school. She passed Tom Swift’s big house, which her uncle had often rented, and which actually stood in the kirkyard, which she had once thought peculiar. Everyone she met greeted her. From the top, you could look down the ridge and see the Firth of Forth, a broad grey band in the distance, with the hills of Fife sprawling beyond. She thought of shellfish and wanted to laugh, with the lightness of heart she always felt close to Nicholas’s house, or indeed when she thought of him, anywhere.
The High Street itself was full of stalls, but she pushed her way past them to the Old Tolbooth, and the expensive booths rented yearly from the burgh Provost, Great Dozen and deacons. Mostly the same traders leased them, but after the Martinmas reshuffle, it always took time to locate everybody. Sometimes they even moved to the town tenement by the kirk style, which had a pair of booths to rent out, and a tavern below. She hoped to find Wodman here.
There were about thirty small chambers, some on the north side of the old public building, and some on the south. Others had been constructed underneath in the vaults, and some were tucked into landings and crammed under the stairs. There were five booths and a desirable cellar fitted into the bellhouse. Sometimes they held back one or two cells for a prison. The privies were old, and luxury goods and documents didn’t drown out the smell, so that even in winter, the fleshers’ offices were almost welcome. She poked her head in most of the doors, and had a clack with Isa Williamson and Hector Meldrum, a sergeant of the mace who lived in the Canongate and rented the small cellar here, not being able to afford the four pounds Isa paid. Another of the dear booths had gone to Drew Bertram, the younger brother of Wattie, which didn’t surprise her, as Wattie was Provost this year. The stairs were crowded, and so were the crames. She had to fight all the way up to the bellhouse loft to see Henry Cant, another of Wattie’s fellow merchants and kinsmen (by marriage) who profitably shipped on the Marie. She did some business with him, while people came in and out, and pigeons banged on the window, knowing he’d feed them and not knowing he’d cook them as well.
The Cants were like that: prosaic. Originally merchants in Ghent, they finally settled in Flanders and thus become Cants rather than Gaunts. No one knew whether they were originally Scottish or not: like the Bonkles and the rest, they lived and married on both sides of the Narrow Sea. As well as the Bertrams, the Cants were closely connected to the Prestons and the Napiers and the Rhinds. Thinking of Efemie, and the Bonkles and the Knollys family and Lord Avandale; looking at Henry, natural son of Thomas Cant, and young John Ramsay, Janet Napier’s slick by-blow, Kathi sought to understand, yet again, why illegitimacy mattered to some people and not to others.
The truth was that if you were lucky, like Julius, and were proclaimed as a bastard from birth, then there was really no problem. The trouble came with people like Nicholas, whose mother had maintained to the death, helplessly, insistently, fruitlessly, that she was innocent. Nicholas did believe in her innocence, as he had believed, against all the acids, the birth-date she had given him. He had been badly hurt by the blackening of her name—and his own—by the St Pols and their fellows. When, for the sake of his family, he had deliberately stopped seeking to vindicate her, it could not have been easy.
To that extent, t
hen, Julius’s campaign was justified. But against that, Nicholas had already faced that difficult choice and had made it. And even if he were wrong, it was now very apparent that proof of Sophie’s innocence simply did not exist. The whole search was only causing more heartache, in making more and more clear how determined the St Pols had been to shed Simon’s wife and her son. A child weaker than Nicholas would never have broken out of his class. And paradoxically, she supposed, it was Julius he had to thank for it.
She hadn’t found Wodman or the other person she was hoping to find, although she glimpsed Dr Andreas, official chaplain to the Guild of the Skinners, swirling past in his gown with a wave. Gib Fish wasn’t there, although he was on the Council, and neither was Tom Yare, their Treasurer. She had almost given up when she heard Jamie Boyd’s voice, speaking to somebody. It came from a booth, one of the wooden pents under the stairs of the bellhouse, next to Hector’s cellar door. It had been empty, before. She wouldn’t have heard anything now, except that Jamie’s high voice hadn’t broken yet. He was protesting. ‘I wouldn’t lose it.’
Someone murmured: a man. The boy said, ‘Well, I might forget. Who was it from?’
