Gemini (96 page)

To Sandy Albany, hedged about with English magnates, the news was pure bliss. ‘They refused to fight me! The people want me! Now we can march!’

Smiling, Dickon of Gloucester agreed. Now they could march. Not (had he not mentioned?) across the entire Border, but across the eastern part of it, certainly, where Sandy’s loyal supporters were to be found; leaving a good, solid siege in place at Berwick, just in case anyone thought of relieving the town. But with what fervour the rest of the army would pour over the frontier on a front as far west as Coldstream and, marching in parallel, would leave their mark upon all those disaffected rich regions where lurked Sandy’s enemies, the Homes and the Sinclairs and the rest. Upsettlington would feel their displeasure; and Hutton Hall and Kimmerghame, and Auchencrow, and all the places belonging to Coldingham Priory. He was sure Sandy would agree that they might find
a good few acres of crops and inflammable buildings round Coldingham Priory.

In private, with Percy and Dorset, Stanley and Woodville, the Duke did not disguise his true feelings. ‘These giddy, lamentable Scots! A cowardly army, and a King so weak that he cannot control it! So what now? He is under arrest in his own Castle. We can neither fight him nor treat with him.’

Dorset said, ‘We could enter Edinburgh and starve them out of the Castle. We have twenty thousand.’

‘We have three weeks,’ said Neville. ‘Then the money runs out. And the supplies.’

Dickon grunted. Percy said, ‘Is it possible …’

‘What?’

‘Is it possible,’ said Harry Percy, ‘that this is deliberate? That they know how short a time we can stay, and have removed the King for that reason?’

‘How could they know?’ Gloucester said. ‘The only one who knew all our intentions was the Burgundian, and I am assured that he drowned in the Till.’

C
ANNILY PROTECTING THIS
particular asset, Master Secretary Whitelaw permitted Nicholas to sleep until the night was half over, and then sent for Gelis, his wife, who had not been allowed to see him since his return from York. By that time she knew, as Nicholas did not, what had happened at Lauder, having given beds to three of its warriors. Coming to Whitelaw’s, she left John and Moriz but brought Dr Tobie, who chose to remain tactfully out of Nicholas’s room until called, sitting on an uncomfortable chair and falling asleep from time to time, neck askew.

Had he been there, he would have seen nothing of intimacy, none of the fever that had marked other reunions. When Gelis entered, Nicholas had exchanged his bed for a chair, and was standing beside it, wrapped in a robe. When she crossed to him, he touched her elbows, drawing her close for his kiss, and then set her as gently apart. His face was open and grave and quite steady. ‘Cry mercy,’ he said.
Be kind. Be guided
.

She said, ‘Andro described it all. There is nothing you need to say, unless you want to. Or only one thing. Adorne says someone betrayed you?’

‘It was going to happen,’ he said, ‘whether someone betrayed me or not. It isn’t important. Gelis, I know you are concerned, but I should be a poor pupil if I ran crying from this. I can carry it.’

‘I think you can,’ she said. She touched his face, and he took her fingers and kissed them, but did not keep them. She said, ‘We all can.’

She tried to speak with conviction. She, too, had learned patience.
She had learned how to keep her afflictions to herself, as he did. She had also learned to give up her privacy sometimes, because it bore too hard on others. But he had to think of that for himself.

She said, ‘There is only one thing I want to say. Don’t blame Simon. Don’t blame yourself. I have never seen anyone work as hard as you did to redeem Henry, but I don’t think you could or maybe even should have succeeded. And don’t imagine that you have failed Katelina. She made the wrong choice. She didn’t give you a chance to recognise or rear your own son. She committed you both, out of foolishness, to a deception. If you can forgive her, then you must forgive everyone, including yourself.’

‘Everyone?’ he said. ‘No. I know what you mean. Let’s leave it at that. Thank you. I knew you would say something wise.’ His eyes rested on hers, and she returned his gaze. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She was taking such care that her breathing kept lapsing.

There was another chair. She slowly sat, and after a moment he resumed his own, with a smoothness that she could see was deliberate.
I have recovered
. And, behind that,
I can ride. I can leave. I am sorry
.

She supposed then that the shutters had closed; and that she no longer had the chance to tell him anything else. Instead, he said suddenly, ‘What does Jodi think?’ He had used the little name, to keep the old man out of the conversation.

