Gemini

  There seemed little reason after that why Nicholas de Fleury should, once home, shut the door of his office and, with solitary application, drink until he could no longer think clearly. The Donatello pinned above him had surely no relevance. He had been just twenty, hardly older than Henry, when it was done. And anyway, John le Grant had already defined the situation with punctilio. ‘That was then, when they needed us. Now, they’re fine.’

  Sod sorting out people. Sod John le Grant.

  THE SNOW CEASED; the rain stopped; the gales abated and, glittering like a new set of teeth, the landscape was found to have changed.

  At that precise moment, spurred by hearty cries of incitement from France, Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus, led an army raised by Albany’s friends across the Border deep into England, and for three days set them to burn, kill, pillage and rape, wasting the countryside as far south as Bamburgh.

  By the time Edinburgh learned of it, and Angus had been located and brought in for appalled interrogation, the news had reached London. A response was dictated by the King of England himself and sent north, carried by the accustomed if not overjoyed hand of Master Alexander Leigh.

  Through many reigns, the measured language of diplomacy had been developed to convey, with the utmost suavity, the outraged demands of the sender. What Master Leigh brought was not a secretary’s work. It was an explosion of anger from Edward himself, abjuring diplomacy and even, perhaps, commonsense.

  Nicholas carried the news of Edward’s demands to Lord Cortachy’s house, bursting into the office where Adorne held his weekly meetings with Wodman and Gelis. ‘Listen! Listen!’ He began to collapse into laughter and then caught himself. ‘No. Really. Listen.’

  All three looked up from where they sat. Gelis kept her face grave. Adorne closed his ledger with care, and clasped his hands on the table before him. ‘We are listening. King Edward has made his complaint about Angus’s raid?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Nicholas said. He had come to a halt. By mustering all his considerable height, he had somehow assumed the massive, corpulent form, vast in belly and buttocks, of the once-golden monarch of York. His eyeballs bulged like peeled eggs, and his English accent was conspicuously accurate.

  ‘Edward to James, right high and mighty Prince and dearest brother and cousin, go to hell. Before leaving, you will kindly note the following injuries and make reformation. Item, despite the great and notable sums of money received for the assured marriage of his son, the King has allowed his neighbour’s subjects on the Borders to be invaded, murdered and slain, without cause and against all honour, law of arms and good conscience. This is intolerable. Heads must fly. Item, after all our many reminders, James of Scotland wrongfully occupies many of the King’s towns and seigneuries, such as Berwick, Coldingham and Roxburgh, having no right nor title to these. We require them to be returned. Item, we notice that the King has not done homage unto the King of England, as his ancestors have done in time past. What is he thinking of? Item, having received lavish annual payments towards the marriage of his son to the Princess Cecilia, James of Scotland is required to deliver the Prince into the hands of my lord of Northumberland by the last day of May for the accomplishment of the said marriage. (How old is he? Six?) And final item, if, my lord, you are so conscienceless as to object to these demands, we—in our noble reluctance to spill Christian blood—will reduce our requirements to two. Send us the Prince. He’s Cecilia’s. And hand over Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s ours.’

  He crashed down. Gelis clapped. Wodman said, ‘Christ!’ And Adorne, stirring, said, ‘Well, at least he moderated towards the end. It’s rhetoric, of course, but perfectly understandable, after what Angus did. What will the King reply?’

  ‘They’re still discussing it. Chilly disbelief followed by a counterclaim of previous provocation, followed by an offer of compensation, I should think,’ Nicholas said. ‘There’s also an old charge dating from Lisle’s death, you remember, and the temporary capture of Henry Northumberland, whose family think Berwick is theirs anyway. And yes, it was chiefly a stroke in response to the King’s well-advertised longing to travel to Amiens. Don’t get too friendly with France, or I can make things really awkward. Bishop Spens agrees, but isn’t too happy.’

  Gelis said, ‘Angus is obeying Albany, then?’

  ‘Angus is probably obeying the dead voice of Davie Simpson,’ Nicholas said with sudden annoyance. ‘And Albany, of course, is the woolly face on King Louis’s left glove. Do we worry? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Or not yet,’ Adorne said. ‘Meantime, I do congratulate you on the performance. Can you do Archie Whitelaw?’

