‘I wish I’d been there,’ Henry said. ‘Your army would have helped: you should have brought them. I remember Captain Astorre: you set me to train under him. How is he? And the gunner, John, wasn’t it? He taught me all I know about guns.’
This was true. In return for which, Henry had tried to blow him up, and Nicholas too. As he had tried to kill—
‘And Jodi,’ Henry said fondly. ‘How is your little son Jodi? If you aspire to place him with the Guard, I should be happy to teach him. He is a brave fighter, I’m sure, and could look after himself even in a rough country like Scotland. Ah! Here we are.’
And not before time. A different kind of assault was under way. But he was committed to his own, private injunction: to subdue his personal feelings; to recognise what forced the other to act as he did; to put himself, as ever, in another man’s place. And if he could see into the heart of a stranger, he could surely fathom this, the damaged son of Katelina van Borselen.
The servant who opened the door was not one of Bel’s. The man stood aside as if he were used to the way Henry brushed past unspeaking, making for the door that led to the parlour. It was a handsome, two-storeyed house with a thatched roof and a curved outside stair. It was built facing the causeway, on the slope of Castle Hill, with behind it a long, shelving garden. At the bottom of that was the Nor’ Loch where Gelis might have died, one icy winter, through the self-willed machinations of Simon de St Pol, man of impulse, like Henry. Impulsive as Simon’s far cleverer father, fat Jordan, was not.
It was very quiet. The servant, after hurrying, had left him. The door had closed behind Henry. Then it opened and Henry stood there, as he had stood in the guard house, straight and fair and defiant. He said, ‘My grandfather is here. He wishes to see you.’
Nicholas said, ‘It’s all right.’
‘Well, of course it is,’ Henry said. He backed, and Nicholas walked past him and into the parlour. Henry shut the door and stood still, his gloved hand on his sword, his chin up, as if on guard for his grandfather.
It was not a large room, and Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren was the only other soul in it. The stoutness that had come with his wealth had increased over the years since he had lived in France and fought for the King, father of the present King Louis. At seventy he was gross, his bloated chins swathed in the scarves of an old-fashioned hat, his gown falling in opulent folds from massive shoulders, his thick fingers heavily ringed. Seated in a high-backed deal settle, he seemed to occupy all the space and all the air, like a portly illumination: a painted initial on vellum. Our Father. It was no wonder that Simon and Henry were afraid of him.
His eyes, deep in the glossy cheeks, gazed at Nicholas. ‘Are you disappointed? You hoped to come and quarrel privately with Henry.’
‘I can do that any time,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. He told me you were here. I am willing to quarrel with both of you, if you insist, but it was not my intention.’
‘A social visit, no more?’ the fat man said. ‘How inexplicable. Did I not draw blood, the last time we met, all those years ago? And you responded by disarranging my livelihood. But as you see, I am back, and not inconvenienced.’
‘That was why I came,’ Nicholas said. ‘To put it to you that the sheet is now balanced, and there seems no need for further scoring or friction. I am willing to let the past rest.’ He crossed to a stool opposite the old man and sat. At the door, Henry cleared his throat. The old man sat staring at Nicholas. Beneath those cold eyes, he felt his face throb, quelling the incautious aspirations of his features. It was a handicap, losing his face, and making do with a collection of bruises, an inflamed eye and a discoloured cheek, down which ran the thin seam of a scar that both he and the fat man knew all about.
The fat man laughed, saliva issuing to rest on his lip. He said, ‘Does the trumpet decide to blow truce, or lie like a clod, waiting the lips of its master? My dear Nicholas! You have no power to end the friction, except conceivably by cutting your throat. If I ever tire of it, I shall tell you. Meanwhile you must manage your life as best you can. Bring your wife and your child, and let us see who survives. That is what you want to know, isn’t it?’
‘Very well,’ Nicholas said. ‘You relish the feud. Simon doesn’t greatly enjoy it but, being your son, feels committed to waging it. You think that will not change. But I suggest that my son and your grandson should be kept out of it.’
‘You would send Jodi away?’ said the fat man with exaggerated surprise. ‘Force him to live away from the new marriage-bed of his parents? How surprising, by the way, that crude little reunion was. And what of poor Henry’s new lucrative post? He is to leave it so that you may feel safe while you deal with—let me see, who are all your other ill-wishers? John, Earl of Mar, for a certainty. And David Simpson for another, whom I had to expel from my business. Tell me, are you going to ask them to be your friends also?’
