Gemini

  The children had gone, with their nurses. Clémence, once Jodi’s nurse, was now Tobie’s.

  Clémence and he had no children. They did not discuss it. It was something much desired by them both, but if it did not happen, then Tobie’s life, for him, was still complete; and he thought it the same for Clémence. He wondered sometimes whether Nicholas would now extend the family begun abruptly so long ago, but began to think, as the months passed, that either deliberately or by chance, that door had been closed. He thought he understood. There was the threat posed by Simpson, of course. There was also the age of the children now living. Jodi would soon be nine years old. Henry was already grown, and on his way as a man. And in Germany there was someone else: a young maiden called Bonne, who was supposed to be the step-daughter of Julius, and who was being reared, by her own choice, in a convent. She might never emerge. Tobie hoped that she wouldn’t. He hoped that Nicholas might be allowed, now, to proceed with his life without Bonne, without Julius, without Simon de St Pol. Without more children, if that was what he wanted. Nicholas was his own gift to the world. He needed no replication, as Robin did. Or, as someone had said, the family he had was sufficient.

  The day, with all that it signified, came to a close. The day closed; the year turned; and the geese screamed, but no one heeded them, yet.

  Chapter 16

  First of the chekker sall be mencioun made,

  And syne efter of the proper moving

  Of euery man in ordour to his king.

  IN THRALL TO their purpose—that the kingdom of Scotland should be made and kindly wrought, as if it were a pair of gloves—the statesmen took note, or failed to take note, of the news that now came, filtered by distance, from the outside world.

  First of the great rulers to leave, that tall old man Uzum Hasan, Prince of Diarbekr, Lord of High Mesopotamia, chief of the White Sheep Tribe of the Turcomans, took to his bed and died on the Eve of Epiphany, upon which three of his sons immediately strangled their Christian-born half-brother. His motherless sisters escaped. Josaphat Barbaro, the dead ruler’s companion, fled in disguise and began to make his way home to Venice. Sultan Mehmet of Turkey gave praise.

  Kathi said, ‘You went there. At least you went there, Nicholas. It prolonged his life and saved others, that promise of help from the West.’

  ‘Ludovico da Bologna went there,’ Nicholas said. ‘According to rumour, he was asked to go back by the Pope after Russia. If he did, he’ll be dead.’

  ‘So what will happen?’

  ‘Ask your uncle,’ Nicholas said. ‘Venice will make peace, tellement quellement, with Turkey. It will mean competition for Genoa. Gelis?’

  ‘But opportunities for alum,’ Gelis said.

  THE BANK OF the Medici was the next of the great institutions to stagger. On Easter Day, in the Cathedral of Florence, the twenty-nine-year-old head of the Bank and his brother were attacked at Mass by assassins with some help from within, the pre-arranged signal being the elevation of the Host. Lorenzo de’ Medici escaped, but his brother died, as did Francesco Nori, who once represented the Bank in Geneva and Lyons. The killers were from the rival banking firm of the Pazzi, encouraged, it was said, by Pope Sixtus, who meant to confiscate the Medici wealth in the Papal States, and end their alum monopoly. Later, under pressure from France, the Medici decided to close their debt-burdened office in Bruges, which Tommaso Portinari had already abandoned in order to live in Milan. Offered the Bruges business on affordable terms, Tommaso declined. About the same time, by chance, another of the long-ago band of young foreign exiles in Bruges was doomed. Lorenzo Strozzi, smitten by a lingering illness, was destined to die in Naples, leaving two little sons by Tommaso’s wife’s sister, and an older, richer, successful brother in Florence with an illustrious future.

  Anselm Sersanders said, ‘It always seems better than it was. I know: I remember Felix as well, and all the stupid things you and Julius and everyone did, with the Duke’s bath and the ostrich and all those lecherous girls. But everyone has to grow up. Tommaso always did overspend, and what about Nori? You haven’t met him since Geneva, and I thought you …’

  ‘You thought I disliked everything about Geneva. You should get the whole story, next time,’ said Nicholas.

  Then he said, ‘I’m sorry. Nostalgie de bain. I should probably regard it with horror if someone actually re-created the past. But at least none of us had any money in the Medici. I wonder how Davie Simpson got on?’

