Gemini (22 page)

As for the discussion, it had the quality of those he had already had recently; with Adorne and Hugonet and Gruuthuse, with Abbot Archie at Holyrood, and supremely with the Lords Three: Argyll’s sibilant shrewdness; Whitelaw’s precisely filed portfolio of finnicky experience; Avandale’s masterly overview from the summit. He had spoken to a lot of rich, clever men since he came back, but more than most he enjoyed talking to Nowie.

Now, hearing of Robin, Sinclair listened in silence. Then he said, I am extremely sorry to hear this. I imagine you are quite right: his will to live will depend on the challenge of work. I wish to know first, do you have the permission of Berecrofts and Anselm Sersanders to reveal the state of their business? For unless I know this, clearly I cannot advise on its future.’

Nicholas had their agreement, and figures would follow. He didn’t have, at this stage, very much more. He didn’t know whether Kathi and Robin would come home, or what they would plan to invest if they did. He was simply exploring the field, so that if they returned, there might be something of value in prospect.

‘I am flattered,’ said Oliver Sinclair, ‘to be entrusted with such a sensitive charge. And what investment are you making, Nicol?’ The large, fair face bent kindly eyes upon him. Phemie sat still.

‘My ships,’ Nicholas said ‘Or rather, my wife’s. We have never been part of the Berecrofts-Sersanders business. That would remain a family company, for which we should act as agents and carriers, if wanted.’

‘If wanted!’ said Nowie. ‘But of course they will want you. Of course you must benefit from any expansion, since you are taking such trouble for Robin.’

He turned his head, because Phemie had stirred. She said, ‘Nicholas
hesitated to come to you, in case it seemed that he was exploiting Robin’s misfortune.’

‘And that is why you are here: I see, Phemie, my dear. But Nicol could hardly avoid doing so, could he, even with the purest of intentions? A merchant must collect information, and what will benefit Berecrofts will advantage him. You have been to Newbattle, I hear?’ He had turned back, politely, to Nicholas. ‘Did they make you any noteworthy propositions, might I ask?’

Nicholas said, ‘Yes, Sir Oliver. But we need not pursue this. I know you are closely connected with the Abbey.’

The pale eyes considered him. ‘We helped to found it,’ said Sinclair. ‘But their decisions these days are their own, as of course they should be. I should be interested to know, none the less, what they said.’

Nicholas told him.

‘And you propose to accept?’ Sinclair asked.

‘No,’ said Nicholas.

There was a long silence. Phemie glanced at her cousin, and smiled. He returned the smile with an absent-minded one of his own, and reverted to Nicholas. ‘You are exceedingly wise. Yet this was presented as a serious offer?’

‘Or as a form of subtle discouragement. They have been warned, perhaps, against trading with me. In which case of course I should not do so. Directly.’

‘I see,’ said Oliver Sinclair. ‘I wonder if I have this correctly. You are asking me to conduct business for you under my name.’

‘Not for me. For Berecrofts,’ Nicholas said.

‘And if I were to agree, you might even tell me who has warned Newbattle against you? Or is that a secret?’ asked Oliver.

‘Not a very great one,’ said Nicholas. ‘But it is best that—officially at least—you don’t know.’

‘Hm. Well, then. What were the arrangements that you hoped for from Newbattle, had things turned out differently?’ Sinclair said.

He had won. He had expected to. He spoke, making sure that the commercial case that he made would serve the Sinclairs at least as well as the Berecroftses. At the end, the lord of Roslin ceased making notes and sat back. ‘So. And what does Phemie think of all that?’

Her cheeks were pink. Meshed into his neat, professional project had been opportunities for Phemie’s own extended family: the husband of Cristina her sister; the two Tom Prestons, and Marchmont Herald, who had married one of their sisters. Also Tam Cochrane, who was becoming an ally.

Phemie said, ‘I think, Nowie, that you should accept his suggestions. I also think that you should tell the Lords Three to compel this man to settle in Scotland. Chain him, if need be.’

‘My dear, your eloquence gladdens the heart. Indeed, you might almost persuade me. Nicol, I think she has almost persuaded me to help you. What do you think?’

Nicholas said, ‘I think we should both thank her, Sir Oliver.’

