Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
His voice had become very quiet, for which Nicholas was thankful. He let time pass, and not only because he was feeling unwell. Eventually he said, ‘Scotland couldn’t afford it.’
Then Willie Roger looked round and said, ‘Well, you’d better get down, if that’s what beer does to you, and get rid of it.’ He waited and said, ‘What’s wrong? It wasn’t your fault. There is nothing you can do for them.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas angrily. The anger was not against Willie Roger but himself, because when he made a plan, he liked to stick to it.
In honour of a few of his other plans, he sent a message, before he
presented himself at Court, to Mistress Clémence at the house in the High Street. At the Castle, he was taken immediately to the monarch’s private apartments in David’s Tower. He was received in the room with the canopied chair and grandiose fireplace, generally used to impress personal heralds and foreign magnates of the medium rank.
Beside the King was his brother Sandy, suitably sobered and changed into jewel-buttoned velvet, as was Nicholas. Seated elsewhere in the room were my lord of Caithness, once Earl of Orkney, Lord Hamilton, and his own landlord, Semple of Elliotstoun. Among the King’s chamber men standing behind was Andro Wodman, Scottish Archer. The Queen was not present, nor was the King’s brother John, Earl of Mar. Nicholas made his required bows and waited, while the King examined him from the chair.
James, Third of the Name, would be twenty quite soon, and the months were firming his face and lining the over-dry skin, though he still sat on his cushion like a youth who preferred tilting or hunting to dealing with papers and numbers. Since the Play, his way of speaking to Nicholas had changed, but it was five weeks and more since they had met.
He said, ‘Master Nicholas of the Unicorn, we warn you to have regard for our nails. Every nail in this room has been counted.’ He then burst into laughter, politely echoed by the elders in the room, although Sandy, origin of the anecdote, merely grinned.
Nicholas said, ‘Sire, your nails are the Nails of Divinity, sacrosanct as those pinning Thor’s shrine. I bring you a gift, which I have left in the hands of your steward; and also news of a good venture.’
‘A gift?’ said the King, and waved to have it brought in. It was a pretty sight: white fox furs and swan feathers. It was of course designed to pass from the King to the Queen. Then that was over, and they let him sit down and relate the long tale of the voyage. He was good at it by now.
With James, the gift; then the story; then the business. The lords, aware of what was necessary, were patient as well. Only at the end did Nicholas describe his cargo, and William Sinclair sat up. ‘Fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of stockfish!’
‘Thanks to you, my lord. Without the dogger and yoles, it could not have been done in the time. The fish are already dried, and fit to travel anywhere. I have unloaded what was ordered at Leith, and the rest is already on its way.’
‘And you say there was no trouble?’ said James.
‘The Hanse ship was not, of course, happy with the situation, but I was able to arrange, I think, that there will be no complaint. It has returned to Bergen with a full cargo.’
‘And the other ships?’
‘The Baron Cortachy’s ship, the
Unicorn
, was somewhat resented by the Hanse and also by the Icelanders, but managed to escape, as you know, with a load of sulphur. I rather think,’ Nicholas said, ‘that an accommodation had been reached with the local officials, and in particular with the Bishop. I did not pursue it. One would not wish to offend the Church. I am not sure, however, if they would be welcome again.’
‘And the English were pirates and cannot complain. While you, of course, had our personal sanction in our capacity as a son of Denmark. That may now be ratified.’
‘My lord,’ agreed Nicholas humbly.
‘And the share of fish we agreed on be apportioned.’
‘My lord, it has been arranged already. Also, the ship will be yours as soon as she has delivered her cargo. I am honoured to think that she comes to you bearing a victory.’
‘Ah,’ said the King. He looked about. No one spoke. He said, ‘You are a Burgundian, but your Bank’s clients belong to no single country. You lease your army to Duke Charles, but it has done little that I have heard of. A whisper has reached me that you have been received at the French Court, and have even discussed a possible contract.’
‘I rarely listen to rumours, my lord King,’ Nicholas said. ‘But it is true that I try not to discriminate. You are speaking, perhaps, about Brittany?’
‘You have heard of our own glorious plans,’ said the King. He was flushed. ‘We have always hoped, as you know, to lead an army this summer to France to aid King Louis in taking back his Dukedom of Brittany. Now Parliament has voted the money, and the Lord Monypenny has come to assure us that in return for our help, a portion of Brittany will be ours. Your ship, therefore, is of great value to us.’
