Gemini (115 page)

And he found some sort of voice and said, ‘Yes. I killed him.’

She tilted her head. When she spoke, it was as a juror, delivering a verdict. She said, ‘We both made mistakes. I should have left the children secure, or not left them at all. You should have stopped playing God with Julius and Adelina long ago; but, Heaven knows, you were thinking of them, and not yourself. And what led to my uncle’s death was pure, selfless courage on his part and yours. It has probably saved the kingdom.’

‘It has been a triumph,’ he said.

Then she said, ‘We agreed. Everything has a price. Sometimes you cannot be sure if you have paid enough, or too much. But I think this could be a triumph, if you allow it to be.’

He said, ‘With these two dead?’

And she said, ‘Nicholas. You gave me Robin, and he gave me Hob. Put that in your ledger.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, and walked away. He had not said anything else about Julius. That, too, should be put in the ledger. But tonight, for God and profit, the blood and the ink were too fresh.

I
N
THE CANONGATE
, evening passed into night. At midnight, several hours after Tobie and the others had left, Mistress Clémence excused herself and went off to bed. Bel and Gelis remained in the hall chamber, sometimes silent, sometimes talking to Robin, who rested in his wheeled chair at the side of the fire, which blazed and spat with the snow. At two hours after midnight, the rider came with the first of the news. The Priory had been attacked. The great force from Edinburgh had been too late to save my lord of Cortachy, and—forgive him—Master Robin’s young daughter. Today’s meeting at Whitekirk had been quashed, and all but my lord’s family would be returning, soon after first light. And he was to say that Master Julius had died. Of that, he didn’t know more, and left quickly.

There was no comfort in the bare facts. Even to think of the survivors was painful, when you could not thank God aloud, before Robin. The news of Julius had brought a gasp of dismay, and then uneasy silence. Perhaps he had ended his life as nobly as Anselm Adorne. Perhaps not. No one speculated. In time, Clémence, who had been summoned to hear, sent Bel and Gelis to bed, and stayed with Robin herself. Finally, as he fell into weary slumber, she allowed herself to nod in her chair until the household awoke, and she and the others prepared for those who were coming.

Gelis had known that Nicholas would not be among the first to arrive: that he would be obliged to report to Avandale and Whitelaw and Argyll; and to the Abbot at Holyrood, under whose jurisdiction Whitekirk lay. She also guessed, as it turned out correctly, that he would keep Jordan with him. Nicholas, in time of misery, was the best companion any young person could have. And it would spare Robin, for a while, the worse misery of pretending to welcome someone else’s live, healthy
child. It was, blessedly, Robin’s father who came back first, with John and Tobie and Father Moriz, and from them they heard the whole story of the attack. Later, Father Moriz told them how and why Julius had died.

Bel gazed at him throughout. When he ended, she spoke into the silence. ‘And Nicol killed him. In a sad, sad day, there is a tragedy, I can tell you, to match the worst of it.’

‘A
tragedy
!’ Tobie cried. His worn face was flushed. ‘You talk of Anselm Adorne in the same breath as Julius? A man who lied to us all; who took all we gave him and used it to deceive and betray us; who killed, or got others to kill for him, again and again? Who pretended to be Nicholas’s friend while he was planning to get rid of him and his family, and all but succeeded in having him labelled a killer and traitor himself? Who tricked him into fighting—into losing his own …’

‘Tobie,’ said Gelis. He stopped.

Father Moriz stirred. He said, ‘You are right. So is Mistress Bel. Julius was all of that. Mistress Bel began to guess it before most of us. But what you have to remember is that Nicholas knew it. He always knew. And he chose to keep quiet, as he chose to give Adelina a chance. They were his family. He thought them redeemable. So the killing yesterday was terrible, as Mistress Bel says. It was an admission, for him, that he had been wrong. And that, in turn, meant that he had let us all down.’

‘He had,’ said John le Grant. ‘He let the country down. Julius was a traitor.’ Gelis said, ‘Do you think, any of you, that Nicholas didn’t think of all that? He took a decision. He protected us, his family, by keeping us separate from Julius, whatever it forced him to do; wherever it forced him to go. And in everything else, including this country, Nicholas gave himself as a shield against Julius, as he did at North Berwick. If Julius was an example of petty selfishness, don’t you have something there to set against it? Something that might not have been there but for Julius?’

