Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Escape where?’ Nicholas said. Julius had moved, crying out. Nicholas turned. The dim rectangle of the window revealed itself to his widening eyes. He could see nothing yet inside the room. Holding Julius’s sword in the darkness, he was as handicapped as he had been with his own. Then he heard the other man’s irregular, painful breathing.

  The blow had hurt. Julius, swordless, was twisting his way to the door. He hadn’t answered; but Nicholas knew what he was doing. Once outside in the glimmering chaos, he could make his way to the shore and a boat. There were countries other than Scotland.

  Nicholas said, ‘The key isn’t there.’

  He heard Julius rattle and slam at the door, and curse; and then begin to make his way purposefully back, avoiding the flecks of light from the window. His footsteps stopped on the way, and then resumed. He was quite close when half the timber ceiling was lit by a sudden new glare from outside, and Nicholas saw his handsome, stark face, and his hand, sweeping up the deep box of sand from the escritoire. Then the grit struck Nicholas in the eyes, and he was blind, as men are in the desert, when the sand-demons come.

  He cast down his sword, and Julius flung himself upon him.

  Now, against all his instincts, there was no steel between himself and Julius, and no space. It was as it had been in the salt-pans long ago, fighting with Simon. It repeated, flesh to flesh, the moment when the blood tie had spoken. And added to that, in this place, was the worth of twenty-five years of silent, unending guardianship. Nicholas had recoiled from his father. Now he did so from Julius; and Julius struck his neck with the edge of one hand, and then used the heel of his hand on his chin. His injured arm held in reserve, he was setting himself quite industriously to kill. To redeem, in his view, twenty-five years of tedious injustice.

  The sheer, blinkered conceit of it suddenly cut through all that had seemed complex, and roused Nicholas from his stupor. He conceded that it might well be too late: that Julius had an advantage that could not be overturned. He thought it worth trying. He took a second to scrub an arm across his closed, streaming eyes. Then he set to respond to the attack: to evade the chopping, gouging, strangling hand and the agile, oppressive body. He reached some conclusions. In the glow from the window, some of the furniture would be visible to Julius. Nicholas was blind. Sightless, his head ringing, his bruised muscles protesting, he was fighting not only a man but a room: crashing from one punishing obstacle to the next as he struggled to rise, to evade the strong fingers and the dragging lock on his limbs. Julius might be bleeding, but he could see, and his brain was clear, and he had, by his position, prevented his adversary from using, so far, his advantage of weight.

  So that had to be dealt with. Nicholas couldn’t see, but he could devise a strategy against the holds he could feel and, gathering himself, did so. The surge that brought his shoulders from the ground thrust Julius backwards; the next effort twisted the lock on his lower limbs until the untoward pressure actually threatened to snap Julius’s own leg. For a moment, it almost seemed that Julius, wild with indignation and anger, was about to hold on through the pain and let it break; but he fell back at the last moment, gasping, and Nicholas pulled free.

  And bumped his head against something.

  And, rising half stunned from that, met Julius’s flying body again, and crashed with him to the floor, rolling over and over in what space there was.

  Then it became very dirty and difficult.

  They both knew the tricks of the trade. They knew each other. From rough sport, from contests, from war, Nicholas was familiar with every inch of Julius’s body; as Julius knew his. Only he had the advantage of knowing how Julius’s mind worked. Unable to detect incoming blows, twice Nicholas invited them, moving his guard so that Julius made for his face or his neck, offering a chance to grip his hand or his wrist. After that, Julius was wary. In turn, Julius protected his arm, and made the most of his spread hand and his elbow, his knees and his booted feet. The two men travelled all the time: sometimes on the floor, sometimes half risen, sometimes upright; hand to hand; shoulder to shoulder. Once Nicholas, tumbling, found a towel under his hand and clawed it briefly into his eyes. After that, he kept his lids screwed as before, but he had some sight on one side. He could see the window, and objects between it and him. He wrestled back towards the door, enlarging his view, and profiting from it a little, as if by accident. It brought him close to the glass on the floor, but at least he could see well enough to rock with the long, grazing kick that was meant to end with a stamping jump on his toes, which would have brought him to his knees.

