Gemini (60 page)

Her emotions disintegrated; then flew, just as quickly, to their proper places. This was Nicholas, not a child or a lunatic, although he could be both. She composed her face. ‘I could try to find out,’ she said gravely. But by then, he had reviewed what he had said and started to laugh, in the devastating way that brought her close to tears, she loved him so much.

T
HE IMMEDIATE CRISIS
with Sandy was over; Mar had quietened. In Scotland then, to those negotiating the wolf-ridden currents in the stout barque of communal statecraft, it seemed that the year 1479 was to slide to its end with nothing worse to fear than the threat of an exceptionally cold winter. Parliament met in October, and continued the peremptory summons of Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, to answer for the garrisoning of the castle of Dunbar against the King and his other transgressions. They then proceeded to repeat sentences of forfeiture against those others who had collaborated with him. Jamie Liddell was not among them. Nicholas went to see him.

Liddell was bitter. ‘How can it be treason? Has he tried to kill the King? Has Sandy tried to kill anyone? Colquhoun’s death was an accident, you know that.’

Nicholas said, ‘The Duke refused to stand down from Dunbar. He fired on the royal forces. He flouted the King’s orders and fought on the Border. You know what else he did. He has to be challenged, or it’s an invitation to general anarchy. Whether he will be condemned or not will be a matter for judges. And meanwhile, note, he hasn’t forfeited anything.’

‘James hates his brothers,’ said Liddell.

And Nicholas said, ‘No, he doesn’t. The King has the family temper, that’s all. He can be guided, just like all of them can. Sandy could hold the highest post in the kingdom if he could bring himself to make accommodation with England. For God’s sake, we’re not taking King Edward as overlord. We’re simply observing a useful pact between neighbours. It needn’t even stretch to another marriage, if the Princess Margaret objects.’

Liddell said, ‘According to Whitelaw, Edward will renege on the dowry for his daughter Cecilia if Margaret’s isn’t forthcoming.’

‘It’s possible,’ Nicholas said. ‘Just as it’s possible that the King will spend all the wedding taxes on cannon, or hats, unless someone persuades him otherwise. What about Ellem and the rest who held out in Dunbar? Can they be helped? Will they make representations?’

‘Do you care?’ Liddell had said.

And Nicholas said, ‘Of course I do. Sandy’s going to come back. We’re all going to have to make things work in the end.’

‘We?’ said Liddell.

‘Well. You,’ said Nicholas mildly.

J
AMES
, L
ORD
H
AMILTON
, died during the first heavy snow, in November, and those who went to his funeral, in the collegiate church he had founded nearly fifty years previously, found themselves briefly immured in that western sheriffdom of Lanarkshire which had been his, and which now fell to his only legitimate son, his child by the Princess Mary.

There were, of course, many adult Hamiltons to receive those who came to do him honour, from his prolific brothers and their wives to his own illegitimate, talented family. Spread among the several Hamilton keeps and towers at Cadzow, Draffen and at the place now called Hamilton in his name were the well-born officers, young and old, who attended the Princess and her husband, among whom was Jodi de Fleury, brilliant of face and eye, moving decorously in his new sable dress to welcome his parents, but waiting only to be swept inside his father’s encouraging arm and to burst into speech.

The widowed Princess wept in resentful short bursts, and alternately commandeered Nicholas and shunned him. It was natural. He had engineered one aspect or another of both Mary’s marriages. She mostly felt grateful, but she did not want another.

Her Hamilton children were too small to share in the commotion, but James and Margaret Boyd, the son and daughter born to her in Anselm Adorne’s house in Bruges, were little younger than Jodi. They knew their stepfather had died, and walked about, eyes lowered, in their black dress, speaking politely when introduced. They came to life a little when Anselm Adorne himself arrived, with his niece Katelinje of Berecrofts, who had once been maid of honour to their lady aunt Margaret. They came fully alive when Jodi’s father eventually joined the company. Jodi had never understood who gave Jamie Boyd the right to walk by his father and talk to him. Mistress Clémence, tackled once, explained that it was because M. de Fleury was a friend of the Princess’s brother. The Duke of Albany was a hero to Jamie.