Murmur, murmur. Even close to the door, she couldn’t make out the man’s voice. People passed up on the street, their feet squelching, and someone ran up the stairs over her head, dislodging cold puddle water which rapped on her hood. She bent down, as if looking for something.
Jamie said, ‘I don’t say who it is from. I say that King Edward has sent to France, and offered to fetch my uncle of Albany to England. And promised he would lead—’
Murmur. ‘—help to lead the King’s army to Scotland. Is that true?’ said the boy. ‘… Well, of course, but she’ll ask. You ought to put it in writing. Get my uncle to write. When will I …’
‘Can I help you, hen?’ someone said from the stair. Kathi looked up. Tom Yare’s wife, Margaret Hume.
Kathi began, ‘I was just going to …’ but it was too late. The door beside her quietly opened, and the man upon whom she had been eavesdropping was standing there, studying her.
She knew him. His name was Rob Grey, and he was a butcher, with a house in the same part of the Canongate as Hector Meldrum and Robin’s father and family. He said, ‘Mistress Katelinje!’ She could see Jamie, standing rigid behind him.
Kathi smiled. ‘How are you? I’m sorry to shout in the street, but I’m astray. Margaret was just going to tell me where to find Hector Meldrum, and I think I remember. Down there?’
The man was smiling in return. ‘In the cellar. It’s a coney-warren, for sure. Is he in? Come back if he isn’t, and share our ale. Jamie and I were just preparing a rare surprise for the Princess’s Yule table. Are ye suited yourself in that regard?’
‘Too well,’ she said. ‘I’ve just seen Henry Cant and I’m penniless. But I’ll come back for the ale, if Hector’s out.’
He wasn’t, of course. She had just visited him. She waved goodbye to Margaret and tapped on the cellar door, prancing in when it opened, before the macer could speak. She wished she had taken lessons from the King’s Master Spyar, except that the King had dismissed him, along with his personal Guard, when Albany left.
Which would seem to have been a mistake.
PATHETICALLY, IT WAS only after she was safe that she started to shiver. Hector Meldrum actually walked with her down to the Canongate, when she said she had to go there. He left her at her own house, but she crossed instead to the private stairs of what even Hector called the Floory Land. She hoped her uncle was there. At the very least, she wanted to pass on what she knew quickly, to as many reliable people as possible. She was waiting in the parlour for her uncle when Nicholas opened the door and shut it so quietly and fast that it sighed.
He said, ‘I saw you from the window. It’s all right. Whoever he is, we’ll kill him for you.’ Then she was in his arms, her teeth chattering, and he went on murmuring absently, holding her fondly and close like a warmly comatose bear with a cub. When Adorne came in, she made no effort to break away, nor did Nicholas; he simply went on talking comfortably over her head. ‘Could you possibly pour some of that stuff over there and bring it to her? And maybe keep the others away for a moment?’
Adorne did as he was asked without a word. It was only as Nicholas freed her to take the cup from him that she saw the concern on her uncle’s face. Then she said shakily, ‘I’m sorry. Listen. Listen. I’ve just overheard Jamie Boyd being given a message to take to his mother. The English are offering Sandy an army to help invade Scotland. The English. The English. The English.’
‘What frightened you?’ Nicholas said. He was still speaking simply.
‘I think they know I heard them,’ she said. ‘Rob Grey and Jamie, at the booths.’
‘But they let you leave,’ Nicholas said. He sat her down with her cup and fixed himself beside her, one arm still holding her steady. ‘They can’t kill us all, and by now they’ll guess that we all know. And in any case, you have just acquired an infectious disease, and are not going back to the Princess Mary ever again. Slightly better?’
The cup was empty. It had been spirits, not wine. She said, ‘Yes. Drunk, but much better. I’ll tell you the rest; then you’d better get the others in. Who is here?’
John and Moriz were there, and someone found Wodman, and brought across Tobie. Then they were all together in the small room and heard her, composed now, repeat her story. Moriz frowned, Andro swore, John banged his fist on his knee and Tobie glared at her. She had slurred a few words.
Nicholas said, ‘Well, come on. Assessment?’
