To Lie with Lions

by Dorothy Dunnett

  She did not go back to Beltrees.

  Mistress Clémence concerned herself, as was correct, with nothing at all but the child. When the fever first attacked, in the early days of their return to the High Street, she did not trouble the mother, but embarked, with Pasque’s help, on all the usual remedies, for children are sick for many reasons, not least because their playmates are absent. When, however, the pustules appeared, she sent at once for Conrad, the physician who served the royal children in Dr Andreas’s absence, and went to break the news to the lady of Fleury.

  If there had been any doubt of her love for the child, her distress would have seemed to dismiss it. All her actions were bold and immediate. The sickroom was shut off. Commands were sent to William Scheves and the Prioress. Berecrofts the Younger, swiftly obeying her summons, arranged to vacate his family house by the Avon so that the child could be tended apart. Mistress Clémence remained in isolation by the bedside, aware that in particular a messenger had been sent to the King, and to his sister at the Castle of Dean. Several ailments struck thus. Some were innocent. One was the disease that men ranked with the plague.

  Dr Conrad, of course, was aware of it. As the illness developed, he frequently came and sat with the child, speaking sensibly to his nurses and discussing methods of easement. He did not answer Pasque’s aggressive questions, and Clémence asked none. It was too soon. Time would tell. Then one day he had returned from his supper below to come to the bedside again, and had removed his hand from the whimpering child to exchange smiles with the nurse and with Pasque.

  ‘The sickness of the water-pox, not the other. It is plain. A bath in warm water in which starch has been dissolved. Prevent him from scratching. Keep him away from other children until the blisters have healed. In three weeks he will be well. I shall go and inform Mistress Gelis, and convey the news to the Castle.’

  Jodi, who did not know he did not have smallpox, burst into tears, and was prodigally comforted. Later, alone with Clémence in their room, Pasque spoke her mind. ‘That lady,’ she said. ‘Does she care for the garçonnet, do you think? Or was she afraid, if he died, to have to confess to the father?’

  ‘Surely she cared,’ said Clémence de Coulanges. ‘And it is as well, for Master Jordan is fond of her.’

  ‘Accustomed to her,’ said Pasque. ‘As he is accustomed to everyone. I expect that woman will come.’

  ‘Which woman?’ asked Mistress Clémence. It was surprising what Pasque understood.

  ‘That widow who lives in the west, Mistress Bel. The master took Jodi to see her in Edinburgh. You went.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘Yes. I suppose she might come, when she hears. And, of course, the father is expected back soon, with young Robin.’

  ‘No!’ said Anselm Sersanders for the third time to his sister. They sat in her room in the guest-quarters of the Bishop’s Cathedral at Skálholt, which was a collection of snow-plastered buildings surrounding a handsome small church made of wood. The roofs were of much-nibbled grass covered with footmarks, and blackened and singed from the smoke from the kitchen. There was no fire in Kathi’s room, which contained a standing bed and a chest and a basin, and bore signs of an abrupt evacuation. Three women’s shoes of differing sizes lay under the bed, and the curtain over a corner proved to have a thick sheepskin garment hanging behind it. It was a man’s. It looked dirty, but comfortable.

  Kathi herself was dressed like a very small man, in boots and leggings and a belted tunic down to her knees, peasant-fashion. She sat on her bed swinging her legs while Sersanders thumped himself down on the box in a pet. Old eider feathers swam from the cushion: he sneezed. He said, ‘I am not going back to the Svipa.’

  It was hard luck, Kathi knew. Sersanders never forgave Fate for its blunders. Victory over M. de Fleury had been so deliciously close. Here they were, the strenuous journey from the Markarfljót behind them, and a mere day’s ride between them and the Unicorn. First, they had been prevented from leaving because of a dearth, so it seemed, of fresh horses. And now here was the Bishop’s bailiff, just back from a visit to Hafnarfjördur, to tell them that there was no point in going at all. While they were stranded at Skálholt, the Unicorn had loaded and gone.

  It was smart, even for Martin. But of course, he wanted to protect all that sulphur for their uncle. He wanted to get home really fast, avoiding anyone else, such as a vindictive Paúel Benecke and the Svipa. And of course (as she said to Sersanders) Martin could have had no idea they were hoping to join him. He appeared to believe her.

