Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  John le Grant had gone to sort him out, and had come back close to speechless. ‘He swears he’s going to get the guns on the road before dawn. He’s mustered all the Blind Harries to help him. And Leithie Preston, because of the wife. He’s cocked a snook at Oliver Sinclair. Nobody says no to Nowie Sinclair. Who the hell do masons think that they are?’

  ‘You have to ask?’ said Father Moriz.

  With the dark, some of the noise and movement abated, although not very much: oxen lowed; horses stamped in the lines; men coughed and talked in low voices; there came the lilt of a boat-song from the higher ground where the Highlanders lay, and below that the rushing continuum of the river, running full. It was still dark when the flap of the tent was moved aside, and one of Argyll’s men spoke to them softly. Dawn was coming, and Darnley’s force was not here.

  John and Moriz had already agreed: when the moment of decision came, Tobie would be their spokesman in council. He was already dressed. It was five minutes’ work to follow other dark, silent figures across the meadow to the little building with its row of lit windows: the church of Lauder where the commanders of the King’s army were to decide, without the King, what was to be done.

  Stratagem after stratagem: of course this, too, had been foreseen by Nicholas and his seniors in the long hours of planning that had preceded this war. Nicholas was not here: if and when he came north, his task, like Adorne’s, would be to advise the temporary administration now established in Edinburgh, using all his knowledge of Albany. But Colin Argyll was here, Master of the Household and King’s protector, whose daughter Darnley’s son was to marry. And George, second Earl of Huntly, husband in the past to the the King’s aunt Annabella, who had brought the other great lords of the north—Ogilvy and Arbuthnott and Forbes; Erroll, whose daughter was Huntly’s present wife; James Innes, who was uncle by marriage to the late Phemie Dunbar, whose lover’s land, Cortachy, lay in that same wealthy region, centre of the famous salmon cartel co-ordinated by the ingenious mind of Adorne’s fellow Burgundian. The salmon that filled the King’s coffers with tax money, and helped to bring little George Robieson also to Lauder, with his chest of money from the Great Customs of Edinburgh, for the use of the King’s soldiers. There might be many here who were tolerant of England, but there were also many who were filled with anxious loyalty for the King.

  The sky beyond the river had paled by the time Tobie returned to the tent where Moriz and John were waiting. This time, not only their own men but others were clustered on the churned mud, watching also. Tobie had pulled off his cap, so that his fine hair flew about his round, naked head, and his eyes glinted in their cavities. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by them all.

  ‘You will all hear in a moment. We have word from England. Gloucester is here not just to take Berwick, but to kill the King and put the Duke of Albany on the throne. This army is too small to stop him. The King is being advised to disband and get back to Edinburgh.’

  John said, ‘He refused yesterday.’

  Tobie said, ‘It is life or death for him now. If he refuses, he will be overruled. A delegation is going to tell him so.’

  ‘Led by what brave man?’ asked Father Moriz. But, of course, he knew. Whatever great lords were there—Seton and Lyle, Hepburn and Lord Grey—the volunteer was going to be the same energetic Earl of Angus whose ill-advised raids into England had virtually started the war, and whose present wealth was largely due to the English exile of that other Douglas whose lands he now held. Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus, had proclaimed that he, and he alone, would bell the cat.

  ‘Bell the cat?’ had repeated Father Moriz, in a puzzled German way. It was a reference to a fable, he learned. For the sake of the common good, a mouse might brave a cat for such a purpose. So Angus would brave the King, and reverse the fatal advance.

  Father Moriz nodded, with every appearance of attention. As they spoke, he could hear single voices, and then others speaking out across the dark meadow, followed by a sporadic rustle of movement. The host was being told. And it was not only the King whom Angus was about to have to bell.

  Tobie said, ‘I must go.’

  WHEN A KING went to war, the appearance of the royal pavilions was a matter of pride to the master workmen who created and cared for them, from the masts and gilded vanes and turned tops to the ornaments on the canvas and the banners that flew overall. Lit at night, the housing of the Dukes of Burgundy had seemed strange and magnificent as a city in fairyland. The strong pavilions of the King of Scotland—the hall and the kitchen, the bedchamber and the closet—were not of that order, but were seemly within, floored with timber and lined with silk, shimmering in the candlelight, with the King’s campaign bed hung with embroidered cloths against draughts, and his coffers placed to hand, with a table for dining, and fine, two-thread towels on the hat-stand, and a handbasin and jug of chased silver.

