Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
Remembering that made it easy. His booth had no curtain, but he removed from his mind the smells of food and wine, the squeals, the laughter, the splashing of others. Nevertheless, however he turned the girl in her excitement, he couldn’t escape the spectacle of the King, swollen-faced in his watery lodge, his little Queen clutched soaked on his knee, her immobile face turned outwards to the scented steam and all that was happening within it. Her face was staring out still when the King lifted his red-pelted arm from the water, and whipped the hood curtain in front of them both.
All of them had felt hot enough then. But not now.
The new glass windows of the Ca’ Niccolò were brilliant with moonlight. Aiming for his own quarters, Nicholas found he had stopped by the room where his son slept. The door was a little ajar. By stepping softly up to the threshold, he could just distinguish the cot with the child’s head sunk dark on the pillow. It did not stir. He might have gone in, but heard a movement beyond, by the window, and realised that Mistress Clémence was there, and awake. He lifted a hand in apology, and drew the door closed as he left.
The door of his own room was shut, but he saw underneath the line of flickering gold from the fire he always kept there, warming the cushions, the bedlinen, the heavy soft bedrobe and towels. He thought of them, walking towards it. Then he saw the twelve inches of shadow, blocking the light.
He made to turn, but too late. The door opened, and Gelis stood there. ‘Come in, please,’ she said.
She didn’t know how many women Nicholas had. She knew, of course, that in the months before Jordan was born, he had methodically bedded every mistress of Simon’s, as a journeyman of the lower grade would, laboriously proving his theory that Simon was infertile. It had proved unnecessary after Jordan, his image, had been born, but he had presumably enjoyed it. In any case, she was quite sure that on this his return, he had found similar sources of pleasure. He had indicated that she was equally free, so long as she observed discretion.
She therefore remained dressed tonight, presenting no diaphanous silhouette to her husband, and adduced by the heaviness with which he stood surveying her that she had been right. But she had guessed that already by the effortful quality of his voice, speaking to the watchman outside, and the vagaries of his step. She said, ‘A word. I am afraid I am going to insist.’ She raised her voice at the end of the sentence.
It was enough. He moved, closing the door between themselves and the way to the little boy’s room, and crossing to the platform of his bed, stepped up and disposed himself comfortably on the quilt, his bare head inclined on the pillow bere. Within the dark of the bedposts, she could not even distinguish his features. He said, ‘Shake me if I drop off to sleep. Jab me if you like; there is my knife. What drunken truths are you hoping for?’
The fire crackled. He had built a chimney-piece, such as they had now in some rooms at Bruges, and the light rippled and leaped over the hearth and the handsome tiled floor. She chose a stool halfway
between the fire and the bed and sat down. She said, ‘On the ship, you told Father Moriz that I was free to take Jordan and go.’
‘Of course,’ he said. There was no hesitation.
‘Provided I never come back, and provided you never see Jordan again.’
‘So when are you going?’ he said. He had tucked his right hand behind his head; otherwise he lay still, completely at ease.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Now you can let the Prioress stay.’
‘Ah,’ he said. There was a space. She even thought, dazed with anger, that he had fallen asleep. Then he added, ‘One of my sins, I perceive. Are there more?’
She said, ‘Not even that; although I should like to have had warning, and to know whether you have a chamber there, too. No. I heard about your interesting evening: the King and his family brought to risk their lives on the towers of the Castle; Robin’s injury; the Adorne girl’s exhaustion; the men of your company whom only luck saved. I heard all about that, and the drunken idiocy of the balefire. But all that is your responsibility, not mine. You and I, as I understand it, are playing a different game, and I have decided to end it.’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘Good? After all those elaborate plans?’
‘Io son mercatante e non filosofo
. I might say the same thing of you. If you can’t stand one day of reverses, then you have saved me from wasting my time. A game is only worth while between equals.’
She said, ‘You took Jordan into danger without me. That removes our common ground. And am I not wasting my time on a game so little regarded by you that all its course can be spoiled by some pointless demonstration of drunken bravado?’
He took the hand from behind his head and let it flop straight from the shoulder, fingers open. ‘My God,’ he said.
She could see his eyes were closed. When he spoke again, it was with insulting patience. ‘When,’ he said, ‘did you ever know me embark on a pointless demonstration of anything? Is Jordan injured in any way? No.