  In their state of confidence at the time, it seemed amusing. In no possible way could England execute war on two fronts. The dogs barked; national honour was invoked; threats and promises were scattered abroad; but behind the scenes envoys scuttled about, and nothing of weight had been settled so far. To statesmen, it was less than desirable, but that was all. In any case, Adorne’s thinking, these days, was directed more towards Bruges than to Scotland, and Nicholas, too, had begun to feel consciously detached. Among other things, he kept himself well informed about shipping to and from Portugal.

  In due course, Alexander Leigh left, with James’s reply, and was replaced almost immediately by Dr Ireland, the envoy of the King of France, with renewed messages of love and friendship, although none from Albany, whose sins were still the subject of continuing process under Scottish law. March storms disrupted trade vessels plying in the Mediterranean, and overturned and sank a ship sailing for Scotland with a cannon from the Duke of the Tyrol.

  The letter announcing this brought with it news that commanded real sorrow: Eleanor of the Tyrol, sister of the King’s father, had died. With the letter came a coffer with a familiar blazon which her sister Joanna, weeping, recognised from the days of her girlhood. The contents, gathered during the Duchess’s long, wasting illness, were letters and mementoes for her sisters, her half-brothers, her nieces and nephews. Among the several fine books was one attached to a sealed paper addressed to Isabella d’Asquin, dame d’Échaut et Dombereau: a name no one immediately recognised except Nicholas de Fleury, who kept his grieving to himself, and said nothing.

  THE NEWS FROM the Tyrol reached Cologne, mortifying the former Charetty notary Julius, who had planned to visit the Duchess.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said his uncompromising German colleague, the dwarf Father Moriz. ‘You can’t afford to do business with the Duke. The alum deal’s finished, and the mining concessions are going to Augsburg. You hardly knew the Duchess. It’s nine years since you came with us to Bozen.’

  ‘She was in France as a young woman,’ Julius said. ‘I told you. She must have known Jordan de St Pol: he was in France too, advising the King. She could have met Simon. She could even have heard all the rumours about Nicholas’s mother. Sophie de Fleury was still alive then, and Nicholas and Adelina lived with her.’

  Adelina had been his wife. As a count’s widow, under the false name of Anna, she had married Julius, telling no one that she was related to Nicholas, or that she bore a grudge against him. Her life had ended in violence, after she had tried to harm both Nicholas and Gelis. It was so rare for Julius to mention her that Father Moriz immediately felt guilty. Nevertheless, he said, ‘You know I don’t agree with all this. If Nicholas doesn’t want to unearth his mother’s secrets, you had better leave them alone. He’s given up all claim to be a St Pol. He is reconciled to having been born out of wedlock.’

  Julius had been born out of wedlock, and Moriz had helped him get himself legitimised. Nicholas had refused to submit to the process and, shocked, Julius had hit on the typically generous, typically officious idea of marching out to prove him legitimate. Then he proposed to travel to Scotland, and present Nicholas with his findings.

  At first, he had expected to go, proof or not, but had been persuaded to put off the journey. The spring campaigns had begun. Depending on how they fell out, Nicholas might very well be
back soon among them, his work in Scotland concluded.

  Meanwhile, it made Moriz uneasy, all this zeal on Julius’s part. To revive Nicholas’s claims would also revive the fading St Pol vendetta. There was in addition the question of Henry. Long-standing friend though he was, Julius didn’t know the truth about Henry’s parentage. If he uncovered it now, he would be incapable, Moriz suspected, of concealing it. And one could only imagine how the St Pols would feel about that. Moriz wished that Julius, with all his charm and good looks, would simply find himself a rich pretty wife and forget about it.

  The subject recurred, as fragments of news came from Scotland, supporting the view that the kingdom was settling, and that Nicholas might soon feel his duty there done. Of the King’s two recalcitrant brothers, one had departed, and the other, they now heard, was dead. There were indicators, too, of a new confidence. The Princess Margaret’s English wedding had not taken place; and King James had refused to send his eldest son south. It meant that Scotland felt able to bargain.

  For a while, Moriz felt some relief. If Nicholas came back, even temporarily, he could stop this nonsense of Julius’s, and put the business on a permanent footing, which would allow Moriz and Govaerts to leave. Father Moriz did not mind Cologne, but he found it no longer a challenge, and he felt increasingly that some decision should be taken about the future of Julius’s problematical step-daughter Bonne.

