Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [23]
He avoided looking at Wodman. Wodman maintained a welcome silence all the time they were being untied, and Nicholas was blocking auxiliary questions, and inventing explanations as they occurred to him. They were given horses and cloaks and some temporary patching, until the bailie’s own household could tend them. The Abbey Farm of Broughton was not very far.
In public, Wodman didn’t utter a word. Wodman was forty, and could pass for being exhausted. In private, he waited until they were riding together. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t a girl.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas, whose digestive organs were obeying him once again. ‘But pretty enough to pass for one. He tried to kill me in Cyprus, and I let him escape. Didn’t you recognise him, your old colleague David de Salmeton? You would have, when he flung back his cloak in that hut.’
He didn’t have to explain. Wodman knew why Nicholas had come back to Scotland, and had promised to help him. To track down some gold. To end a family feud. To kill a man who meant to kill him. A French-speaking one-time royal Archer called David de Salmeton.
Wodman said, ‘You thought he wouldn’t attack to begin with. You thought he would play with you first.’
‘I was wrong,’ Nicholas said.
‘But you didn’t denounce him to the bailie?’
Nicholas said, ‘What, without any proof? Could you swear that was David de Salmeton?’
There was a long pause. ‘No,’ said Wodman.
‘No. And neither could I. But now I am warned. Now I know what precautions to take. And it isn’t all loss.’
‘No?’ said Wodman.
‘No. They’re bringing the sledges. Are you hungry?’ Nicholas said.
He knew, without looking at Wodman, that the words they had just exchanged were like the steps in a dance: a formality. For him, they were bleaker than that. He was watching the sledges jump and slew at the heels of the horses, their creels roused to a silvery rattle, their spillings dancing from timber to timber and sprinkling the unwinding roadway like rose-leaves.
Or like the living creatures they were, male and female at once; lust and tenderness embraced in one heart; each now shut and alone in its shell, because the singing had stopped.
Chapter 2
Get I a gud man as I had in-deid,
Aye of his ded suld I be in dreid.
ARCHIBALD, ABBOT OF Holyrood, said, ‘You don’t look very well,’ and handed over some wine. Simply attired, within the privacy of his own chamber, in cap and gown, cross and rosary, he might have passed for an exceptionally well built, brown-haired monk of middle years, until you noticed the provenance of his crucifix, and the coats of arms (gules, a fess ermine), on the ceiling. The side table was covered with grit.
‘I don’t look well?’ Nicholas said, taking the cup, which was solid gold, in the hand that didn’t hurt. ‘I can’t think why. Nancy? The God-awful voyage from Bruges? The little skirmish with fifteen armed robbers? The flaying I’ve just had from Master Secretary Whitelaw and my lord of Avandale and Colin Campbell of Argyll his own self, at all at all?’
‘You don’t have the Gaelic? Then learn it, don’t treat it lightly,’ the Abbot said equably. ‘And don’t get angry with me. They were only doing their job. They have to be sure, before they decide how to tackle the King. Sure of you, sure of your news, and Wodman’s.’
Wodman was in the infirmary, being inspected. There had proved to be a break in his arm as well as his nose. His nose had been broken so often already, it didn’t matter. It had been an interesting fight. Wodman had said, once it was over, ‘You’re not bad,’ which was kind of him. As soon as he was repaired, they must make their way back on board ship, as if they had never left it. And tomorrow the King would hear of their presence, and would summon him, to question him about the Duke of Burgundy’s death.
The Abbot said, ‘Drink up, Nicol. It was never going to be easy, coming back. You made good friends, and left them too suddenly. But I hear you and your wife are reconciled?’
Wodman’s rambling tongue, damn him. Nicholas said, ‘We were only