To Lie with Lions

by Dorothy Dunnett

  The Palace’s caution was justified. The bills for the Play were coming in, together with those for the Court’s dress and entertainment for Christmas. All of it confirmed what was already apparent: James was not likely to lead an army next year into Brittany without a package of gifts, loans, bribes, requisitions, dowries and taxes on a scale hitherto unknown. Taxes depended on Parliament. He had no son yet to farm out in marriage. And the King’s loans from the Banco di Niccolò were of such a dimension by now that John Laing the Treasurer laughed when the King proposed an extension.

  The Franco-Scottish courtiers, through all this, said nothing. Andro Wodman and William Monypenny kept to themselves whatever they knew or suspected of the dual interests of Nicholas de Fleury. A Scottish army was, after all, only one of his promised objectives.

  Twelfth Night passed. Michael Crackbene returned, arriving by night at the house in the Canongate and slipping prudently through Govaerts’s room before announcing himself to vander Poele. To M. de Fleury. The session with vander Poele – M. de Fleury – was as effing difficult and as effing fascinating as it usually was, and he deserved the flask they shared afterwards. Mick Crackbene knew how successful he’d been. It was ninety in the hundred certain that everything would be in place, and on time. He said, ‘It’s lucky for us that Adorne isn’t going. Sersanders hasn’t the experience.’

  ‘It wasn’t so lucky for Adorne,’ de Fleury said.

  Crackbene looked at him, surprised, and remembered something. He said, ‘It’s a pity Ada never learned to decipher. She says there are a lot of old papers in Coldingham, just piled on the monks’ shelves.’

  He waited for, and got, de Fleury’s real bastard’s stare. He knew who Ada was, and how long Mick had been bedding her. De Fleury said, ‘I thought she could count, at the very least. How many have you got between you by now? Three?’

  ‘Two,’ said Crackbene shortly. It was true, for the moment. He had had no idea he was watched.

  ‘Two and eight-ninths, I am told,’ de Fleury said. ‘It’s your affair. I have no objections. But hear this. No one steals anything or searches for anything at Coldingham without my instructions. That is an absolute embargo. Do you understand?’

  Crackbene understood. He didn’t trust vander Poele either. M. effing de Fleury.

  It fretted Martin of the Vatachino, as well, that Anselm Adorne refused to leave his wife’s side, or break the period of mourning for his infant. The nephew, who thought a lot of himself, was not helpful. ‘You have the plan all made. The master is coming, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’ll be here and in place by next month. You are going yourself?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Anselm Sersanders. ‘Someone has to protect my uncle’s business. You have a full crew?’

  ‘Near enough,’ Martin said. ‘I need a purser, that’s all. It should pierce that Olympian complacency just a little. You know we’ve cornered the paper?’

  ‘For Colard?’

  ‘And others. It has a unicorn on it. Very appropriate.’

  ‘So he can’t print,’ Sersanders said.

  ‘He can, but it would cost him. And he doesn’t have the reserves. He can’t have. Not with all he’s loaned the King, and spent on the play – how does he expect to recoup that? And he’s vowed to redeem all his gold from the Knights: that’ll involve some outlay. And Beltrees. The sums they’ve spent on that castle!’

  ‘I heard that was the fault of his factor,’ Sersanders said. ‘With Bel of Cuthilgurdy to encourage him. Does she belong to the Vatachino as well?’

  Martin had laughed. His teeth were bad: in the red-head’s pale skin they looked like the gravel grin of a snowman. ‘I wouldn’t know. David and I only work with Egidius, and our sub-agents are with other firms. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have women, though: it would certainly brighten things up. Your sister Katelijne for instance. There’s a sport.’

  Sersanders was silent. He was trying very hard, and so was his uncle, to keep Kathi ignorant of what they were doing. Business was a cut-throat affair, best left to those who comprehended it. And anyway, her constitution was weak.

