Gemini

  John was still masking his face with one hand. He wiped his lips with the back of the other. Nicholas said, ‘You saw what I didn’t see. He doesn’t want to be a merchant; he wants the excitement of war. You gave him back his dream, for a bit, and he came close to trying for it. If he decides against it, then it’s his own decision, not yours or mine.’

  ‘Based on a piece of play-acting,’ Tobie said. He sneezed furiously.

  Kathi said, ‘But we are all acting, Robin included. We’re pretending to attitudes that haven’t yet come about, to bridge the gap until they do come about. Do you think Robin doesn’t know the trials, the humiliation that his dream would really entail? Now he has an excuse to stay. Now Nicholas must make sure that he creates a life for him that makes it worth while. War has a lot of different faces. Chivalry is one of them. Teaching is another.’

  ‘I could help,’ John le Grant said. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Nicol, the hurt that ye cause.’

  ‘It was probably the only way,’ Kathi said. ‘But though we’ll all help, it’s Nicholas who will have to take the responsibility for Robin. And for himself. I gather you are grinding the faces of the poor once again?’

  ‘It was havers,’ said John. ‘I knew it was. I just thought he was making it up to punish Robin. And, by God, it did.’

  Nicholas was looking at Kathi. She said, ‘Robin was badly upset. But mainly because he was the cause of your quarrel. You can put that right.’ She paused. ‘Why don’t we bring him in here? Tobie can take John away for something strong in a flask. And I might even go with them.’

  This time it was Tobie who was trying to send worried signals. Nicholas heaved a sigh and achieved a small nod. Running an overdue personal check, he registered a splinted left arm, two bandaged hands, a pad at the side of his head and something truly terrible when he breathed, which was presumably another lot of cracked ribs. There was also a motley assortment of throbs and pangs from bruised flesh and strained muscles. The idiot had kicked him.

  Of course he had. Nicholas had asked for it. The whole thing had got out of hand, that was all. John said, ‘I’ve made you the same as him.’

  Nicholas said, ‘We all got into his hell for a short time. My fault, if you want to award points. Now we’re all going to get out. Including Robin.’

  ROBIN SAID, ‘You don’t mind my lying here?’

  The others had gone, and Nicholas had wakened to find himself still in John’s bed, propped with pillows, and Robin of Berecrofts equally propped at his side, gazing at him with his earnest schoolboy face and fall of fine hair and pellucid eyes. He wore shirt and hose, whereas Nicholas wore hose and bandages. There was a foot of space between them. The bed was a Genoese four-poster, its carvings running to cherubs. The hangings were silk, and all round the tester pranced dimpled infants with wreaths and pert fundaments. Robin said, ‘You look terrible.’

  There was something in his voice. Nicholas looked at him. Robin added, ‘I hope John apologised.’ The candlelight flared, and his eyes glinted.

  Nicholas said, ‘So did you. You took it bloody seriously at the time.’

  ‘Then I hadn’t had a chance to think,’ Robin said. ‘Of course, it wasn’t true, about the business deals. You wanted to stop me from leaving, and you were right. I didn’t think what it would mean to Kathi and her uncle. Even to John. He was only going to go back for my sake. Now he’ll stay.’

  It hadn’t worked. Robin was too clever, or too clear-sighted, or both. Nicholas said, ‘We could play it all over again, with a different ending. I pulverise John, and you rush back to Flanders, revolted. John follows, Tobie follows, Adorne follows, and you all join Gregorio in Venice and become wealthy.’

  ‘No,’ said Robin. He was smiling a little.

  Nicholas shifted, then stopped. ‘You all join Julius in Cologne?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Simon de St Pol, harvesting grapes in Madeira? Now there,’ said Nicholas, ‘is a future for anyone who likes to lie in the sun being hated. Don’t smile. I render jokes from an abyss of guilt. Whatever you decide, I shall feel responsible and you will resent it.’

  ‘I have resented kindness,’ said Robin. ‘And love. I might do it again. But not now. Not when you’re here with your arm smashed because of some daft—’ He broke off, but recovered at once. ‘So what do you suggest? I am going to stay. It makes you feel guilty. What are you going to do about that?’

