Gemini (86 page)

He expected, and received, a number of questions.

‘So few in Berwick?’

‘The King has to pay for these himself,’ Nicholas said. ‘He feels deeply about Berwick. He would pour public gold into its defence if he could, but Parliament would allow no more than I have said.’

‘That’s true. I’ve told you,’ Sandy said. Earl Harry glanced at him.

‘And Cessford and Ormiston? Why so many?’

He explained. It all confirmed his conviction, as their questions continued, that the English army was not going to divide: that they were going to fling all their strength in one direction, provided he told them nothing to alarm them. He knew, as if he had been told, that whatever happened, they were going to make sure of Berwick. Outside the windows, somewhere, a horn blew.

The Lieutenant-General said, ‘Ah. You came to us at the right moment, M. de Fleury, and I am only sorry that I must cut our interview short. Tomorrow we march. Where we march and how well we do will be owed, in large measure, to you and to his highness of Scotland, who thought to bring you here. You wish, if I have read you correctly, to return to Scotland, and await this new future?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Nicholas said.

‘They do not know of this visit, and therefore you may be able to send us more news?’

‘I shall do my best, my lord Duke,’ Nicholas said.

‘Then God be with you,’ said the Duke, getting up. Sandy jumped from his chair, and Earl Harry and Nicholas rose, side by side. Gloucester said, ‘You have come at some cost to yourself in time and in trouble. I would have you know that we are not niggardly. My chamberlain will see you in the morning, and an escort will await you to take you safely back to the Borders. Meanwhile, you have all my gratitude.’

‘My lord,’ said Nicholas, beginning to move.

‘No. We must go, my lord of Northumberland and I. Stay and talk to your King. You have been separated for a long time. There must be much you have to say to one another. Good night,’ said Dickon of Gloucester.
He left. Percy bowed and walked after, the man-at-arms following. The door closed.

Nicholas said, ‘My lord, forgive me, but it has been a long journey. Would you object to somewhere less formal? If so, of course we stay here.’

‘My room,’ Sandy said. ‘No. I understand. You will be more comfortable in my room.’

He was learning. Nicholas supposed you couldn’t live with King Louis and not learn.

S
ANDY SAID
, ‘T
HEY
spy everywhere. Christ, what did you mean, six months before I get any support? I wish you’d never come. You’re saying all the wrong things. I’ll never get out of this alive.’

‘You will. They’d rather have you on your own than have to deal with James and Avandale and the rest, or Buchan or Atholl as regents.’

He stood still and kept his voice calm while Sandy paced backwards and forwards. The sun had beat all day into the room and the air was stifling hot. Sandy was sweating, his creamy skin blotched. Nicholas said, ‘Come on. You sent for me. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll guess what the choices are, and suggest what I’d do in your place. Then I’ll go.’

Sandy said, ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? My brother threw me out of the country, and France can’t send an army to help me get back. England can, though, and they have.’

‘Under Gloucester,’ Nicholas said.

‘Of course under Gloucester!’ the Prince said. ‘He’s a king in these parts. Northumberland, Durham, Cumbria. Men rally to him, as they will to me. He knows what it’s like to have a brother killed.’

Nicholas drew breath, and then left it. He said, ‘So Edward is content to let him establish what power he likes in the north, add to his lands, perhaps, and win a few laurels. I would guess that his first objective has always been Berwick, but they’ve brought an army big enough to attempt other things. They might send it over the Border at several points, to take the strongholds they’ve demanded, like Lochmaben. Or if they think it might be successful, they’ll start with Berwick, and hope to surge north through the whole of your East March, and set you on the throne. Or they may not have decided what to do until they get nearer, and weigh up their chances. What do you think?’

Sandy said, ‘I don’t need to think. I know. They’re going for Berwick, and then straight through to Edinburgh. They’ve told me. That’s why it was so stupid to talk of six months. It’s going to be fast, and sudden, and irresistible. It’ll be finished in twenty-eight days.’

A wasp, sweeping about, snarled past them both and slammed into the window. It dropped and lay, breathlessly buzzing. Nicholas said,
‘That’s Gloucester’s contract time? That’s how long his army has been paid to stay in Scotland?’

