Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
Spens said, ‘I repeat, cultivate Liddell. He is mindlessly loyal, but in other ways a sensible man. I hear there is a proposal to make a grand tour of the Marches. I hope you will go with them.’
She hadn’t known that. Nicholas said, ‘Not before the play. The play with parts for one man and twenty-five women.’
The play was written, and performed, and Nicholas was harried by Will into using his voice, which as usual reduced Gelis to silence and Kathi, who was unwontedly vulnerable, to tears. The King and his courtiers, flattered, agreed to take part, and some of the children who had played seven years before. Young Malloch’s voice had now broken, but his place was filled by his sister Muriella, a vision at twelve, commanding the willing attention of all the male adolescents in sight. The performance took place, and was received with ecstasy. Then, before anyone could tell whether the King had emerged from the experience talking like Socrates, Kathi went into labour and produced a son.
Gelis went with Nicholas to visit, and found Kathi up, and Robin asleep, with the infant also asleep on his chest.
‘It all got too much for them,’ explained Kathi, who appeared to be lit from within like a lantern. ‘Guess what he’s called.’
‘Well, not another Aerendtken,’ Nicholas said. Departing from custom, the right to name Robin’s first child had been lovingly ceded to Kathi.
‘I don’t know,’ she said now. ‘It was quite hard to decide. But in the long run, we felt we might as well give him the same name as Robin. That is, Robert of Berecrofts. Little name, Hob.’
‘He looks like a Hob,’ Nicholas said, gazing down. ‘You could boil a pot on him, really. A small one. What did Robin say? When he could say anything?’
‘That now Rankin would have someone to fight with,’ said Kathi. ‘It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, these last weeks.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘He meant that now Margaret will have someone to fight with. Would you like a lot of very fine claret? We’ve brought some. And also some extremely good news. Do you remember Prosper de Camulio?’
‘The alumnus of Genoa? Davie Simpson’s absent employer? He’s been sent back to prison?’
‘No! No!’ Nicholas said. ‘The Pope likes him! The Pope also likes Scotland, and Scotland has done some rather kind things for the Pope, so that it has been laterally agreed that Scotland should help the Pope reward Prosper de Camulio. He’s been made Bishop of Caithness.’
‘What?’ said Kathi. Robin woke up.
‘Caithness in Scotland. Bishop. He’s busy touring abroad. But once he comes back, Davie will be hard put to it to do as he likes any more. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘What?’ said Robin. The baby woke up.
Nicholas said, ‘I was just saying, isn’t Dame Nature wonderful. It’s got Kathi’s nose and your chin, and can sleep anywhere, like Old Will.’
The baby opened an arched, gummy mouth and pantingly started to snarl.
‘He,’ said Robin, ‘objects to being called it. But you wouldn’t know, you’re too old to remember. Was there some talk of wine?’
‘I brought it for Hob,’ Nicholas said. ‘But if you insist, you can have some.’
Throughout, Gelis sat, sharing their happiness, but saying little. Sometimes, Kathi, Robin and Nicholas formed, unintentionally, a small unit upon which others did not intrude. She imagined it had been like that, at other times in his life, with other friends: men and women who felt they knew Nicholas, and indeed did, in some special way. She was never jealous; not now.
Fairly soon after that, she began to handle business, as Nicholas did, out of Edinburgh, and with a powerful escort. For her first expedition to the west she had even better protection, for she travelled with that eminent Stewart, Andrew, Lord Avandale, the King’s