The Unicorn Hunt (48 page)

‘With Mary,’ said the inexorable voice.

The King turned his back on his sister. ‘We have therefore much to thank you for. In the months ahead, it will lie in our power to show proper gratitude. In the meantime, we wish to enhance something you already possess. You are a Knight?’

‘Of the Order of the Sword, your grace,’ Nicholas said.

‘And is there a sword in this place?’ said the King.

There was a rustle. Outside, someone was counting aloud. Twenty-one. Twenty-two …

Numbers. Make friends of numbers, and they will never let you down; never weary you; never sicken you. A sword was brought. ‘Kneel,’ said the King.

It was the Order of the Unicorn to which he was being admitted: the Order of which Anselm Adorne was already a Knight. The chain laid round his shoulders was borrowed from another, until his own could be made. ‘But you are no less a knight of this kingdom for that,’ said the King as he rose. ‘And will use your title forthwith, for it is not some mean order of Cyprus, but one known to the world. As for your chain, Wilhelm can make it.’

‘My lord King,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have no words. But look. I have arranged the heavens to speak for me.’

They thought him a magician, but he had seen, in the dark, the glimmer high on the Rock where he knew to look for it. And it was time. It was his fortune that it was also just time.

The explosion was glorious. The great golden ball hung in the air jetting sparks and then, as every eye watched, it began to spin, throwing off garlands of light. A great sigh arose and the King’s face, turned upwards was golden. He said, ‘You have arranged fires of joy for our wedding. Indeed, indeed, we love you tonight.’

All the way back to his tent the skies over his head flamed and crashed and exploded in drifts of crackling colour, and men crowded round as he walked, shaking his hand and clapping the shining metal on his shoulder. His armour was a carnival of light in itself.

The third stage – the third stage was coming to its full promise at last.

In his tent were his household, their eyes shining: the pages rushing to unfasten his buckles, the serving-women clasping their hands. Friends crowded the doorway. Shedding the last of the weight, he stood in his sodden jerkin and was helped into his robe, with the silver sword embroidered at cuffs and at hem. His old Order. The insignia of the new one had been laid again on his shoulders.

‘Well?’ said Gregorio.

‘Come,’ said Nicholas. He cleared a way to the back and, sending for wine, made for them both a moment of privacy. It was a time for wine. He hadn’t thought it would be, but it was. When it came, he poured it, and spoke. ‘Set your conscience at rest. It was going to happen. If Arran had stayed, it would only have added to the carnage. And if his father had had his way, still more would have died. As it is …’

‘As it is, you have a knighthood. And come this autumn, Boyd land. Boyd land next to Kilmirren.’

‘And more,’ Nicholas said. ‘The wedding has to be paid for out of something.’ The heavens rang, and colour flooded into the tent. ‘That is why I am staying. I can do anything now.’ The wine, after so long, was unbelievable. He said, ‘Did you see the man who came in just now? The man with the gardens at B roughton?’

‘He sells me herbs,’ Gregorio said. ‘What of him?’

‘He sells me corn-marigolds,’ Nicholas said. The chain blazed. The unicorn flashed blue and gold and red in the light.

‘
Gule
?’ Gregorio said. ‘The weed? The weed that destroys healthy cornland? Why? Where …’ He broke off.

‘Here and there. The rough land between Kilmirren and Beltrees, for example. Every mile of it. He tells me it’s a matted blanket of fierce orange flowers, all ready to burst into seed. Why so glum? Why fight with swords,’ Nicholas explained, ‘when you can do it with flowers?’

Gregorio sat looking dazed. Nicholas refilled his cup and strode out to his friends. They closed around him. Soon Sersanders would come, and offer his congratulations, and perhaps mean it. Katelijne would arrive and Betha Sinclair, who had brought up the little Countess and helped prepare the castle for her lord’s coming home. But Mary Stewart and her husband were together. It was what she had wanted.

Then the banquet. Then the dancing, the speeches, the prizes, and Will Roger playing the simpleton and making music fit for Pythagoras. Then the weeks to the wedding, with all their concocted, mechanical marvels. Then the autumn, and the King’s coming to power. And his.

Someone said, ‘There you are.’

Crackbene’s voice. Crackbene, who should be in Leith. He stood, the light flashing on his bulk and his fair, impassive face. Nicholas said, ‘Come into the tent.’