  ‘He took out his deposit and lent it to the Abbot of Newbattle,’ said Sersanders. ‘Who, of course, is one of our rivals in trade. Neat.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Nicholas.

  IN BRUGES, THE young Duchess of Burgundy bore a son to her still younger husband Maximilian, Archduke of Austria. The Habsburg succession was secure.

  In Venice, the Doge Vendramin went to his account, and the Turks efficiently captured Lemnos and Croia in Albania, while Scutari starved. The Signoria, which still ruled in Cyprus, felt itself increasingly threatened by the presence of the noseless mother of the late monarch Zacco, and of Charla, Eugene and John, the King’s much-loved natural children and only remaining descendants. Of these, it was said, young Eugene (Tzenios to his father) was adored not only by men, but by the very stones of the island. By decree of the Council of Ten, they were all uprooted from Cyprus, and taken to Venice, where they died.

  John le Grant said, ‘That’s why Simpson told you. To make you react.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘So why smash things now?’

  ‘Because I can’t find my toy sword,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s all right. I’ve stopped. Would you like to go away and be adult with somebody else? I’m sure you’ll find someone.’

  • • •

  AT HOME IN Scotland, meanwhile, there was no respite for busy men. Alexander, Duke of Albany, received notice that his marriage to Nowie Sinclair’s half-sister was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, freeing Sandy for anything, and bastardising those of his sons who were not bastards already.

  Within the same bracket of celebration arrived the news that the King of England’s brother had been arraigned for treason, poison, sorcery and generally antisocial behaviour, and had been discovered drowned in his bath. Or (according to the current cheap plebeian joke) boiled in a butt of good malmsey, instead of the ale-vat or kettle of your ordinary villain. Whatever, the Duke of Clarence regretted, for sure, that he could no longer observe his obligation to marry the young lady Margaret of Scotland.

  The ecstatic young lady Margaret, with her brother Sandy, their friends, and the inventive help of Davie Simpson, Procurator for the Papal Collector, set off to terrorise Castle Hill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street, and Leith Wynd on horseback, blowing horns and preceded by a full pack of hounds which chewed up everything in sight, barely stopping at children. They were halted at the foot of the Wynd by twenty armed men and Bishop Spens, who was building a chapel there, and was also, as yet unreported, arranging with the other responsible lords to contract the ripening Meg, fast, to Earl Rivers, the English King’s brother-in-law.

  With the Bishop was Nicholas de Fleury, who happened to be passing, and Will Roger the musician, who had just come from a rehearsal at Trinity College, preceded by the College’s aforesaid tithe-collecting armed team. The hounds, misled by some ill-judged commands from the Procurator, were inclined at first to be rough, but then the fleshers’ porters arrived, with a dripping sack paid for by Nicholas, and the dogs barely moved after that, even when clubbed. When Nicholas peaceably suggested they should all go on to Greenside for some sport, Meg and Sandy acceded at once, although he found himself left behind, detained by some demand of the Bishop’s. By the time he got to Greenside, the others had gone back to the Castle, and he couldn’t get at them.

  Nicholas himself stayed at the Castle for a bit, until things had quietened, and ended up, as he often did, in Will Roger’s quarters. He picked up a guitar. Roger said, ‘I suppose that might have b
een worse. I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Camulio would come back.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Nicholas said, sucking his hand. The string had snapped. He wished he led the kind of gentleman’s life that would allow him ten reposeful perfect nails that didn’t get scuffed and split and broken on sword-handles and rigging and lathes. He cancelled the thought as pathetic.

  Roger said, ‘Camulio? According to Bonkle, he’s being sent from one court to another; the statutory Genoese, inviting the Emperor and the Tyrol and Naples to fight for the Pope against the Regent of Milan. Before that, he was in prison for months, accused of stirring up Genoese exiles. For all I know, Davie Simpson helped put him there. In the end, the Holy Father hauled Camulio out, Fishers’ Ring round the gills, and promptly retained him to work for the See. Clipped and ringed Camulio; free Davie.’

