Gemini (9 page)

As they progressed, Nicholas kept seeing faces he knew. A goldsmith. A shipmaster. A chorister from Trinity College. A man who sold fishhooks. A man who made traps for devils. As with a person drowning, he appeared to be compulsorily reviewing his past, while all the time attending to Albany’s disjointed discourse.

Albany hoped (he said) that de Fleury observed the changes since his last visit—the well-built houses on either side, some of them tiled, and with chimneys. They were better served, too, with royal merchants: Yare and the Prestons and Scheves brought in (he mentioned) all they could want, so that he trusted de Fleury would not rely too much on his favour. They had the dowry arriving, of course, from the young Prince’s marriage contract with England, although that would be offset when—’

‘… When?’ prompted Nicholas, a little late.

‘… when Meg’s—when the lady Margaret’s future is settled. My brother and I are concerned. There are those who wish to see her married in England.’

Albany had spent some enforced time in London as a boy. Some royal prisoners hated it; some looked back on it in a delirium of nostalgia and envy. Nicholas said, ‘What does she want?’

‘She despises England, as I do,’ said Albany. ‘I want you to speak to James, and to Mary.’

Christ. A nobleman with two servants glanced up and then stopped, looking surprised. Nicholas couldn’t remember who he was. They had come to the open grassland around St Giles, and would soon reach the West Bow, and the domiciles opposite, which had once housed the family St Pol, and sometimes sheltered an elderly lady of whom he was deeply afraid.

Nicholas said, ‘My lord, I shall be glad to help, if you think they will listen to me. The King has changed, I am told.’

‘You know how to entertain him,’ Albany said. ‘Talk to him. Put on a play. Bring him a fine hat, or a horse. Then tell him not to trust England.’

He was dreaming. They were riding in public, with their escort about them, and Sandy’s fractious voice rising and falling. To be fair, it was not audible to anyone else, except perhaps Sir James Liddell, his henchman. It was the lack of commonsense that made Nicholas nervous. It continued until they had climbed the long slope to the Castle and had been saluted within, to hand over their horses and scale the steep flight of steps that took them close to the crown of the vast, uneven plateau that contained the fortress and brooded over the loch and the town far below. The King lodged in David’s Tower, the new keep that had been building when Nicholas had promoted the crazy ball game on the walls that had nearly killed that courageous young acrobat who, swarming up the tower, had risked his life to protect Nicholas. An acrobat whose career was to finish by twenty.

At the top, the buildings were handsome enough. Painted, gilded, with their coats of arms and decorative windows, they outshone anything in the town below, except the Abbey. Only if you knew Rome or Florence, Bruges or Venice would you praise such things carefully, for there were other men here who had travelled, and who were listening out, seething, for patronage. Someone had been sent ahead, and men had gathered, it seemed, in the audience chamber. A page came to seek Sandy and deliver a message, bowing to Nicholas; and Sandy touched Nicholas on the arm. ‘James wants to see you at once. I told you he would.’

Even then, Nicholas thought it was all going according to plan, and he was partly right. To reach the chamber they had to climb a steep stair, and then pass through a couple of antechambers. He had not heard, until he saw the Archers lining the walls, that the King had reconstituted the Royal Guard, portentously established some years ago. It had lapsed, partly because of expense and partly because younger sons preferred to join the King’s Archers in France, where the wages, the living and the opportunities were all very much plumper. Captains such as Stewart of Aubigny—or Jordan de St Pol—might end up with estates, although they might not always keep them. Others, such as Wodman, or David de
Salmeton, now reverted to Simpson, returned with well-filled coffers to sell their training and knowledge in the business world. Behind and below the years of Franco-Scottish pacts and alliances, there had always been a two-way secret underground traffic between the young exiled Archers and the noble families which one day they would rejoin. Well advised of the danger, and the opportunity, Louis of France was lavish with his money and honours. But then he also required the protection of his Guard, which James of Scotland did not.