  Into the trembling kaleidoscope dropped the news from outside, nudging, shaping. Late in January, the dispatches from Rome: telling of Jan Adorne and the Bishop of St Andrews; of the presence of Nerio and the Patriarch; of the departure of the Legates, including Bessarion and Barbo; of the coming union of Zoe and Ivan of Muscovy; of the plans for the joint spring attack on the Turk. The report to the Casa Niccolò was signed by Lazzarino; Julius had already departed for Venice. The reports to Anselm Adorne, and thence his niece and his nephew, were from Jan Adorne himself. He expressed the hope, at the end of the volley, that his mother did well, and his sister or brother, whichever had come.

  Late in February, a dispatch came for Nicholas alone from Gregorio. He read it in his room, before he unpacked the rest of the satchel, ready to read and annotate and discuss it with Govaerts. It was in the lawyer’s usual black ink and forceful penmanship, but this time different from any he had received from him before.

  Nicholas, I have a son. I have a son born in December. The birth was easy. It was like seeing a flower reach for the air, and then open. I was there. Margot and I held him in our arms, weeping for joy.

  His name is Jaçon. He is perfect.

  Nicholas rose, paper in hand. Soon, he would take it down to the counting-house, and they would celebrate. He would tell all the others who knew and remembered Gregorio, and they would write letters, and mobilise gifts, and send such a parcel over the Alps as would break the backs of the mules.

  Only later did he sit down again to read through the rest, and found what he had not seen before.

  The only sad note is the news I have of dear Tasse. She was to come, as you know, to help Margot. She was well when she came, sprightly as ever; but her footing was not what it had been. She drowned, Nicholas: stumbled into the canal when out buying linen to sew for the child. By the time she was found, she was dead.

  She would so have loved Jaçon. We gave her a fine burial, as you would have wanted. It is a loss for us all.

  It is a loss for us all. Tasse, the little servant, herself beaten, who helped – as others had done – to make his boyhood bearable after his mother had died. Who, once Nicholas was out of his apprenticeship and married, had come from Geneva to serve Marian de Charetty, his wife. And who, after Marian’s death, had lived in genteel retirement, to be brought out again to what should have been her last happy years with Gregorio, blessed with a child.

  Presently, as he had intended. Nicholas folded the letter and, taking the satchel, went to break the news to Govaerts and the rest. Presently also, as was his custom, he left the Casa Niccolò and walked up the hill – hailed by casual company; frequently halted – to spend the night in his pretty house in the High Street with his wife and his child.

  Immediately after the King’s Nativity Play, he had had to make several decisions. Business invariably stopped during Yule, but he had lost a great deal of time, and had expected to return to his plans unimpeded. Instead, there had come the changed circumstances of Adorne, and the effect on himself and his schemes of the faultlessly timed intervention by Gelis. The specifications to which he had been working had altered, and hence the machinery had to be tested again; reassembled; its components altered if necessary. The other machiniste had altered his programme. He himself had to devise his response.

  He had given himself three days’ delay before he dealt with it. To begin with, he had the excuse of the celebration that followed the performance, and then the further excuse of its consequences, which were drastic enough. During that period, he concluded without too much trouble that he must return to what passed for normal life in the same house as Gelis. There were several reasons, one of which was the continued wellbeing of Jordan. The rest had to do with Gelis, and himself, and her sister.

  In the three days of his grace, he had opened the barriers of his mind – as he must – and lived again through all
that had happened in Rhodes and in Cyprus eight years ago, and compared it with what Gelis had said. He heard again what Katelina had told him, and the words of her Arab physician. To a mind delighting in tactics and devices, grief is not a familiar factor … In the simplest of games, one person at least knows the pain of doubt, or defeat … Success seldom teaches what is worth knowing. The wisdom of a great man. But nothing had been said of a child.

  He knew that Gelis believed what she had said. It was not necessarily true. He must, then, pursue it with her; settle it once and for all. If she were wrong, something might even come of it.

  So he had prepared to go to the house in the High Street, and also to make the difficult visit to Bel. He wished, with black and desperate humour, that the egregious Willie Roger were going instead, or the superior Adorne, or the disapproving Father Moriz, or any one of the meddling homespun philosophers who had so recently, so piously attempted to break his life in half. But for Gelis, it might even have worked. He might be carrying back to his marriage all his newly discovered ideals; his dedication to dedication; his resolve not to squander his genius. He ought to sell seats for both meetings and get Roger to play in the interludes. He should never have touched the Nativity.