  ‘Enable you to do whatever you really want to do,’ Nicholas said. ‘Gambling? Drinking? Women? There is a whole world of activity that is not yet beyond you, so far as I know. And if you’re interested in war, so is the King. Adorne may be invited on to the Council. You will hear a lot discussed in your father’s house that has nothing to do with trade.’ He shifted again. It didn’t help.

  ‘I shall present you,’ said Robin, ‘with an agenda. Meanwhile, if you would stop talking, we could make a start with the ale. The tankards are on your side and the bottles on mine, but we each have one good arm, and should manage.’

  At first, they crossed swaddled limbs with some caution; the drinking was not without mishap, but contained moments of ritual elegance: the sacred ibis in slow dance with its partner. By the time the second bottle was empty, they had become more ambitious. Nicholas’s two feet brought a fiddle back to the mattress. With Nicholas wielding the bow, and Robin pressing the strings, they got some tavern choruses out of it, sung by Robin to spare Nicholas’s violated rib-cage. Then Nicholas returned from John’s travelling chest with his praying forearms full of glittering prizes: a whistle; two bits of plate-armour for cymbals; a tambour effected from a chamberpot and some lead hackbut pillocks. He stuck John’s helmet back to front on Robin’s head, with the green feathers tickling his nose, and put on the earrings John always carried in case he met somebody. He banged on things and Robin carolled. They had both forgotten how late it was, and didn’t hear Tobie at first when he opened the door, rather red in the face, and shouted at them.

  Robin, always courteous, expressed his apologies and allowed himself to be conveyed, still talking, back to his room, where he advised Nicholas to go home, since Gelis would worry.

  ‘We sent to tell her,’ said Kathi. ‘Tobie will give him a bed for the night. Are those John’s things? His whistle?’

  ‘Christ. They once were,’ said John, who had also appeared. His face was still worn, but had recovered, oddly, some of its usual character. ‘I don’t want the whistle.’

  ‘You do,’ said Kathi, slapping it into his hands. ‘And your leg-armour. And your … How many bottles of that ale have you drunk?’

  ‘None,’ said John, aggrieved. ‘And it was mine.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Kathi said. ‘Nicholas, say good night to Robin.’

  ‘Good night to Robin,’ said Nicholas. He was standing, by now, his wrapped paws in the air. He said, ‘I could shake feet.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Robin. ‘You couldn’t even stand on one leg. Take your cracked ribs and go.’

  He looked up and Nicholas looked down, both of them flushed; and for a moment, their eyes met and held. Then Nicholas went; and Tobie with him; and John. Kathi retired to her room, while one of Robin’s two capable servants prepared him for the night and then left. Then she came back to see how he was. The sight of him, pink and happy and bright-eyed, made her smile. He said, ‘Come to bed.’

  When his wound was still raw, they had not shared the same bed. Later, he sometimes lay in her arms through his nightmares, but his greatest need often was privacy. Since he was wounded, he had never spoken like that.

  Kathi said, ‘I was hoping you’d ask. After all that finger-work, do you think you could help pull this off?’

  It was only a taffeta night-robe, its embroidered edges held by a clasp, soon undone. If she knelt by the bed, one gentle hand could (and did) smooth the light stuff from her shoulders, and the same throbbing touch could (and did) draw it down and down, when she stood.

  It dropped. The mellow light o
f the candles curtseyed once, and then played, bright as the flute, on the slight, bare body of Kathi Sersanders, cream and brown, with the silvery marks from two births on her skin. Only two.

  ROBIN HAD BEGUN to breathe quickly. The smile had gone from his eyes.

  KATHI SAID, ‘I know what you know. I know what I want. May I take it?’

  HE SPOKE HER name.

  WHEN SHE TOUCHED the sheet at his throat, he caught her wrist, then slowly released it. She drew the white linen down, ushering the travelling light over his smooth, moulded skin. Her own body shared in its radiance.

  WHEN HE PULLED her close with his arm, the kiss that followed was the kiss of their marriage night. And with all the tenderness of their marriage night, she cared for her husband; and he for her.

  Chapter 14

  His richt hand furth to welcum and to call,

  And in his left hand breid and wyne withall.