Gregorio was still there. He looked up, and then stood. The unicorn sparkled but Crackbene ignored it. He said, ‘I have a message for you from Bruges. They’ve sent others that seem to have failed. This one came on a ship. Life or death. You have to go back at once. There’s Todrik’s
Margaret
at Leith, ready to set sail at once for Newcastle. You can find another ship there.’ He stood, his face composed and full of quiet sympathy.

He hadn’t said what was wrong. It meant he had noticed the chain and was not averse to disrupting someone else’s reward for his work.

Nicholas said, ‘If it is my wife or the child, you will be sorry.’

‘No,’ Crackbene said. His pale gaze steady, he pulled out a creased packet and offered it. ‘It’s the old priest. Father Godscalc. They want you.’

‘He’s sick,’ Nicholas said. He was reading. He said aloud, ‘No. Worse than that.’

‘Let me see,’ said Gregorio.

It was in Tobie’s writing, and explicit. Godscalc’s life could be measured in weeks. He would survive until Nicholas came.

‘I’ll pack,’ Gregorio said. ‘Get the horses.’

He looked back. ‘Nicholas?’

Crackbene hadn’t moved. Nicholas said, ‘Look at the date on the letter. It’s taken too long. It will be over.’

The fireworks had stopped. The trumpets proclaimed the end of the contest; a voice boomed; another fanfare announced that the King’s procession was about to form up and leave for the banquet. Everyone was standing outside except themselves.

Gregorio said, ‘I didn’t, I think, hear you speak. It doesn’t matter how the letter is dated. This is Godscalc, departing life, and calling you home.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. He heard himself say the word. It was not a rejection of Godscalc. It was a rejection of what going back now would mean. Whom he would see. What would happen, before he was ready for it. He thought, in a moment’s odd desperation, that even Godscalc wouldn’t ask him to do that. He tried to hold on to the thought.

Crackbene said, ‘You won’t persuade him by force.’ He was speaking to Gregorio, who had made an impulsive movement. Gregorio, who was never impulsive. The tent wavered, and Nicholas wished, with a surge of bitterness, that he had managed to keep to his rule about wine just this once.

It would have been satisfying to smash everything he could see, including Crackbene and Gregorio. It would have been a release beyond measure to find himself alone.

He said, ‘You go. Or Bel. Why not Bel?’

‘There isn’t time,’ Crackbene said. ‘I don’t mind going. But I’ve worked a long night at your bidding already.’

It was like watching a hare racing over a field, watching the mind of Gregorio following that. Gregorio said, ‘A long night?’

Outside, the tent-makers waited. The crowds, by the sound, had begun flowing home. The royal procession had gone to the Greyfriars whose establishment, as memory served, was the only one qualified to contain so large and prestigious a company.

Crackbene glanced at Nicholas, and away.

Gregorio said, with sudden comprehension, ‘You arranged it, both of you. You arranged for Boyd to escape. You helped his wife to go with him.’

Never underestimate Crackbene. Never. Never. Never.

Gregorio said, ‘Go to Bruges. Or I tell the King what you did. And why you did it.’

‘Try it,’ said Nicholas pleasantly. ‘Crackbene would thank you. I imagine they’ll hang him.’

‘No,’ said Crackbene. ‘I think I’ll be on the high seas with you and with Master Gregorio long before that. But, of course, you couldn’t come back, if Master Gregorio chooses to tell them.’

Nicholas had men within reach. What of it? He couldn’t silence his own shipmaster or his own partner by force. If he didn’t go, Gregorio would do as he said. He knew Gregorio.

The unicorn, lightless now, had nothing to say. The crowd was silent. The King, entertaining his future bride at the Greyfriars,
would be surprised at his newest knight’s absence and then perhaps a little relieved, since certain accounts might not be presented at inconvenient moments.

Nicholas said, ‘You will know when I call in this debt.’ He spoke to both of them, but he meant it for Crackbene.

The third stage was not over. Born, it was frozen at birth because of the innocence of Godscalc, the naïveté of Gregorio, the duplicity of a Scandinavian shipmaster. And because of them all, he had to face Godscalc, and the mirror which Godscalc embodied.

Which – Do you hear me? Do you hear me? – if he had to, he would smash.