‘What a nice speech. Doesn’t he have a nice turn of speech?’ the other man said. ‘So I think that, yes, I might do as you ask. And by the way, my name is Nowie, dear Nicol. (A glass of something?) If we are to work together, of course you must call me Nowie.’

Crossing the bridge, rather drunk, Nicholas was stopped, not very surprisingly, by Tam Cochrane, who wanted a word in the sacristy. At the end of it: ‘Mares,’ said Cochrane, who by this time was drunker than Nicholas was.

‘What about them?’ said Nicholas, who was playing with a plumb line. He dropped it.

‘The clack was ye were buying stud stock frae Eck Scougal. Now he says they’re all going to some client in Renfrewshire. So would you like me to get you some others?’ Cochrane knew about horses.

‘Never mind. I’ve changed my mind. I’d better go,’ Nicholas said.

He supposed that, back in Edinburgh, his groom would have departed already. Up and down, up and down like the pendulum.

‘It’s a shame about the young laddie. It’s a shame about Robin,’ said Cochrane.

S
PRING
CAME, TO
mend the brutal geometry of space. A ship arrived in Sluys bearing a poem, of which Gelis van Borselen took sasine:

Below this artful translation, her husband had written:
Be patient. I am not
.

I
T WAS THE
first communication from Nicholas since the coded note about Phemie. With the poem came several pages of news, characteristically scurrilous: about people she knew; about where he was staying. She
gathered that he had been accepted at Court and elsewhere without too much trouble; that Davie Simpson had failed to surface; and that he had had a non-lethal meeting with Jordan de St Pol which boded reasonably well. There was an idiotic story about one of the King’s brothers and pepper. The letter was dated mid-March, and when it was written, it was clear, he had received none of the letters she had been trying to send him since February. His ended with a careful reminder that, despite all this good news, she was not to come back as yet. No grapes. Also in the packet was a budget for Jodi of everything he was accustomed to receiving from his roving father: letters, verses and drawings, puzzles and questions.

She assumed she was being told perhaps an eighth, perhaps even a quarter of the truth. Kathi, consulted, agreed, but added that Nicholas would be much comforted by the belief that he was sparing her, and Gelis must simply suffer in a good cause. It did not occur to Gelis, then, that Kathi might know more than she did.

By the end of April, there were two further letters from Nicholas, written later in March, and after he had received some of her own. It appeared that Tobie had told him something of her share in the Ghent Gate arrival, and Nicholas was frightened enough to be angry, which touched and pleased her: tit for tat. She read, with awe, his plans for Robin’s business, and learned that he had met Prosperde Camulio, but not Simpson, so far. He mentioned Adorne, and asked Gelis whether she had received a letter in code. He did not know, of course, that Adorne was in prison, or how delayed Phemie’s letter had been. He must be waiting, with more and more disquiet, for Adorne’s reply.

He would have it soon. By mid-April, when that cautiously worded enquiry reached Gelis, Kathi had left, braving the seas to take Robin and her children to Scotland, and Tobie and Clémence with them. And taking, too, the precious document, newly written by Anselm Adorne, which accepted with joy Phemie’s child, and which asked her to marry him. It brought to Gelis’s mind that other, older affirmation whose existence she had confided to Diniz. Then, there had been no question of marriage, for the child’s mother, her sister, was dying. This was different. Now she must pray that Adorne, the father, would survive.

Now, with Kathi gone, Gelis was alone with her anxieties in Bruges. But no. Of course she wasn’t alone. She had Jodi. Diniz was here, and his family. John had travelled to Sluys, as she had, to see Robin and the others depart; but, returning, had withdrawn into silence, sitting in corners with clerks, engaged in the final, dreary paperwork to do with the ending at Nancy of the mercenary company of which he had been master gunner. Outside, she had acquaintances: Bruges was full of people who had known Nicholas from boyhood. Letters came from the managers who had been friends—Gregorio in Venice, Father Moriz and Govaerts in Cologne, where they had been joined by Julius, direct from his successful
visit with Tobie to Nancy. And with them (and long might she stay there) was Julius’s step-daughter Bonne.

