The feast for Adorne was thus, in part, an excuse for the Queen’s faction to meet without being identified. In the wrong quarters, such a concourse might seem like a second Court, a duplicate of the King’s. In reality, it was a second Court. The Queen was the legal guardian of the heir to the throne. If the King died, hers was the power, and these might be her ministers.
Nicholas had thought it naïve, Kathi knew, to expect to hide such an event. On the other hand, hearing of this, Albany might well become cautious. If he threatened the King, demanded too much, the realm had another alternative.
Nicholas was speaking. ‘Bel is here?’ He had come with Tobie and Julius and Andro, now healed and back in the Canongate. John and Moriz were among those left behind. And Robin, of course.
Kathi said, ‘The Queen likes her. Bel’s staying in Edinburgh for Christmas with Fat Father Jordan and Bonne. Belle, Bonne et Sage.’ She broke off. It was not the way to talk about a bereaved father. But he deserved it. He deserved it.
‘Bonne? Whom no bridegroom has yet received, veiled and blessed? She isn’t here, is she?’ said Nicholas. He spoke as if he didn’t know. He didn’t perhaps realise that she had seen the list of all those specifically debarred, of whom Bonne was one.
Bel was coming over, and with her was Abbot Henry of Cambuskenneth. Bel stood before Nicholas, her gaze strict, and did not raise her arms. After a moment he bent instead, and kissed her raised hand. There was a ripple of silver: the trumpets were about to announce their procession to the table of honour. Once, Nicholas had stood in this same banqueting hall and invited the mockery of the Court, for his own ends. Now, no one here would mock him, nor he them, except from affection.
Kathi smiled at the thought, and then realised how meaningless it was as a yardstick. Yesterday had been the Feast of St Nicholas. This year, no one had marked it. Another year, she had heard, the King of Cyprus had honoured Nicholas at his table, beside all the lords of that name in the land. He had been a Knight of the Sword before he became a Knight of the Unicorn. He was attending a banquet for her uncle in a modest palace in a small country; but he was capable of making his name anywhere, and always had been.
HENRY ARNOT SAID, ‘It is a new fanfare. Tell me what you think of it; and of the music at the end. All harmony is not finished, you know.’
‘For some it is,’ Nicholas said.
HE STAYED AS long as he should, and added his lifelong accumulation of awe and admiration and gratitude to the praise presently heaped on Adorne. And Adorne, in his answering speech of wit and grace, included the name of Nicholas vander Poele, or de Fleury in the long list of those whom he in turn thanked for their friendship, while his prosaic niece smiled through her tears. Then the tables were cleared, and the music began for the dancing, which was led, with the sweep of her train, by the small, erect Queen on the arm of her husband’s first Knight of the Unicorn. She looked like her picture. Camulio had brought over the rest of the altar-piece, in boxes from Bruges. It had been quite a nuisance.
The other Knight of the Unicorn waited so long, and then made his discreet exit. Pursued, to his surprise, by a page, he let himself be conducted to a guest-room. He expected an emergency meeting: the morning had been devoted to conclaves, but new disasters unfolded by the hour. He entered the room. The door shut. But instead of Avandale or Argyll, he faced the solitary figure of a woman. It was Bel of Cuthilgurdy. He revolved.
‘I told them to lock it,’ said his elderly captor. ‘That is, I hope ye werena on your way to the necessary. But there’s a place over there, if ye were.’
He made a sound of despair that was almost a laugh, and sat down. Her face, round as ever, had acquired no structural elegance with the passing of years, but the thick, fair skin was unblemished and the brown gaze as amiably critical. Being at Court, she had exchanged her usual coif for a full head of sail with pearls in it, and her shapeless portly-sleeved gown was still shapeless, but cut out of velvet trimmed with black fur, and set off with a necklace of hawsers and hatch-lids. The hawsers were gold, and the hatch-lids were set with cabochon rubies. He had observed them at the start of the evening, and knew what he was being told.
She said, ‘Struck dumb?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But you have not been so afflicted, I suspect.’
‘Aye. I spoke to Julius,’ she said. ‘About myself and St Pol. It was time. He had half the story: some from Wodman; some from Stewart of Darnley.’
