Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have tried to find out; so have others. It seems to have been a mischievous suggestion, no more. There is nothing to support it.’

  ‘Tasse knew the truth,’ the girl said. ‘She was at Damparis. Later, Julius had her killed.’

  Her voice, mildly informative, had not changed. He remained, outwardly, equally calm. He said, ‘So I believe. How did you know?’

  ‘I overhear things,’ she said. ‘I pick locks, if I have to. We unprotected maidens cannot afford to be unduly decorous.’

  ‘And so,’ he said, ‘you made some discoveries.’ He had expected anger, resistance, certainly challenge. Instead, it was danger he sensed.

  She said, ‘Certainly, I knew more than you did. I knew Julius and my so-called mother were using each other. I didn’t know you had guessed. Why didn’t you kill him?’

  ‘I did,’ Nicholas said.

  Again, the contempt. She switched back. ‘Tasse. I had some sympathy for Julius when I found out. I guessed he didn’t want his wife recognised. But I didn’t expect him to have Tasse killed before he could question her. Tasse would know if Marian had borne a daughter who lived, and even perhaps what had become of her. I might be your legitimate heiress, and Julius my guardian. But he didn’t want that. He would rather know nothing at all than share his prospects with me.’

  Nicholas said, ‘How do you know he didn’t question her?’ He didn’t want to be in the same room.

  ‘Because nothing happened,’ Bonne said. ‘If I had no claim, he would have made sure, these latter years, that I knew. If I had, he would have tried to get rid of me. Although, in a convent, that isn’t easy.’

  ‘So you knew what he was like,’ Nicholas said. ‘You didn’t think to warn anyone? If I had died, would he have supported you?’

  ‘What do you mean? I didn’t know anything,’ the girl said. ‘No one could prove that I did. Of course, if I had had some evidence against him, I could count on his support in the long term. As it was, it was simply a case of waiting to see who would win: you or Julius.’

  ‘You didn’t mind which,’ Nicholas said.

  She considered. ‘Personally? Julius was handsome, but not very clever. You are quite a kind man. Reflect, if you will, on who gave Mistress Bel the information that sent your friends to help you at North Berwick.’

  He met her eyes. She did not look away. He said, ‘Because, of course, you were going to need funds for a dowry.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  He didn’t want to talk to her any more. He said, ‘Where do you think you will live?’

  She laughed. ‘You won’t have to meet me. John’s uncle had friends in the East. In Rhodes and Zakynthos. Is that sufficiently far?’

  For him, it was. Leaving, he forced himself to think of her, and to persuade himself that she might have grown differently, in different hands. But she wasn’t like Henry. It had taken more than a mismanaged childhood to produce Bonne von Hanseyck. And he did not have the skill, or the desire, to put it right.

  STANDING IN THE High Street after that, with the thatch and the orchard-twigs flying, and the wind twisting his cloak, Nicholas did not want to go to Swift’s office to see Andro Wodman; and especially he did not want to go, after that, to Kilmirren. He wished he had no sense of duty. He remembered, painfully, what had just happened and resolved to do the best he could, this time at least.

  He saw Wodman alone, and accepted ale, and talked about Adorne, who had saved Andro’s life, as well as his, by Castle Heaton. From there, Nicholas went on to speak of Jordan de St Pol.

  ‘You know him, Andro. He risked his own life, it seemed, to save my son from being shot at North Berwick. I haven’t thanked him, partly because I’m not sure that he’d wish me to, and partly because I’m not sure that I could. It seems to me, from what I heard recently, that I myself owe him remarkably little. I might enjoy telling him so, but it would only cause pain to Bel.’

  Wodman was drinking ale from a chopin. He put it down. ‘What have you heard? Something you didn’t know? Who could tell you something new, now?’

  And so Nicholas told him what Julius had said.

  At the end, the Archer was quiet. Then he said, ‘I heard all that. I don’t know much more. I can tell you something of his loathing of Jaak; and of anything to do with men’s relationships with each other, or with children. It was an obsession that pursued him all his life, because of his beauty. Maybe you can still see what he was, beneath all that bulk. The fat is protective. Whether he invited it deliberately or not, I don’t know. But before he put on weight, he was as handsome as Simon, with twice the intelligence. Some of the Archers are married, but it is a closed community, as armies tend to be, and he was constantly pestered.

