Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [17]
‘That’s old news,’ Wodman said cheerfully. ‘He’s bound to know that.’
Tom Yare didn’t waste time being exasperated. He said, ‘There hasn’t been a ship from the south since Epiphany. You’re the first.’
‘It’s a good ship, the Karel,’ said the Scandinavian shipmaster proudly. It was purgatory.
‘But you must have had dispatches by road,’ Wodman said. ‘Wardens’ runners. Envoys. Lawyers on business. Wenches with well-informed clients. After all, that’s England, over the river.’
‘I remember,’ said Yare. Men behaved like this, safely landed from sea. Nicol de Fleury behaved like this far too often. Tom Yare was a solid, fit man, but lodged between de Fleury and Crackbene he felt small and thumbed, like a rosary bead. He continued in his soft, deliberate voice, defying the burr in his speech that Margaret always said she found sweet. ‘The roads [rhodes] have been closed, and the place is jumping with rumours. Wheat prices are surging already. The word [wuhd] is that there was a disaster at Nancy, and the richest prince in the West is a corpse, with an unmarried lass as his heiress. True [tehoo] or not?’
Someone tapped on the door. Wine came in, and was poured. No one spoke. When the door closed: ‘The Duke of Burgundy is officially dead,’ de Fleury said, saluting the ceiling and drinking. ‘I was there. That isn’t a bad little Osey.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tom Yare. Then he listened to what he was given: the unemotional account of a disaster.
The Grand Prince of the West had been discovered dumped dead in a ditch after a mindless battle with Swiss and Lorrainers. The news had taken a long time to spread. Before de Fleury left Flanders, he had had an audience with the widowed Dowager Duchess, and discussed the future with men of commitment like Gruuthuse, Hugonet and Adorne. For, of course, France would try to reclaim her borders, and the heiress would marry someone who might not suit Flanders at all. So there were implications.
They discussed them. Wodman contributed: he had once been a soldier in France. By the end, Yare had grasped that de Fleury had actually taken part in the fight and been wounded. Most of his companions were dead. Some were captives about to be ransomed, among them two Scots: the gunner John, and that decent young merchant, Robin of Berecrofts, who had also been injured.
Yare said, ‘Was Robin hurt bad?’ It was the business-man in him that spoke. The noble Anselm Adorne of Bruges bought and sold through his kindred in Scotland, and Robin had wed Adorne’s niece. A trading empire was involved.
De Fleury said, ‘I don’t know. He was shot. It looked serious enough at the time.’
Yare said, ‘You’ll want to tell his eme and his father in Edinburgh. What else have ye in mind while you’re there?’
He was entitled to know. Four years ago, without explanation, the Burgundian had closed all his ventures in Scotland and gone, abandoning the stripling Court which had befriended him. Now he was back, with a trading-ship which belonged to his wife. All the years de Fleury was absent, his wife Gelis had successfully run a good business, as you would expect of a van Borselen of Veere. She had an eight-year-old son by her husband. Tom Yare’s own sharp-witted wife admired her acumen, but not what she had heard of her casual marriage. Yare thought de Fleury (in this respect only) a fool. Yare also admired Gelis van Borselen, who was still at home in Bruges and, it seemed, abandoned again. He had met other husbands like this. Men who could sail, but not navigate.
De Fleury hadn’t mentioned his wife, except in the context of business. Nor did he now. He said, ‘I thought I’d see what was happening. I suppose I’d better report what I’ve told you. Then I’ll probably pick up a cargo and leave.’
Yare said, ‘They’ll want you to stay.’
‘They?’ said de Fleury.
‘The King. The Council. The merchants. It depends whom you plan to see first.’ He let a pause develop unhindered.
De Fleury said, ‘Perhaps I should ask your advice about