Henry laughed. He moved from the door and sat down, studying Nicholas as if counting the marks of his failures. He said, ‘I want to see you begging for the kiss of reconciliation from Johndie Mar.’
‘Did you think I was begging?’ Nicholas said.
The fat man turned his eyes.
Henry said, ‘I heard you beg us not to hurt that little turd Jodi. You’re afraid of my father and grandfather.’ There was the curl of a smile at his mouth.
Nicholas said, ‘I was also promising not to hurt you.’
‘And you think you could!’ Henry said. His dense blue eyes shone at his grandfather.
His grandfather sighed, and made a small, cursory sign. Henry, puzzled but willing, jumped up to bring out cups and some wine. He poured, glancing up at the old man, but the old man was examining his rings. When the three cups were full, Nicholas was given one. He said, ‘Poison?’ It sounded grim, which was the way he was feeling. Grim, and sore.
‘I was tempted,’ said St Pol of Kilmirren. ‘Drink. Look, the child does not understand, even yet.’
Erect and muscular in the embroidered cloth and glittering armour of the Royal Guard, Henry de St Pol stood and gazed at his grandfather. He said, ‘I am sorry, my lord? You are not, I assume, speaking of me.’ His face was drained.
The fat man glanced up and waved him away. ‘Chut! Don’t play-act with me because someone at Court needed money and was willing to sell a man’s place to a boy. Do you not understand what this fellow is saying?’
‘De Fleury?’ said the youth. So far as he knew, clearly, Nicholas hadn’t said anything. And, of course, to anyone less sharp-witted than Jordan, he hadn’t.
Nicholas said, ‘Your grandfather has realised that I know you tried to kill me at Bonnington. From which you will gather that he also must know.’
A tremor ran through the boy. He looked down, and then away, at the window. He drew a long breath to speak.
Nicholas said, ‘There is proof. Wodman also knows. No one else.’
The old man still did not speak. Henry stole a glance at him. Henry said, ‘He thrashed me in France. He made the van Borselens disown me. He killed my aunt. He had you sent out of France. He made us all go to Madeira. None of you ever did anything.’
‘Does it seem so?’ said Jordan. ‘I am sorry. As I have been trying to indicate, I mean to do my best to make up for it. Or intended to. But do you see what you have done, once again? You have taken an unwise, unauthorised step, without proper advice. It has failed, you have been caught and, as a result, we are all once more in thrall to this man. He denounces you, and you are dead.’
‘But he hasn’t,’ said Henry. He looked at Nicholas.
‘And provided you all keep the peace, then I won’t. The kiss of reconciliation,’ Nicholas said. His unforgiving stare rested on Jordan.
Jordan said, ‘You have a strange iron cage of a mind, have you not, which enjoys laying traps? If I knew it, I should probably savour the detail of this one. So you have proof that poor Henry waylaid and tried to kill you. You will publish it unless what?’
‘This feud will stop,’ Nich
olas said. ‘Will stop. No more lives will be lost. And, as from now, Henry will combine his post with another. The shifts are easy; he is allowed to live partially elsewhere. So when he is not on duty, he will live with me. And when he is not serving the King, he will train as my factor.’
‘What!’ said Henry. He had his sword in his hand.
‘Put up, you fool!’ said his grandfather. And to Nicholas, ‘Henry is the heir to Kilmirren. The estate will need him, and that is where his training should be.’
‘The estate will have him,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hardly mean to keep him for ever. As it is, I don’t suppose he’ll average more than a few days in my house every week. But with a training by me, I promise you he will be able to run anything, anywhere, better than he does now.’
‘So you are staying?’ said St Pol. He suddenly lifted and drank off his wine. Nicholas had not set hand to his.
‘For a while,’ Nicholas said. ‘It depends.’ He looked up at Henry, suddenly standing between them.
Henry said, ‘So it’s settled? Two old women carve out my future. You didn’t ask me? Some byblow wants me as his lackey, and my father’s father tosses me over, like a husk to a pig. Well, I won’t do it. And when my lord Simon comes home, you’ll be sorry.’
