The Unicorn Hunt (11 page)

‘But such exciting news,’ urged Dame Betha. Short and bright-eyed and muscular, she wore the alert look of an excellent badger-hound. Roger assumed the badger had noticed it.

‘Well. I have to congratulate you, M. de Fleury,’ said the Prioress, giving way. ‘The blessed outcome is, of course, in God’s hands, but the news came today, and bears a date in early October. You will rejoice to know that your marriage is fruitful. In March
or April next year, the lady de Fleury, God willing, will bear to you.’

Will Roger brought his gaze down. Impassioned faces surrounded him. The exceptions were, perhaps, the child Margaret who scowled, and the girl Katelijne who appeared merely thoughtful. The third exception was the prospective father himself whose face had lost life for a moment, as it had when he caught sight of Ada. It came to Will Roger, with shame, that he might have mistaken that look.

Then Nicholas de Fleury smiled, the crimson flooding down to his throat. He said, ‘Shall I confess that I knew of her hopes? And now I know it is true: she is carrying. What can I say? I am speechless.’

‘You knew!’ said Katelijne, delighted. ‘That is why she didn’t come!’

‘Of course,’ he said, the dimples round as two nutshells. The nuns, exclaiming, were bringing fresh wine. The man called Michael Crackbene stared into his cup as if navigating.

Roger wondered why the detachment. Himself, he felt a sudden deep affection for the man-with-keys-in-his-head. He said, ‘Well, you don’t drink to this news in your wretched water. Here’s to you, Nicholas de Fleury of Bruges, and to your first-born son or daughter to come!’

He watched de Fleury set his lips to the wine, unsure whether well-water might have been kinder. But the man emptied that cup and the next, and matched the best of them for the rest of the evening. And even leaving, he only stumbled a little.

Having a hard Scandinavian head, Michael Crackbene steered vander Poele to his bed in the guest-quarters.

He thought of him as vander Poele because he couldn’t remember to call him de Fleury. He had no interest in using his first name. He recognised that this was why he, Crackbene, was here: because he was a practical man who took employment from whomever might offer it, and could sail from Newcastle to Leith with his eyes shut.

People called him a renegade, but he was not. He was always meticulous in ending one contract before he went to take up another. Vander Poele had laid hands on him once as a warning, but had still employed him again when it suited him. He respected the man. He also knew – it was nothing to him – that vander Poele had not heard from his wife since he set out for Scotland.

They had been given a room to themselves in the guest-wing. Crackbene got rid of the pages as ordered, and debated how far to
undress his companion. Of the two of them, he himself had had far more to drink. But vander Poele, perched on the bed, unclasped his doublet and dragged off and dropped his own boots before thudding back on the pillow and staring up at the crucifix on the canopy. He said, ‘What about Ada?’

Crackbene said, ‘They all sleep over the kitchen. She has to get up to suckle the children. There’s a shed with straw by the kiln where she’d meet you. Or here. She doesn’t charge much.’

‘Children?’ vander Poele said. He turned his head.

‘You’re going to spew,’ Crackbene said. There was a bowl by the window.

‘Maybe. Shellfish,’ said the other inexplicably.

‘Shellfish? We didn’t have any,’ said Crackbene. ‘Children. She wet-nurses. Sometimes it stops the next child from coming and sometimes it doesn’t. One of the babies is hers. She’d be quite lively, I think, if you don’t mind milk all over the place. Do you think you are up to it?’

‘No. But I think you are,’ vander Poele said.

Crackbene gave a rare laugh. He supposed it was obvious. He said, ‘And you’d pay for it?’

‘I’m generous. But I’ll not pay for aborting a Viking. Find out before you start which child is hers, and how old it is, and take precautions accordingly. If she comes from Dean Castle, she’s got friends.’

Crackbene had already lifted the latch of the door. He said, ‘That’s why she charges. You’ll manage?’

‘I’m sure both of us will,’ vander Poele said.

It was just before dawn when Crackbene returned. He was not done, but the girl had to get back by sunrise. By then she’d fed the two gasping brats twice, regardless of anything he might be doing. The first time, she’d squealed out that she wasn’t a
pourceau
. The second, he’d found a way of driving her gradually crazy. There was no doubt she needed a man. He had to stop at the door, he wanted so much to go back.

Vander Poele said, ‘Don’t light it. So, what?’ He sounded as tired as if he had done it himself, after all.

