Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
A cooing sound made itself heard. The Queen’s ladies were much attached to young children. The nurse waited, her hand on the boy’s shoulder. The Queen hesitated, then sat. She said, ‘He may stay.’
The Princess Margaret said, ‘For all the good it will do, he might as well go back to his cradle. But you were right, Kathi, he’s Nicol all over; he can’t be another man’s after all. Is he going to scream?’
‘Maybe,’ Kathi said, since it was the answer Meg wanted. She saw the grey-black eyes rest on her and on Roger, then wander; Jordan’s expression, of dazed resistance, was fixed. Mistress Clémence knelt down beside him and spoke. The words, which Kathi couldn’t quite hear, were in French. The nurse waited; the child nodded; then, guiding him forward, Mistress Clémence settled herself on the chest beside the musician, and set the child on her knee. He leaned his head into her shoulder and Whistle Willie, conductor of souls, had the wisdom to turn his back and ignore him.
The Queen discussed what Master Roger should play and agreed, when Meg suggested it, that it might be pleasant to dance. The little matrons rose, chattering, and took each other’s hands, deciding what
to do, and how to do it. After a while, the child unburied his head and looked up. Once, the Queen, passing by, touched his cheek and smiled at him. She was the same age as his Robin. He smiled back. Kathi thought of a very bad Greek word the parrot had taught her. Then she began to watch the door again as she danced.
Chapter 11
I
T WAS THE
scene which Nicholas de Fleury came upon presently when, opening the door, he stood aside to let the King enter, along with his brothers Sandy and John and their households. He received an immediate impression of a great deal of movement and laughter: it was not a very large room, and it was filled with a number of young women, dancing. They stopped and, turning, sank into curtseys; Nicholas scanned them.
The music, which had also stopped, had been provided by Whistle Willie, of course, who sat looking straight at him. Not far from him, Kathi – Katelijne Sersanders, whom he should have met yesterday, if the King had allowed him to leave. Whom he had not met since Venice, when she had decided to help to free Jordan. Next time, she might just as easily offer her services to Jordan’s mother: Katelijne Sersanders had very flexible prejudices, or an enlarged sense of fair play, depending on your viewpoint. Just now, she was glaring. He supposed he knew the reason. It had nothing to do with a broken appointment.
And there, of course, superior as ever, was Clémence of Coulanges, seated on a stool and restraining his son by the arms until the ladies rose from their salute. Then Jordan broke away and came speeding towards him. The child’s face was red, but not swollen. Nicholas said, ‘What a good son I have. You have kept mademoiselle company until I came. Have you danced?’
‘No,’ said the child.
‘Well, we shall dance now,’ Nicholas said, bending to lift him.
Mistress Clémence said, ‘He is perhaps heavier than you think.’
He smiled, the child in his arms. He said, ‘I see my young friend Katelijne is of the same opinion. I shall be careful, mademoiselle.’ He knew it was apparent that none of them was quite sober. The King had been persuaded to put on his pourpoint again, but his shirt was
visibly torn from the last bout of horseplay, and the young men of the chamber were worse.
It had come to swords in the end, and he had had to get Liddell to help him calm it down. The euphoria of war, or hopes of war. It might, at least, divert young James from his other obsession. He walked forward. The girls were coy, the men drunk. Using all his masks, all his voices, God help him, he could exhaust them and get Jordan home. And himself.
Truth to tell, it was tiredness he was fighting, rather than anything else. It had been a long thirty-six hours. The worst of it had been at the end, when he had had to explain that his wife was not coming.
Little Bell and Guthrie and Hommyll and even Liddell had been half amused; the King had not. ‘We commanded your son, and the lady Gelis your wife.’ The royal complexion, less freckled than Sandy’s, still ebbed and flowed with his temper. He was nineteen, and had as yet no issue to prove his virility. He said, ‘You know why.’
Nicholas said, ‘Perhaps my lord has forgotten. My son will be here, but Gelis suffers still from her accident. The break was a bad one.’
‘I see,’ said the King. ‘We thought that she might be sick of a child. Of another child.’
‘Alas, no,’ Nicholas said. ‘Perhaps your own good fortune, when it comes, will restore ours.’ He could hear John of Mar murmur, then giggle. He wished, fleetingly, that he had not intervened, years ago, to prevent the young bastard’s eye being skewered.