  She had continued. ‘It’s good news really, when you think. The ship will get home. Uncle will recoup all he lost from the cargo, and it will pay nearly as well as the fish. And we can go back on the Svipa.’

  That was when he said, ‘No!’ for the first time. He did not mean to go back with the man who had exposed Uncle Adorne’s cog to the Maiden. He intended to wait for the Bishop, and then return south in his Buss.

  ‘The Bishop’s out of the country,’ said Kathi with involuntary fondness. Her eyes watered.

  ‘And very likely the Svipa’s out of the country,’ said her brother. ‘If the Unicorn thought it wise to get out, I don’t suppose the Svipa is going to linger. Nicholas will complete all his fishing and go. He’ll be gone before we could get back.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Kathi said. ‘M. de Fleury said that he’d come for us. What’s so shameful about letting him do it? He kept us safe, whatever he did to the Unicorn. It’s just normal good manners to him.’

  ‘Then he’ll land, find we’ve gone, and go away.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Kathi. ‘All right. Let’s go back to the delta with Tryggvi, and if the Svipa has gone, we’ll ask if the Maiden can take us.’

  ‘Kathi,’ said her brother with unnatural gentleness. ‘If Nicholas captured the Maiden, the Maiden will either be towed home by Nicholas, or he’ll steal her cargo and sink her on leaving. I rather hope that he does; the Hanse will hang him.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kathi. She frowned. ‘Is that why you don’t want to join him? You’d rather like him to outrage the Lübeckers?’

  ‘No! Don’t be silly. Of course not. If he’s decided to do something mad, he won’t stop just because I arrive. I just don’t want you involved in the fighting.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Kathi said.

  ‘I don’t. So we’re going home by the Buss. Settle down. We’ll have horses, they say, by tomorrow. You,’ said Anselm, ‘can do what you like. But I thought that I’d get up early and try for some falcons.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kathi. She had stopped swinging her legs. ‘I shouldn’t mind that. Where do you find them?’

  He opened his mouth. ‘You’re not coming.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Kathi said.

  ‘No!’ said Anselm Sersanders for the third time.

  Nicholas, considering later that magnificent morning scamper to Skálholt, also considered the pure impatience Glímu-Sveinn must have felt, burdened with two irresponsible men, mad as berserkers, and one of them maimed in one arm. The exhilaration of the light and the snow was their only excuse, added perhaps to some childish denial of the awe that had smitten them. Also it had to be admitted that Glímu-Sveinn himself was preternaturally dour, so that the competitions between Nicholas and his fellow privateer became progressively wilder. It was as well, in fact, that they arrived at the smoking enclave of Skálholt when they did.

  And even then their buoyancy was not impaired, for although the news at first appeared bad – the young man and the junfrú had arrived the previous day and had left early that morning – a further explanation by the steward who ran out to meet them had caused Nicholas to break into laughter, and Paúel Benecke to parade a picturesque glower. The Unicorn had arrived at her harbour, purchased her fill of Krísuvík sulphur and left.

  Wearing his elegant doublet and pourpoint as a banker, Nicholas ought to have regretted the news, which represented a prestigious success for the Vatachino. It had been a piece
of fine opportunism, which had taken some application and guts to achieve. He didn’t wish Martin well, but he could respect him.

  Wearing quilted cotton and leather and sealskin, with a yellow beard and a round sheepskin hat on his head, Nicholas didn’t give a horsehair button for Martin, but experienced a juvenile pleasure in finding that he had sailed off without Sersanders and Kathi. That was when he learned that they had gone, but only out to hunt birds for amusement. They were both staying at Skálholt, with the bailiff.

  The bailiff, a hearty, flushed man with a paunch, appeared a little confused by Benecke’s presence and, once he had recovered, extraordinarily anxious to explain. He spoke a form of tongue Benecke recognised, and at length, the Danzig captain broke in. ‘Herra Oddur, I know the Governor has many cares, and the Bishop’s door must be open to wayfarers. Had my ship been in Hafnarfjördur yesterday, perhaps the Unicorn would not have departed so easily. But it was not, and I don’t blame the Governor or the Bishop. Which way did the young people go?’