  Listening, it seemed to him that Julius was tiring, and knew it. He had lost blood. Even with Nicholas dead, he still had to find the key: he had had chance enough to confirm that Nicholas had it nowhere about him. It would take him a while: it lay out of sight on a very high ledge. Now, Nicholas could almost feel the resolve with which Julius gathered himself, and came at him.

  The window had brightened. Without that, Nicholas would never have seen the gleam on the floor that was his dropped sword. Julius noticed it at the same time. On his face there flashed the look that all his friends knew: a distillation of greed, and satisfaction, and boyish pleasure. A wish, even, to share the success. You felt, even now, that he longed to tell someone, and laugh. He stooped.

  Nicholas lifted his powerful arms, his hands united as if in intercession, his gaze on the nape of the other man’s neck. His shoulders widened. With all the force of his body, Nicholas de Fleury slammed his palms down on the other’s bent head, driving his face as with a mallet towards the knee set like a coining-iron to receive it. Then, as Julius staggered, bloody and crouching, Nicholas pulled his head back, and struck him down to the floor He used the edge of his hand on his throat, as had been done also to him. But he was stronger than Julius.

  In extremity, Simon had still kept his looks. Julius, his face ruined, had not. That it so happened had not been intentional. It was a fact, if it mattered, that Julius would not have cared to live with a face that was less than agreeable.

  Nicholas, standing above him, strained his sight and was able to distinguish that Julius was not quite unconscious, but lay frowning up at him, breathing irregularly. Even then, behind the pain, there was no real awareness in his look: just disappointment and anger.

  Nicholas lifted his sword, and finished what he had done, with one clean, competent stroke.

  He had taken the life of a cousin of Simon’s. It was like killing Simon. There was no difference at all.

  That was when he remembered Tasse, who had served Esota de Fleury and Thibault his grandfather, and who had nursed Marian his wife when she died. And he thought that perhaps he was wrong; and there was a difference.

  BECAUSE THE NUNS worked carefully, it was some time before the chapel was fit for its mourners, and the Mass was ready to start. They had placed Anselm Adorne nearest the altar, and his great-niece not far away. Eight and fifty-eight years old, the faces bore no particular family resemblance, except that lent by death, and the chill of the snow. Margaret’s features, with the loss of colour and life, appeared still and flat. Of Adorne’s, nothing was visible but the firm chin and sensitive lips, the straight nose and the tips of his lashes. The rest was swathed, to conceal what had spilled on the ground.

  Halfway through the Mass, the slow, brooding voice of the choir found a new luminosity. Kathi, her face in her hands, filled her palms with tears, in thanks for something she did not deserve. She passed Nicholas, as she left at the end, and looked to see if he was hurt, but he did not seem to be. He was wearing a cloak. Outside, he caught up with her, and she stood still. Around her, others hesitated, and then left them alone. The snow had started again. She felt like part of the snow, looking up at his face in the darkness. She saw then that his face was marked, and his eyes veined with blood, as if recently recovered from injury. He said nothing. Then she saw that she must make him speak. She said, ‘Is Julius dead?’

  And he found some sort of voice and said,
‘Yes. I killed him.’

  She tilted her head. When she spoke, it was as a juror, delivering a verdict. She said, ‘We both made mistakes. I should have left the children secure, or not left them at all. You should have stopped playing God with Julius and Adelina long ago; but, Heaven knows, you were thinking of them, and not yourself. And what led to my uncle’s death was pure, selfless courage on his part and yours. It has probably saved the kingdom.’

  ‘It has been a triumph,’ he said.

  Then she said, ‘We agreed. Everything has a price. Sometimes you cannot be sure if you have paid enough, or too much. But I think this could be a triumph, if you allow it to be.’

  He said, ‘With these two dead?’

  And she said, ‘Nicholas. You gave me Robin, and he gave me Hob. Put that in your ledger.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, and walked away. He had not said anything else about Julius. That, too, should be put in the ledger. But tonight, for God and profit, the blood and the ink were too fresh.

  Chapter 53

  Conzeour, wislar, resaver to the king,

  And all thir folk suld kepe thaim our all thing

  Fro awaris, danger, and of det,

  And thar promys kepe withoutin let.

