Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [19]
In which he was wrong.
WITH THE CO-OPERATION of the weather, it was not hard to arrive tardily at the harbour for Edinburgh and Nicholas was unsurprised, knowing Tom Yare, to find nobody there but a few unfamiliar harbour- and customs men, who dealt solely with Crackbene, and showed no interest in identifying his patron or passengers. Although it was mid-afternoon, the sky was dim with rain-clouds, and a blustering wind scoured the puddles and seethed over the sandbanks, and collided in spume with the jetties. Officially, they were to stay aboard, with their cargo, until morning. Unofficially, it was conveyed that two persons might land if they wished. Which let Nicholas take Wodman to Edinburgh.
It was only two miles from Leith. Someone hired him a couple of hacks, in a port where once he had had his own stables and lodging. Crackbene’s wife stayed in Leith with their children: he didn’t know where. Four years ago, he could have named every man in these streets. Now he and Wodman rode out muffled in scarves, leaving the ship to toss in the gloom of the river-mouth. He had sympathy for the crew, but relied on Crackbene to preserve the fiction that no one had landed. Presumably the harbourmen knew to keep silent. He wondered whether the Council or the Abbot had arranged it, and who would come to escort them to their rendezvous; for obviously someone must come. To arrive unprimed at the portals of Edinburgh would defeat the object of all this performance. Once recognised, he could hardly withhold his news, whatever damage it did.
Out of Leith, the road was a mess. All the land to the north of the river was under the jurisdiction of Archibald Crawford, Abbot of the most important monastery in Edinburgh. The Abbey of Holyroodhouse lay at the foot of the hill on which the King’s castle was perched. The town clung to the steep spine between them. He knew every house, every lane in it.
He hadn’t been here for four years. He had been growing and changing somewhere else, with different people, speaking a different language. He had never meant to come back, but had done so. Chilled and sore and battered by violent sailing, Nicholas was suddenly positive that he was right to be here; seized by a kind of hope not incompatible with the lunatic joy that he had forced himself to leave. Now he knew what he wanted, and had resolved to bring it about. He meant to succeed.
THEY HAD CHOSEN the western, riverside route to the town, because it kept to the Holyrood bailery, and touched the busy hamlet of Bonnington, which led to the Canongate, and was tenanted by yet other Crawfords. Also, being longer, the way was less apt to be plagued like the Easter Road, with wealthy pack-trains, or ox-wagons stuck in the mud, or by common contingents on foot, rolling their kegs or dragging their sledges of merchandise.
Their chosen path was mostly used by pedestrians, who kept clear of mud-throwing hooves and did not look up as they trudged. To the right was the river, with an occasional mill and its lade, and its service buildings close by, on the rising ground where the thatched cottages huddled. On the left, the ground was rough and uneven, and rose in humps and hillocks towards the high town ahead, with a steep hill between. There were crofts there as well, each with a beaten yard and some hens and a kailpatch among dug-up anonymous workings, or parcels of rough grass and whin and low trees. Nicholas knew what it all was or had been. It had once been his business, and it might be so again, depending on what happened now. He said, ‘What d’you think? I expected someone to collect us by now.’ The rain had begun, but the sky was no lighter.
‘We’re going too fast,’ Wodman said. ‘We could get to Bonnington and stop at a tavern. You could do with a rest.’
‘You stop at a tavern,’ said Nicholas. ‘If you think you can drink through your scarf. We are meant to be still on board the Christmassy Karel, and not spreading good tidings just yet.