The faces, then, beneath the matched feathered bonnets, not quite new, and the livery tunics over the handsome half-armour, were of men largely of middle years, and from families all over Scotland: fair Campbells with their close-set blue eyes; handsome Erskines from Stirling. Stewart kinsmen: men from the Lennox, related to Darnley and Avandale and the King. The captain, Guthrie, whom Nicholas remembered as a noble administrator, and far from being a veteran of the field. Little George Bell, once of the King’s chamber, whom he also remembered. And one member who was more than handsome: whose beauty of feature would have made him remarkable, even had he not broken the rule and turned his eyes as Nicholas walked up with Albany. Turned, for an instant, his long-lashed, magnificent eyes.

Nicholas slowed, but did not stop. He had thought of nothing else all through the night, but he didn’t stop, and his schooled face remained faintly smiling. He could do nothing now. He had the King to handle, in whatever mood he might find him today.

T
HE
K
ING, TO
begin with, was upset. He had planned to go hunting, and instead the man he generally obeyed had come to invite him to get up because his kinsman Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was dead, and there were urgent matters to discuss. He had actually risen, and got three of his councillors into the room, because he already knew how important it was, from all the rumours he had tried to ignore. Also, Master Whitelaw wore his thoughtful face, which, as a boy, the King had ignored at his peril.

Master Whitelaw, Royal Secretary, had served James’s father and, for long years of dire educational hardship, had been tutor to the young James himself. He was the sort of man who often spoke inadvertently in Latin. Colin Campbell, of course, often spoke inadvertently in Gaelic, but the King’s sisters thought the Master of his Household exotic, with his wild Highland clansmen and his ice-cold legal mind. The third councillor who entered James’s chamber was, of course, his own kinsman Drew Stewart of Avandale, who used the family patois in private, and who had been Chancellor to James’s father as well as to himself. Sometimes it seemed to James that he had been conceived in a masculine
womb instead of a feminine one, and that he was still in it. Sometimes he rebelled.

Now they were telling him of the various possible consequences of the Duke’s death, and how they might affect Scotland’s political relations with France, and her trade relations with Flanders, and the management of the present welcome truce with England. He had his own ideas about all of that, and they listened to them, as they always did (as they ought to do), and praised their acuity, and discussed them. The consensus was that before planning further, more exact detail was needed, and that this might be got from a Burgundian who had just arrived back in Scotland. Did his grace recall Nicholas de Fleury?

At first he resented being reminded of Nicol de Fleury, who had behaved like a friend, or rather a discerning subject, and then had disappeared. Indeed, to his recollection, his advice had often been faulty.

Drew said, ‘I am afraid that is true, and he knows it. I should take it as a sign of humility that he has returned at all. I gather he does not intend to stay long.’

‘I see,’ the King had said. ‘Then, in that case, we shall see him. Briefly.’

B
ACK IN
A
VANDALE’S
office: ‘That might have been worse,’ Argyll said. ‘He had two new hounds to try out. Has de Fleury been sent for? Are we still agreed that we shall use him, whateffer? And that he should not be told what doesn’t concern him?’

‘I think so,’ said Avandale. ‘If he moves in too fast, we get rid of him.’ There was little more to say. They had made their decision the previous night, after their private interrogation of Nicol de Fleury on the matter of the Duke of Burgundy’s death. The precision of the account he had given them had revived memories of what had seemed enlightened about the man in the past: his fertile imagination, his abundant energy, his undoubted intellect, all of which the kingdom could utilise. Also, on the occasion of his four previous periods of residence, he had formed a close but seemly relationship with all the royal siblings, and especially with Albany. Which could be a good thing, or a bad. Yare, in his note, had recommended it, with respect, as an exploitable asset.

The future of Flanders could not have received, in Avandale’s view, a more valuable airing than it did in the exchanges that followed. On personal issues, de Fleury had been markedly less forthcoming. His reasons for leaving Scotland were specious; and it was hard to believe that he had relinquished control of his Bank simply in order to travel. He also omitted to mention that, although he passed for Burgundian, he had once tried to claim to be Scottish. It was said on good authority that he had
pretended to be the son and heir of Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren, but had dropped the claim for personal reasons. The claim was invalid in any case: it was known from the same source that his Burgundian mother, whose name he now took, had deceived her husband Simon by producing a bastard. It was what they believed in Kilmirren, where the woman’s name was anathema.