She had not lost the chance. She didn’t know whether to take it. Her throat aching, she answered his question. ‘Robin explained that soldiers die, and Jodi is thinking about it. We all have to do that, about different losses.’

As she had learned to read him, so he read her. She said only that, and saw his face change. He said, ‘Something else has happened? Something at Lauder?
Tobie?
’

She spoke quickly then, as he would have done. ‘Tobie is downstairs. John and Moriz are at home. No.’ And as he stared at her, she said, ‘There was trouble over the guns. Big Tam lost his head, and Leithie stood up for him. Anyone who got in the way was liable to be attacked. The army was defying the King. Men were frightened.’

‘Gelis?’ he said. ‘Tam Cochrane and Leithie Preston are dead? And who else?’

‘And Will Roger,’ she said. ‘He loved the King. You risked your life in York. He did the same, going to war. You happened to survive, and he didn’t.’

All her concern was for him. The only measure she had of Roger’s importance was the measure Nicholas gave it. She should not have been surprised when he looked at her and said, ‘What have I to do with it? The world has lost him.’ Then he said, ‘Tobie is here?’

‘I’ll call him,’ she said.

It was the correct decision. The least sentimental of men (as he said
himself), Tobie delivered an accurate account of the day’s events with speed and belligerence and then proceeded, encouraged by Nicholas, to seek and identify the truth of what had led to the hangings. For, of course, Tam Cochrane had not been killed solely because he had blindly obeyed the King’s desire to send his guns to defend Berwick. He was killed because his particular skills and abilities were essential to and penetrated every aspect of Scottish affairs, including the shipping of the necessary materials for war and for peace. And from that had stemmed the reciprocal exports, of salmon and timber, whose success had aroused jealousy against all its agents, including Leithie Preston who, like others, had so notoriously traded with England.

And there was much more, of course, to dislike about large, rich men who came from your neighbourhood and whose father you had known. Mint masters were casters, and casters were gunsmiths, and gunsmiths, like Will Goldsmith the Halfpenny Man, employed Big Tam Cochrane to build their stone cunzie houses and import the skills and tools and even the metal they needed to mint their bloody black money, which had ruined the kingdom; in return for which, they supplied guns. Gibbie Fish of Berwick used to work with Tam Cochrane. No wonder Tam Cochrane wanted to hang on to Berwick.

Gelis said, ‘So Tam was always going to die, so many wanted rid of him. But why Will?’ Nicholas had become rather white but Tobie, in the heat of the argument, had ceased even to sneeze.

Tobie said, ‘He was English, wasn’t he? He had St Leonard’s Hospital once; he was given Traquair, until the King transferred it to Buchan. The King was fond of him: he might have restored him all that. But most of all, Will was blamed for the King’s dream of a great chapel of music, to be financed out of Coldingham Priory, and hence wrecking the sinecures of the Home family. Not every Home is for Albany and England, but none of them want to lose Coldingham.’

‘So he was always going to die, too,’ Nicholas said. ‘Does Kathi know?’

Gelis knew that she did. Tobie had slipped away to break the news to her and to Robin. Kathi had brushed aside Tobie’s sympathy, speaking of Roger. ‘What do I matter? The world has lost him.’ She had asked who would go and tell Nicholas.

Now Tobie said, ‘I have told her, and Jodi, poor lad. Tam Cochrane was a hero of his, with all those wonderful drawings. Which reminds me. Kathi tells me you gave a beating to Julius.’

Nicholas said, ‘He also gave one to me.’

‘But you started it. What got into you?’ Tobie said. ‘You know he’s an inquisitive idiot. Now he’s in the Floory Land, swearing to get his own back. You ought to see him. If you can’t see him, Moriz says he thinks he can calm him.’

Nicholas said, ‘I was upset. I’ll put it right when I get back. I was going to tell Gelis. I am about to be launched into the arena for another public calamity.’

‘Well, that was part of the scheme,’ Tobie said briskly. Behind the briskness, there was worry. ‘I assumed you would go, in due course, if you were in shape for it. A lot of people like Gelis and Robin and Abbot Archie have put in some hard work convincing the town what to do next. We’re lucky we’ve got Tom Yare and Wattie Bertram to deal with. Everyone knows everyone else, and they’ve argued it through with the Council.’ He broke off. ‘But you’re not going at once?’