Nicholas rose. ‘I think,’ he said to Jordan de St Pol, ‘that I had better leave him to you. I shall send a messenger in a day or two to find out when he can begin. If, that is, my lord of Kilmirren agrees?’
‘You haven’t drunk your wine,’ the fat man said. ‘That you drink it is my only condition. I have no other choice, have I, my serpentine Nicholas?’
Nicholas lifted and drained off his wine. It wasn’t poison, and he felt better for it. He said, ‘No. I trust that you don’t.’
Henry trembled. On his way to the door, Nicholas turned. ‘You will be asked to do nothing demeaning.’
‘Speaking to you is demeaning,’ Henry said.
Chapter 4
And for a man, abone all bestis liffand,
Off his barnis has maist the cur on hand
To norys, honour, to cleith and thaim to feid.
WODMAN SAID, ‘YOU’RE crazy. He’ll kill you.’
‘No, he won’t, you’ll stop him,’ Nicholas said. ‘You did get the proofs?’ They were in the guest-house of the Abbey at Holyrood, arranging a bed for his worst enemy barring perhaps three. Wodman said, ‘I told you. We tracked down two of the amateur oystermen and reasoned with them until they gave us a notarised statement. You could lock up Henry on the strength of it now. I wish to God you would.’
He had a freshly cut lip. Nicholas quite enjoyed working with Wodman since it had become finally evident that Wodman had no designs on his life. He didn’t necessarily trust him over anything else, but he didn’t mind dealing with self-contained bastards like Wodman and Crackbene. He sometimes wondered what it would be like if he ever found himself reunited with the people he did trust … Kathi, and Robin, and Tobie, and Moriz and John. And Gelis, with whom the war, now ended, had never been real. The problem, latterly, had been that they didn’t trust him. And in any case, it was a weakness to surround oneself with a family when busy with difficult tasks. They were a distraction.
He wondered how Wodman managed for women, but knew he would never ask him. He realised why he was thinking the way he was thinking, and shut and locked that door in his mind. Wodman said, ‘Are you having second thoughts? Or maybe you want to train someone else? What about John of Mar?’
Nicholas said something offensive. As it happened, the comparison had already occurred to him: the spoiled princeling, the spoiled, wealthy brat. Of the two, you would say that there was more hope for Mar, whose upbringing had been controlled by the wise men who had done the same for his father. But Mar’s juvenile rebellions held something within them that should not have been there, whereas Henry, dragged up by Simon, was behaving as any boy would. And behind it all, as any boy would, he wanted the approval of Simon, whom he loved. And nothing must interfere with that.
He gave a snort of laughter, just because it was all so impossible, and, under Wodman’s corrosive eye, went off to talk to the masons. He had a journey to make. He hadn’t looked forward to making it, but as it was, things probably couldn’t get worse.
NICHOLAS HAD BEEN to Roslin Castle before, deep in its wooded glen in the loop of a river, ten miles south of Edinburgh. It was an opportunity not given to everybody. He qualified because he had made friends with Betha Sinclair and Phemie her cousin. Both were earls’ daughters. Both had helped to bring up the King’s sisters. Betha’s father owned Roslin.
Nicholas had been introduced to the family at Haddington Priory, not far away, where the female young of the royal house were traditionally brought up from childhood. Once, Kathi, Robin’s wife, had been a maid of honour there to the King’s little sister. Gelis, his own wife, had briefly attended the elder sister, now married. The Princesses’ mother, from Guelders, had been related to the rulers of Burgundy. Indeed, for centuries, the Crown of Scotland had intermarried with Flemish nobility, and Flemish courtiers had settled in Scotland. It was unremarkable that the royal household should embrace Flemish attendants, and that Burgundians should receive Scottish honours.
The Sinclairs accepted Nicholas, however, for quite different reasons. Ruthlessly successful in business themselves, they recognised exceptional ability in others, and had already shared in past years in some of his dealings, such as the rather satisfactory Icelandic coup. In more civilised mode, he knew a lot about manuscripts. Earl William had a fine library, supplemented from many sources, not least through the lords of Anjou. Nicholas de Fleury, ranging the world, had handled volumes in Greek and Latin and Arabic which the Earl intended to own. Lastly, de Fleury’s Bank had possessed its own army, implying a military expertise of some relevance to a family with holdings, even yet, in Orkney and the north-east.