  When, on a night such as this, he could not sleep, his pages would read to him or sing, or his gentlemen would amuse him with dice or with cards. Tonight, he had Master Roger himself playing softly on the lute, sometimes well-known fragments, sometimes a new work of his own. And to sing he had Johnnie Ramsay, one of Will Roger’s prize performers, who was not strictly a page, but the sprightly (probable) nephew of one of the wealthy Napiers, who happened to be married to one of Nanse and Thomas Preston’s relations. It occurred to the King, listening, to wonder where Thomas Preston might be. Leithie, they called him. A man with the Preston temper who certainly traded with the English but who, like Tam Cochrane, could never be accused of disloyalty. James really thought they would do anything for him.

  The King smiled, and then realised that his eyes had closed. Sleep at last. He would let the lad finish the song, and then dismiss him and Roger to bed. Tomorrow—today—would be a great day.

  Will Roger, watching the King, had also decided that this song would be the last. A boy’s voice, not quite settled, should never be worked too much when tired, however much he himself enjoyed studying it. He had jotted down a piece for two voices that had been developing recently at the back of his mind, set specifically within Johnnie’s best range, and exploiting the smooth bridge between registers which was one of his gifts.

  The other part had been written for Nicholas de Fleury, but the bastard was away so often just now that you’d be in your grave, or he would, before ever he sang it.

  It was only as the song came to an end that the voices outside the pavilion became really audible. The King heard them too, and roused to frown at an attendant, who wordlessly slipped from the tent. He returned, looking ruffled.

  ‘It was nothing, sire. My lord of Angus requested an audience.’

  ‘Why?’ said the King. ‘Ask him!’

  He found out soon enough, when Archie Douglas was brought in and sank to his knees, his stepfather from Lochleven behind him. It seemed that Sandy’s perfidy was public knowledge at last. Spies confirmed it. This invasion wasn’t a ruse; a silly ploy to get back his lost honours. Sandy had come to take James’s throne.

  The doctor, Tobias, was standing watchfully now inside the entrance, but the news didn’t bring back James’s frenzy. It was what he had always suspected. It vindicated that early decision to begin calling in troops. It meant he could raise his banner today and march forward, his unified army behind him, to punish his brother, and show Gloucester who was King of this realm.

  He had begun to declare as much, ringingly, when that stupid man Angus jumped to his feet. Master Whitelaw had always said that Earl Archie had no head for power, but enough land to remind him who his friends were. He had attacked the English with Sandy. Unlike Sandy, it would suit him to keep attacking them now.

  So said havering schoolmasters. Here was Archie Angus declaiming the opposite. Standing in front of his King. Interrupting his King. And announcing, if the ears were to be believed, that a Scottish attack was out of the question. That the army did not wish to advance. That to preserve his serene highness’s life, the King must retir
e with his forces to safety.

  It was a lie. His army was loyal. Brave men did not cringe before a superior force. They used guile, and gallantry, and could win. He knew. He had fought in the Highlands with Colin. Where was Colin?

  ‘Here, my lord,’ said Argyll, from the door. He knelt, as was proper, and his accent had become very strong, as it did under stress. He said, ‘The Earl of Angus is right. George Huntly is here, and Grey and Lyle. They will tell you the same. To take this army against twenty thousand armed men would be suicide. But we would do it if we knew, in the end, that our King would be safe. My lord, it is your death that they want. We cannot let you go forth to martyrdom.’

  Then, hearing that, James found it hard to breathe. He was stabbed with pain: in his chest, in his belly, while the heat surged into his face. He rose, swaying. He saw the doctor starting to move, but Will Roger was nearest. His grey hair wild, his long face furious, he caught the King by the arm and shouted, ‘Are ye Lapps, or Tartars, or children? This is your King, who asks you to follow him! Will you destroy him here, in his tent, out of misery at your cowardice?’

  Argyll spoke quickly. ‘Will. The doctor will see to him.’