She was shivering, the cool golden Gelis. Clémence, seated beside her, took her hand.

Moriz said, ‘I think you have it. This is not Good against Evil: a piece from the Holy Book done in verse on a wagon. It is as you said: the tale of a small spirit that has enabled a greater to grow. But now, what shall that spirit do? He has failed us. He has failed himself. He has reached the top of the mountain, and someone must help him to choose.’

No one spoke. Then John le Grant said, ‘Then we show him he hasn’t failed us. I was wrong. You were right. Julius has gone. We don’t speak of him; we don’t care what he did. What we care about is what Nicholas is going to do, and if he will want us to join him.’

‘Do you want to join him?’ Gelis said. Her eyes were wet.

‘Will he want to have us?’ said Tobie. Then his face changed. He
said, ‘Why are we talking of Julius, or even Nicholas, when we have lost what we have lost? Archie; Robin; I’m sorry.’

They talked, after that, of what mattered: eight friends, coming to terms with what Bel had rightly named as a tragedy.

Adorne, in that calm, handwritten will, had asked to be buried in Linlithgow, where the Queen had made him captain and Governor of her Palace, and where his small, deaf daughter was. Kathi and Sersanders and Andreas had stayed with him and with Margaret, and the Bishop would presently help to bring them to St Michael’s, the church of Linlithgow.

Gelis had asked how Kathi was.

‘Dazed,’ said Father Moriz. ‘There is a blessed numbness, at times, when terrible events first come to pass. And there are arrangements to make. The child Efemie is to be under the guardianship of Kathi’s brother, who is likely to follow as captain of Linlithgow. All the Scottish property will be hers. But Bruges has not been forgotten. His first family are grown, but he has asked his surviving siblings to care for them, and for his heart to be placed by his wife. I do not think Phemie would mind.’

Bel spoke. ‘And I hear that Kilmirren survived. I was right, then. He went?’

Tobie said, ‘Yes, and he’ll live. Wodman is bringing him home. The cantankerous bastard wouldn’t stay with the nuns any longer.’

Bel sat up. ‘He’ll
live
?’

‘You didn’t know he was injured? An arrow. You heard that Julius tried to shoot young Jordan, the boy, from above? The old man stood in the way of the arrow. I’ve seen him. He’ll do; as well as a man of that bulk will ever do.’

Bel said, ‘What did Nicholas say? Did he realise how Kilmirren came to be wounded?’ Her voice was composed, but her hands had shut together.

Tobie sneezed. Below his round eyes were circles like blisters, and he had pulled his hat from his sun-spotted cranium. Once Clémence would have sighed. Now she gazed at him through watering eyes. Tobie said, ‘I told Nicholas what the old man had done. He didn’t say anything. The place was in an uproar. Anyway, he’d just … ended the business with Julius. He wasn’t in the mood to visit the sick.’

‘He refused,’ said Father Moriz with Germanic bluntness.

‘But St Pol saved Jordan’s life?’ Gelis said. Then she remembered, and stopped.

No one had saved Margaret’s life. Margaret was dead, and she ached for both Kathi and Robin. But the greater grief that she felt was for the other death: the one that would bear hardest on Nicholas, on the day that Julius, also, had died.

The death of Anselm Adorne, the wise, courteous mentor of his boyhood.

The death of his boyhood.

E
NTERING
E
DINBURGH
, J
ORDAN
de Fleury was allowed to call with his father on the Abbot of Holyrood, but had to wait in the antechamber of the grand houses they visited next. Master Crackbene kept Jordan company, and Master Yare, whom he knew from Leith and Berwick as well as Edinburgh. On the journey, they had talked quite a lot about Berwick. When he was young, sailing there with Master Yare and his father and Henry, Jordan had thought it a splendid place, and envied Master Yare his great house in The Ness, and longed to fish, and to live in the castle.

Now it had gone to the English, but no one appeared too depressed. It seemed that the English were complaining already about the extra taxes to pay for the garrison, and all the casks and baskets of coal expected by loyal merchants in their new homes. And here was Scotland, to hear Master Yare, with its trade and its harbours adjusted, a war averted, and nobody very much worse. Certainly not Master Yare, who was Treasurer of the burgh of Edinburgh. Or Gibbie Fish, or Wattie Bertram, or Will Scheves, or Humphrey Colquhoun, or Lauder of the Bass, the whilk, said Master Yare, ye didna notice renting out their candlesticks, did ye?