‘Did I suffer any form of impairment that will prevent me from pursuing this game, as you call it, and winning it whenever I choose? No.
‘So leave because you are losing. Leave because you are cowardly. Leave because you are jealous. But don’t pretend you are leaving because
I
have abandoned the game. I promise you I have not.’
‘Jealous!’ she said. ‘Of your bedmates!’ Then she felt herself slowly flush.
He did not reply.
She said, ‘He is my son. I have nothing to be jealous of. I won’t have him used.’
‘He wouldn’t have been,’ Nicholas said. ‘He was to have stayed in the High Street with you and his nurses, and with young Berecrofts as playfellow. Robin is to come as my equerry and page.’
She said, ‘You are moving as well?’
‘It is time to separate house and office,’ he said. ‘And it suits me to be near Adorne’s lodging. His ship has put into Leith.’
She sat up. ‘It has! Whom has he brought?’
‘His pregnant wife,’ Nicholas said. ‘But no son. They have left their doleful author behind, forced to try his luck with the new Pope in Rome.’
‘And the Boyds?’ said Gelis quickly. ‘The Earl and Countess of Arran and their children? Did they leave them behind?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas.
‘They’re here! But Tom Boyd and his father will hang!’
‘Didn’t you work it out?’ Nicholas said. ‘They couldn’t afford to leave them in Bruges, the Duke forbade it. They couldn’t bring the men here, they’d be hanged. But if Adorne left the whole tribe in England, the Princess and her children would be a threat to the Scottish throne all their lives, and James would never forgive Adorne for letting it happen. So Adorne was left with only one thing to do.’
‘Which was?’ Gelis said. All the anger had gone, leaving the bright, clear calculation of the game: her schemes against his; the delight of exposition. His voice was shallowly drink-hoarse, but surprisingly unblurred.
He said, ‘Which was to take Tom Boyd to London and leave him there, with the prior consent of King Edward, who may keep him as long as he wishes. Lord Boyd has been given a pension, and left in some sinecure of a post in the north.’
‘And Mary? The King’s sister?’
Nicholas began to change his position. ‘She is on board Adorne’s ship with her children. He persuaded her to come. No doubt Margriet helped. The Countess thinks she is here to plead for her husband’s redemption.’
There was a silence. Gelis said, ‘Is that what you advised her to do?’
‘I didn’t see her,’ Nicholas said. ‘I told her husband to keep her with him in London.’
Gelis stared at the shadowy bed. She said, ‘Of course you would. And doting on Tom as she does, she would rush to agree to all that at once: to settle with Tom and her children in London. It was Adorne, then, who had to persuade her, for his own sake and the King’s, to
come to Scotland alone with the children. Adorne must have had to pretend she could plead for Tom’s safe return and reinstatement. And when she gets here, and finds the King will do no such thing, nor let her go back – it is Adorne she will blame.’
‘I should think so,’ he said. ‘Also, Adorne will have to give up the Boyd land, or some of it. She’ll need something to live on while she hates him. But the King will be forever grateful, I’m sure. Adorne may even thank me some day.’
His voice was calm. A triumph of planning. A vindication of what he had said: for him, no demonstration was pointless. Save for Nicholas, the King’s sister Mary would never have left to roam with her husband But for Nicholas, Mary would have spent the last three years in comfort in Scotland, her marriage safely annulled, her controversial children unborn. Gelis said, ‘Does the King know his sister is here?’
‘By now, he will. Crackbene told me in private.’
‘What will he do?’
‘Did you not hear the horses go by? Send to Leith to bring her ashore. After that, to the Castle. After that, I don’t know. He was full of good humour tonight,’ Nicholas said. She could not interpret the change in his voice.
She said, ‘But you didn’t send to warn her away. That might have cost you your Order.’ He reclined, without troubling to answer. As always, it offended her. She said, ‘So what do you get out of Mary’s return, apart from ruining her and her faith in Adorne?’
She knew that, in the shadows, he was smiling. ‘You’ll never know, will you?’ he said. ‘You’re going away.’
The fire burned. He watched her, his weight indolently transferred to one hand. In a moment he would go, or would force her to leave. She said, ‘I have never shared a house with a piece of clockwork. I am tempted to stay.’