  ‘I will see to him,’ said Will Roger. He had no weapons. There was a whistle stuck in his doublet.

  The King said, ‘Then come!’ and with the musician’s hand still at his arm, dashed through the tent and out between his servants into the half-light outside, and the crowds that surrounded the pavilion. He saw a crate, and leaped on it, Roger still at his side. He drew a great breath.

  ‘To me!’ the King said. ‘Who will fight at my side! Who will march to England, with me, today?’

  He realised then that the roar of assent, that the masses shouting his name were far off, and that the armed men about him were Huntly’s, and Campbells and Ogilvies. And that, as he watched, the disssenting parts of the army were moving against each other, pikes in hand, so that screams began to be heard over the shouting. Until then, no one had laid hands on him but Roger, and even now, the commanders stood back. It was the young men—he recognised them—the firebrand Lindsay, the mad Fleming heir—who thrust forward and seized him, while all his own servants were knocked out of the way. He saw Will Roger fighting ineptly to reach him, until Fleming turned aside and flung him into the arms of his men who passed him back, like a struggling sheep. He saw the whistle fall into the mud. He even heard, as they dragged him back into his splendid silk tent, the great shout that rose from the riverside, followed by an even greater roar from the bridge.

  JOHN LE GRANT was already at the brimming river by that time, gazing at the gouged mud and deep tracks where the ox-teams and the gun-carriages had been. Moriz, battling through the crowd on his short legs, heard him repeating, ‘The bastard! The bastard! The bastard!’ It was unlikely that he was talking of anyone but Cochrane. Big Tam.

  ‘He’s started off south,’ Moriz suggested. ‘With all the guns. Without telling us. And he’ll attract all the King’s men in the army.’

  ‘All the Blind Harries,’ said John le Grant bitterly.

  ‘Men willing to die for their country,’ Moriz said. ‘To mock is unfair.’

  ‘I know it is,’ John said. ‘But it makes me feel better. Well, Tam won’t get very far.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Moriz. But, sinkingly, he thought that he knew.

  ‘Because I doctored the wagons,’ said John. ‘I’ve a knack for it. They’ll get so far on the road to Coldstream, then stick. In fact’—there came a great roar from ahead—‘it sounds as if they already have. Come on, come on.’

  He was a decent man, John; just single-minded. He looked eager. He looked almost pleased.

  ‘Just the place for a pitched battle,’ said Moriz.

  • • •

  WITHIN THE SILKEN pavilion, in the battlefield that was Lauder, the King had ceased to struggle and shout and was sitting, restrained by many men’s hands, weeping from anger and weakness. Colin Campbell, kneeling bareheaded before him in cuirass and surcoat, was saying over and over, in Gaelic, ‘My lord; my lord; my lord.’ Colin Campbell, Master of the King’s Household, whose men were swaying shoulder to shoulder with others outside, blocking the way to the King, striving to hold off the men who wanted to rescue him, and have him lead them to victory against England.

  Argyll knew it himself: bowing his head, he got to his feet and looked over the King’s head at Tobie. ‘I must go. Can you ease him?’

  ‘He has had no sleep,’ said Tobie.

  ‘If you can calm him?’ Argyll said. ‘For a little. He will have nothing but love and respect. It is for his own sake.’ He spoke with authority. But he had been moved to tears himself, a moment before.

  He left. The King, who was thirsty, took what Tobie gave him and slowly descended into sleep. They put him to bed, in a tent pink with dawn, outside which several thousand men were still milling in turmoil, disputing the half-executed exodus to the south and the east. The King’s supporters, if not stopped, would march along the Coldstream road, securing the way, in advance of freeing the King. Cavalry was now playing a part: Tobie could hear the drumming of hooves and marshalling orders. He thought of Moriz and John. He thought of the guns. He shut his box, the King settled, and tried to talk his way out of the tent, which was lined with armed men. The refusal was vehement enough to make him realise that if he walked out, his life would be in danger. To some, he was one of the enemy, having condoned the detention of James.

  To some, but not everyone. Vociferous though they were, less than half the army—less perhaps than a third—was still intent on marching off, in the time-honoured fashion, to resist the Auld Enemy. And most of these, by the sound, were leaving what remained of the camp and had begun to fight their way south.