‘In three years?’ James remarked. ‘You have managed one birth in three years? Your case is worse than our own. We told you. Your wife should have come. And now we have this potion from your own doctor, it seems, or his family. It surprises us that you have not tried it, or recommended it to us before.’
‘My own doctor?’ Nicholas had repeated. He had none at the moment. Andreas looked after the Princesses at Haddington, and Scheves treated the King. Pierre de Nostradamus served King René alone, and King René had been driven to Provence.
The King said, ‘Your army’s doctor. Tobias. The nephew of the greatest physician of Pavia, who treats our uncle of France for his ills. You told me about him, and I have sent for this fertility potion. It has come, straight from France.’
‘Dr Tobias
has brought it?’ Nicholas said. Tobie had left after Venice, vowing never to come near him again.
‘No. I did,’ said Andro Wodman, coming in. He bowed to the King and his brothers and turned. ‘Dr Tobias wasn’t involved. We asked for the recipe from his uncle. His grace asked me to make you a copy.’
He held something out, and Nicholas took it. Across the paper smiled the face he had last seen at Angers, at Ham: the broken nose; the thick, heavy hair; the short neck. Andro Wodman, former bodyguard to Louis of France; former Archer with Jordan de Ribérac. One of them must have sent him. Louis at least would be impressed by today’s news when he heard it. His secret envoy de Fleury had persuaded King James to lead an army in person to France. When the apricots come.
All the same, it was as well that Crackbene had gone, and the moneyers. Nicholas laughed aloud. He said, ‘Thank you. I must think who to give it to. And how is the vicomte de Ribérac? I assume that you brought him.’
‘I wish I had. No, I came with Monypenny, the other grand lord serving two masters. Like yourself.’
‘No, I have three,’ Nicholas said. ‘Four, if you want to count Burgundy. You have come to join in the swordplay?’
‘He has business elsewhere,’ said the King. ‘And we have to join her grace the Queen for some music’ His face was still clouded, and his vexation flared again in the Queen’s room, even as he watched Nicholas with his son. He said, ‘The lady van Borselen should have been here. We are displeased. Tell her.’ Then he touched the boy and said, ‘A fine son. He likes water?’
‘I am afraid he cannot swim,’ Nicholas said.
‘No, no. Warm water. Come. We shall dance. Take a partner. My lady, here is Nicol.’
The boy clung. Kathi Sersanders said, ‘He can dance with us both. He could even hold one of us up. Bouton, did you look at the cage?’
‘You have met him? Since Venice?’ Nicholas said. ‘I haven’t thanked you for what you did there. You will probably live to regret it.’
‘I met him through Mistress Clémence,’ said the girl. She was dressed with exceptional neatness, her hair-caul ribboned, her sleeves tight to the knuckle. The few jewels she was permitted were exceptionally fine. She was Adorne’s niece. He could see the coloured specks in her eyes, she was so angry. She said, ‘I believe I regret it already.’
He said, ‘It was unavoidable. Jordan is going home soon.’ He had picked, reluctantly, the only language he was sure no one else but themselves could understand.
‘Before the warm water?’ said the girl. Here, the Arabic sounded ridiculous. She had flushed. ‘Before or after you lead an army to France?’
It was unexpected. Considering the implications, he said something impolite under his breath. Now he knew why she was angry. The child said, ‘I speak to the parrot.’
The girl’s face changed. Nicholas looked down at his son. ‘You have heard the parrot say that? Well, only parrots and fathers say that, never Jodi. There is Kathi’s hand; there is mine. Now we shall dance.’ It closed the conversation with Kathi. He would have to reopen it some time, but certainly not now.
They parted soon enough and presently he was able to restore the boy, heavy-lidded and fractious, to Mistress Clémence. Will Roger said, ‘I heard what you told her to do. It won’t work.’
‘Yes, it will,’ Nicholas said. ‘We’re all sick of your playing. I want some real action.’
‘Games?’ said Roger. ‘Kathi has some good ones. Nicol, be careful with Kathi.’
It surprised him. ‘She must be better now,’ Nicholas said. ‘Anyway, she’s sober, and I’m not.’
Once before, when they were all three years younger, he had got the children of the royal family into trouble on Leith sands. Now two of the three present were married, and James had experienced the weight of his position, and carried the authority to match it. It meant that sometimes, they felt the need to break out. It meant that when they did, there was no one to gainsay them.