  ‘He also reacted too strongly. I don’t know, but I suspect he had already experienced something like it at home. I never met Alan, his brother. It became a competition, to try and captivate the magnificent Jordan, or tempt him at least. Even after he left the Guards, it dogged him, for he still lived in France, and within reach of them all. By that time I knew him, and I knew he would kill someone one day if it continued. As it was, I tackled the next man myself, and challenged him to a sword-fight, and he died. It was why I left the Guard. St Pol gave me work, and Simpson contrived to join me.’

  ‘But wasn’t he a liability too?’ Nicholas said. He kept his voice quiet.

  Wodman said, ‘I warned him not to try and attract the old man, or he would be either thrown out or killed. Most of the work filtered through me. With my looks, I was considered reliable.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Nicholas said. He tried, as he always had done, to look at what had happened objectively, as if it had occurred to someone else. That it had been a forced marriage was known at the time; and so was Simon’s dislike of his wife: far older than he was; kept long unmarried by some doubt or timidity no one had plumbed. Sophie’s second child had arrived when he had long been out of the country, and the dates of birth had never been properly proved. There was only one certainty: that Simon had not been near his wife between the two births. Eager for any excuse to end the marriage, Simon would find, to his delight, that he suddenly had his father’s full agreement. His father had belatedly found that the taint he abhorred existed in Simon’s wife’s family, and was now harboured, no doubt, in the child. He intimidated Sophie. He menaced the life of her son. He threatened to ruin Jaak’s business, and the reputation and business of Thibault, unless the child was brought up as a bastard, and did not bear the name of St Pol. He continued to threaten her until, alone, without any hope of help from her invalid father, she became afraid that she would make some mistake, and so offend her oppressor that her son would die. She thought it better to remove herself from her son’s life.

  That had been the hardest part to accept. Once, Nicholas had said something of it to Jordan, but nothing to anyone else. It went too deep. As his understanding had grown with the years, so had the torment. He had lost many mothers, many times. The mother who left without warning because he disappointed her; because she never cared for him; because he was wicked. The mother who took her own life—died—because he had failed her. The mother who took her own life—committed her soul to eternal misery—for his sake. Because she was afraid that, scared and hounded, she would do or say something that would harm him.

  And, finally, the mother who loved him; who sacrificed herself for him; and yet could not trust him to help her; could not talk to him; could not envisage that he, even at seven, was staunch, determined, agile: a small bulwark, maybe, but there, only for her.

  Marian de Charetty had seen all those things, no more than three years after that, and had trusted him. It was why he had loved her. It was the source of the greatest pain, that he stood between Marian and his mother, with all his mortgaged love, and no one to help him apportion it.

  Wodman went on explaining. It fitted with what he already knew. The consequences of Sophie’s death could be imagined. When she di
ed, Jordan de St Pol was out of the country. Thibault’s keepers knew nothing suspicious about Jaak. When St Pol returned, he found the child, apparently contented, performing menial work in the home of the same Jaak de Fleury, abuser of children. It confirmed all St Pol’s fears. It made it intolerable when, as the child grew, it became apparent that, however deprived, however unprepossessing, it was endowed with all the intelligence that his own son Simon lacked; and the power to attract affection, and happiness. After that had come the bitter scarring; the cynical whim of throwing Simon and Nicholas together, base coin and silver, to see what would happen. For by then, Monseigneur had also realised that the joyous lusts of the artisan Claes were not of the same cadre as Jaak’s. All the girls in Flanders seemed able to prove it.

  One listened, and breathed. ‘And so he hit on the idea of setting me to vie with Simon?’ Nicholas said. ‘Let the best man win? What a large part of his life he seems to have devoted to this. I find myself wishing he had picked some other sport.’

  ‘Go and see him,’ Wodman said. ‘He won’t change his mind. He’ll never confess to the truth now. But if you want to punish him, show him finally what he has lost by repudiating you.’

