Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [133]
Henry said, ‘I dare say I can find it myself. Don’t trouble.’ He walked out.
After a moment, Brown said, ‘I’d better go,’ and followed him. Gelis gazed after them both. If Henry knew Nicholas was here, he would know that Jodi was with him.
Leithie Preston said, ‘They should have drowned that one at birth.’
It was a common view. On the other hand, all the Prestons talked like that. They were a strong-minded family. Gelis said, ‘I don’t know. I expect they said that of all of us at that age. I think we should find him a girlfriend.’
‘Lang Bessie,’ said Cochrane. ‘If he can afford her. What are you grinning at?’
‘Man,’ said Leithie Preston, ‘if ye could hear the note in your voice. Mope away. Yon same wee rutting bantling’s hardly been out of Lang Bessie’s skirts since that time with Johndie Mar and the pig-asses. And according to rumour, it’s her that pays him.’
The loading finished. Tam and Leithie left. Gelis went to the office and became lost in the paperwork. No one came. The guard who always protected her eventually tapped on the door and brought in one of Tom Yare’s men, with a bit of paper and a message. The message, from Yare, was to say that the Marie had sailed, taking Ser Nicholas and the two young men with it. The note, from Nicholas, said, Gelis, I’m sorry. Only to Berwick, and I’ll bring him back safe.
He had reassured her about Jodi. Perhaps he didn’t realise how disturbed she felt about Henry as well. It seemed puerile, after all that, to experience a sudden, deep pang at her next thought, which was that she was bereft of her lover, for the first time since she had found him again.
THE THOUGHT HAD occurred to Nicholas also, inducing a surge of involuntary protest that perhaps even exceeded her own. But it was too good a chance to forgo. He knew it as soon as he saw Henry approaching, his fair face upraised, and Alec pointing to where Yare stood at the top of the companionway, with Jodi beside him. They were in the outermost part of the harbour, and would cast off when Brown was aboard, and Nicholas and Jodi had left. The gangplank shifted up and down as the ship swayed. The Marie was big as Leith ships went: a hundred tons, requiring sixteen mariners to handle the sails and the oars and the freight. There was a pilot boat waiting to ease her out of the shallows.
Henry was on board. He spoke to Yare, and then glanced at Jodi, throwing him a word as he passed. Jodi said something, looking after him. Then Yare had taken Henry by the shoulder and was directing his gaze to the top of the mast, where Nicholas rocked. Nicholas waved, without moving, and Yare shouted up. It was something about tides, but it didn’t matter. Ten minutes wouldn’t hurt. He had climbed to the basket, as he often did, to give himself a last view of the ship, and the wharves, and the port. Of these, as he sometimes recognised, it was the ship that meant most to him. These last weeks he had been surprised—and shamed by the surprise—to find that it was the same with Jodi. With both of the boys, he was beginning to think.
He leaned out, signalling, and when Yare sent up a man, dispatched him back with an invitation. Would Henry like to join him aloft? There was room. There was room for more than Henry.
Now there were two faces peering up. Then came Jodi’s young voice, and a movement. Jodi had repeated the invitation to Henry, and Henry had suggested, languidly, that if Jodi’s father wanted company, Jodi should ascend. Which, as it happened, was no trouble to a boy whose father had a ship and a house and a warehouse in Leith. Jodi laid hands on the ropes and swarmed up.
He didn’t look down, but Nicholas, handing him up the last foot, saw Henry’s expression. He saw it alter. And, as, breathless and proud, Jodi settled beside him, Nicholas saw Henry begin the long climb.
He had done it before. Living