Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [146]
He missed Gelis, and then didn’t, because there was so much to do.
He didn’t mind the management of the young. It would take a long time to accustom red-haired Meg, Albany’s sister, to the idea of another English royal marriage, but, given a chance, he thought he could do it. He had also begun to re-open, with care, that tenuous relationship with Mary, the elder Princess, begun during her first marriage and exile to Bruges. His part in all that had not harmed her, and had even benefited the kingdom. Despite the lapse of years, and her second marriage, she still appeared to regard Nicholas as a mentor in whom she could confide. She now had two sets of children: the son and daughter born in Bruges to Thomas Boyd, and another daughter and son born to James, Lord Hamilton, more than twice her age, and now frail.
She did not dislike her second husband, although she was younger than some of his children. Boyd had been the love of her life: she did not seek to replace him, and was content that she had been allowed to remarry a Scotsman; she had not been contracted abroad. Hamilton was courtly and competent and one or two of his bastards were merry company. Her situation only disturbed her, now and then, when she wondered how she was to provide, once a widow, for the dispossessed children of her first family, whose father’s land had been forfeited to the King. Anselm Adorne had been allotted a part of it, after he had housed and sustained her in Bruges. When James went to his reward, she was going to require some of it back. Sandy said it was hers. He said that Adorne had certainly made himself useful, but always when he had something to gain.
‘Don’t we all,’ Nicholas had said. ‘But the Unicorn Society was a good idea. Jodi enjoys it.’ He had seen Jamie Boyd there as well. He was eight, a year younger than Jodi was now. The Hamilton son was only three, a little older than Kathi’s Rankin. Both the lady Mary’s sons were called James. The lady Mary said, ‘I’ve been thinking. Sandy agrees. Why don’t you give me your Jodi to train? He can bring his own man, and he and Jamie can both learn under Jamie’s instructors.’ She had paused, and then said, ‘My brother Mar does not visit Cadzow or Draffane. He and my lord disagree. But Jodi would be welcome.’
Some such offer had always been likely. He had discussed it with Gelis some time ago. ‘Sandy will try to persuade both his sisters away from the King and Adorne. This is one way I can counter it. But only if you think it would be good for Jodi. He will be in a royal household, as a page.’
And Gelis had said, ‘Thank you for asking me. But you wouldn’t even have suggested it if you hadn’t been sure. If it’s good for Jodi, then yes.’
And now he was trotting beside Sandy—beside Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, Earl of March, lord of Annandale, lord of Man, Lord High Admiral of Scotland and Warden of the Scottish March—with all these cheeses and wine barrels bouncing behind, and a hundred men-at-arms, happy to be away from the wife, and ready for anything.
The plan was quite simple: to begin at Dunbar, the chief stronghold of the earldom of March (Sandy’s pride), and proceed south by the coast, calling on the controversial Homes at Fast Castle and the other obdurate Homes of Coldingham Priory, and spending some days with the criminally adept population of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Then, following the course of the Tweed and