Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [123]
‘What do you know of it?’ the engineer said. ‘You would have him lying here in the dust, counting barrels and pennies in ledgers. That’s no life.’
‘He didn’t say so in Iceland,’ Nicholas said. ‘I assumed he wouldn’t say so in Scotland. Especially when I tell him what is happening. He and his father are going to hold in their hands the greatest salmon monopoly ever known. The stakes are so high that ordinary merchants can never compete. But we can. And from salmon, the contracts spread to salt and to coal and to timber. Have you never wanted to be rich, really rich? We can buy land. We can buy up businesses. We can build ships and arm them, for offence or defence, like Benecke did. And then, when we want, we can leave.’
‘Is this true?’ John le Grant said.
Robin was staring at Nicholas. He said, ‘We’ve drawn up a plan. There has been a plan to acquire fishing rights and …’ His voice died. His nostrils were wet, and there wasn’t a handkerchief he could reach. He said, in a clear voice, ‘But not to drive out everyone else.’
‘But surely that was understood?’ Nicholas said, with smiling patience. He took out his handkerchief. ‘There is no point in taking over half an industry if you can have it all. And then it could be run perfectly well from Bergen or Veere.’
He laid the handkerchief within easy reach. Robin ignored it. He said, ‘We didn’t give sanction for that.’
‘You’ve forgotten,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or you didn’t happen to get to the meetings. If you aren’t interested, then you ought to go home. Your father will send you your profits.’ He could see the boy straining to move and, of course, failing.
John le Grant said, ‘You’re doing it again, aren’t you? Damn you, Nicholas, you’re making a midden of Scotland again. Then to hell with it. I’m going. So’s Robin. If he can’t sail, I’ll find him something to do.’
‘No!’ said Robin
‘What, no?’ said le Grant. ‘You hate it here. You’ve told me. There are grand things still to do in a war. Your bairns will grow up in their mother’s land, and you’ll be out among men, as ye should be.’
‘And what will be happening here?’ Robin said.
‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I can probably manage without you. Although I don’t quite see what Robin is going to do among men on the battlefield. Are they supposed to run about carrying him? Or do they put some stones in his hand, and let him throw them till captured? Or might he even have to lie in the dust, counting barrels and fodder in ledgers?’
‘You cruel bastard,’ said le Grant. ‘Stop your mouth.’
‘Why?’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve talked about war. You’ve wept upon one another’s bosoms. You’re cured of your anguish. That’s good. But Robin isn’t cured, is he? All you’ve done is arrange to make a freak of him. He can’t move. There’s no point in taking him anywhere.’
Even then, Robin didn’t cry out. But John’s temper had long ago snapped. Nicholas saw the fist coming, and made a half-hearted gesture. He didn’t realise quite how much he had miscalculated until the blow landed, and the next one, and several more. He was lanced by excruciating pain, which doubled and redoubled until he stopped thudding about, and lay supine. Robin was screaming, and John was gasping something over and over. Nicholas heard the sound of the door being wrenched open, and Tobie’s voice, at its angriest, saying ‘What?’
What, indeed. Thankfully, Nicholas experienced the departure, one by one, of his senses. The last thing he heard was Robin’s voice crying, ‘It was my fault, all my fault, all my fault.’
SOMEONE WAS SAYING, ‘It was my fault. It was all my fault. I’m sorry.’
John.
Nicholas opened his eyes. He said, ‘I should bloody well think it was.’ He was in John’s bed, and John was kneeling beside him, pounding the bed with a freckled fist, which he then pressed and squeezed over his face. Behind him stood two of Nicholas’s grandmothers. Tobie, naturally. Kathi, even more naturally.
Kathi said, ‘Well, it was your fault in a way, but Nicholas didn’t give you a chance. At least, he gave you too much of a chance. But he didn’t explain.