He said, ‘Indeed. I thought an excess of carnality was the issue. Perhaps not. Now I come to think of it, the King was on the same theme. He gave me a paper. Where did I put it?’
He began to search, and then stopped. ‘That is, there is no point if you are going away.’
‘No,’ said Gelis. ‘I shan’t go away yet. Not before I have made all my points.’
There was another silence. ‘Why not make them now?’ Nicholas said.
There was a tap on the door. He turned his head. Gelis said, ‘I should be delighted, but unfortunately, someone seems to wish to speak to you. I had better see who.’
It was Govaerts, huddled into a night-robe as if he had been sent
for. He looked past her into the room. Behind him, she noticed, the door to Jordan’s room stood a little ajar.
Govaerts said, ‘I am sorry, madame. I wondered if …’
‘I am coming,’ Nicholas said. He had stepped from the bed. His face, glimpsed in the firelight, looked strange; a composition of dislike and amusement, or even just a freakish effect of the shadows. Then he was outside the door, talking quietly to Govaerts. He turned and spoke in the same subdued voice to her. ‘I have to leave. I shall probably sleep in the office. So you are going to stay?’
She looked round the room, before she realised what he referred to. She said, ‘In the house in the High Street. Oh, yes.’ Something white on the bed caught her eye.
‘The note I told you about,’ Nicholas said. ‘From the King. With his especial good wishes. Good night. You have made the right decision, I’m sure.’
He left with Govaerts. She thought he was smiling. She prepared to take herself to her room. She felt a fool, in her heavy skirts and long sleeves and rolled hair while all sane people were sleeping. She crossed to the bed to take up the paper.
The pillow was wet. All along the depression where he had lain, the linen was grey with cold moisture from which arose a faint, costly scent. The paper, when she lifted it, was dimpled with moisture as well. She carried it to the fire in order to read it.
She had expected a letter. It seemed, instead, to represent an exhortation, perhaps to a son going abroad:
Avoid dampness. Thy room should possess a north window, and a juniper fire. Choose to consume fowl of all kinds, and quench thy thirst with almond water, or a little sweet wine, poker-heated. Avoid milk, and refrain from partaking of cheese, or of paté, or vegetables. Sleep for seven or eight hours; less in winter. Be merry: eschew contention and anger, and pay special heed to the gut, which requires rest for seven hours after food. When the hour of consummation is come, teach thyself to linger in preparation, and to recognise when preparation is ended. In parting, assume infinite care; so that two hours shall pass in the most expedient and lofty position. When all is done, keep thy bed for three days
.
There were two paragraphs more.
Reject the mixtures of charlatans. Instead, take some hare meat and sugar and tooth dust, and serve with one testicle, chopped, from a wolf. That on his right side will make thee a son, whilst thou must eat of his left for a daughter
.
And:
Should all fail, change thy country; for some cities can cure barren women
.
It
was
an exhortation, of a kind. It was advice. Advice on how to conceive her next child.
She threw the paper into the fire. Then she went and sank by the wet, scented sheets and clenched her hands, because they were shaking.
Chapter 13
W
EEPING MOTHER WITH
two screaming children, the King’s elder sister arrived that same night on a Burgundian ship, and the waves of news rollicked about like the gouts from a bath-stall. The next morning, betimes (so they said), the Princess and her household were fetched to the Castle and put into her old rooms in David’s Tower, although the walls reeked of smoke and there were white footprints all over the stairway.
A Council meeting was called, and after that, the King sent for the man who had sailed in with the bairns and his sister: Anselm Adorne, the Duke of Burgundy’s counsellor. He also called for the other Burgundian, Nicol de Fleury, him that was to blame for the King’s sore head this morning, and a deal else, the callant. But Nicol had gone out of town, so it seemed, no one knew where. That was a lad.
Anselm Adorne, for his part, stoically endured the disaster. He had no alternative. But for Nicholas and the Boyd family, the Baron Cortachy might have made this return glorious, with his first-hand reports of the lands he had visited and his gracious letters from princes. And but for the death of the Pope, his handsome son Jan would have been with him, to present on one knee the book of their travels so painfully written, now encased in velvet and jewels and dedicated to King James himself.