  IN THE CANONGATE, evening passed into night. At midnight, several hours after Tobie and the others had left, Mistress Clémence excused herself and went off to bed. Bel and Gelis remained in the hall chamber, sometimes silent, sometimes talking to Robin, who rested in his wheeled chair at the side of the fire, which blazed and spat with the snow. At two hours after midnight, the rider came with the first of the news. The Priory had been attacked. The great force from Edinburgh had been too late to save my lord of Cortachy, and—forgive him—Master Robin’s young daughter. Today’s meeting at Whitekirk had been quashed, and all but my lord’s family would be returning, soon after first light. And he was to say that Master Julius had died. Of that, he didn’t know more, and left quickly.

  There was no comfort in the bare facts. Even to think of the survivors was painful, when you could not thank God aloud, before Robin. The news of Julius had brought a gasp of dismay, and then uneasy silence. Perhaps he had ended his life as nobly as Anselm Adorne. Perhaps not. No one speculated. In time, Clémence, who had been summoned to hear, sent Bel and Gelis to bed, and stayed with Robin herself. Finally, as he fell into weary slumber, she allowed herself to nod in her chair until the household awoke, and she and the others prepared for those who were coming.

  Gelis had known that Nicholas would not be among the first to arrive: that he would be obliged to report to Avandale and Whitelaw and Argyll; and to the Abbot at Holyrood, under whose jurisdiction Whitekirk lay. She also guessed, as it turned out correctly, that he would keep Jordan with him. Nicholas, in time of misery, was the best companion any young person could have. And it would spare Robin, for a while, the worse misery of pretending to welcome someone else’s live, healthy child. It was, blessedly, Robin’s father who came back first, with John and Tobie and Father Moriz, and from them they heard the whole story of the attack. Later, Father Moriz told them how and why Julius had died.

  Bel gazed at him throughout. When he ended, she spoke into the silence. ‘And Nicol killed him. In a sad, sad day, there is a tragedy, I can tell you, to match the worst of it.’

  ‘A tragedy!’ Tobie cried. His worn face was flushed. ‘You talk of Anselm Adorne in the same breath as Julius? A man who lied to us all; who took all we gave him and used it to deceive and betray us; who killed, or got others to kill for him, again and again? Who pretended to be Nicholas’s friend while he was planning to get rid of him and his family, and all but succeeded in having him labelled a killer and traitor himself? Who tricked him into fighting—into losing his own …’

  ‘Tobie,’ said Gelis. He stopped.

  Father Moriz stirred. He said, ‘You are right. So is Mistress Bel. Julius was all of that. Mistress Bel began to guess it before most of us. But what you have to remember is that Nicholas knew it. He always knew. And he chose to keep quiet, as he chose to give Adelina a chance. They were his family. He thought them redeemable. So the killing yesterday was terrible, as Mistress Bel says. It was an admission, for him, that he had been wrong. And that, in turn, meant that he had let us all down.’

  ‘He had,’ said John le Grant. ‘He let the country down. Julius was a traitor.’ Gelis said, ‘Do you think, any of you, that Nicholas didn’t think of all that? He took a decision. He protected us, his family, by keeping us separate from Julius, whatever it forced him to do; wherever it forced him to go. And in everything else, including this country, Nicholas gave himself as a shield against Julius, as he did at North Berwick. If Julius was an example of petty selfishness, don’t you have something there to set against it? Something that might not have been there but for Julius?’

  She was shivering, the cool golden Gelis. Clémence, seated beside her, took her hand.

  Moriz said, ‘I think you have it. This is not Good against Evil: a piece from the Holy Book done in verse on a wagon. It is as you said: the tale of a small spirit that has enabled a greater to grow. But now, what shall that spirit do? He has failed us. He has failed himself. He has reached the top of the mountain, and someone must help him to choose.’

  No one spoke. Then John le Grant said, ‘Then we show him he hasn’t failed us. I was wrong. You were right. Julius has gone. We don’t speak of him; we don’t care what he did. What we care about is what Nicholas is going to do, and if he will want us to join him.’