  Shortly after that, alone in the office with Julius, the priest opened and spread out the latest despatch from Sersanders and Berecrofts in Scotland. After the first few lines, he looked across at the other. ‘Julius? You mentioned Bishop Spens?’

  Julius looked up. ‘Yes. I want to speak to him. He took the Duchess Eleanor to France.’

  ‘Then,’ said Father Moriz, ‘I fear you have lost the chance. He has died, so it seems.’

  ‘Was he ill?’ Julius asked. He came over.

  ‘I expect he was. This says he died of a broken heart. He was a great supporter, was he not, of the English peace?’

  ‘He helped bring it about. He was one of those who convinced the King to make a treaty and keep it. Why? What has happened?’ He leaned over to read.

  ‘Superficially, a cluster of silly events—Border raids, royal marriage disputes, revived quarrels over sovereignty—which happen to have occurred at the same time as some seriously changing alliances behind the scenes. Result: six years of peace at an end, and Bishop Spens dead.’

  ‘At an end?’ Julius repeated.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Father Moriz. ‘King Edward of England, it seems, is now able to review his less convenient alliances. He is to launch a rigorous and cruel war on Scotland, and has set his brother to work as Lieutenant-General of the North. This will change everything.’

  ‘Mary Mother,’ said Julius, straightening. ‘It certainly will. Nicholas won’t stay to fight someone else’s war. He’s probably sailing already. Adorne, too.’

  ‘Is that what you would do?’ Moriz said. He waited.

  ‘You mean he’ll stay to make the most of it?’ Julius said. ‘I see. There is that. They’ll certainly need him.’

  ‘That’s what I meant,’ Moriz said. ‘I don’t think you need look for him coming now.’ He waited again.

  Julius might be a lawyer, but he had allowed himself, from boyhood, to be charmed by the lure of adventure. Julius said, ‘Well, if Nicholas won’t come here, why don’t I go and join him? Think of it! We’d all be together again!’

  Rising from his prayers that night, Father Moriz hoped that Nicholas would forgive him. Whatever anyone said, Julius would have insisted on leaving. It was May, the start of the campaigning season. There were reputations to be made, and a war with Nicholas in Scotland was going to be a good deal more exciting than a static, difficult business in Cologne. The prospect gave Moriz, too, a pang of uncanonical pleasure, for he felt that, if Julius went, an ordained metallurgist might well offer his services, too. Govaerts could remain in Cologne.

  He had not yet decided what to do about Bonne.

  Chapter 29

  In-till this chekkar is als gret the space

  Wnoccupijt as it that thir folk has.

  Quhen euery man has place in properté

  The kinrik suld our that extendand be.

  FATHER MORIZ HAD been right in his prediction. Once, the gateway from Scotland had promised to open. Now, for Adorne and for Nicholas, war had closed it. The crazy war that—against commonsense itself, it would seem—England was now proposing, and through which James of Scotland must be warily guided.

  For the advisers of James, an advantage appeared. War had brought the King a little closer to Nicholas de Fleury. Previously suspect as Albany’s friend, de Fleury was now credited with having shared in his attacks upon England. Also (the King was pleased to remember) de Fleury had taken part in the battle of Nancy, and had fielded his own troop of mercenaries. Consequently, when confronting his Burgundian Knights of the Unicorn, James was gratified to learn that both were remaining. The loyalty, he thought, was to himself; and in a way he was right. Adorne would not abandon James of Scotland, any more than he had done Duke Charles. And Nicholas, with much more at stake, felt compelled to do likewise.

  It brought compensations. He and Adorne need no longer work apart, but could be seen to be partners. With Adorne were Wodman and Andreas and Sersanders, and Archie of Berecrofts and Robin. They met, on occasion, in Adorne’s house, but more regularly in the prime Berecrofts home in the Canongate, where Archie’s diminished household was small, and there were chambers at need for them all.