Jodi had thereafter followed the doings of the Duke of Albany, which
seemed to him more interfering than heroic, and lately had kept his own father overseas for four months. He did not particularly like Jamie’s sister, and missed the other Margaret, Margaret of Berecrofts, who was staying with her great-grandfather and little brothers not far away, at Templehall. Margaret was four and three-quarters, but fought like a seven-year-old.

Gelis, aware of the under-currents, was not surprised when Nicholas took them out of their way to stay overnight at Templehall while on their journey to Hamilton, rather than call on the way back. Kathi and her uncle were there. Set in its own wooded park, Will of Berecrofts’s ancestral home was a comfortable, extended keep, with its stable and service buildings about it, all deep in sparkling snow. They arrived with daylight in hand, and when they had eaten, and talked to Adorne and the old man, Nicholas swept all the active young of the household out into the white sunlit snow for wild sport. Margaret, with her light curling hair and Berecrofts fleetness, shrieked with joy, returning her uncle Nicol’s bombardment, while Rankin, aged three, chopped about in small manic boots, cheeks vermilion, lungs pumping with determined effort.

Indoors, it was Margaret who pushed Nicol to this room and that to examine treasures, the high voice swooping and fluting as she dictated, explained and enquired. Round her plump neck was a chain from which hung a lustrous cream pearl, his gift to her. Before she was taken off to her bath, she had him hear her sing to it. She had a cheerful, sweet voice. Rankin possibly possessed one as well, but it was more often employed as a stockhorn, to advise that he was about to arrive at high speed smack into some part of Uncle Nicol’s anatomy: chest or stomach, thighs or legs. Then, clambering, he would wrap his short arms round Nicol’s strong neck and announce things.

Gelis, watching, saw Kathi was watching as well, and smiled at her. ‘What’s the magic?’

Kathi came and sat down. These days, she didn’t look worn any more, but content, and busy, and secure. She said, ‘It’s good for Rankin, rough play. He can’t have it with Robin. And how does Nicholas do it? Ask Andreas some time. Intuition. Animal instinct. A sort of physical love, given to everyone, without even having to touch them. A way of conveying physical comfort, and understanding, and fondness, that also puts into their heads, silently, whatever he wants them to do.’ She broke off, her head to one side. ‘Is that actionable? It probably is. But if you could work out the recipe and bottle it, you could become very rich.’

Her voice had hurried a little. Gelis said, ‘It’s all right. I thought of it too. Esota.’ The woman who had been understanding and friendly—too friendly—to a very young child then called Claes.

Kathi said, ‘It wasn’t all bad. It was just a pity she didn’t find her own Tristan to make love to. Being stuck with King Mark de Fleury
would make anyone odd. And speaking of oddities: what do you think the Princess will do now she’s widowed? She didn’t mind being married to Hamilton, but he was the King’s choice, not hers.’

‘And now she has a chance to show her independence,’ Gelis said. ‘Nicholas thinks she’ll demand some sort of security for the Boyd children—she’ll have to bring them up with the Hamiltons, anyway, without a husband to finance them.’

‘That’s what my uncle expects,’ Kathi said. ‘And she’ll probably get it: the King doesn’t want Mary and Margaret and Mar joining Sandy against him. You asked me about Princess Margaret?’

Rankin had been taken off, objecting, to bed, and Nicholas, mildly dishevelled, was talking to Adorne and Old Will on the other side of the chamber. Gelis said, ‘Apparently John of Mar nearly said something, at the time of the fight in the inn. And it does seem suspicious that she keeps missing wedding appointments in England.’

‘So everyone thinks,’ Kathi said. ‘I hoped Dr Andreas would work out a horoscope, but he’s been difficult. I have to say that, egged on by the late Master Simpson, she has been experimenting, I think. There would be no shortage of applicants for the post of royal consort and premature father, and no better way of spiting the King for selling her off to Earl Rivers. Opinion thinks that that was the original idea. Opinion further thinks that Meg enjoyed flouting her brother the King; slept with everybody; became rather too fond of one man and now finds herself pregnant to someone she can’t actually marry, because he’s married already. Abortion (this is guessing) has failed, and she is reduced to hoping that Sandy will ride up in French feathers and rescue her.’

‘So, who?’ Gelis said.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Kathi said. ‘But I can probably tell you the day after tomorrow. Everyone becomes indiscreet at a really good funeral.’