Part II

High Season:
DOUBLING

Chapter 23

D
EATH WAITED
, his hand on Godscalc’s shoulder, and was patient. Father Godscalc, untouched by doubt, woke each thick, aching morning to a patient day which might bring him his last benison, his last opportunity for grace, his last words with the child Claes, the man Nicholas.

It had not become, he would not allow it to become a house of mourning. His spiritual battle had been fought and won in Africa; his mortal one was of minor importance. Tobie, pressed for honesty, had told him a long time ago how matters stood. It was why the book-printing had not progressed, to the annoyance of Nicholas. But he had asked Tobie to say nothing of it. If others stepped forward instead, the world would still be enriched, and Nicholas had no need of wealth. Mortal wealth.

He had many visitors. His friends of the cloth brought him comfort and filled his room with incense and prayer. The paint-stained followers of St Luke, whose guild chaplain had once been his brother, came and talked (although his brother had been dead these four years). They brought him their work, and helped Tobie hang it. It lined his chamber like fish-scales: the gold, the ultramarine, the alizarine glowing. The Hanse merchants came, bringing honey and good beer and fur for his shoulders: he liked to speak German. And a German confessor and a monk from Cologne, who happened to bring information about paper and alum. Anselm Adorne arrived with his priest, whom he knew, carrying jellies from Margriet.

Of the company, Henninc dropped by from the dyeyard every day with some novelty in his satchel: a new colour he thought Godscalc would approve, or an order in especially fine writing. And every hour, so it seemed, he had a visit from Tilde or her sister, with something to eat or to drink, or just themselves, to sit
by his bed with some chat and their sewing. Tilde told him about the business; Catherine told him what Paul or Nerio had been saying and repeated their jokes. Her heart was not, he thought, engaged, but she was flattered. She deserved happiness now.

Diniz, of course, came when he could. A little tired, because the company was now a large one and the Bruges office lay on his shoulders, but he was a kind young man, and assiduous, and his loving thoughtfulness had helped reconcile Tilde to the loss of their infant.

Twice Godscalc had been startled into tears. Once, when the door opened on the brisk red hair of John le Grant, famed engineer, navigator, master gunner; one of his young men – not so young now – who had been with him in Trebizond. John, back by chance from Alexandria because forced to do so by Nicholas. But here, where otherwise he might not have been, speaking fluent Scots-German and with all the news Godscalc longed to hear from the East. At the end, when Tobie came to remind him he was tired, Godscalc said, ‘I am doubly glad you are here, for although you may wish it, I do not believe Nicholas should go abroad again yet. When he comes, persuade him to stay.’

‘He is coming?’ John had said.

‘Of course,’ said Tobie.

The next time, it was Astorre. Syrus de Astariis, mercenary captain of the original small Charetty bodyguard whose services the Bank now deployed all over Europe. Astorre had taught the boy Claes how to fight, and for a while the military arts had nearly claimed Nicholas, as they might have seduced Godscalc, once, from his calling.

He would be no use in the field now – he, Godscalc, who was two years younger than this sinewy man with the sewn eye, the torn ear, the grizzled beard, who sat wide-kneed on a stool and poured out the tale of his triumphs and complaints: the wiliness of the French King – God turn him into a capon – which had landed them with the mess of Liège and was now encouraging Duke Charles to ally himself with the Duke of the Tyrol.

‘See here!’ Astorre said. ‘Old foxy poxy Louis is up to all his tricks because he doesn’t want Charles and England to join forces against him. Your brave boy Duke Charles fancies himself as a king, and would be much obliged, please, if someone would give him all the bits of land between Flanders and Burgundy so that he can piece them into a kingdom. And his grace of the Tyrol needs money – don’t we all? – and is willing to sell off the Black Forest to get it, not having a daughter to trade off like Denmark. And while
all this is going on the Swiss Confederates, the best fighters in Europe bar mine, are beginning to feel leaned upon. And if they ever get together, God help us.’

‘I hope He will. And then what?’ Godscalc said. His inner eye saw it: the siege towers, the cannon. His inner eye had always plagued him.

‘Then we put up our prices,’ Astorre said. ‘Nicholas told us to stay on in Burgundy. I didn’t want to. But he was right. Is he here yet?’

‘Any day now,’ Tobie said, coming in.

Then one evening Tobie came in alone. He shut the door meticulously at his back and stood and said, ‘He is here.’ His stillness, and the closed door, told the rest.