Crackbene said, ‘Worth every farthing. She’s sworn to say she’s no claim if she breeds. And by God, you were right. She’d have tried to blame her last child on me if it wasn’t eighteen months old and black-headed. The father’s the pig-man at Dean, but won’t own it. Did you speak?’

‘An accident of the soul. Of the wine. I left a ducat. Consider it doubled.’

‘Why?’ said Crackbene. ‘Listen, I need a light. You don’t know what state I’m in.’

He struck flint and relit the lamp on the way to the corner. When he got back vander Poele had rolled over to sleep, head on arms, like a stone; like a corpse on a beach. Crackbene crashed down beside him, and sighed, and opened his mouth to the first, glorious snore.

Chapter 5

N
EXT DAY, NATURALLY
, a packet from Bruges arrived in the Canongate, and M. de Fleury, having left Haddington at dawn, received it with no delay whatever. He opened and spread out all the pages, both those which were written in clear, and those in trading code, which Julius and Jannekin could read just as easily. Gregorio – who else? – had set down the news he had already gathered in Haddington. That is, the theme was the same. He read it for the variations.

Visited by the petty ills of first breeding, the lady Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury, had withdrawn for convenience to a convent. Her doctors had advised against visitors, and M. de Fleury should not hasten home. Indeed
, wrote Gregorio,
it was felt that the extra excitement might harm her
.

M. de Fleury framed soundless praise for Gregorio. His head turned, from lack of sleep, and then settled immediately.

‘I know what he means,’ Julius said. ‘My God, you had enough premarital excitement between you, rumour said, to last you the first ten years of official matrimony.’ Julius, the perpetual bachelor, had received this dynastic news with some lack of enthusiasm. Jannekin Bonkle, on the contrary, had wrung his old playmate’s hand and assured him that his father would preside at the christening. Mick Crackbene, as Nicholas had cause to know, was quite indifferent both to the event and to its implications.

Julius now leaned over the paper. ‘My God, what did you pay for that ring? Is that all Gregorio says?’

‘Look,’ said Nicholas de Fleury, showing the papers. It was all that was personal. It preceded many pages of financial detail from Venice and Bruges, plus the latest of the Signoria’s demands that he should either pay them or fight for them. The smith was on his
way, which was good. Of other family news there was nothing. Gregorio could not use a closed code, or Julius would instantly have suspected collusion.

Julius said, ‘He’s put four extra words on the back.
For God’s sake, write
. We replied to all his last letters? Are the answers going astray?’

‘Send the last one again,’ Nicholas said. Gregorio’s words were dug into the paper, in the way that happened when he was especially angry. Nicholas had no intention of writing. He said, ‘Come on. I’ll deal with this later. We have this tournament to arrange. And I want to see the Berecrofts family and settle this licence. And what about Simon,
membrum diaboli
?’

‘He’s coming to the tournament,’ Julius said.

‘Nobody has told him I’m not taking part?’

‘You’re really not?’ Julius said. ‘You aren’t at all bad.’

‘Thank you. I’ll give you a little fight all of your own one of these days, when you’re not feeling too well. I didn’t leave Bruges, bloated with temporal possessions, to receive my final accounting in Scotland.’

‘Of course,’ said Julius. ‘You won’t want to risk anything now, with a family. It’s a shame, in a way.’

The news of the family spread to Kilmirren.

It came to Lucia first, in her comfortable Vasquez hall by the park of the tower. She sat and screamed until Matten came rushing, and then showed her the letter from Diniz which, of course, Matten could not read. Then, without even accepting the restoring drink Matten had brought her, she ordered her hooded cloak and hurried across to Kilmirren Castle.

The rain was cold. The rain had never been cold in Madeira, or in Portugal where her late husband came from. Diniz, only half Portuguese, never seemed to notice the rain. Diniz had married a burgher’s daughter in Bruges, and seemed enchanted with her. Diniz had been enchanted by Nicholas ever since the African voyage. And now this letter, with news that Diniz plainly thought wonderful.

‘It is appalling,’ said Lucia de St Pol, thrusting her father’s chamberlain aside and bursting into her father’s parlour. ‘I am going to faint. What shall we do? I cannot believe it!’

From his great cushioned chair her great cushioned father surveyed her with astonishment. He said, ‘You have my permission to faint. Indeed, you may throw a fit, provided you do it on the other side of that door. You may not have observed. I am occupied.’