  Nicholas fixed the string and sat back. Adorne, kinsman of the Adorno, had never tried to conceal or to justify Genoa’s fight to shake off Milan. After a half-baked revolt, which had caused the then Governor to lock himself into the Castelletto, Milan had got Prosper Adorno out of prison, unringed, and sent him to Genoa as the new Vicar. Prosper, delighted, had promptly begun plotting with Naples. He had offered amnesty to all recent miscreants, raised six thousand ducats by common endeavour, and paid the army that brought him to leave. Now he was waiting for money and galleys from Naples. Shocked Milan; free, queasy Genoa.

  Will Roger said, ‘Shall I tell you what else Bonkle said?’

  Edward Bonkle was Provost of Trinity College, and owed his career to Thomas Spens. Edward Bonkle had just come back from Flanders, where he had commissioned an altar-piece featuring the King, the Queen, a token prince and himself, done from life. While there, he stayed with his brothers (or his nephew, or all the other Bonkles with houses in Zeeland and Bruges) and assiduously gleaned all the gossip. Nicholas and Lorenzo and Sersanders and Julius and Tommaso used to go about Bruges with Jannekin, the Provost’s illegitimate son, now prudently a son of the Church. Remembering made Nicholas think again of his nails. He said, tearing a noise out of the guitar, ‘Yes, tell me.’ Then he looked up, changed expression, and resettling the instrument, made it trip a small, flouncing tune in the silence. ‘If you please?’

  Will Roger said, ‘That is a musical instrument. You are not. Don’t confuse the two.’

  Nicholas laid it down. ‘I’m sorry. What did Bonkle say?’

  Roger didn’t always relent. This time he did. He said, ‘About the Pope. Sixtus wants help. If you have a shopping list, this is the time to present it.’

  Henry Arnot, Scottish Procurator and fiery small Abbot of Cambuskenneth at Stirling, had come back from Rome with the same message. It was one of the reasons why the necessary deposition of the Archbishop had been completed so smoothly. Archbishop Patrick Graham, that poor, silly man, now in the care of Wodman’s brother. Mad Patrick Graham, whose job Bishop Spens should have been given.

  Nicholas knew who else had a shopping list. He said, ‘It may be necessary, for Adorne. Would Bonkle find that objectionable?’

  ‘Within reason, no,’ Roger said. ‘There were other hints in the air. How much would you pay to have Camulio back?’

  ‘Sitting in Blackfriars?’ Nicholas said. ‘Telling David Simpson what to do? Name your price.’

  Afterwards, Gelis thought, in an exasperated way, that Whistle Willie must have got them both drunk, the way Nicholas burst into the house crying, ‘Listen to this!’ Then he saw her face and said, ‘What is it?’ in a way that left no doubt as to his sobriety.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘No one is hurt. But someone has gone to the stables and killed all the dogs, including Jodi’s. He wants you.’

  He didn’t smash anything this time. He just went to Jodi, and caressed him until the sobbing became less, and then chatted. But at the back of his mind, he knew what he wanted to do to David Simpson.

  DAVID SIMPSON HIMSELF did not observe that he had made a mistake until the Duke of Albany rode into Newbattle, snarled at the subprior and confronted Abbot James himself in his inner sanctum, to which David was summoned. David, his fine eyes wounded, his cultured voice humble, expressed horror that villains should so have attacked the de Fleury household, and even greater dismay that my lord of Albany should connect him to such barbarism as the wanton killing of hounds.

  There was no proof: he had been careful. Still, it was unpleasant. The fool Sandy didn’t believe him. The Abbot did: the Collector’s Procurator was proving a godsend to the Abbot’s glorious plans for the monastery, and must not be distracted by baseless accusations. James Crichton was not a shallow or an ambitious man: he was one of the best professors the University of Glasgow possessed. Nevertheless, his mind on loftier things, he was apt to address his peers, without thinking, as students. He could not understand how anyone could be so stupid as to doubt David Simpson. He said so. Albany whirled out of his presence, pale with rage and uttering improbable threats. It was disappointing.