  ‘You would like to follow them?’ the bailiff said. He looked from one visitor to the other, and then glanced to one side at Glímu-Sveinn.

  ‘They have gone to seek falcons,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘Or so your men tell us. Perhaps we should wait.’

  ‘It is a fine sport,’ said the bailiff. ‘There are horses. We had some trouble bringing them in, but they are here now. You could eat, and ride out to your prisoners. You will take them to Bergen, for avoiding taxes and trading unlicensed?’

  There was a pause. The black-bearded visage of Paúel was grave. The Icelander shuffled. Now, Nicholas thought, one of them will mention that the Hanse captain Paúel is my captive, and the bailiff will have to decide what to do. He waited, his face as solemn as Paúel’s.

  Glímu-Sveinn didn’t speak. Paúel Benecke said, ‘When I catch him, Martin will answer in Bergen. The brother and sister are not worth the trouble; we shall take them back to their homes on our ships. As for Síra Nikolás here, I owe him much, which I intend to repay.’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘I am sure of it,’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘Meanwhile, Herra Oddur, we should certainly enjoy a hunt for these birds.’

  ‘I shall send a man with you,’ said the bailiff.

  ‘I shall go,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘Where were the gyrfalcons last seen? There is no better fellow than Tryggvi to find them.’

  ‘My own man is as good,’ said the bailiff. ‘Tryggvi and his son had to go home. I have sent Sigfús Helgason with the young man and his sister.’

  ‘He is a thorough man,’ the Icelander said. He was a man of few words, Glímu-Sveinn.

  ‘What do you think?’ Benecke said when, leaving Skálholt behind, they set out over the snow on fresh horses. It was an hour before midday.

  ‘That you’re a lying bastard,’ Nicholas said, ‘and so is he.’ He switched to Icelandic. ‘Glímu-Sveinn? Is Sigfús Helgason good?’

  ‘He is good for some things,’ said the man. ‘His thirst is best of all.’

  Nicholas glanced at him. Loading the ponies at Skálholt, the Icelander had said very little. They had been given all they could carry in the way of food and drink and provender. Fetching it, with the eager help of the boys of the house, Nicholas had noticed the barrels of ale in the barns, the kegs standing stuffed full of moss, the piles of sacks bulging with meal. Some Icelanders, they said, had never tasted a loaf in their lives. The Bishop was rich.

  They loaded, too, as was customary, what they must have for survival as well as for sport: tents and staves, rope and fuel, and the inevitable bags with the horse-shoes. There were only nine ponies, and Glímu-Sveinn had elected to send the horse-handler home.

  He had kept the dog. In the yard, the dog had behaved as if tied to its master, standing with its eyes on his face, or trotting briefly away, and returning. Nicholas had called out to one of the boys. ‘What do you think? Can dogs foretell a change in the weather?’

  The boy had laughed. ‘They won’t go out if there is a storm coming, that’s for sure! They know the signs. Our house ravens as well. And the buntings sense when to come in and lie snug. We had a covey this morning: see there.’

  Thinking of it, Nicholas now studied the sky as they rode. It was clear. They traversed the same butter-gold dreamland as before, the Icelander riding in front, and the voluble Paúel at his side. The dog kept the horses in line, swerving and scampering about, now on top, now shoulder-deep in the snow. The way the bailiff had indicated was east. ‘Towards Hruni. That is where Sigfús was proposing to take them. The white gyrfalcons follow the ptarmigan.’

  Glímu-Sveinn had grunted. When questioned he had shrugged his wide shoulders. Like most of his race, he was thick-set and long in the trunk, bred from generations of riders and rowers. Ten generations or more. After a while he had observed, ‘There are rivers to cross. But for falcons, it is worth taking trouble.’

  Far to the east, the sun gleamed on the glaciers. To the north, across the snows of the vale, lay a range of gnarled and sheared cliffs streaked and speckled with white, and garnished with mountainous boulders. To the south-east, a white mountain smoked and far beyond it, almost too far to be sure, there rose smoke from another.

  ‘Hekla and Katla, I am informed. Are you frozen with horror?’ said Paúel. ‘Because if so, look there and blench. We have come to the river.’