‘So!’ said Old Will, limping over. ‘What are you twa young quines talking about? Courting and babies and weddings, I’ll be bound!’

Kathi got up and gave him a kiss. ‘You were listening,’ she said.

C
ONSIDERING, OR EVEN
because of the weather, it was an exceptionally good funeral, in that the less flexible landowners and bishops and business-men stayed away, preferring to pay their respects at a requiem Mass in a more accessible setting. For the Crown, Hearty James came with a brother, and Drew Avandale and Colin Campbell were there, with their servants, as well as most of the Hamilton neighbours: Semple and Haldane and Darnley; the Abbot of Paisley and Humphrey Colquhoun and his mother, glaring alternately at each other and everyone else. There were one or two others with houses in Berwick, such as Tom Yare and his fellow Edinburgh burgess, Wattie Bertram. John Doby from the College
in Glasgow, which owed its first real building to Hamilton. David, Earl of Crawford, who had married one of Hamilton’s two daughters by his first wife. Preceptor Knollys of the Order of St John, which owned land in every baron’s domain. And, late and together, Tam Cochrane the (rich) mason, with old Bishop Spens of Aberdeen, his rosy face purple with cold. Knollys immediately crossed and bent solicitously over him.

It reminded Kathi how much she liked funerals, provided the departed was old, and had led a full life, and had not been particularly well liked. Attaching herself, as was only seemly, to the lady Margaret her former royal mistress, she watched with approval as the Baron Cortachy and the sire de Fleury and his lady wife deployed their social skills among the gathering about to issue to Mass. There was no one there with quite the authority of Anselm Adorne: elegant, courteous, moving from group to group with his observant eye and quiet greetings. And few people there who drew the eye as Nicholas did, with his height, the quality of his voice, and the impression of hardly repressed energy that he did not seem to know he possessed. It was instructive, if you knew what he was doing, to see just which people he spoke to, and for how long. And the same was true of Gelis, who chose her own path, and for whom circles opened in welcome. She had won esteem enough for her name and her looks, but nowadays there was more. Men admired her for her ability. They were also right to admire her as a beauty. Physical love had done that.

The music was good, but should have been better: Whistle Willie was stranded up north. It became very hot because of the candles, and then intermittently very cold, as the doors opened to admit some late-comer and an icy draught swept down the nave. Afterwards, breakfast had been arranged in various Hamilton properties, with the sole inn at the Netherton pressed into use for the overflow. With the family, Kathi was returning to Hamilton Keep, closer than Cadzow.

The service ended. The coffin passed, with its procession forming behind. The doors opened on a livid sky and deep, trampled snow. Standing by the doors, just where they had entered, stood the massive cloaked form of Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren and, beside him, Henry his grandson, disdainful and fair in royal livery.

Kathi said softly, ‘Nicholas.’

Beside her, he had already turned back. ‘I see them,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. They’ve missed the Elevation of the Host, and the Pazzis killed the wrong person anyway.’

‘But you’re terribly, terribly sorry you stabbed Henry,’ Kathi said.

‘And burned down Beltrees,’ remarked Gelis, on his other side, in a murmur.

‘What is it?’ said Jodi.

All his elders became silent. Then Nicholas said, ‘Your cousin Henry
and his grandfather are here. Smile, behave nicely, and especially be kind to poor Henry. He has a sore arm.’

It was all the advice that Nicholas gave, Kathi noted, throughout everything that followed. As they left the church, and during the last of the ceremonies, distance separated them from Kilmirren, and the same was true at the keep, where the feast prepared for them was royal, as befitted the King’s sister and her late husband. Had the King succumbed to his illness, or been poisoned, had Sandy been judged and justified, Hamilton would very likely have ruled, as regent for James, Fourth of the Name, now aged six.

The little Prince had a good nurse, Nanse Preston, but not a Nicholas, who was at present handling Jodi, nearly eleven, by doing nothing. When the snow had first come to Edinburgh, Nicholas and John le Grant had disappeared down to the workshops at Leith and returned with paint-smeared fingers and discoloured thumbnails, quarrelling noisily and hoarse with shouting and laughter. With them, they dragged four new-made and magnificent sledges, two for adults, one for a child, and one for a wheel chair.