Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  How distressed would he be? How distressed had Nicholas been?

  Andro knew. ‘I have never before,’ Wodman had said, ‘heard a man’s heart break with pity like that; and I hope I never have to again.’

  Gelis had said in her low, contained voice, ‘I hate Simon. I hate the St Pols. He is well rid of them all.’

  And Kathi had looked at her and said, ‘He will never be rid of them now.’

  Neither of them had wept. Neither had said very much; they simply remained in the same room, in companionship. It was Kathi who was most aware of this aspect of their curious friendship: that the comfort that was useless to Nicholas they could bring to each other, at least.

  BECAUSE OF HIS years and his girth, Jordan de St Pol, lord of Kilmirren, did not nowadays lead companies of men into battle; he let his son and his grandson do that. But, hearing that the enemy was massing at Berwick, he chose to stay at his Edinburgh house rather than at Kilmirren, guessing that Simon and Henry would move east as well. He expected them to ride with the West Warden, John Stewart of Darnley, and either remain in force on the Tweed, or join the main host as it moved south from Edinburgh. He did not know that Darnley was expected at Lauder.

  In common with half the town, late that Monday morning, he learned that Adorne had arrived from the Borders, and was now at the Castle. His men, sent to investigate, reported that Andro Wodman had appeared, wounded, at the same time. They could discover nothing but speculation about de Fleury, who had disappeared when Wodman did. Jordan de St Pol had expected Wodman to inform him of de Fleury’s movements, and had been displeased when he did not. He had other agents, to be sure. To a powerful, inactive man, information was crucial.

  When, therefore, a visitor was announced, the fat man expected it to be a Kilmirren fellow, with news or a commission from Simon. Serious news would have been brought by Adorne, who would have given his name, knowing what it would convey. When that tailor’s dummy Julius of Bologna entered the room, astonishment and antipathy drove the old man to his feet.

  ‘Indeed, sir? I cannot remember inviting you.’

  ‘Then I shall go,’ the man said. He had always been impertinent, trading on his mediocre good looks. ‘But I expected some thanks for my wretched tidings.’

  He still looked impertinent. It meant that he did have disturbing news, and was planning to impart it with relish. Jordan de St Pol said, ‘In that case, I apologise. Please take a seat. You are about to tell me that poor jumped-up Claes, our mutual friend, has overreached himself at last. Is he dead?’ Seating himself, he had signed to have the best claret poured. It came. He took a cup and drank.

  The lawyer looked at him. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. Unexpectedly, he had sobered. He said, ‘I know Nicholas meant more to your family than perhaps they wished to say. We watched him try to help Henry. It almost seemed that he and your grandson might become friends. That is,’—the handsome features were earnest—‘I am right, am I not, in thinking that Nicholas was truly your grandson? A pity, of course, that Simon had to marry so young, to someone he came to dislike. But I suppose that the confusion over the birth gave the perfect excuse to renounce the marriage. Do you regret it? Nicholas’s son is named after you, isn’t he? If Nicholas had been legitimate, Jordan would make a fine heir. If, sadly, anything happened to Simon or Henry.’

  The change of tone in the last words was slight, but St Pol heard it. He said softly, ‘What is it to you?’

  The lawyer looked down. His voice also was soft, even pleading. ‘I have watched Nicholas fight this undeserved stigma. He never held it against you. We didn’t always see eye to eye, he and I, but I knew and admired him for most of his life. I know how he yearned for your affection. My lord, tell the world he was legitimate, and honour him and yourself.’

  He had hurried a little. The door behind him was open. As he spoke, there had been voices, and the minor flurry of someone approaching.

  Adorne, of course. All, all, all.

  It was not Anselm Adorne in the doorway.

  ‘Thank you, Julius,’ said the man who was supposed to be dead. Claes stood there. Claes. The so-called Burgundian. De Fleury. The lawyer whirled round.

  For the second time, St Pol forced himself upright. Planted, his legs did not shake. The blood mottling his vast face and neck withdrew, leaving him chilled, but with sense enough for what had to be done. He said, ‘I see you contrived this moment between you. The apprentice pretends to be dead, and his underling is sent to coax forth lies and forgiveness.’