  It was disappointing because David had hoped to lure the young ass from de Fleury, to compensate for his own lack of success with St Pol. At one time David’s secret admirer, the boy Henry had actually been alienated by the trick with the silver; and the horse dispute had fallen mysteriously flat. The youth was fickle. Sometimes he seemed to want nothing more than to injure de Fleury. Sometimes he seemed not to care.

  It appeared to David Simpson that the time was coming when he should concentrate instead on allies he knew would not fail him. He departed to spend a self-indulgent few days at Beltrees, his sumptuous castle so convenient for the Friars’ Moor of Newbattle with its precious lead mines and its lavish grazing, so close to the Kilmirren of Jordan de St Pol, with its erratically improved stock and its struggling stud farm. Then he returned, groomed and fragrant and wittily conversant with all the most intimate details of all the cruellest scandals, to devote himself to the serious cultivation of John, Earl of Mar.

  AFTER THE FIRST, involuntary separation because of the Marie, it became more normal for Gelis to work apart from Nicholas from time to time, as well as closely with him. She found she needed both. It still left her breathless, the speed and precision with which Nicholas acted, the volume of energy which compressed itself into each hour. She took his place sometimes, at meetings in the High Street, in the Canongate, in Leith, and was fully accepted, as she had been in Bruges: many women—Cants and Yares, Prestons and Williamsons—helped to run family businesses in every degree, from manufacturing the goods down to shipping them. She made herself get on well with them all; then suddenly found that she liked them.

  She worked with Nicholas, twice, on small dramatic productions which echoed the great one that he and Roger had once created for the King. These were also for the Court, with the difference that the Court was to perform them.

  It was part of the design, in which they all played a part, to influence the King and his brothers and sisters in small ways which were not open to their official counsellors. The King, for example, was prone to bursts of activity between periods of relative quiescence. Whereas his counterparts on the continent moved their courts to remote regions daily, hunted, interviewed envoys, held council meetings, dictated letters by the score to their local commanders, James would possibly rally his forces and leave Edinburgh if some trouble broke out in the north or northwest, but was as likely to leave Colin Argyll to deal with it. Most of the time, he went nowhere if he could help it, except to hunt, and filled the evenings with indoor social pursuits in which gambling and drinking played a fair part. At the same time, he had shown in the past a vivid interest in pushing elaborate claims to lands in France and in Guelders, much as his father did when even younger; and was the first to offer to mediate in any high-level dispute overseas. The only time he displayed an interest in building and furnishing was when foreign envoys were due, and, to that end, he had become deeply anxious to make money. Some of the ways in which he did it were questionable.

  Will Roger said, ‘He?
??s timid. All his bishops, his merchants, his foreign-trained statesmen bring him back tales of the glories of fifteenth-century civilisation, and the fearful blots like poor, boorish Vienna. His grandfather married his daughters all over Europe. The Kings of Scotland have always been courted by everybody because they can make trouble with England. Now he’s at peace with England, and he wants to make his mark, but won’t take advice. Play-acting, he needs.’

  ‘I thought you said kings shouldn’t do it,’ Nicholas had said. They had come together, as usual, in a room off Trinity College Church, and Bishop Spens had come across from his new hospice, with smears on his robes.

  ‘I said the confident ones shouldn’t,’ said Whistle Willie. ‘It gives away how well trained they are. They’ve got to be. It’s like being a bishop. They’re on show all the time. They’ve got to be trained how to speak and to dress and to walk, but it’s got to seem natural. Yes, Bishop?’

  ‘Well, everyone has to act in this life: it’s good manners,’ said Thomas Spens. A clever, incisive man, he would never tread boards himself: age had given him a stoop like the crook of his crosier. ‘But part of James’s trouble is envy of Sandy. You’ll have to write a play with no parts for young brothers. How is Sandy, Nicholas?’

  ‘Restless,’ Nicholas said. In front of Gelis, he didn’t always go into detail about how he was handling Albany. It was another form of good manners. She knew, however, that he listened to Spens, who had spent a year as an English captive with the ten-year-old Albany, and who knew the court at Bruges that Sandy had loved. Spens was deeply familiar with Bruges, as Bishop Kennedy had been. Gelis remembered him there, at the Hôtel Jerusalem. It was why he had given up his Linlithgow sinecure to Adorne.