  ‘Do you want to join him?’ Gelis said. Her eyes were wet.

  ‘Will he want to have us?’ said Tobie. Then his face changed. He said, ‘Why are we talking of Julius, or even Nicholas, when we have lost what we have lost? Archie; Robin; I’m sorry.’

  They talked, after that, of what mattered: eight friends, coming to terms with what Bel had rightly named as a tragedy.

  Adorne, in that calm, handwritten will, had asked to be buried in Linlithgow, where the Queen had made him captain and Governor of her Palace, and where his small, deaf daughter was. Kathi and Sersanders and Andreas had stayed with him and with Margaret, and the Bishop would presently help to bring them to St Michael’s, the church of Linlithgow.

  Gelis had asked how Kathi was.

  ‘Dazed,’ said Father Moriz. ‘There is a blessed numbness, at times, when terrible events first come to pass. And there are arrangements to make. The child Efemie is to be under the guardianship of Kathi’s brother, who is likely to follow as captain of Linlithgow. All the Scottish property will be hers. But Bruges has not been forgotten. His first family are grown, but he has asked his surviving siblings to care for them, and for his heart to be placed by his wife. I do not think Phemie would mind.’

  Bel spoke. ‘And I hear that Kilmirren survived. I was right, then. He went?’

  Tobie said, ‘Yes, and he’ll live. Wodman is bringing him home. The cantankerous bastard wouldn’t stay with the nuns any longer.’

  Bel sat up. ‘He’ll live?’

  ‘You didn’t know he was injured? An arrow. You heard that Julius tried to shoot young Jordan, the boy, from above? The old man stood in the way of the arrow. I’ve seen him. He’ll do; as well as a man of that bulk will ever do.’

  Bel said, ‘What did Nicholas say? Did he realise how Kilmirren came to be wounded?’ Her voice was composed, but her hands had shut together.

  Tobie sneezed. Below his round eyes were circles like blisters, and he had pulled his hat from his sun-spotted cranium. Once Clémence would have sighed. Now she gazed at him through watering eyes. Tobie said, ‘I told Nicholas what the old man had done. He didn’t say anything. The place was in an uproar. Anyway, he’d just … ended the business with Julius. He wasn’t in the mood to visit the sick.’

  ‘He refused,’ said Father Moriz with Germanic bluntness.

  ‘But St Pol saved Jordan’s life?’ Gelis said. Then she remembered, and stopped.

  No one had saved Margaret’s life. Margare
t was dead, and she ached for both Kathi and Robin. But the greater grief that she felt was for the other death: the one that would bear hardest on Nicholas, on the day that Julius, also, had died.

  The death of Anselm Adorne, the wise, courteous mentor of his boyhood.

  The death of his boyhood.

  ENTERING EDINBURGH, JORDAN de Fleury was allowed to call with his father on the Abbot of Holyrood, but had to wait in the antechamber of the grand houses they visited next. Master Crackbene kept Jordan company, and Master Yare, whom he knew from Leith and Berwick as well as Edinburgh. On the journey, they had talked quite a lot about Berwick. When he was young, sailing there with Master Yare and his father and Henry, Jordan had thought it a splendid place, and envied Master Yare his great house in The Ness, and longed to fish, and to live in the castle.

  Now it had gone to the English, but no one appeared too depressed. It seemed that the English were complaining already about the extra taxes to pay for the garrison, and all the casks and baskets of coal expected by loyal merchants in their new homes. And here was Scotland, to hear Master Yare, with its trade and its harbours adjusted, a war averted, and nobody very much worse. Certainly not Master Yare, who was Treasurer of the burgh of Edinburgh. Or Gibbie Fish, or Wattie Bertram, or Will Scheves, or Humphrey Colquhoun, or Lauder of the Bass, the whilk, said Master Yare, ye didna notice renting out their candlesticks, did ye?

  ‘Poor Sandy,’ had said Master Yare, jogging along. (He said Pooh.) ‘He might have been a nice enough lad, but no gumption, ganging or coming; and awfu’ blate [bhate] about asking advice. He should have lent heed to your sleekit da, Jordan.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re sorry for Sandy,’ said Jordan. He had never called the Duke Sandy before.