‘In the morning.’ Nicholas was looking at Gelis. She returned the look with what she hoped was wry acceptance. Anything else would make it unbearable. She saw, with sudden misgiving, that Tobie’s agitation had grown. She tried to send him a message. Please, no. Leave it.

Tobie said, ‘And when will you be back? Nicholas, I don’t want to assail you with it just now, but you have just lost your son. Gelis and I know it, and Moriz. Are you going to leave Henry to be committed without you? Not only committed, but unclaimed?’

Cry mercy, Nicholas had said. But Tobie had rights as well. There was a space. Then Nicholas said, ‘All through last night, he was mine. The old man should have them both now.’

‘And Henry will be buried as Simon’s son?’ The pupils of Tobie’s eyes were sharp, and black, and fierce. ‘You know what else I am saying? Publish the proof that Henry is yours, and you also prove to the world who you are. It can’t harm anyone now. If your son was the image of Simon, then you must be Simon’s legitimate son.’

There was another silence. She could only imagine what answer Nicholas would choose. He said eventually, ‘No. If Henry is at peace, let his mother rest there as well. I am destroying the evidence.’

Tobie had paled. He said. ‘I have a copy. So has Moriz.’

Nicholas said, ‘You are my friend. I am not threatening you. I can only ask if you will do the same.’

Tobie said, ‘Dear God. Nicholas? Let me ask Moriz.’

‘I think you will find,’ Nicholas said, ‘that Moriz will agree. But ask him. I have to go very soon.’

His voice was flat. Tobie said, ‘What doctoring have you had since the river? Let me look.’

Few had the courage to refuse Tobie that kind of demand. Nicholas submitted, and when it was over, Tobie left, taking Gelis. Despite himself, Nicholas held her for a long time, silently, at the door, before he relinquished her finally. When he returned to his chair, he found it beyond him to sit down, whether with studied ease or without. But that passed.

He was to establish himself at the commandeered Priory at Haddington
tomorrow, but did not expect to stay long. He had not seen his son Jordan. He had asked Gelis to have him kept safe.

Different men; different sons. He remembered de Lannoy’s wistful prayer
(Your praise, my perfect joy)
to his son.

Your praise, my perfect joy; and may we go together to Paradise, at the last
.

They tried to stick in his mind, but he would not let them.

B
Y THE DAY
following his crass fight with Julius in the High Street, the English command knew that Nicholas de Fleury had not died in the River Till but was alive, and could be assumed to have passed on all that he had found out in York. The Duke of Gloucester, hearing that, turned pale with rage. ‘I cannot believe this. De Fleury is alive, and no one knew? No one told me? We have crossed into a country where all our plans are already known; our strength; our intentions? Send me the man who said this fellow is dead. He will answer for it!’

Two servants limped, hurt, from the room, and Harry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, had to force himself to be silent, or come to blows. At the same time, Percy had to agree, it was bad news. He was not enjoying this war.

Three days later, encamped in the blazing uplands round Coldingham, the Duke had recovered his temper, but Harry Percy was losing patience with Albany. The southern commanders had had none to begin with, but he had been asked by Dickon Gloucester, in his most winning manner, to do what he could. They needed the man. Only, quartering the March north of Berwick, they had been treated every few miles to a fresh complaint—these farmlands belonged to Jamie’s cousins; that church provided income for Ellem; if they burned that township, they would alienate John, Sander’s father. Albany had destroyed all the joy of destruction. And to cap it, he was shocked to the point of disbelief at the amount of support he wasn’t getting. He had always maintained that, once they saw him on the road, East March lairds—and the Middle March, and the masters of Annandale—would flock to him. Even Dickon had compelled himself to believe it, or he would never have got the money out of the King. But it wasn’t true. There were English sympathisers—there always had been. There were men who thought the King was madder than Albany. But there were more who trusted not just James or his brother but the tight circle of men who were James’s advisers. And it was not clear, yet, whom they favoured.

Or at least that had been the position until recently. Then a message had come, originating in Haddington, and addressed to the right noble and worshipful lord, his grace Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The sender, an accredited herald, asked leave for himself, with a temporary Usher, to
join the Duke for an informal parley, under flag of truce, at a place of the Duke’s choice. Coldingham, then two days away, had been suggested. The name of the Usher was not mentioned. It was signed: Marchmont Herald.