The crown of the Castle rock, on which the royal lodgings were built, was not large, but many people lived in its towers, and crammed the lower offices that crowded round the hall, the chapel, the arsenal and the barracks, the archery ground and the stables. Ringed by its stout walls, the Castle of Edinburgh stood above the smoke and noise of the town, and its own smoke and noise affected only itself and the angels, which was fortunate.
The party spilled outside after the first few games, and the next barrel of wine had been broached. The men by then were all in their loose shirts and hose: the current wager had to do with a ball, bouncing between them. The Queen trotted among them, not quite screaming like Meg, but with her eyes bright and her face heated. Her brother’s friends, you could imagine, played rough games sometimes like this in the snow, on the sands, in the forests. She had begun not to notice when James, between vicious attacks on the ball and his rivals, set his hand at her waist, or pulled her running close beside him.
Nicholas noticed, in between fending off the same vicious attacks, and worse ones from Sandy and John. So did Kathi, sprinting beside him. Neither commented. Nicholas said, ‘I still want to thank you for Venice. I have something for you.’ A brick sliced through his hair and he ducked. He had lost his cap and her hair, short like Gelis’s, had escaped from its caul.
‘That was John,’ the girl said. ‘He doesn’t like you. Whatever I did, it was for Gelis and Jordan as well. I don’t want anything.’
‘Oh,’ he said. The ball, flying over their heads, landed on the top of the citadel wall and for a moment seemed lost. Then James was streaking after it whooping, banging into people regardless, followed by his two younger brothers. They started up the nearest flight of wall-steps, three at a time. The ball, rebounding, had trickled safely down to a roof. Nicholas said, ‘Then I should have said that the gift is from us all, but two of us don’t realise it yet. However. I take the point. I’ll give it to Willie, and you can play on it anyway. Why are they all running up there?’ The Princess, Meg, was making a purposeful dash at the gun-ramp.
‘Because they want to win the wager,’ Kathi said. ‘I gather we are having a game of Florentine football on the parapet, six a side instead of twenty-seven. I thought it was your idea.’
It had been, earlier in the evening. The curtain wall of Edinburgh Castle was four hundred feet long and twenty-four feet in height, with a sheer drop of another thirty-odd feet on the outside. The top was wide enough to take culverin, or three people running abreast, and the inner side was lined with interesting roof-tops. It made an irresistible playing field for two teams. Two teams, all of them men. He said so.
The girl said, ‘If Meg is going, I have to go, don’t I? I don’t mind. Willie will come. We need three more to make up a side. Can’t you go and get them? Or it’ll spoil all the fun.’
He suddenly saw that it would. By the time he found Crackbene and brought him back, two other applicants had appeared. One was Robin of Berecrofts, who had apparently escorted Jodi and his nurse from the Canongate. The other was Martin of the Vatachino, stripped like the rest to his unbuttoned shirt. The pelt on his chest was as orange as sheep-dip.
Behind the broker, Kathi was conveying helpless apology. He could see her eyes gleaming. Martin said, ‘I offered to give you a hand. I’ve not a bad head for heights. Otherwise you would have lost your wager, wouldn’t you?’
He was grinning. Without losing face, there was no chance of refusing him. Nicholas said, ‘Who have the other side got?’ Straw fell on to his shoulders and hair: the ball was being retrieved. People were running up and exclaiming: household officers and servants of the Court, clerks and servants of the chapel, soldiers of the garrison. There were three hundred people quartered within the walls of Edinburgh Castle. He saw two trumpeters he knew, gesturing at Willie Roger.
A lot of torches had arrived, illuminating the uneven ground, and the houses that clustered against and under the wall, and the ramp and the two ranges of ladder-like steps fitted between them. Black against the sky, the tall rectangle of the royal palace called David’s Tower rose at one end, all its windows now lit, while far at the other end rose the round tower known as the Constable’s, guarding the staircase to the inner citadel. But the top of the wall running between was quite dark, except where its crenellations blocked out the stars, and the forms of young men running along it. He could just make out the King, along with Sandy and John, and Meg scrambling and screeching beside them. Three princes of the blood and one princess. Someone would stop them.
Kathi said, ‘They’ve called up Jamie Liddell and someone called Wodman. Who’s he?’