‘And you told him the rest,’ Nicholas said.
‘It was going to come out. I told you. All the Archer families knew of the famous Jordan de St Pol, who once commanded the French King’s Archer Guard. They knew he had a wife. If they went to Chouzy, as you did, they’d find my daughter there, and learn from her name who her father was. So tell me what you know. Ask me questions.’
‘I don’t need to,’ he said. ‘Years after St Pol left the Guard, you were living in France in the Scottish Princesses’ household, and mixing with the Scottish Archers of the day. You were a widow, with a young son at school in Cambuskenneth. You met and married Perrelet d’Échaut, whose father had been granted a seigneurie at Chouzy. When d’Échaut died in his thirties, he left you also to care for the daughter you bore him, and for his own sister Aleis.’
She was looking at him with compassion, as if he had lived through it, not she. She said, ‘You know most of it, then. Peter and Alice Shaw, just, they were called: my second man and his sister. It was no great drama, Nicol. He was a grand man, my Peter, and brave with it. So was his sister. She was five years older than Peter, married Jordan de St Pol at fourteen, and bore him two children, Simon and Lucia. Then she was stricken with the trembling illness, and lost most of her sight, and her senses. Jordan was a trusted man at the French Court by then: he couldna nurse her. He found it hard: he was bitter at times; but he was loyal; loyal; and stood by her till she died many years later. That is why I don’t leave him, Nicol, nor him me. Don’t mistake me. I can see the worst of him better than anybody. Whiles we canna thole one another. But our lives are bound together. And mine is a voice that sometimes he’ll listen to. Mine and Andro Wodman’s.’
Of course. Wodman had become an Archer of the Guard before Bel left France. And he, too, had protected this clever, cruel man. Nicholas said, ‘He tried to rape Gelis’s sister.’ He couldn’t let that go unsaid in the presence of anyone trying to excuse Jordan.
Bel’s colourless eyes studied him. The compassion was still there. She said, ‘But he didn’t, did he? Don’t you think that says something? A big, powerful man can usually get his own way. He did get his own way. He lays plans, Nicol, like you do. I tried to tell you that, once. He follows a plan, and won’t drop it. Now he has disowned you, you are disowned, and for ever. I have no family claims: he will keep me by him for comfort, but that is all. There is no one else. There is nothing more, in my view, for anyone to fear.’
They looked at one another. ‘And you have told the others?’ Nicholas said. ‘Since, as you say, it was half known already?’
‘I have told them all,’ Bel replied. She drew a long breath. ‘Mind, the old man won’t like it. He was never fond of me being known as his wife’s brother’s widow. He thought I’d tattle, maybe, about Alice. He persuaded himself that I was with him and Lucia because I needed the shelter. I’m tired of that, now.’
‘Hence the vulgar display of rude wealth. Julius will want to marry you,’ Nicholas said.
She smiled. He said, ‘Why else are you telling me? St Pol made it clear he never wants to see me again.’
She said, ‘Think what he had just lost. He may always feel the same, or he may not. I told you because I hear that this winter is dangerous for you and your friends. Seaulme Adorne went to confession this morning and wrote out his will: did you know?’
Gazing at her, Nicholas swore, and then apologised slowly. He said, ‘I knew this assembly was wrong. I knew it.’
She said, ‘If he is in danger, then so is everyone attending tonight, including
yourself. But he may be over-cautious, thinking of Efemie. He was worried, too, that Saunders would leave and set up house in Lille, now his lady’s husband has died. But you are not meant to know that.’
‘Everyone knows that,’ Nicholas said. ‘Also that he is shipping her and her daughter over here. There would be someone to bring Efemie up, apart from Phemie’s sister in the north. There is Kathi, and all of us.’
‘Nicol,’ she said. ‘If one of you dies, you may all die. There is something grievous ahead. Andreas feels it. I think you feel it, too. It is not just your own loss, is it, that made you flee from the music? Kathi said that you would.’
‘It was the very, very bad man on the viol,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. It was just because it was music. I don’t have any fearsome premonitions. I never do.’
‘You once had, for others,’ Bel said. ‘It seems to me, from what Gelis has said, that you expected to know, wherever you were, if ill had come to her, or the bairn.’