Tobie’s pale eyes switched to his. He said, ‘It can’t be true. It’s a lie. It must be. Kathi’s right in a way. It’s a warning to her. They’ve guessed what she’s doing, and this is their way of telling her so. Who would use Jamie Boyd as a courier?’
‘Perhaps someone who wanted to be overheard,’ Nicholas said. ‘But if so, are we supposed to believe what he said?’
Wodman said, ‘Not unless we’re daft. Sandy’s whole quarrel with King James was because James wouldn’t make war on England. That’s why he’s in France, for God’s sake. If anyone gives him an army, it’s going to be Louis. Who in England would be crazy enough to think Sandy would join an English invasion of Scotland?’
‘The King of England, perhaps?’ said Adorne. ‘He has become very autocratic, we are told, and not entirely reliable. As with ourselves, there is perhaps a limit to what his advisers can do. And he is receiving a pension from France.’
There was a little silence. Father Moriz said, ‘Am I interpreting correctly the complacent expression on Nicol’s face? His reasoning is the same. Louis is ill; France is beset; she cannot possibly send an army to Scotland, but would welcome anything that would prevent England from sending archers to Brittany or Maximilian. Edward is foolish enough to want to waste his time fighting in Scotland. France, when sending over his pension, lets it be known that he would be very ready, for a consideration, to lend out the Scottish King’s brother for any purpose Edward might wish.’
‘Such as to overrun Scotland?’ said John le Grant. ‘Never. That would leave England free to turn her whole attention to France from now on.’
‘If she did manage to overrun Scotland,’ Adorne said. ‘Louis might have a private view about that.’
Kathi felt very happy. She said, ‘I think I see. Sandy is restless; the King is unwell and doesn’t want to take action, so he hopes to get rid of Sandy and send England off on an abortive invasion to gain time. But he doesn’t know—he can’t know how much Sandy hates England. As do his sisters. They’d go mad if they thought he’d dream of doing this.’
The large grey eyes of Nicholas were encouraging her. ‘But?’ he said. ‘Louis is not the Universal Spider for nothing. He knows that Sandy loathes England. He and Sandy both know that Sandy won’t get back to a rich position in Scotland unless an army puts him there, and Louis will now have told him that it won’t be a French army, mon cher. So settle down wit
h your Bourbon and baby, or get someone else to make you a king.’
‘A king!’ Tobie said.
‘Oh yes. That would be the English inducement,’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘We know you don’t like us, but we are prepared to place you selflessly on the Scots throne, to the joy of your sisters, provided we receive one or two presents.’
‘Such as?’ Tobie, still belligerent.
‘Such as Berwick-upon-Tweed,’ said Kathi dreamily. ‘Do you know, I thought I was hearing a garbled version of some ludicrous plot. But it could be real.’
‘Or it could be a garbled version of some ludicrous plot,’ said John le Grant. ‘How do we tell?’
‘We don’t. Rob Grey and his friends will keep us indirectly apprised,’ Nicholas said. ‘They have nothing to lose: we’re at war with England already; we can’t forbid them to take Sandy on board. Meanwhile, it drives a wedge between ourselves and France. And if we are foolish enough to tell the King, it will add to the problems of controlling him.’
‘Do we tell him?’ said Adorne. He was looking at Nicholas. Kathi thought, still caught up in happiness, that in that group of six men, there was no doubt which were the leaders. Leaders, not leader.
Nicholas said, ‘That is for his officers, I think. They will have to be told now. No one else, except our own circle. Saunders. Crackbene. Robin. Archie. Andreas.’
‘Julius?’ Wodman said. ‘Liddell must know of the plot. Julius might find it awkward.’
‘All the more reason why he must know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Grey and others will feed us with tales, but we want other sources. At any rate, Kathi can leave the Hamilton household forthwith, and be excused from all further operations. You did prodigiously well. A coup, by God.’
‘De foudre, by God,’ she said, with a certain grimness. ‘I wish I could believe you. I was meant to overhear?’
Nicholas said, ‘They were probably weaving in and out of booths all the time, trying to find one you’d stop at. Andreas may even have noticed.’
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