  De Fleury said, ‘Julius is not here by my wish. I have come on other business.’ There was something stiff about his manner of standing. His flesh was swollen and mottled with colour, as if he had been set upon and kicked by a mob. One hoped, with fervour, that he had. His eyes were immense and, in any other man, would seem to be asking a question.

  St Pol said, gratingly, ‘So. Let me declare at once that which I have always declared, and which I shall maintain to the grave.

  ‘This man is illegitimate, and none of my blood. He comes of an illicit union between an unknown man and the wife of my son. He is a bastard. This I will swear to before any authority. I shall repeat my affidavit if need be, before the highest courts of the Church; and it will stand for all time. Are you satisfied, both of you?’

  He looked at the pair. The lawyer scowled. The look on the other man’s face had not changed. St Pol felt his own expression alter before it. He heard himself say, ‘Have you something to tell me?’

  De Fleury stared at him. Then he turned to the lawyer, who smiled and gave a slight shrug. De Fleury spoke to him slowly and softly. ‘You know? You know; you came here; and you haven’t yet told him?’ He raised his arm. The man Julius flinched back. De Fleury’s first, vicious blow took him under the chin and lifted him off his feet. The second flung him staggering back to the doorway, suddenly filled with running men. They gripped the lawyer and held him. De Fleury stopped.

  St Pol spoke to his servants. ‘Throw him out. Leave the other.’ As they dragged the man Julius away, you could hear his voice, screeching at de Fleury. The old man sat down, pressing the arms of his chair.

  The door was still ajar. When St Pol jerked his head, de Fleury went and moved it shut very slowly, the way he had opened the hall door at Beltrees. Then he came and stood before the high chair.

  He said, ‘Monseigneur. They are both dead. Simon and Henry. Forgive me for having to tell you.’

  It was not news, now. He had guessed. He was ready.

  ‘Forgive you?’ said Jordan de St Pol. ‘I forgive you nothing. They are dead, and you are alive.’

  ‘They died bravely,’ the other man said. ‘They lie in reverent hands, in the crypt of the Abbey of Kelso. Monseigneur, I am here to take you there, if you wish.’

  It was beyond belief an offence. ‘Tais-toi,’ Kilmirren said through shut teeth.

  ‘I was there. If you allow me, I can tell you—’

  ‘Tais-toi!’ He was shouting. It emerged as a hoarse double howl, still in French. ‘How dare you! The death of my son and my grandson, given to me by your mouth! Go from this room. Never come near me again. I wish you were dead.’

  The brute went.

  OUTSIDE, IN THE dripping core of a city preparing for war, laden wains splattered through mud, while sledges and barrows grated upwards, hauled by powerful women, or careered down to the Canongate in a curtain of water. Grooms hurried by driving packhorses, or jostled by war horses and hackneys. Other animals trudged or trotted or scampered uphill and down, squealing, bleating and bellowing. Gulls screamed, children bawled, whips cracked, dogs barked and the rain rattled down on tiled roofs, while lines of thatched houses stood and piddled like sailors. It was unremittingly noisy.

  Still, there were those who were quick enough to turn as a man was expelled from the front door of old Kilmirren’s house and, losing his footing, tumbled down the steps to lie sprawled in the dung at the foot, where Wattie’s Pate was minding a big, well-fed horse. The next minute
, the beast was stamping and clattering, because a much bigger bairn, emerging from the same doorway, had come down the stairs in three strides and facing the first just as he got to his feet, had knocked him staggering up to the height of the causeway. Then, following up, he hit him again with such force that the smaller one spun and half fell, with barely time to get his own fists up. Then he did, and blocked the next blow, and found his proper footing in time to pack in two shrewd dunts of his own, which fairly sent the big fellow tumbling over the stones. And it was then, as he got up, that you could see that the big man, bless my soul, was Nicol de Fleury, his face covered in bruises, and the man he was attacking was the lawyer fellow that everyone’s wife was slavering over except yours, although you wouldn’t altogether mind if the lad lost a few teeth on some such occasion as this.