  FOR A SHORT while, with the greatest reluctance, Nicholas de Fleury arrived punctually at all his appointments.

  Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, was welcomed at Court and confirmed in his current possessions. He was given additionally, by the Queen, a small, profitable concession connected with her Palace at Linlithgow, and received permission to build a modest mill at the east end of that town, to the profit of himself and the convenience of the tenants of the King’s farms. He was invited by the King to appear as a guest judge at the November sitting of the Lords of Council in Civil Causes. Departing from Roslin, Lord Cortachy adopted rooms in his nephew’s large house in the Canongate, accompanied by his nephew’s associate Andro Wodman, the official Scots Conservator, with whom Adorne would now work in tandem. His daughter, Efemie, was placed in the care of a nun and a wet-nurse at Haddington, on the earnest instructions of the Queen, and Crackbene’s wife, Ada.

  MISTRESS BEL OF Cuthilgurdy left Edinburgh, and rode west to see Jordan de St Pol at his castle of Kilmirren, Renfrewshire.

  She was not well received. The porter, whom she did not know, at first returned to say, a little perfunctorily, that his lordship was away.

  ‘Oh, indeed?’ said Bel, who might be wee, fat and grey, but who had a tail of four armed men at her back, and a tongue like a graver. ‘And who’s that, pray, who was keeking out of yon top window a minute ago, like the wae combless capon he is?’

  ‘The demoiselle is mistaken,’ said the man. ‘I am sorry. It is always best to send word in advance.’

  ‘Aye. If I’d sent word in advance, he wouldna be here. Aweel. Do we fire off our hackbuts, or just take you in with us with a knife at your neck?’

  ‘Bel?’ Across the courtyard, the monumental person of the lord of Kilmirren himself had arrived in the doorway.

  The porter turned. ‘My lord! I am dealing with this!’

  The fat man descended the steps. ‘If you go on, I am afraid she will kill you.’ He walked over. ‘Let me give you some instructions for the future. If Mistress Bel of Cuthilgurdy appears on the road without warning again, you are to ring the alarm, send a courier to the sheriff of Renfrew, and call out the local militia. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the porter, who was a highly trained soldier and did not enjoy being dragged into a family joke.

  ‘Good. Come in, Bel. How kind of you to call. May I persuade you to honour us with a stay?’

  Bel of Cuthilgurdy turned her back on him and spoke to the porter. ‘Ye did quite right. He was anxious not to see me. But he’s right as well; if ye’d tried to stop me, I’d have got them to fire. What’s your name?’

  This time, she had his full attention. He said, ‘Oswald, my lady.’

  ‘Well, Oswald,’ she said. ‘If he turns ye off, you come to me.’

  INDOORS: ‘YOU CAME to purloin my staff. You see how my caution was justified,’ said the fat man. They were in the chamber she knew so well from the old days, when she had come across from her house to sit here with Jordan of St Pol and Lucia his daughter. And before that.

  Bel said, ‘What did he say? What did Nicholas say that so angered you?’

  The fat man sighed. Today, instead of his gown and swathed hat, he wore a cap over the long tangle of once-flaxen hair, and a linen shirt under his house-robe. He said, ‘I knew that was why you were here. When shall I ever persuade you that I cannot be angered by Claes? He may irritate me for the moment. He may inconvenience me, so that I take some pleasure in reprimanding him, in whatever degree the injury warrants. It is not impossible that I shall kill him one day, although I am increasingly moved to leave that task to the delectable David …’

  ‘Davie Simpson tried to kill me, the last time we met.’

  ‘But Wodman prevented him. Or the child’s bodyguard, as I remember. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Won’t it? Can you tell me to my face that you haven’t made a pact with Davie Simpson to harm Nicholas?’

  He gazed at her, mildly surprised. ‘Did de Fleury say that?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. I guessed, for I know you. It’s true?’

  The surprise changed to a display of mild pleasure. ‘Simpson thinks that it’s true. Otherwise we might have seen some rather crude, precipitate action. Now the circumstances are right, and I am quite content to leave the perpetration to David, God’s Darling.’

  ‘But will he let you do nothing?’ said Bel. ‘He helped lift the charges that let you come back to Scotland. He proved you didn’t stash away French money, someone else did.’