  Nicholas said, ‘Julius said much the same. I might be assured that I was Simon’s son, but there was no proof, and St Pol would never admit it.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ said Wodman. ‘Monseigneur knows who you are. So do you. You have no need of his name or his property. Go and see him. Tell him what you think of him: why not? But keep in mind how it started. It took a lot of misery to bend a man’s nature like that.’ He stopped. He said, ‘You are very like him, you know. The way he should have been, maybe.’

  ‘So I have been told. I am trying not to believe it,’ Nicholas said. He thought of Bonne. He wished this day would end.

  BEL OF CUTHILGURDY opened the door, when he crossed the road to the house of his grandfather, and he hesitated, even though he had been prepared. Within, Mistress Bel stood in her hall, arms almost folded, and snapped.

  ‘I hear it was Katelinje that made ye face Julius. So you might as weel ken it was me that sent Tobie to help. Adorne might be alive if I hadn’t.’

  ‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘They were going to kill us both anyway. Because you sent the army, I escaped.’ Because of Bonne.

  ‘But not wee Margaret, and not Julius,’ she said. ‘Andro told ye that Jordan is dying?’ The she added quickly, ‘My Jordan, not yours.’

  Now that the child-name Jodi was shed, he found it odd that both his son and his grandfather should answer to Jordan. It was Gelis who had so named their son, during the war Nicholas and she had then waged. He had thought she meant only to hurt, but he had been wrong about her again. When no one else did, she had believed that Nicholas was a St Pol.

  Nicholas said, ‘Is he too ill for a visitor? Should I trouble him?’

  ‘Nicol,’ she said. ‘He’ll injure you sooner than you’ll injure him.’ Which was true. He went in.

  A beauty like Simon’s, he had been told. You could only look for it in the symmetry of the features within the gross folds of fat; in the breadth of shoulder pressed into the pillows, and the length of the body beneath the handsome coverlet. Now that St Pol wore plain head-linen, you could see the line of white hair on his brow, of the purity that comes from golden fairness. Nicholas’s own beard, when he grew it, was yellow. His eyes were grey. St Pol’s were blue, as Simon’s and Henry’s had been.

  Bel had followed him in. She said, ‘Here’s Nicholas come to tell ye how his son does. He’s not to stay long. Ye havena finished your drink.’

  ‘And I’m not going to,’ said the old man. ‘Go away.’ She had nursed his wife for years. She had nursed his wife, and helped to look after Lucia. Nicholas supposed she knew now how Julius had driven Lucia into the river at Berecrofts, thinking that she was her brother. He remembered begging Adorne not to let Simon leave on his own, certain that Julius would kill him outside. He remembered having to use his sword on Adorne, in his anguish.

  The skin on St Pol’s face was mottled, and his lips were a cold-looking blue. He said, ‘Young men don’t pay calls, these days, to thank their benefactors? Next time he can suffer the arrow.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘We have been in Linlithgow. I am here to thank you on his behalf. Is the wound very painful?’

  ‘No. Or I should not be lying back as I am. I have no desire for a visit by you. Send the boy.’

  ‘Why?’ said Nicholas.

  It was Bel who answered, from her chair in the corner. ‘Because St Pol has an offer to make.’

  ‘Dear me!’ the fat man said. ‘Did I ask for an audience? No. I asked you to go away.’

  ‘Then this is me refusing,’ said Bel. ‘Go on, Nicholas. Ask him what it is.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to,’ Nicholas said. ‘In any case, if he had one, he’d have to make it to me. Jordan is in his minority.’

  The gross face appeared bored. ‘I had noticed. In that case, I shall ask him, and you will stand by and listen.’

  ‘There isna time for that,’ Bel said with continuing calmness. ‘Nicol, Monseigneur wants to make Jordan his heir. Not you. Him. And on condition he changes his name to St Pol.’

  ‘No. To Semple,’ said the fat man. ‘There is no style these days in things French. The Madeira land is being sold. If the family is to stay in Kilmirren, then it reverts to the Renfrewshire name. Jordan Semple, Master of Kilmirren, for the present. Semple of Kilmirren in time to come. And he will move in with me now.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Nicholas said.

