Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [231]
Chapter 28
Leifsum it is this povne him to defend
And no man suld in-to this warld pretend
To lichtly ocht or sic men to dispys,
For oft we reid of pur men in this wys
That wonnyng has the kinrik and the crovne.
THE SUDDEN DEATH of John, Earl of Mar, was announced, but because (as the Abbot of Holyrood said) God in his Ipseity chose to cap the world that winter with ice, it did not immediately cause a furore, even in the country where it happened, although the Princesses Mary and Margaret furiously mourned their young brother, and the King descended into gloom.
The severe weather also cloaked happenings elsewhere. Yule and the following weeks passed in untoward frozen calm, in which families kept to their hearths and saved their energy and their food for the spring and the summer. Only, for good or for ill, Dr Ireland contrived to buffet his way back to France, having warmly recommended to James a reconciliation with his dear brother Albany, and tested the Scottish King’s willingness to abandon his friendship with England.
King James, advised by his Councillors, dismissed an accommodation with Albany, and remarked that he could hardly contemplate breaking the peace unless much better provided with gunners and cannon. King Louis failed to take the hint. As a result, Albany remained rent-free all winter in France, and in January married his Bourbon, a lady of quality distantly related, unsurprisingly, to Charlotte, the wife of Wolfaert van Borselen. It was conveyed to the scholarly Dr Ireland that, come the spring, he might be sent back to continue his kind advisory offices in Scotland. Dr Ireland, who admired Louis in much the same way, he suspected, as de Fleury, agreed peacefully.
Unknown to England, Louis of France made secret approaches to Maximilian of Burgundy.
Unknown to France, Edward of England engaged in exploratory talks with the same Duke of Burgundy, largely to elicit whether, if Edward risked his French pension, Maximilian would make good its loss.
England learned, at last, why the Princess Margaret was not coming south to wed the King’s brother-in-law. England looked at Scotland’s short-tempered King, and at the King’s younger brother in France, perfectly in position to spearhead a French war to oust King James and threaten England on two fronts. England laid plans for the first break in the weather.
James of Scotland, unimpeded by his Council, renewed (for the third time) his English safe conduct to take one thousand men through that realm on his way as a pious pilgrim to Amiens. An expensive gold medallion was struck by a rich goldsmith at Berwick and sent to Amiens as a mark of intent. Amiens was well known as the King of France’s preferred meeting-place, and the intent, obvious to England, represented a threat which had nothing to do with the shrine of St John.
Spring hovered. On the basis of the last news from Bruges, Anselm Adorne began provisionally to conclude his affairs, which included making secure arrangements for the future of his daughter, who was to remain with the nuns. With his nephew and niece as her guardians, and the goodwill of her aunt on her mother’s side, Euphemia would receive the income from Cortachy, and from the several tenements which her father had purchased in Linlithgow, whose Palace was owned by the Queen. There was also the mill he had built, not far from the port of Blackness. It served a prosperous area, and was capable of a good annual return. As for the rest, his own position of service in Linlithgow would devolve on his departure to Sersanders, who would remain as his agent. That is, if the present mood in Bruges remained the same. If, with the past now forgotten, he could take his place once more in the merchant community, if not in civic life.
Nicholas had made no such moves, but because it was bad business practice to say nothing, had let it be known that he would reconsider his future in the spring. No one was particularly pleased, although the councillors and the traders could hardly fault his reasoning on material