Nicholas said, ‘That was then, close to the years of divining. I didn’t have the gift before, and I don’t have it now. I don’t want it, especially not for myself.’
Bel said, ‘Because you have no fear of death. Is that it, Nicol? Still? You have family, friends, a cause you are making your own; but your own end is of no importance to you?’
Nicholas looked at her. ‘You should have a talk with Prosper de Camulio. Am I not blessed, who am fulfilling every Christian exhortation? I am content. I am resigned. I am not pestering the Almighty with demands for my survival. I just don’t want to hear that bloody viol playing again.’
There was a long silence. Then she said, ‘Oh, come to me here, my poor, silly bairn,’ and held him, her hand tight on his hair, when he came.
After a time he spoke, without moving. ‘Once I thought that perhaps—’
‘—we were kin? No. Of the heart, maybe.’
‘I think so,’ he said. He didn’t look up. When he spoke again, it was with a steadier voice. ‘Bel, I am so sorry about your own family. Both your husbands, and then your one son. I wanted to say so. I didn’t want to make it difficult between you and St Pol. And I am so grateful for this.’
‘But?’ she said. He had stirred, to look up at last.
‘But please don’t make it hard for me, either,’ he said. ‘Please, Bel. Please.’
Chapter 48
Two rokis maye a king allone put dovne
And him depryve of his lyf and his crovne.
THE GATHERING AT Linlithgow dispersed, and no one appeared to have taken note of it. Four days later, Parliament met, and announced its final enactments. The word flashed from the Castle to the Canongate inside the hour.
FIRSTLY, it is ordained, avised and concluded that England is to be asked to renew the truce between the two countries, and revive the marriage between England’s Cecilia and Scotland’s James, for the pleasure of God and the common weal of both realms. And if England refuses, such will not lead to an effusion of Christian blood, save in defence of the realm; in which event our sovereign lord will fight in honour and freedom, as his noble progenitors have done in times begone.
‘Blind Harry,’ said Robin.
‘No. Wait! Wait! What are they thinking of? England won’t agree to a truce. The bloody wedding’s dismembered already. I ought to know. I had Wattie Bertram’s corns in my lap for a month, getting picked out for free while he thought about raising the money.’
‘Lucky you. Tobie, be quiet. It’s a device. Go on, Nicholas,’ Gelis said.
SECONDLY, since the Borders are daily invaded, and his noble highness should not put his person in danger, his grace should ask his brother the Duke of Albany to be Lieutenant-General of the realm, and advise in what manner he is to be supported, to bear the great cost of the office.
‘That’s the highest power in the land,’ Robin said eventually. ‘And the money to go with it, added to everything the King’s allowed him already. Did we promise Albany that? Did you promise him, Nicholas?’
‘I expect so. Also a new set of buttons, and a bag of ginger at Christmas. Of course he wanted the post, and Gloucester had to believe he was getting it. He might. It’s up to the King. Parliament can advise, but only the King can appoint him.’
‘So he has to be careful with the King. Was that all?’
‘I’ve left out the bit about rallying the nation for war, just in case England gets silly ideas, and the licence to kill people who import corrupt wine. There were some sensible measures as well. Wattie Bertram is going to Paris. You must have fixed his feet.’
‘Why? Ostensibly why?’
‘Ostensibly to demand justice for ill-treated merchants. Actually to find out if the English alliance has died, and if the King is going to die too, and what they all think about Sandy. Wattie voted himself for the trip, and I think he deserves it. It won’t make much difference to Sandy. It takes a King’s man out of the way, and he’ll have his own agents in France.’
‘So Sandy is happy?’
‘My God, I hope so,’ said Nicholas.
TWO WEEKS—FOURTEEN days—fourteen tense days to Christmas.
THE COURT OFFICIALLY moved to the Castle, swept, scoured and garnished so that nothing brought to mind its recent custodial function. As Yule approached, the higher nobility—Huntly, Seton, Arbuthnott, Sinclair and Angus and Crawford—gathered in their Edinburgh houses, if they had ever left them. Those deposed stayed away, but the new officers of state presented themselves daily, as did the Treasurer, and Master Secretary Whitelaw, and the Lord Preceptor Will Knollys. The Chancellor, a former Vicar of Linlithgow, was not very well, and spent much of his time with the two resident physicians, Andreas and Tobie. The three half-uncles also lodged in the Castle; and the disgraced and undisgraced Princesses with their households, and the Duke of Albany, in chambers next to the King.