‘Poor Sandy,’ had said Master Yare, jogging along. (He said Pooh.) ‘He might have been a nice enough lad, but no gumption, ganging or coming; and awfu’ blate [bhate] about asking advice. He should have lent heed to your sleekit da, Jordan.’

‘You sound as if you’re sorry for Sandy,’ said Jordan. He had never called the Duke Sandy before.

‘After what happened at the Priory, you mean? Sure enough, it happened because of him, whether he had a hand in it or not. But in the end, he’ll be worse off nor us. Mind my words,’ had said Master Yare. ‘If your own brain pan is wanting—and I’m sure it’s not—mak’ siccar you buy someone else’s.’

They talked to Jordan a lot, both on the journey and after, and told him things about his father he hadn’t known. Jordan wasn’t likely to forget Margaret, or the rest that had happened, but he felt more normal by the time the morning was over, and Master Crackbene and Master Yare had gone home, and he was alone with his father. He felt hungry.

T
HE HOUSE WAS
quiet, by the time Nicholas brought Jordan home. The talk was over, and most of the tired men who had been at North
Berwick—Tobie and Moriz and John—had for the moment dispersed. Bel had gone, returned to Kilmirren House to wait for St Pol. Gelis wondered what she would tell Bonne; and how Bonne would receive the news that her stepfather was dead, and that Nicholas had killed him. With indifference, she thought. Then she regretted the thought.

Jordan, coming over to kiss her, had a little air of soldierly brashness that degenerated, for a moment, with his embrace, and then reasserted itself. It seemed mostly genuine. Nicholas looked extraordinarily tired, but spoke and acted as he always did. He had a bruise on his face. He said, ‘You’ve probably heard all the news. Could Jordan go and get himself dinner? I’ve had all the refreshments, and he’s had all the hard work in the antechambers. And we could both do with some sleep.’

It was said for Jordan’s sake. She knew that it would be a long time before the day would be over for Nicholas. He would have to go to the King.

Jordan went, and Nicholas sat. They were alone. The fire flickered. Then he put his face in his hands.

His chair was not very near. He had taken the first one he saw. She didn’t rise and cross over, or move. She didn’t speak for a long time. Then she said, ‘What did Avandale say? And the others?’ She didn’t care what they said. She was only reminding him that soon, someone would come; and that he had to continue to think, and to act, to give the sacrifice meaning.

He said, ‘Avandale?’ and took his hands down. His eyes, large and deep and heavily lidded, were dry as sand. He said, ‘You can perhaps imagine. As a man, he regrets Adorne’s murder, of course. But really, nothing more opportune could have happened, and the world is to hear of it at once. How the King offered fraternal friendship to Albany, and his emissary was done to death on his way to the meeting. Or put even better, how his envoy gave up his life to deter Albany’s men from committing sacrilege.’

‘It is what happened,’ she said. ‘We feel bitter, I think, because a friend’s death can be turned to advantage, and this seems to detract from the tragedy. But what would Anselm have wanted? He had chosen a King. He would surely want to serve him in death as well as life? And it also allows us to praise him. Think what he was.’

‘Oh, we have done that,’ Nicholas said. ‘I can tell you precisely all that he was, and which factions will be asked to respond to his murder with horror. He was the envoy of the little Duchess of Burgundy to Scotland, and had been her father’s emissary to Poland. His daughter served the English King’s mother; his wife was honoured by the English King’s sister. He was a friend of Caxton, a patron of architects, music and art. He and his family were judges and councillors to the Dukes of Burgundy, and related to the Doges of Genoa. He was a merchant trader,
and Conservator of the Scots Privileges in Bruges. He was burgomaster of Bruges. He was a champion jouster and a leader in war, but also a man of devout faith. He went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was welcome in Rome. He beautified his family’s Jerusalemkerk, and was patron of hospices, almshouses, churches. He was a Knight of the Sword, of Jerusalem, of the Unicorn. He was a man whose death will perform a small service, but whose life would have ennobled a country.’

‘Then others must do it,’ she said.

There was another silence. Then he said, his voice closer to normal, ‘Of course, we must talk, you and I. But not now. Sweetheart, I’d better eat, too. And wash the dirt away. And find some—’