Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [235]
For a while, Moriz felt some relief. If Nicholas came back, even temporarily, he could stop this nonsense of Julius’s, and put the business on a permanent footing, which would allow Moriz and Govaerts to leave. Father Moriz did not mind Cologne, but he found it no longer a challenge, and he felt increasingly that some decision should be taken about the future of Julius’s problematical step-daughter Bonne.
Shortly after that, alone in the office with Julius, the priest opened and spread out the latest despatch from Sersanders and Berecrofts in Scotland. After the first few lines, he looked across at the other. ‘Julius? You mentioned Bishop Spens?’
Julius looked up. ‘Yes. I want to speak to him. He took the Duchess Eleanor to France.’
‘Then,’ said Father Moriz, ‘I fear you have lost the chance. He has died, so it seems.’
‘Was he ill?’ Julius asked. He came over.
‘I expect he was. This says he died of a broken heart. He was a great supporter, was he not, of the English peace?’
‘He helped bring it about. He was one of those who convinced the King to make a treaty and keep it. Why? What has happened?’ He leaned over to read.
‘Superficially, a cluster of silly events—Border raids, royal marriage disputes, revived quarrels over sovereignty—which happen to have occurred at the same time as some seriously changing alliances behind the scenes. Result: six years of peace at an end, and Bishop Spens dead.’
‘At an end?’ Julius repeated.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Father Moriz. ‘King Edward of England, it seems, is now able to review his less convenient alliances. He is to launch a rigorous and cruel war on Scotland, and has set his brother to work as Lieutenant-General of the North. This will change everything.’
‘Mary Mother,’ said Julius, straightening. ‘It certainly will. Nicholas won’t stay to fight someone else’s war. He’s probably sailing already. Adorne, too.’
‘Is that what you would do?’ Moriz said. He waited.
‘You mean he’ll stay to make the most of it?’ Julius said. ‘I see. There is that. They’ll certainly need him.’
‘That’s what I meant,’ Moriz said. ‘I don’t think you need look for him coming now.’ He waited again.
Julius might be a lawyer, but he had allowed himself, from boyhood, to be charmed by the lure of adventure. Julius said, ‘Well, if Nicholas won’t come here, why don’t I go and join him? Think of it! We’d all be together again!’
Rising from his prayers that night, Father Moriz hoped that Nicholas would forgive him. Whatever anyone said, Julius would have insisted on leaving. It was May, the start of the campaigning season. There were reputations to be made, and a war with Nicholas in Scotland was going to be a good deal more exciting than a static, difficult business in Cologne. The prospect gave Moriz, too, a pang of uncanonical pleasure, for he felt that, if Julius went, an ordained metallurgist might well offer his services, too. Govaerts could remain in Cologne.
He had not yet decided what to do about Bonne.
Chapter 29
In-till this chekkar is als gret the space
Wnoccupijt as it that thir folk has.
Quhen euery man has place in properté
The kinrik suld our that extendand be.
FATHER MORIZ HAD been right in his prediction. Once, the gateway from Scotland had promised to open. Now, for Adorne and for Nicholas, war had closed it. The crazy war that—against commonsense itself, it would seem—England was now proposing, and through which James of Scotland must be warily guided.
For the advisers of James, an advantage appeared. War had brought the King a little closer to Nicholas de Fleury. Previously suspect as Albany’s friend, de Fleury was now credited