With Sandy were his confirmed friends, such as Sir James Liddell of Halkerston, and less prominent friends, such as Bailie Alex Home of that Ilk, who still held Huntly’s favour. Other admirers came to the Duke’s bidding, although some fell prey to the unseasonably mild weather, and found themselves confined to bed with a hoast; while others were detained by unfortunate accidents, such as the death of an aunt, or a court case.
England’s official response to the olive branch was not as yet known. Since, in theory, it might lead to peace, there was as yet no basis for appointing a Lieutenant-General for Scotland, and the King had not done so. The King of England (unaware of the coming olive branch) had long since given the equivalent English post to the Duke of Gloucester, and was rumoured to be offering to present him with Cumberland, and a petty Scots kingdom of everything that Richard might manage to conquer next year in the south-west. This situation could be regarded with horror, or as an indication that Edward, unwell, was willing to do anything to keep his brother out of the way.
There was a rumour, which proved to be true, that France had made peace with Maximilian of Flanders and Burgundy, and had excluded England from the pact. One or two men from the East March left Edinburgh, and others from the Merse and Lauderdale failed to appear. Sandy wanted to know when the bloody women were coming to Court, or were they all supposed to be eunuchs? And what was Nicol doing? In bed at home, without doubt, and no question what he was doing. Nicol’s pleasure was Nicol’s first thought, same as everybody’s. When the chaplain tried to moderate Albany’s intake of wine, he nearly found himself knocked down the stairs.
Noble ladies, as a matter of course, arrived at Court, while others less noble were pressed into Albany’s service, and occasionally the King’s. Nicholas, who was already spending half the day with the King, apologised to Gelis, with whom he had had very little opportunity to do anything, and moved himself to a room in the Castle. He took Jordan with him, but explained beforehand about the King’s brother. ‘Don’t be shocked. He will be rude, perhaps cruel. He is disappointed and unhappy and unsure. It seemed to him once that he might be King. He might not be a bad King, but I don’t think he
will be given the chance: it is better if the present King rules. Also, he has no family to depend on. His offspring are scattered—a son in France, a daughter and other sons here. He has a French wife, and a Scots one discarded. He has no one to depend on but friends, and they in turn may have other loyalties.’
‘Are we his friends?’ Jordan had said.
And Nicholas had said, ‘We are trying to work for the good of everyone.’ It was evasive, because the answer was complex, and Jordan was not old enough, yet, to be burdened with it. He had to forget it, through all the hours that followed, when he and others sat and chatted to Sandy, and entertained him, and put up—to a degree—with his tantrums. As he hoped, Jordan behaved quietly and well, and sometimes Sandy would adjust his behaviour, but usually didn’t.
The rest of the time, Nicholas made himself available to the King, in much the same way. He had brief, invaluable meetings with Whitelaw who, used to treading this tightrope for decades, largely ignored him in public. The Bishop of Dunkeld, another invalid, was capable of shrewd advice. He was on guarded terms with two of the half-uncles, but continued his long-standing, not unfriendly relationship with Buchan. Their cousin, Euphemia Graham, Prioress of Eccles, was at Court, released to her family from her temporary exile in the Priory at North Berwick, on the sea coast east of Edinburgh.
The Prioress remembered Dr Tobias with pleasure, greeted Nicholas and Jordan with suspect eloquence, and asked after the lawyer, Master Julius. Her predatory gaze kept returning to Nicholas. He remembered their discussion about St Pol’s forgotten sister Elizabeth, just before they all went off to Malloch. Eccles was almost on the English frontier. It had seemed a wise idea to empty it. He hoped no one was going to rush to send the Prioress back, and wished he hadn’t mentioned where Julius lived, although, with any luck, Kathi would regulate any encounter. For the present, Nicholas tried, but signally failed to avoid the venerable lady’s company. He wondered if Adorne had been afraid of the Bishop her brother, but decided that Adorne and Kennedy were two of a kind. The Prioress frightened him.
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