  ‘I wonder who?’ said St Pol.

  ‘It’s all past. But I know you. You’ve come back, and there’s nothing to do, and you’re restless. And Davie won’t leave you alone. Whatever he’s planning for Nicol, he’ll implicate you. You expelled him, remember.’

  ‘So what is he planning?’ said the fat man.

  Bel looked at him. ‘Ye ken what he’s doing. What Nicol did, for other reasons. The Court loves him. The King spends evenings with him at the lute or the dice; Mar goes whoring and hunting; the Princesses listen to French tales of illicit lovers, and let him translate Latin books he smuggles in for them. I’m told his delivery’s a treat. And away from Court, he’s using Newbattle to build himself a trading empire, so that he can invest the profits in land.’

  ‘It sounds familiar,’ St Pol said. ‘The Daffychino, would you say? He always thought he should be the head of my recent company. Fortunately, he hasn’t the brains.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Bel, ‘ye can do mair harm without brains than with them. If he brings you down, he brings Henry too. If he brings Nicholas down, he brings Jordan.’

  ‘Who, I am now told, resembles Nicholas more than he ever did. Henry is greatly relieved,’ St Pol said. ‘He always feared that Jordan was born of his father and Gelis. You were saying that Simpson is cultivating John of Mar?’

  ‘I was. And Mar—are ye surprised?—is pursuing a feud against Henry. If ye do nothing,’ said Bel, ‘ye’ll fall to Davie Simpson’s hand, one way or another, so soon as he’s got rid of Nicholas. And then he’ll step in, and add Kilmirren to Beltrees.’

  ‘Bel,’ said Jordan de St Pol. ‘As you know, I am a great admirer of your acumen. If possible, it improves with the years. I think your reading of the situation is flawless. I only wish to say that, if you have thought of it, then Claes certainly has. And that all you describe will only happen if Claes himself succumbs to David Simpson, which seems unlikely to me.’

  ‘Under normal circumstances, yes,’ Bel agreed. ‘But just at the moment, he’s as sharp as the Holy Dead. What with one thing and another.’

  ‘Of course. The cripple, and the all-too-vigorous helpmeet. Between the spearpoint and the sword-edge indeed. Are they subject to breeding impulses, do you think?’ asked the fat man. He had finished the mutchkin he had been drinking when she arrived. She had refused refreshment. ‘Is it merely a transient pairing, or are they proposing to multiply?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Mistress Bel shortly. ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘I thought I had told you,?
?? he said. ‘I wish my importunate Claes to be chastised. I am delegating the task to David Simpson. If it is beyond Simpson, he will die. If it is not beyond him, he will still die, for I shall kill him myself … What was it you said of me always? That I wasn’t worth the baptism water? And what are you worth, Mistress Bel? Standing on a revolving lectern, complaining? Have you told Claes anything?’

  ‘No,’ she said. Then she added, ‘I have told him my son’s dead.’

  His face changed. He said, ‘I should have begun—I failed to speak of it because of other things. Forgive me. I was very sorry.’ He paused and said, ‘Where will you live?’

  ‘At Stirling,’ she said. ‘And in Edinburgh at your house, if I may.’

  ‘Or here,’ he said. ‘Simpson will not sell back your own, but there are—what shall I call them?—the family rooms here.’

  ‘You may need them,’ she said, ‘if Simon comes back.’

  ‘He won’t,’ he said. ‘I have forbidden him.’

  She said, ‘Then why don’t you go back to Madeira yourself? You need a business to run.’

  ‘I also like watching puppets,’ he said. ‘Tell that to your friend Claes, when you see him.’

  ‘And what else?’ said Bel. ‘You never said what you’d do if Davie died, and Nicholas didn’t.’

  ‘God at his eye-window knows,’ said Kilmirren. ‘I haven’t decided. I like to surprise myself.’

  ‘I THINK,’ SAID Gelis, ‘you should do something about Davie Simpson. Are you as uncomfortable as you look?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Nicholas. ‘No, that’s worse. I am doing something about Davie Simpson.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What he’s doing to me. Upsetting his schemes where I can.’