Such were the reasons why Nicholas in the past had been allowed to enter the spectacular stronghold of William Sinclair, Earl of Caithness, now presided over by his son. And in his turn, it had suited Nicholas in those years to cultivate this valuable acquaintance, because the Sinclairs were close to the Crown. Indeed, Betha’s elder, unfortunate half-sister had been married for nearly three years to the Prince Alexander, Duke of Albany. That is, Sandy had two little half-Sinclair sons, as well as a third occasioned by chance.
Nicholas had not mentioned to Wodman where he was going. He felt that it would only have worried him.
On the other hand, after the oysters, he had no intention of travelling alone. It had not been difficult to persuade a work-party to alter its schedule and accompany him to Roslin, even at dusk. Builders were always visiting the unfinished chapel at Roslin, and he knew some of them anyway, from the times when he had been building himself. It made the journey short, because there was plenty to gossip about, and he had had their saddlebags packed with good ale.
By day, the easiest way to the castle was the low one, through the deep gorge and over the bridge by the waterfall that gave Roslin its name. In wintry darkness, a band of lightly inebriated masons chose the high path which skirted the valley and, passing hamlet and chapel, plunged down to the keep from above. The path did not go all the way: just before the castle doors, a chasm had been cut in the rock, offering monitored access by means of a high, vaulted bridge with a fifty-foot drop. There was also a turreted gatehouse with guards in it.
Boisterously delivering their charge to the bridge, his companions were abashed, not to say offended, to hear their gentleman Nicholas de Fleury, of lovable conversation and good fame, denied entrance—would ye credit it?—to the bloody castle? Some of them actually crowded into the gatehouse and tried to argue, but they were only chapel bairns, with no influence. At the final rebuff, after consultation, they put up a spokesman to invite Nicholas to pass the night in their cabins. Then, further inebriated by his acceptance, they all set off back up the slope, singing, with a man with a lantern in front.
Nicholas rem
embered the cabins, put up when the new church of St Matthew was started, and since grown into a small village for the wrights, the masons, the plasterers who were slowly perfecting it, at a speed dictated by the input of interest, money and indeed whimsy by the reigning Sinclairs of Roslin. The nave, not yet started, was meant to be ninety feet long, positing a church as big as St Giles. They had been building for thirty years and had got the choir nearly done, all forty feet of it. As they got to the top of the path he said, ‘Lights! Is someone working?’ And someone else said, ‘It’ll be Big Tam and his cutters. Ye mind Tam? He built ye Beltrees?’
He remembered Tam, too. Thomas Cochrane, master mason and architect who, for him, had transformed a crumbling keep into a handsome building, which Nicholas had relinquished, and which had subsequently been bought—deliberately bought—by David Simpson. Since then, it was said, lavish additions had been made, but not by Tam Cochrane. Nicholas wanted to meet Tam Cochrane again, and when he said so, his companions rollicked with him up to the church and deposited him there, with instructions to join them all later. Then they went off downhill, taking his horse. They had all started singing again, but he had stopped. Someone he thought he knew stepped out from the wooden wall that protected the building, and then went back inside without greeting him. When he walked slowly forward, stumbling over the rubble, he found the access door in the wall still ajar. He went in, and stopped in the fretted dark, feeling the building itself staring down at him. Then he moved forward to the deeper dark of the north door, and opened it, and took the single step down into the unfinished church.
He had been here before, too; although not at night. Viewing this, the interior of the chapel at Roslin, he had experienced, and recovered from, amazement and amusement, admiration and exasperation, and finally settled for good-natured acceptance. This ode to the Sinclairs, truncated at either end, aspirationally based on the plan of Solomon’s Temple, was not quite of the dimensions to carry the emblems with which it was loaded, coated and smothered, as in a kiosk in Tabriz. Except that here, you would say, the carvers had not been of uniform mind, or indeed of uniform training. The clustered shafts, the carved arcades, the canopied niches, the traceried windows, the figured and foliaceous capitals, the storeyed entablatures celebrated, as was to be expected, the triumphs of every known member of the family St Clair, since it left France to multiply in every promising corner of somebody else’s land it could reach, ending up several hundred years ago here.