  He was calm enough nevertheless when, on the third day after the performance, he entered Gelis’s house and walked into her room, causing her to drop what she was holding. He said, ‘Why so surprised? I told you I was coming to take Jordan visiting.’

  She was alone in the parlour, dressed softly as often happened these days, with her fair hair unbound. She said, ‘I see that you believed me. Or is it the wine?’ She picked up the object, a wooden gun, and, carrying it to the door, spoke to someone and came back without it. She studied him again. ‘Jordan will be ready whenever you like. Did you want to ask me something? About Katelina?’ She took a chair, waving him to another.

  ‘I wanted to tell you something,’ he said. He remained standing.

  ‘You preferred her, on reflection, to me? How in particular did she excel? Tell me. Show me.’ And, as he glanced at the door: ‘No one will come in,’ Gelis said. ‘You may be quite explicit.’

  Then he walked to the window and turned. He said, ‘I wanted to tell you what I knew of her death. I left her in Rhodes. I heard that she was about to sail home to Portugal when she learned that Diniz, her husband’s nephew, was in Famagusta in Cyprus, and elected to join him instead. She didn’t kill herself. She was mortally wounded during the siege of the town. I know that was true. I was a prisoner in Famagusta myself. I was there with Diniz in the last days of her life, and worked with the Arab who nursed her. He didn’t mention a child. Nor did she.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Gelis said. ‘Wouldn’t you claim that she adored you? Wouldn’t she want to spare you the pain and the guilt? Wouldn’t she swear others to secrecy? After all, the coming child must have been yours. Simon was in Portugal. Or was she promiscuous?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. He felt tired. ‘She was your sister.’

  ‘Alone and pregnant,’ Gelis said. ‘Frightened; caught in a war. Knowing that she had already borne you one child, and managed to pass it off as her husband’s. But another? She couldn’t explain that to Simon. He would kill her, and your bastard Henry, and you. So her solution was to go where her pregnancy would never be discovered, because she would be sure to die first. As she did.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘That is no more than guesswork. Would she lie when she was dying? I think not.’

  Katelina had not, in the end, been afraid. She had been concerned about sin, the sin they had committed together, and he had comforted her. Simon would never know; and if they had betrayed Simon once, he had betrayed Katelina his wife many times. He had told her that if atonement were required, he, Nicholas would willingly pay for it.

  As he was doing.

  He said, ‘So, you see, there is no proof of the pregnancy, and everything points to it being untrue. What astonishes me is not that you believe it, but how and when you decided to tell me. That, from your point of view, was a mastercard – the last, it might be. So why play it? Why throw it away?’

  ‘I spoiled your Play for you,’ she said.

  ‘A moment’s gratification, for that price?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She affected to ponder. ‘I deserve some amusement, don’t you think? And I did have a reason. I should prefer your whole attention, Nicholas. The quest for beatification is all very well, but first of all you have to clear me from your way.’

  ‘I am quite content to have you where you are,’ Nicholas said. ‘In my house, with our excellent child. If you impede me, I shall tell you.’

  She gazed at him. She said, ‘You really think, don’t you, that you are omnipotent? There is no proof, you say. Did you ask me? No, you assumed it. So why not ask me now?’

  His throat had dried. He took his time, and said, ‘I am asking you.’

  She smiled. Her hair, wheat-coloured, strayed over her cheek and her skin was polished like ivory. She said, ‘Then here is my gift to you. You spoke of Abul the physician. He nursed my sister, with Diniz to help him. He could not keep the complications of her condition from Diniz, young as he was. Diniz knew she was bearing your child. He was forbidden to tell you.’

  ‘But he told you?’ Nicholas said. The boy Diniz, now a grown man. The hesitations, the compassionate gaze, the unexpected tenderness now and then.

  It was true. And Diniz had known.

  She was hesitating. ‘Ask Diniz,’ she said at last.

  He said, ‘Perhaps I can guess, without asking. Diniz told you what he didn’t tell anyone else – not me, not Tilde, not even Tobie or Godscalc. He told you that Katelina was pregnant, but that she insisted I should never be told. And if that is not a lie, at least it confirms that she wanted to spare me; that there was nothing but affection between us. She died smiling, Gelis. She chose to come to me; she chose later to do what she did. I would have stopped her from going to Cyprus. But she didn’t give me the chance.’