  After that, busy and worried though everyone was, you would need to be blind not to crane about as you passed to see those two going at it like beings demented, or like one being demented, for the lawyer was fighting to defend himself. And it was all fisticuffs, too, although both were wearing good whingers, as if flesh punching flesh was the only satisfaction that was wanted. And it was as crazy a ruffle as anyone would ettle to see, with the pair of them rolling and staggering and ducking and swinging from the Butter Tron down to St Giles, up and down steps, into and out of closes, under the bellies of oxen and barrels, toppling crates and diving into the lapping basins of conduits and rolling down, down, down until they came to the steepest vennel that led to the Nor’ Loch, and tumbled down that, fighting still.

  There were those who followed them all the way, although others stood at the top, saying what a disgrace it was, surely, for two skilly, braw men to be wasting their powers on each other when they should be away killing Englishmen for their King. Nevertheless, when the lawyer, Julius, crashed into the water and floated there, there were enough well-meaning folk to haul him out and receive their due reward for collecting his horse and helping him, when he recovered, back to the Canongate.

  By that time, Big Nicol, who had foundered on land, next to the leeks, had been picked up by somebody else, which was a crying shame, for he would have paid well. But you didna argue with Crown Office men.

  • • •

  THE CEILING OF Archie Whitelaw’s uncomfortable guest-room was the first thing Nicholas saw when he woke, forced into teeth-shaking consciousness by a sequence of regular slaps to his bruised and misshapen face, delivered by someone he didn’t know. By a servant. By a servant of the same Archibald Whitelaw who, he now saw, sat ensconced in the one chair. Nicholas uttered a protest.

  ‘Ah! Some sign of life!’ said the Secretary. ‘That will do: he has deigned to awake.’ And to Nicholas: ‘What were you thinking of?’

  ‘Idiotry and furiosity,’ Nicholas said. It was an effort. He added, making another one, ‘Necessitating actio tutelae contraria. I apologise.’

  ‘Actio tutelae directa,’ said the Secretary. ‘Get up. Get up and come down. We are waiting for you.’ His spectacles twinkled, advertising service by proxy. They had not expected him to survive York. Since he had, they did not wish him to slacken. Vehement medicine.

  Tell the world he was legitimate, and honour him and yourself.

  I forgive you nothing.

  I wish you were dead.

  Whitelaw left. Nicholas gathered himself, and got up. The same servant brought him clean clothes and steered him, presently, to join the others below—Avandale and Whitelaw, Scheves and the Abbot of Holyrood, Adorne and the Queen’s man, McClery. And Tom Yare, the city Treasurer, who had once had a good house at Berwick.

  None of them commented on his appearance, or his absence, or what had happened at Heaton. No one mentioned the public spectacle he had just made of himself. They merely looked up, and then included him in what they had been discussing, which was the much-debated switch from armed response to diplomacy. If the King came back and the army disbanded, Gloucester would try to take Berwick at once; or leave Berwick besieged, and invade. Whichever he did, he would be intercepted and invited to negotiate. The offer would not come in the name of the King, but from the senior officers of the Crown and the burgh of Edinburgh. It had always been planned, from the beginning, that their spokesman would be Nicholas de Fleury.

  Now these same senior officers knew, from Adorne, the gist of what had happened in York. Nicholas had to help them decide what value he had as a messenger, and how Gloucester and Sandy would receive him.

  He was not, as it happened, feeling suicidal. He had a great deal to live for: until recently, he had barely realised how very much. His personal situation didn’t alter the obvious. Of the very few people qualified for this gambit, he was the only one these people could spare.

  The meeting was quick: they had mostly achieved a consensus, and had only been waiting for him to recover from his idiotry and furiosity. To make sure he didn’t repeat the performance, they put him back in the guest-chamber.

  Indeed, he had to rest now, for he was at the limits of what strength he had. Yesterday, there had been the river at Heaton. Today, he had launched himself into a fifty-mile ride and a silly, senseless fight at the end of it. Tomorrow, he might have to travel almost as far. Meanwhile, God knew, there was no lack of urgent things to calculate and initiate and worry over, but there were others to deal with them, in a better condition than he was. Or so Whitelaw had kindly said.

