Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [131]
He was smiling a little. Nicholas said, ‘Surely not. But leave David Simpson to me.’
Adorne had ceased to smile. ‘I am sorry. This is dangerous for you, as well as for Kathi and Robin. What has happened so far? The St Pols at least are not troubling you?’
‘Neither is Simpson,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or only in minor ways. I thought I might attract a stray arrow at first, but that would have brought in the law before he had disposed of the rest of us. And now we have met, and he is enjoying life at Court, and seems in no hurry to plan a grand quietus. It may not happen. Discontent sometimes fades.’
‘Discontent!’ Adorne repeated.
‘Why, what else would you call it?’ said Nicholas. ‘It is not rooted in conviction, like hatred.’
‘But you have experienced hatred,’ Adorne said.
‘Very seldom,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s usually discontent. I don’t work on a grand scale.’
‘I think you underrate yourself,’ said Anselm Adorne.
They talked for an hour more, then Nicholas left, walking carefully. He felt apprehension. He also felt very happy. As much as anything, it pleased him that, within minor as well as major ways, Adorne had placed their new and different relationship on a basis which would take them unembarrassed into the future. His name, to Anselm Adorne, had undergone no spurious change, and remained formally Nicholas. Equally, it had been established that Anselm Adorne was to be addressed, as he always had been, as ‘sir’.
The requirement was the reverse of what it seemed, and was taken by Nicholas as a compliment. It affirmed that the world was a place of order, which he found reassuring.
The whole encounter did more.
It confirmed to Nicholas de Fleury that he had arrived where, and when, he was needed. It indicated that he had been given something to do for which he was qualified; for which indeed he had been prepared, by all that had happened to him so far.
Chapter 15
No man of craft suld haue inwy at vther,
Bot luf his fallow as he war his brother.
TIME PASSED; AND the Master Melter, you would say, had stooped to the furnace, and cast all the world into gold. Or so it seemed to the temporary exiles in Scotland, to whom life became fair.
It was a measure, very likely, of past wretchedness that, despite the frustrations and dangers, despite the threat from one vain, silly man, the crowded vennels of Edinburgh became the proving-ground of a new group of companions very close to that once created, out of adventure, out of love, out of pride, in the name of Marian de Charetty in Bruges.
Witnessing concordance arriving at last, Tobias Beventini found himself thinking of the missing members of the Banco di Niccolò—Julius and Father Moriz in Germany; Gregorio in Venice; Diniz in Bruges. But in their place were Robin and Kathi and Dr Andreas, Robin’s father and Wodman, Kathi’s brother and her uncle Adorne. Except that, in the delicate strategy Nicholas had settled upon with Adorne, the bond between all of them was not obvious. Adorne and his family continued to trade as they had done in the past, and to make themselves welcome at Court. Nicholas, with John as his sailing-master and gunner, and partnered by Gelis, spent as much time at Leith as in Edinburgh, and more time than he probably wished riding the Marches or hunting with Sandy Albany. Yet even that was less than true. Nicholas was as ungrudging with Sandy as he was with Kathi’s children, or Jodi, or Robin. His business was managing people.
He came to see Robin often; but was as likely to meet him at the Castle, where the Master of Artillery found it congenial to spend an evening with John and Nicholas and anyone else who liked war, drinking ale and discussing strategems and scratching