  He could see her breathing, long and slow, with a shudder. She spoke abruptly. ‘So you were the love of her life, and she died for you. Is this, then, how you take the news, with your damned reasoned arguments? She died for you! Isn’t she worth a pang, a single sign that you cared? Why show nothing for her, when you can make thousands weep over a play-show with tinsel and dummies?’

  ‘Because you are here,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Without which you would be rocked by contrition?’

  ‘Without which I might have the memory that she meant me to have. Of an idyll. Of an idyll now spoiled, as you spoiled the Play of the Nativity.’

  ‘Was it: an idyll?’ she said.

  ‘Under a waterfall. You remember. I talked in my fever, and you memorised every word. Katelina was frightened of butterflies. And one of my other friends – one of my wives, at the time – had upset her. It was the least I could do, to console her. Really,’ said Nicholas, ‘the butterfly episode was truly quite charming. She was wearing –’

  ‘No,’ Gelis said.

  ‘That is, she was fully clothed when I saw her first. Then –’

  ‘No,’ Gelis repeated.

  ‘But you wanted to know,’ Nicholas said. ‘When I came in, you begged me to tell you. Exactly how did she excel? Be explicit, you said. Why not show me?’

  ‘You never stop,’ she said. ‘You never know when to stop. Sometimes you fill me with horror.’

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  Outside the room a child shouted, and the voice of Mistress Clémence could be heard, and the cackle of Pasque. Someone knocked on the door.

  Nicholas rose. After a moment, Gelis stood also. She said, ‘You are taking Jordan to Bel. With Clémence? Or not?’

  ‘With, I think,’ Nicholas said. ‘I shan’t keep him too long. I am glad we talked.’

  ‘Are you?’ she said. ‘We must do it again. And meantime, which house are you planning to live in?’

  He showed his sur
prise. ‘Where else but here? Unless you don’t want me?’

  ‘Never that,’ Gelis said.

  The house of Jordan de Ribérac was quite close: between the top of the High Street and the Castle itself. To reach it, Nicholas had to traverse the busiest width of the road, including the graveyard and King’s park of the church of St Giles, and the houses of well-doing burgesses, all of whom knew Nicol de Fleury, and most of whom were inclined to fall into step with him as he passed. Mistress Clémence held the boy by the hand, and saw that he responded politely to all the introductions, without which he would have paid a great deal more attention to the dogs and the pigs and the gulls.

  Nicholas conversed smiling with everyone, one hand to his hat, his heavy cloak swirled by the wind. Once before he had come to meet Bel of Cuthilgurdy at this house, his thoughts chaotic as now. Then, he had known he was going to meet his wife’s lover, and to see for the first time his unacknowledged son Henry, the handsome, spoiled child of Simon’s wife Katelina. Now, a greater irony, he was deliberately presenting to Bel his undoubted son by Gelis, Katelina’s young sister.

  There was no danger that Henry would be here; the two children, half-brothers and cousins at once, would never meet, if he could help it. And even if they did, they would appear less alike than most cousins were: Henry tall and blue-eyed and fair at eleven; Jordan brown-haired and chubby at three, with two remarkable dimples to Henry’s one.

  Two sons. Now he knew there might have been three. But what he had just learned he had to obliterate from his mind, together with all emotion. He remembered talking of bastards to Gelis. You may have made a better start than you know, she had remarked. She had nearly told him after the ball-game, but had waited. Despite what he had said, Gelis played her cards well.

  He conducted Mistress Clémence to the door. He had informed her about the vicomte de Ribérac who owned a castle in Scotland and enjoyed an estate and high office in France. He had explained that the vicomte’s Kilmirren was not far from his own place of Beltrees. He had further explained that Mistress Bel, the widowed lady within, had been a friend of de Ribérac’s family, and had travelled to Africa with M. de Fleury himself and his wife. Nicholas said, ‘She would have made a better man of young Henry than his father and grandfather have done. She is a good person to turn to in trouble, even though her tongue can be sharp.’