Gelis had no right to repine, and indeed little time, for she was occupied with the closing of Robin’s affairs as well as the normal business of the Hof Charetty-Niccolò. And above all else, she set to work for the survival of Adorne of Cortachy, who was still under duress, untried, despite all that she and Wolfaert and Gruuthuse had so far been able to do. The little Duchess, temporarily freed for her inauguration, was applied to, but Gelis herself—tellingly escorted by John—had seen her only briefly, and left with no promises and a feeling of helplessness on both sides. Their protests had, however, borne some kind of fruit: the execution of Adorne’s condemned companion had been delayed, and so had the trial of the others, as well as his own. But that was also to keep matters quiet during the visit of the Imperial embassy, come to Bruges to arrange for the Duchess’s wedding. And then there had followed the actual contract of marriage, which required the Duke of Bavaria, representing the groom, to lie down with the Duchess in bed, both being fully dressed, with a naked sword lying between them. Thus, to keep the land safe from King Louis, was contracted that union which would yield Burgundy, bit by bit, back to France, and would ensure that for three hundred years the Low Countries would belong to the Habsburgs.

That day, it was not wise to walk about Bruges, where drinking was fierce and tempers ran hot and high. When the caller arrived at the Hof Charetty-Niccolò, he had passed through the streets with some difficulty, and before that, through France itself with even more trouble, so that his return had taken many weeks. The bright-eyed, middle-aged figure whom Diniz introduced to the parlour where Gelis and his family were gathered was the astrologer Andreas of Vesalia, physician, guild-brother and friend to Anselm Adorne, and—in his time—Court physician in Scotland.

His first words were, ‘I have been to the Hôtel Jerusalem! What has happened?’ And at the end, ‘It has begun then. I was afraid.’

Diniz, a sceptic, was silent. But Gelis knew from Nicholas, who had the power to divine minerals, the narrow boundary that lay between the occult and the rational, and was prepared at least to listen to astrologers; especially of the worldly sort with a much-cherished mistress in Blois.

On the other hand, listening to astrologers was not always productive. Dr Andreas had been touched by no premonitions, it transpired, about Anselm Adorne. Speaking of him, he expressed the same angry anxiety that they all felt. This trial was iniquitous. Its effects would be felt by the unborn as well as the living.

Gelis, distrusting the phrase, changed the subject. Tilde returned to it. What did he mean, It had begun? Pressed, Dr Andreas made a nonspecific reference to Scotland.

‘So what about Scotland?’ said Diniz sharply. ‘Is there something we should know? Or Nicholas ought to be told?’

‘He will find out before we could tell him,’ the astrologer said. ‘He has experience of the King and his kindred. So has Dr Tobias.’

Gelis stared at him. The King and his kindred? But before she could speak, the door opened on John le Grant, and the chance was lost in an exchange of fresh greetings.

When she questioned him later, Dr Andreas was willing but not much more informative. He had formed an attachment for the ruling circles in Scotland, and had sensed a certain increasing tension in recent years. So far as he knew, M. de Fleury was not endangered. He did not know why he had connected the ills of Scotland with Lord Cortachy’s present predicament.

He said nothing of Phemie. He probably knew nothing of Phemie, but his sixth sense had told him that something was wrong. She did not blame Dr Andreas. She knew, through Nicholas, how perverse that gift was.

That perverse gift. That perverse tutor, Delay. That dire master, redoubled longing.

She wished she were where Kathi was, sailing to Scotland.

Be patient. I am not
.

I cannot wait much longer, Nicholas.

U
NFORTUNATE THE DOCTOR
who, sick at heart, is also sick at sea. For nearly three months by this date, Tobias Beventini had been physician and shepherd to others, protecting Robin of Berecrofts and John while Julius argued for their release; caring for them when Julius had gone. Now Tobie was moving away from home, away from Bruges, away from the Italian states where he had grown up and trained, and towards Scotland, and Nicholas. And Robin was still in his care.

Fortunate the doctor who, sick at sea, has a highly trained, much younger wife as formidable as Clémence, and a dear young former patient such as Kathi, to tend the sick man, and the sick doctor, and the sick children.

They put in often to shore, and allotted themselves time to recover between the ceaseless storms and the buffeting. Only a journey by land would have been worse. England was at peace with both Scotland and Burgundy, and they had safe conducts from the little Duchess herself. But always Robin, appealing in whispers, was anxious to hurry and Tobie, deeply disturbed, had to weigh the effect of a refusal against the damage already inflicted by an elderly, badly packed vessel in tumultuous seas.