‘The main army,’ Sandy said. ‘There’ll be another seventeen hundred, a holding force, paid to arrive for two weeks next month when the other troops leave. I shall be on the throne by then. They know I’m coming. They’ll be gathering secretly now, the men of the Merse and the Borders. My own Annandale, too.’

‘Annandale isn’t doing much to keep Gloucester pinned down at Carlisle,’ Nicholas said. ‘Sandy, you know this isn’t true. Jamie Liddell himself must have warned you. It will take considerable force to put you on the throne, and a good deal to keep you there. And the more foreign help you need, the more you’re going to have to concede for it. You would end up with less power than you had under James, and a struggle that could last the rest of your life.’

Albany said, ‘You have a poor opinion of my popularity, it seems. Or my capacity as a ruler. What do you presume to know?’

‘Only,’ said Nicholas, ‘that in the nature of things, the man in the saddle always has the advantage, and even a genius can’t lightly replace him. We all know the King’s failings. We also know that he is well advised, by men who have the good of the kingdom at heart. He sometimes escapes them and does foolish things. But in a prospering country, free of obligations to others, a prince who stands at his side can expect more from life than would a debtor to England, and a possible fratricide. For England might push you to that.’

‘No,’ said Sandy.

Nicholas looked at him. ‘But you haven’t mentioned that there are limits to what you would do. You haven’t told them what your private plans are. You speak of your friends, but there are others in Scotland who know you, and who think that this is the way you have chosen to come back. You have induced the King of England to waste men and gold on a useless invasion. You will stay with them until they are trapped, and then turn to your brother—not as a supplicant, but as a man who can claim the reward he has earned. I imagine there is nothing the King would not give you, save the throne, and you would have that in all but name.’

The other man sat. He said, ‘Did they tell you to say this?’

Nicholas said, ‘The King does not know I am here. No one told me to say what I have said. It is obvious.’

The pale eyes stared directly at him. Sandy Albany said, ‘He killed my brother. James killed my brother. He’ll kill me.’

Nicholas said, using almost Albany’s words: ‘Did they tell you that? It isn’t true. It was the opposite. John tried to kill the King, and had to be put under restraint. The fits got worse. He died in my own doctor’s house—you remember Dr Tobias? I am sorry. I am sorry, Sandy, but John took his own life.’

‘No one told me,’ said the other man slowly.

‘For his sake, James didn’t announce it. But it happened. I was in Tobie’s house the day your brother died. He had every possible care. He was ill, and you are not. Come home. Your life would be safe.’

Albany said, ‘They would never restore what I had.’ Then he said, ‘Would they put it in writing?’

Nicholas said, ‘Write it yourself. List what you want. I’ll take it to them. I’ll see you get a reply.’

There was a table, where a clerk had been working. Nicholas sat, and found paper, and wrote, at Sandy’s dictation, in the neat, swift hand he had paid Colard to teach him, when first he had realised that he was leaving the coarse world of the dyevats for a world of fine clothes and fine manners, where your hands were always clean. Sandy signed it.

They talked for a while after that, of people and places. He didn’t push Albany to make a decision: he had placed the choices before him, and a warning as well. He couldn’t do more. Sandy must know Edward’s character. He could not be as naïve as he seemed about Gloucester. They parted company, at last, and Nicholas found his escort outside, and was taken back to his room. The document was where once he had carried Phemie’s letter, inside his shirt.

They locked him in overnight. It was what he expected, but it might imply, this time, more than a normal precaution. He knew a lot about buildings. Monastic property in public use was riddled with spy holes. It had been a risk he had had to take, and force Sandy to take. He was here to win Sandy over, or to discredit him. He would learn where he stood in the morning. They would never let him depart if they knew of that invoice for treachery.

He wondered where Wodman was. He had glimpsed him once or twice, reassuringly, at different stages of his journey, but knew, arriving in York, that he was on his own now. If he were allowed to leave, Andro must find him and be told what had happened. Then they would separate. That was the arrangement. If anything went wrong, one of them ought to get through; and if he himself didn’t survive, at least Gloucester would think twice, now, about an invasion. That they might kill the Prince was also possible. It was something that Nicholas had made himself face, and accept. It didn’t help that he was running the same risk himself.