  Before they all left, the Abbot had climbed the stairs with something to say. Adorne had told Abbot Archie the truth about the St Pols’ presence at Heaton. Nicholas wished that he hadn’t, then altered his mind. He had always thought Archie Crawford a worldly man, but this time he said the right things. Kelso had prayed for Simon and Henry, but Holyrood spoke from the heart. It brought to mind Moscow, and that coarse man Ludovico da Bologna who, it turned out, possessed grace, and respected dignity, and had recognised, on another occasion, what was fitting to do.

  He wondered who sat now with Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, and then realised, pierced with pain and with thankfulness, that he knew. Andro would have sent someone to tell her.

  Everyone knew where Nicholas was, including Gelis and Jordan. They had been asked not to come, so that he might rest. There had been other reasons, with which he agreed. He missed them, but did not want help with this burden. It was his, and he would not impose it on others.

  In any case, it was only late afternoon. The day was not ended yet.

  Chapter 43

  Quhen to the king chek in the feild is maid,

  That is to saye in langage: ‘Do me richt.’

  Have he na reskew of sum vther knycht

  He mon remofe, and gif he may nocht so

  The feild is tynt and his victour ago.

  FOR TOBIE, MORIZ and John, that same Monday began before dawn in the camp of the royal army at Lauder. Darnley and his host from the west had not come; and the King, retiring to his pavilion the previous night, had let it be known that he would march on without him in the morning. He had flushed when they cheered him. The downpour had stopped.

  Those who cheered were defiantly happy in the long twilight that night, roaring patriotic songs round the campfires, and encouraging others, less convinced, to join in. When Tobie expressed reservations about the inspirational qualities of Blind Harry, Wallace and Bruce, the priest and John le Grant sped to reassure.

  ‘They’ll fight all the better. Look at the Swiss.’

  In retrospect, it was not a good analogy. The Swiss had caused half the slaughter at Nancy. Father Moriz offered a consoling rider. ‘Mercenary companies are just as bad. Remember Urbino, Albania? Germans fighting Germans for money?’

  It was too old an argument to pursue, and Tobie was silent. The difference was that, in this case, if their planning went wrong, people were about to die for an unreal cause. Some people argued, of course, that, if pursued fiercely enough, a myth—a dream—a misunderstanding—becomes real. Like Robin, hopelessly damaged, convincing himself and his friends he could mana
ge. So, from today’s half-illusory patriotism might emerge a fervour, in thirty years’ time, that would bring a great national victory, rendering the next generation immortal, and sending songs of its fame round the world.

  Moriz was watching him. Moriz said, ‘Don’t worry. There are more hard-headed merchants than patriots.’

  John said morosely, ‘Aye. But the patriots are bigger.’

  By that time they knew from Adorne’s courier that Nicholas was back, although still mysteriously in the south, and that Adorne would reach Edinburgh in the morning. By then, also, it had been reaffirmed to Huntly, Argyll and the other leaders that, whatever happened, the army was not to march beyond Lauder. The same leaders, observing orders, asked to be received by the King, who flew into such a passion at the suggestion of a halt, far less a retreat, that Tobie was sent for. He remained until the fit had subsided, having turned everyone out of the pavilion except for Hearty James the King’s uncle, and the lord of Torphichen, whose fruity voice and packs of obedient tenantry had a soothing effect, no matter where his loyalties lay. He didn’t try to shift Whistle Willie, the King’s master of musical medicine, who had become very proprietorial in recent years. James, despite his uneven moods, was well liked by those who understood his enthusiasms.

  Among these, it was already apparent, was the entire squad of gunners, who had rigged up lanterns in their part of the field and continued to cosset the guns, no matter what they were told. Tam Cochrane encouraged them. Tam Cochrane had been responsible for producing the gunstones and the gun-carriages and the gunpowder, and also, in one way or another, for the defences of half the fortresses in the south, including the town and castle of Berwick. If the King wanted an artillery battle against Gloucester, Tam Cochrane was his man.