  It was an unpleasant river: broad, and plated with grey and white at the edges. The running currents were not at once apparent; in places the surface was turgid, or mixed with the chopped and scurrying pools of the frustrated flow. There was a ferry, Glímu-Sveinn said, on the other side, which would come to their horn. The horses would swim.

  ‘The horses will float,’ Paúel Benecke said. ‘Mine is lighter than water, save for his spine, which is halving me like an Icelander’s saw or a cheese wire. They tell me they drowned a bishop nearby not so long ago.’

  ‘He didn’t understand the local customs,’ said Nicholas. ‘There are several methods of dropping a hint.’

  The ferry was labouring over. It looked highly unsafe. It came closer. Nicholas said, ‘For example … What did you say about saws?’

  Benecke looked at him. Glímu-Sveinn had already dismounted, and was leaping down to the river-bank, shouting. The ferry bumped and splashed its way into the shoals. There was one middle-aged man at the oars. The rest of the old boat was empty. But all he could see from above was blotched and stained and clotted with blood.

  Paúel Benecke swore. Below, the Icelanders exchanged hasty words. At length Glímu-Sveinn came back. His face above the long beard was veined, and his shallow eyes bulged. He said, ‘Is the Frenchman a fool?’

  ‘He’s a Fleming. Sometimes. What has happened?’ Nicholas said. His chest eased.

  ‘The farmers had to butcher a horse and take it over. They found it disembowelled on the bank. I will help the boatman sluice out the ferry, but we ought to cross over at once.’

  ‘But what killed it?’ said Paúel. ‘Demons? Trolls? Those black dwarves who live underground and drag men to their red smoking caverns? And why is Sersanders a fool?’

  ‘Bear,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘Every year the white bears arrive on the ice-floes from Greenland. They are spent with walking and hunger; many die. But if they are skilled and hunt well, they gain strength. Sigfús knows, if this Sersanders does not.’

  ‘What has he done?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ said the Icelander Glímu-Sveinn. ‘He is three hours ahead, to the north-east, with Sigfús and the maiden. The ferryman took them over. He told them of the tracks of the bear, and the tracks that showed that the bear had a cub. White bear-cubs are worth more than falcons. In some kingdoms, white bear-cubs command as much as a ship full of grain. They have gone to follow and take it.’

  ‘Do they have weapons?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Bows, and nets and spears, I am told. And Sigfús never parts from his axe. It is still not enough.’


  ‘For a cub?’ Benecke said.

  ‘The cub is bad enough,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘But if they take the cub, the she-bear will come for them. The ferryman says there have been white foxes about for a week. The white fox follows the bear as a scavenger. The bailiff should have heard the reports.’

  He broke off. He said, ‘If they give Sigfús ale, he will do anything. If Sigfús dies because of the Flemings, I will kill them.’

  Nicholas looked at him. He thought of their night together before Skálholt. He remembered how the man had risen at night, with his dog, to check that all was well. He had thought his concern was for the weather.

  But he had not known that bears were in these parts. The bailiff had known that.

  ‘The bailiff must think we are fools,’ Nicholas said, ‘never mind Sersanders and his sister. I will not tell you what I think of him. But we are three grown men, one of us native. I will not ask either of you to risk your life for these people, but if you will help me track where they have gone, I will look after it.’

  It was surprising how much Icelandic Benecke could understand now. He said, ‘A thousand-pound bear? My dear Nikolás, you do not need us for that. Thanks to you, I have lost the use of one arm. I am going to rest it.’

  The Icelander stared at him. The dog, gazing up at his master, was growling. In a moment, Nicholas felt, the Icelander would start growling as well. He felt unalloyed gratitude to them both, even if they didn’t understand one another at all. He said to Glímu-Sveinn, ‘He doesn’t mean it. He’s coming,’ and after a further glare, the Icelander turned and went down to the boat.

  Paúel Benecke said, ‘Don’t you understand a categorical refusal?’

  ‘No. And you can’t even spell it,’ Nicholas said. He led the way down, pulling horses behind him.

  Benecke came with his own. He said, ‘This is really exceedingly dangerous.’ He sounded petulant.

  ‘Blame Herra Oddur, or the Bishop,’ Nicholas said. ‘They wanted you killed. Anyway, you can’t afford to run away now. Men would laugh at you.’