He had taxed the fellow with the matter last night, since it had seemed coincidental that after de Fleury’s last visit, the St Pol family had gone into exile on grounds of fraud and deception. And now, by a similar coincidence, the old man was back, and so was de Fleury. Perhaps that was de Fleury’s true interest in coming back?

The Burgundian had sworn, last night, that he had no intention of harming any one of the family. He was here to do business and leave. If he could serve their lordships meantime in any way, he would be happy to do so. They had all listened. Their conclusion last night was summarised by his own answer just now. The man was worth courting a little. And if it didn’t work, they would get rid of him, one way or another.

I
T WAS WHAT
Nicholas, pragmatic as ever, fully expected them to conclude. He was on trial. On trial for all the weeks he might stay, as well as now, before the Secretary, the Chancellor and the Master of the Household, and before James, Third of the Name, who might be moody.

He was certainly haughty when Nicholas was ushered into the room to make the customary reverences, choosing the dangerous Italian style, for the hell of it. He could see Argyll’s mouth twitch. His own expression was serious. Knight of the Unicorn or not, a courtier who had left without warning was not going to be embraced by a Stewart. Seated on his chair of state in a velvet side-gown and magnificent chain, below which his riding dress could be glimpsed, the King stared down his long nose. On his right hand sat Sandy his brother, and on his left the three interrogators of last night’s privy encounter, gazing at Nicholas as if at a stranger. There was a page at the King’s feet, and two of his men at the door.

‘So,’ said the King. ‘I hear you have news to tell us of the circumstances of the noble Duke of Burgundy’s death. We are prepared to hear it.’

Nicholas embarked on his narrative, which was clear, and grave, and concealed nothing. The King then enquired whether M. de Fleury believed that the young Duchess, the Duke’s bereaved daughter, would marry the young lord, the Emperor’s son, to which Nicholas answered, Yes, this was the general view. Asked about Scottish trade, he answered that in his opinion the Staple would desert Bruges for Antwerp or Middleburg.
Finally, he reported the wide-held belief that the King of France would now attempt to restore his claims over Burgundy.

The questions were as he expected: obvious, sensible, and deriving mostly from the royal ministers. They were voiced with some resentment. To James, the death of Charles of Burgundy was a severe inconvenience, and reduced his own standing as kinsman. Unlike Sandy, James had not travelled in Flanders or even in England. Princes in conflict praised his offers to mediate, but were not generous with their invitations, unless he promised to come with an army. And his Parliament had always stopped that.

The elder by only two years, the King lacked the haphazard taste for adventure that his brother displayed, but dreamed intense dreams of leading armies, and attracting the envy of chivalrous Europe with his well-placed artillery, and his timely advice, and the great marriages that his children would make. Scotland, at present a place of thatched houses and hens in the street, would become a second Lombardy. Nicholas thought, automatically answering the pre-arranged questions, that James and his brother would probably never understand one another, even though on the surface they seemed so alike. The King was slighter in frame, with a long, reddened nose less attractive than Sandy’s, and short, full pink lips. But the auburn hair of the Stewarts was the same, and the curiously innocent appetites. James had tried, once, to seduce Gelis in front of Little Bell.

As if on cue, the King began talking of Gelis. ‘And your lady wife. I trust that, if you intend staying, your lady wife will come to ornament our Court? She is here?’

Nicholas took a short, calming breath. The picture in the King’s mind was not necessarily an echo of what was in his, but the naïveté of the question was unfortunate: Whitelaw’s face, below the grey hair, was pained. Nicholas smiled and spoke mildly. ‘No, my lord and great Prince, but I hope to bring her one day. She also feels for your loss, and asked me to add her condolences to mine.’

The King gazed at him as if he had forgotten. Then irritation returned. He said, ‘The Duke’s death. The lady is kind. I suppose, then, you’ll have brought a shipload of expensive black doublets to sell me? Velvet cloaks? Fancy pourpoints? I am sure you think I can afford them.’