‘I am honoured,’ Nicholas said.
‘But equally,’ said the King, ‘there are new financial commitments which I had hardly contemplated when we spoke of this last. Briefly, I have no money with which to pay you.’
Nicholas manufactured an expression of pain. It was not very hard. He added some meekness, and a good deal of perplexity. He said, ‘Then, my lord, I do not know what to propose.’ He didn’t suggest waiving the price. The King knew what he owed him already, and so did he.
There was a silence. Then Semple said, ‘My lord King. If I might make a suggestion?’
There was no such thing as walking alone down the High Street to
his house. Apart from the escort which had already attached itself to him, he had accumulated a scurrying crowd by the time he came to his front door, and had to waste time answering questions and throwing remarks to them all. Then he managed to enter. The porter knew him these days. He did not try to see Gelis, but went at once to the rooms where Jordan was.
The boy was there and awake; the nurse had got his message. The boy rose very slowly from his play and stood looking, unsmiling. It was the first time Nicholas had seen his eyes full of anger. He thought that they had probably succeeded, if the child felt sufficiently safe to show what he felt. He felt the gaze of the nurse on his face.
The child’s skin was sprinkled with blotches. Nicholas said nothing of them, but kept his own face open and pleasant, dropping comfortably on his hunkers. He said, ‘Maman kept telling and telling me to come back. I should do what I am told.’
‘I do what I’m told,’ Jordan said. After a while he said, ‘What were you doing?’
‘I was buying fish for the King,’ Nicholas said. ‘I saw a white bear and some falcons. If I didn’t have to come home, I could have caught one for you.’
‘I could catch a falcon,’ said Jordan.
‘Could you? Then perhaps you should come with me next time. All I could get you was this. I had a horse. This was my whip. See, the handle is carved from the bone of a beast called a whale. Hold it.’
Jordan held it. The horsehair, dangling, lay on the floor. He moved it up and down, hissing. Mistress Clémence said, ‘Master Jordan rode with the family at Dean Castle. He had to borrow a whip.’
The wooden horse he had painted was quite near. Nicholas perched on its back and said, ‘Come. Show me how the whip works.’
Soon after that, the child settled quite naturally on his knee, and began to ask the first questions, and then to chatter. Mistress Clémence moved back and forth, fetching milk for them both, and poking the brazier, and finally sending Pasque for the tub and undressing the boy for his bath while the conversation went on. Then at last, sitting wrapped in a towel on his father’s knee, Jordan said, ‘Poem.’
Nicholas said, ‘I like hearing poems.’
‘Poem,’ said Jordan. And struggling down, he stood, breathing heavily, and recited.
It was a long poem, and although he hesitated once, he remembered it all.
Nicholas stared at him with vast and clown-like astonishment. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is the longest, finest, best-spoken poem I have ever heard. Are you really Jordan de Fleury?’
‘Yes!’ said the child. He jumped up and down, making noises.
‘Yes, you must be. And here is Mistress Clémence so proud, and I am proud, and so will maman be, when I tell her. And now I suppose I will have to take you sailing with me on my new ship? Do I have to?’
‘Yes!’ shouted the boy.
‘With me and maman and Mistress Clémence and Pasque?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ screamed the boy.
‘And what do you think the ship should be named? What is my name? What is your name? Should the ship be called the
Fleury?’
‘He will never sleep,’ the nurse said, over the squeals.
‘Yes, he will,’ Nicholas said. ‘For we are not going sailing just yet, and I am going to bed too, and in the morning I shall still be here, and I shall come and see him.
If
he has gone to sleep.’
He saw the boy placed in his bed, and the nurse followed him out of the room. She said, ‘He is very young to take on rough seas.’
He smiled. ‘I’m not proposing to go back to Iceland, Mistress Clémence. I hope you have no objection to a summer in the Low Countries, while I look after some business. My wife will be with us, and my step-daughters will be near, among others. He can have a pony, if you think he is ready for one. But there is time to plan: we shall be here for another three weeks at least.’
‘He is a good boy,’ she said.
‘I can see that. And you have been a good friend to him. Thank you.’
She went back into the room. Limping, to the head of the stairs, he thought again how skilful she was at not asking questions. He hoped she didn’t really know how he was feeling. And now he had to go and see Gelis.