  The tall building next door, once the Ca’ Niccolò, had reverted, against all probability, to Nicholas, its original owner. The house in the High Street remained the family home, but the accretions of Gelis’s investments and Nicholas’s inventiveness had, in three years, profited themselves as well as the kingdom. Nicholas had money now, and some of it redeemed the premises that he had himself built as the Scottish home of his Bank. Nameless ever since, it instantly became known, in the arbitrary Canongate way, as the Floory Land.

  Colin Campbell, who did not belong to the Canongate, preferred to refer to it mockingly, as Tigh a’ Nicol. Since de Fleury’s decision to stay, the relationship between himself and the Lords Three had changed in quality, as had that with others. While Scots merchants in England were taking out letters of denization by the score; while agents like Sersanders were being harried by their foreign clients into calling in all Scottish debts, Nicholas de Fleury remained, and consolidated his presence by collecting a company.

  The new house was needed, because the men, once of the House of Niccolò, had come back to him. Some were in Scotland already: Crackbene the big Scandinavian shipmaster; Tobias the doctor from Pavia; John le Grant, the Aberdonian gunner and skipper. Where once had stood Marian de Charetty, there was Gelis van Borselen, also from the Low Countries: a business-woman of a different kind, but respected as once the small, gallant Widow had been. And for master, Nicholas the Burgundian, husband of them both.

  Then, at the beginning of summer, to these five were added a final two: Father Moriz, to take the place of that other German, his friend, Father Godscalc. And Julius of Bologna, to be what he had been before the wretched days of Adelina: a vain, eager, attractive man of huge and disarming ambition, who had tried in vain to instil the same into Nicholas since he was a boy and had watched, puzzled, as Nicholas seemed to succeed, whether Julius advised him or not.

  Seven partners from all over Europe. Reconstituted, the company that had once made its mark in the merchant world—but this time under a man who was not the youth Donatello had drawn, and who was not following the wishes of anyone but himself.

  Returning to the country he had left eight years before, Father Moriz concealed his excitement: two weeks on shipboard with Julius could only be endured in a state of deep calm. It seemed sometimes that Julius actually yearned to meet pirates, if not the entire English fleet, hurriedly mobilised to pursue and sink notaries. From Leith road
s, with a content heart, Moriz saw again the familiar outline of Edinburgh against the bustling white and blue sky, and welcomed the small, broad-spoken party, equipped with wagons and mounts, which confronted them when they berthed. As he had hoped, news had travelled from Berwick to Nicholas. They were expected. And when they reached the familiar house in the Canongate, Nicholas was there, running down the stairs to greet them both.

  He was the same. He was totally different. He was large and easy-moving and well dressed, with direct eyes and a rich, flexible voice and deliberate dimples. There were single lines round his mouth, between his eyes, across his brow that gave pause. There was something else. Nicholas was not now troubling to adapt, where he did not think it necessary. An observer of his fellow men, Father Moriz had always been aware of the changes Nicholas made to conform to his company. He had done so especially with Julius. Now there was no difference in his manner, whether he was speaking to Julius and himself, or to his steward, or to the long-time company colleagues—Tobie the doctor; John le Grant, Moriz’s working partner in the Tyrol—whom he had brought to the hall-parlour to meet them. It was as if Nicholas had found his own person, and was not concerned to conceal it. Moriz could feel Julius’s guarded surprise.

  They were tired. Serious talk was kept for the next day. They ate; they drank; they exchanged news. Later, Robin of Berecrofts came to join them, wheeling himself across the road and up the ramp Nicholas had had made for him. Julius had last seen the boy hideously wounded at Nancy and looked amazed and pleased, which, for once (thought Moriz sourly), was the proper reaction. For a priest, the situation was, sadly, all too familiar. But even while saying all the other, correct things, Father Moriz was moved to think how extraordinarily well this young husband and father had weathered his ordeal. He had the same composure as Nicholas.

  But of course he had.

  Next day, Crackbene landed and came to see them, and they crossed to visit Kathi Sersanders and Jodi’s former nurse Clémence, whose astonishing marriage to the doctor was one of Moriz’s cherished memories of his time with the company in Bruges. Then Nicholas took them to his own house, where Gelis feasted them, and Anselm Adorne, and his fellow merchant Andro Wodman, and his physician Dr Andreas came later to join them. ‘Tomorrow,’ said Nicholas, ‘will begin the hard labour. This is just to create the impression that we are all easy to work with.’