He didn’t sleep, but never required much rest in any case. It was not quite dawn when the quiet was blurred over by the sound of the distant rousing of many thousands of men. Whatever its destination, this immense army was now leaving York. Very soon after that, his door was unlocked, and he was told to dress and present himself again in the audience chamber. This time, Sandy was not present. Only the Duke of Gloucester occupied the chair by the guttering candles, with Henry

Percy again at his side. The door shut on his escort and he stood, meeting the Duke’s dark, cynical eyes.

‘So,’ said Dickon of Gloucester. ‘I have not a great deal to say to you. You will hand me, please, the paper which you carry, presumably, on your person. Or if you prefer, I shall have it taken by force.’

‘The lord Abbot enjoys the conversations of others,’ said Nicholas. He drew out the paper, which the Duke leaned over and took, unfolding it to read at a glance.

He said, ‘The Abbot may enjoy what he hears. I do not. Your purpose was to suborn your own Prince, denying him his right to the throne, and sowing mistrust between him and ourselves. The information you brought is of course useless, but we hardly depended on it. You might even like to know that we feel so confident as to proceed with our plan. The host you hear stirring will be on the Borders of Scotland within a few days.’

Nicholas said, ‘You cannot achieve this in twenty-eight days, my lord. What I said is true. There are many who are impatient with the present King, but the support for the Duke of Albany is uncertain. Whatever you take, you cannot reckon to hold.’ He thought it worth saying, in that he might be believed,
in extremis
. For his own conduct, he had no excuses to make.

The Duke was studying him. ‘What did you stand to gain? You won the regard of the Duchess my sister. Did England have nothing to offer, if Flanders had failed?’

It was an offer, or the opening for one. It was not a tune Nicholas de Fleury wanted to dance to. He said, ‘I have already refused a pension from France. My family is settled in Scotland, and we are satisfied.’

‘You are saying,’ said Gloucester, ‘that you have taken this trouble because, for you, the present régime is most suitable. You do not wish to change kings, but you would be happy to see my lord of Albany return to high office in Scotland?’

‘That is so, my lord,’ Nicholas said. He couldn’t think what he had overlooked. The Duke was smiling, although Percy wasn’t. Percy said, ‘My lord Duke—’

Dickon Gloucester said, ‘No. I am putting this to M. de Fleury because I wish him to see that his judgement is faulty and that his future might well lie where he did not expect, with a new and generous employer. M. de Fleury, you may know that a treaty was drawn up at Fotheringhay, between my lord and brother the King, and the Prince you call Albany?’

‘My lord Duke!’ said the Earl again. He sounded furious.

The Duke looked at him. ‘Does this distress you? Would you prefer to leave?’ He waited. As the other fell silent, he turned back.

‘As I was saying. The Prince you call Albany, but who is now known, I have to tell you, as Alexander, King of Scotland, by the King of England’s royal gift. Shall I go on?’

Show nothing. Do nothing. ‘Please do,’ Nicholas said.

‘I felt you should be apprised. By this treaty, or rather indenture, King Alexander promised, on obtaining his crown, to do homage to England; to break the alliance between Scotland and France; and to surrender the town and castle of Berwick within fourteen days of entering Edinburgh. Equally, my brother King Edward has been promised, in return for his aid, possession of certain places—Berwick-upon-Tweed, Liddesdale, Eskdale, Ewesdale, Annandale and Lochmaben Castle, as I remember. He has also offered the Prince his daughter Cecilia, provided the Prince can free himself from other wives.’

There was a thoughtful pause. Gloucester added, ‘It is all well attested, of course. The Prince used his signet, and signed the document with his name, Alexander R, employing an extremely confident flourish. He had, I think, been practising.’

He stopped. His voice was solicitous, but his eyes hinted at a wicked amusement. He said, ‘Thus, in whatever role the Prince re-enters Scotland, you may be sure that life there will not remain as it is. You may even wish to reconsider your future.’

He smiled. Nicholas could not bring himself to smile back.

Sandy. Bloody Sandy. Why? Because it was demanded, and he’d sign anything to get what he wanted? Did he not realise the damage it would do? Or did he really mean it all along? Blind Harry’s Wallace had been a sham? All that nationalistic fervour just a means to gain himself popular backing, and a French army to return him as king …?