  The old man laughed. ‘Why? In case I turn him into a Simon or Henry? There is not quite enough time for that. He comes to me now. The papers have been properly drawn up and notarised. You will have what you always wanted, dear Claes. A son following the St Pols in Kilmirren. And legitimately, without having to prove your own birth. For if you proved to be a St Pol, the boy would be a bastard, would he not? You and your wife would be shown to be related, and your marriage therefore null from the start. Such a trial.’ Although smiling, he was breathing more harshly.

  Nicholas continued to stand at the foot of the bed. He said, ‘You misunderstand me. There is no question of Jordan coming to you, for there is no question of his being your heir. If he is not both the natural and the legitimate heir, and he is not, then I have no wish for him to be granted your estate as a gift. He has no need of it, and he is worthy of something far better.’

  ‘You would buy him a title?’ said St Pol. His face was full of contempt.

  ‘I could. I have just recovered my African gold. But I prefer to think that de Fleury is a name he is proud of, and that he will grow up to inherit my property, and add some of his own.’

  ‘De Fleury? The name of a small French vicomté now defunct? What weight will that carry in Scotland?’ St Pol said.

  ‘What weight does St Pol carry?’ Nicholas said. ‘Alan, Simon, Lucia, Elizabeth. Julius, on his mother’s side—you heard about him? Diniz is the only other man of worth, and he has rejected you. Once you have gone, the tarnished shield can drop from the wall.’

  ‘Nicol,’ the woman’s voice said behind him. From the bed, the breathing was hurried.

  The eyes, however, had not changed. St Pol said, ‘You don’t mention Henry. Does he escape your litany of inadequate failures? Or did you beguile him into your bed as well as your house? I never did quite find out.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said the fat man. ‘Well, if not for that reason, why omit him? He was as puerile as Simon, and as vicious, and as vain. A St Pol to the core, you would say. I think I can guess, after all, why you don’t choose to have Jordan follow him. The upright Jordan must not be compared to such trash.’

  Bel was letting him speak. Certainly, the fat man’s voice was suddenly stronger, and his breathing reflected no worse than an angry contempt. It was Nicholas who stood still, his breath choking
, as he detected the terrible game, the subtle, terrible game he was being invited to play.

  He had always wondered. Now he need wonder no more.

  He said, ‘You knew who Henry was.’

  ‘You said something?’ said the fat man.

  Nicholas said, ‘How long have you known? Since I sought him out? Since before that, when he was young? Or since—’ He stopped.

  ‘Dear Katelina,’ the fat man said softly. ‘She was so very shocked. When she thought I was you, she flirted quite prettily. But when I took off my mask—ah, no, no. But unflattering though her disgust was, I suppose it made her all the more compliant when true love came along, if somewhat frayed from Jaak de Fleury’s attentions. It was true love, my dear Claes, wasn’t it? Or was it, more sadly, more realistically, just another well-born young lady curious to experiment in the byre? Oh, yes’—and he smiled—‘I knew Henry was your son, poor vicious Henry. I virtually begat him upon you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Nicholas. Behind him, Bel made a sound. Nicholas said, ‘So then you allowed him—encouraged him—to dislike and despise me, and later to kill me if he could. There is, by the way, the question of how Jordan emerges so upright and Henry the opposite? Their mothers were sisters. What, does anyone remember, was the result of that experiment with the twin dogs? La nourriture passe nature, more or less? So the evil was yours; the fault is yours that you lie here without sons, and die childless.’ He laughed, without joy. ‘Even your son and your grandson were killed by a St Pol. Through Julius, son of Elizabeth, the sister you and your brother ignored.’

  St Pol was staring beyond him. He said, in an angry voice, ‘Help her.’

  Her?

  Nicholas whirled round.

  The small woman had slipped from her chair, her face blanched, her brow contorted with pain. She said, ‘Henry, Nicol? Ah, not Henry!’

  She knew so much. She hadn’t known Henry was his. She lay, half on the floor, gazing up at him, and he dropped to his knees. He had gathered her like this in Africa. He had carried her, sick and ill and valiant, and sung to her, and helped make her well. Love and music. Bel? Bel? Don’t go. Listen?