  It came to Tobie that they might not have the numbers, but that they might very well have the guns. And he did not know which side Big Tam would end up with.

  He escaped a few minutes later, slithering under the rear of the tent, and finding the Napier youth, Ramsay, beside him. Will Roger had gone with the first of the mêlée, the boy said, and he wanted to find him. Tobie grunted. Without his box, with a woollen cap low on his brows, he hoped no one would recognise him. The youth, in a cloak, looked like anybody else. Neither Moriz nor John, unsurprisingly, was where he had left them. The gun park was empty, but you could see the tracks of the guns. Swearing and stumbling, Tobie followed them.

  They had gone to the bridge. They were still on the bridge. The bridge and its approaches were crowded with struggling men, and the rising sun glittered on steel helms and mail-shirts; on swords and axes and pikes, knives and maces. The noise came in great throbbing waves, drowning all the natural sounds of the country. The knights like Archie Douglas and Innes didn’t have banners or surcoats: there hadn’t been time; and they were disciplining men of their own side, who knew them. Tobie didn’t see Moriz, or John, or Cochrane, or Whistle Willie. What the hell was Whistle Willie doing in the middle of this?

  Then he saw that they were trying to turn the guns, to point back to the camp, to the King’s captors.

  Later, he thought that Angus and Buchan and Grey would have managed to stop them: the cavalry threw itself forward, and there was a sudden and effective deployment to cut off the bridge from the rest of the dissentients. In response the crowd round the bridge seemed to thicken, and the noise increased yet again, the thud and squeal of weapons being punctuated by bouts of frenzied cheering. There were men—gunners?—clambering up on the carts, head and shoulders above the fighting about them. Two of them fell, pierced by arrows, and after a moment the others began to climb down. It was the first indication that the anti-war party might be prevailing. Driven by fear, Tobie forced his way up to the bridge, dodging weapons and ducking between horses. He heard Ramsay following. Then, suddenly, he caught sight of Moriz and John. They were in the thick of the mob by the guns, and were being set upon. Moriz was protecting his head; John was laying about him, and losing. ‘Here’s another!’
his assailants were yelling. ‘Hang him over his guns!’

  Hang him over his guns?

  ‘You bloody fools!’ John was screeching. ‘I don’t want to fight! I’m the one who jammed the gun-carriers for you!’

  ‘That for a tale!’ someone roared. They’d wrapped a belt round his neck.

  Tobie arrived. The impact, in the person of a middle-aged medical man who did not observe his wife’s dietary regimen, had all the violence of one of Tam’s thirty-three pounder gunstones. ‘Stop! He’s on your side! He can disable the guns! He can help you!’

  They did stop, for a moment, being winded. Then, disregarding all he was yelling, they laid hands on him, and Johnnie Ramsay as well. Running out of baldricks, they were cutting up harness. John was continuing to shout. He was shouting, ‘No! No! Listen! Look! Wait!’ And all the time he was trying to point. Tobie looked.

  Five years ago, he had experienced something like this; not in summer, but in winter; not in this country but in Lorraine, at the start of the battle that had obliterated the fine little company he fought with, and rendered Robin a cripple, and brought Nicholas home with barely his life. Then, it had been Swiss horns, not trumpets. Then, the snow had turned black beneath the massed hooves of the enemy cavalry, thundering out of its hiding place. Now, the red July sun lit the steel of a different horde distantly pounding towards them: a horde that came from the west, and so could not be English.

  It was not English. Its banners were those familiar in Ayrshire, Renfrew, the Lennox. Its commander’s pennant, unreeling its six ells of rain-sodden taffeta, bore the chequered device of John Stewart of Darnley.

  At last. At last; and at the same time, Tobie Beventini suspected, too late.

  HALFWAY THROUGH THE long hilly journey to Lauder, breasting swollen rivers and stumbling about broken bridges and bogs, Darnley had known that he could not reach the King’s army by Sunday, and that someone else would have to try to stop James. Approaching his destination at sunup on Monday, he was thankful to detect, from the noise, that the whole force was surely still there, even if in fierce disarray. Someone, he guessed, had announced the retreat against the King’s wishes, and the army had split.