He wasn’t. He was as good as alone. The short, stout woman (who did rise to her feet) was that neighbour who was well-enough bred to act as Lucia’s companion from time to time when she travelled. Bel of Cuthilgurdy had accompanied Lucia to her husband’s villa in Portugal. The widow Bel, of sturdy constitution, had even travelled to Africa with Diniz, and Gelis, and vander Poele. Now she said, ‘Monseigneur de Ribérac, the lassie’s distracted. Mistress Lucia, come away in and sit down. What’s to do?’

Lucia sat, her son’s letter clenched in one hand. She said, ‘Diniz says they’re both pregnant.’

Her father stared at her. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is indeed a matter for swooning with all imaginable diligence. Diniz
and
his wife?’

She loathed him. She had always loathed him. She understood how her grown son and her small nephew Henry hated him too. She said, her voice shaking, ‘You joke. Read that. Read that letter. Tilde de Charetty is pregnant. Your great-grandchild will be the descendant of pawnbrokers. But I’ll tell you something worse than that.
Gelis van Borselen is carrying.
’

The face of Bel of Cuthilgurdy, featureless as a flour-bag, became slowly illumined. The countenance of Jordan de Ribérac expressed simple enquiry. He said, ‘And one should faint? I hardly think so. You have, as always, made a mistake, Lucia. Go away.’

‘A mistake!’ she said. ‘It is here, in black and white. The girl has hidden herself in a convent. The birth is due, they say – of course – in March or in April.
A child!
’

‘Anything else would have been surprising,’ her father said. ‘Mistress Cuthilgurdy, will you excuse us?’

‘No!’ said Lucia. Even Bel, sometimes, could help.

But Bel was standing. ‘My hinny,’ she said. ‘A bairn still in the making is no threat to you, surely. Your father will know what to do. Calm yourself. There is no harm in childer.’

‘And you know Henry?’ Lucia said. It pleased her to see the other woman hesitate. Then, without replying, Bel kissed her firmly and left. The door closed.

Her father said, ‘If you are in some female decline, you might like to think of taking the veil. It would be a relief to us all. I take it you think Gelis is bearing to Simon, and will tell Nicholas so? I doubt it. She would lose her marriage settlement as a result. I see no cause for concern.’

‘There would be no cause for concern,’ Lucia said, ‘if every man thought as you do. But you expect Gelis to rear a bastard of Simon’s? You expect Simon to leave a child of his in Nicholas’s
hands? You are content that Nicholas, knowing nothing, should be left in his ignorance?’

Her father sighed. Within the veined, pallid flesh, the eyes weighed her, studied her, chilled her as they had done all the years of her childhood.

‘Suggest it to him, and your brother is dead. Who knows who sired this coming child? It may be your brother. It may be born of the marriage, in wedlock. Only the date of its birth will confirm it. And meantime vander Poele, as its parent, will protect it. Cease to concern yourself,’ said her father kindly. ‘Go and find something to embroider. A pillow for your first grandchild. And let us pray God that it owes nothing to you.’

‘Simon will tell him,’ she said.

‘And earn the immortal enmity of the van Borselen? No. Simon will do nothing,’ her father said. ‘And you will do nothing. Or I shall see that you never leave Kilmirren again.’

‘You can’t!’ she said. ‘I have money now. I can go where I like!’

He looked at her. The door had opened, on what summons she didn’t know, and two of her father’s servants stood there. ‘My daughter is sick,’ said her father. ‘Find a room for her, and send for a doctor.’

They were, as always, gentle, but held her tightly none the less. She screamed from the doorway, ‘What if vander Poele knows?’

Her father paused. Then he said, ‘If he does, then I imagine he would do almost anything to prevent your making it public. Think about it. I do not wish to be harsh. But you find yourself in all these difficulties only because you will not think.’

He watched her leave. There was no one at the door when Jordan de Ribérac, lifting his bulk, moved soft-footed down the stair and walked towards the block which held the apartments of Simon his son. The rain had stopped, and there was some activity – two jousters – in the tiltyard. He heard the raucous voice of his son’s master-at-arms before he saw the fellow, encased in full armour with a lance in his fist. The figure at which he was roaring was short as an undented whistle and topped by a spray of plumes as tall as itself. Two red-faced grooms stood by with horses. De Ribérac walked past without speaking.