He took out a lion, tossed it, and clapped it on the back of his hand. A sound made him look up. Mistress Clémence, bearing a lamp, had emerged from the boy’s door again and was looking at him with curiosity. He said, ‘Face or pellet?’
‘Face,’ she said at once.
It was face. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I have to stay sober.’
Gelis was reading. Gelis was wearing a night-robe he had cause to recognise, and had unbound her hair, so that it fell over the silk, wheat on ivory. Her skin was flushed from the warmth of the brazier, and the lamp on its stand at her side glowed on the cushions, the carvings, her thin-fingered hand on the vellum. She wore several costly and beautiful rings. The lamp-oil was scented.
‘You should try halibut-oil,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or fulmar. Very easy to repel people with fulmar. Were you expecting Simon or someone?’
Her eyes were
jökull
colour, and patient. ‘This is how I always retire. You wouldn’t know.’
‘And that is true,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have just told Mistress Clémence that we shall be leaving for Flanders by the end of April. I have to see to the business and settle Astorre.’
‘I hope you asked her if the arrangement would suit her?’ Gelis said. ‘She is an excellent woman.’
‘I did, and she has agreed. You have no option,’ said Nicholas, taking a seat uninvited. ‘Apart from anything else, I hear that the good vicomte de Ribérac has set free his impetuous son. Simon could be back in Scotland by May.’
The artifical surprise covered, he thought, a real one. She said, ‘I thought you didn’t mind if we resumed our affair?’
The doublet irked his bruised skin: he pulled open some of the buttons and relaxed, clasping the cords of his shirt to his chest. ‘I thought he wanted to kill you,’ he said. ‘But you may have more recent advice. In any case, I’d prefer to be present. In the same country, that is. Otherwise people would watch you too closely.’
‘So he and I have to wait until winter?’ she said. ‘That seems a little unfair, after last night. Who was she?’
‘The connection of a frequenting man. No one you know. It was all done, as I said, for your benefit. May we move on to some planning?’
‘You are lying. Why?’ she said.
In fact, he was not. He stared at her until he thought her colour changed. Then he said, ‘Why was that so important? It doesn’t trouble me when you lie. You detest Simon, and if you aren’t frightened of him, you ought to be. You made him look like an idiot.’
‘But you’ll protect me when we come back in the autumn. Don’t you know,’ Gelis said, ‘how hatred and love come together? It might be dangerous.’
‘I know,’ he said. It was a general affirmation. It amused him to see that it made her first flush, and then become very pale. Then he turned the talk to the humdrum matters of their exit from Scotland and he saw her engage her intelligence. She understood the importance of Burgundy to their future. The supreme importance, if the Duke were to obtain the sovereignty that he wished, and the Emperor were to support him. Then bankers would come into their own.
At the end he stood with an effort. ‘Thank you. I must go to bed.’
‘You are short of sleep.’ She rose also. ‘How do you know you can afford a new house in Bruges? Beltrees must have emptied your purse, and I don’t see the King rushing to repay your investments in Scotland.’
‘Ah. You saw Beltrees,’ he said. ‘I am sure Bel displayed all its advantages. How shall I pay? You forget the stockfish.’
‘But,’ Gelis said, ‘that depends on the market at Bruges. And Bruges is nervous over the Hanse, and might even refuse a cargo of pirated fish which has deprived the Hanse and cheated the King of Denmark of his taxes.’ Her voice was mild, and her eyes were
jökull
colour again.
He said, ‘Bruges refuse me?’
‘Bruges. Reinforced by the opinion of one of the Duke of Burgundy’s principal councillors, and of the new Conservator of the Scots Privileges in Bruges. A recent appointment by James your young royal friend,’ Gelis explained. She refolded the robe at her breasts and shook out her sleeves with elegant care. ‘Conveying, as you know, remarkable powers and perquisites. Stephen Angus will continue at Middleberg, but the new Conservator at Bruges is Adorne.’
Cold as
jökull
ice. Hot as the inferno beneath it. He said slowly, ‘I didn’t know.’
‘It was arranged as he left. The documents have been drawn up to ratify it. Everything you now sell between Scotland and Bruges will be subject to the Baron Cortachy’s scrutiny. You have lost your Flemish market.’