Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [241]
It was still impossible to tell, half an hour later, what was going on, if anything, in the old monster’s head. The formalities had been normal enough, except for the lack of a welcome. It was four years, for God’s sake, since his father had left him in Madeira, and you would think that his reappearance deserved more than a raised eyebrow and a long, insulting scan. In another way, of course, it augured well. As they sipped wine and embarked, without interruption, on a long, tedious recital of the difficulties of their voyage, it began to seem almost likely that the old man had lost his wits, and that Simon and the women could escape very soon. To where, he hadn’t yet made up his mind. He had to find out where de Fleury was first.
He hadn’t mentioned de Fleury, and trusted, with increasing confidence, that his father had not noticed which house he had been attempting to enter. The fat man was now talking, like some rambling old crone, about babies. The girl was smiling politely. The nun, who couldn’t understand English, was just smiling and sipping. Simon waited his chance. It seemed that Anselm Adorne had a bastard daughter. (Who cared? Had the girl ever heard of Adorne?) She smiled. And the King’s sister Margaret had had another. By my lord of Crichton, did Simon remember him? Simon, aware this time of surprise, smiled and nodded. And after two Jameses, the Queen had had a third son—not a bastard, of course. Born at Cupar this summer, and this time named John, after the Prince whom the King and de Fleury had supposedly killed. Was this,’ asked the lord of Kilmirren in the same amiable, discursive manner, ‘why the lady von Hanseyck had wished to visit de Fleury? To congratulate him, or give him a commission, perhaps?’
The girl’s face became blank. Simon said, at the second attempt, ‘I am sorry. This is all new to us.’
‘Certainly,’ said Fat Father Jordan, ‘you are not well informed; or did you not ask Jock Ross the right questions? Mar is dead, as I told you, and there is unrest over it. The Princess’s error helped to break the peace pact with England. Adorne’s child links him to some of the most powerful families in the kingdom. And, of course, any child Albany has by this French marriage could be more dangerous than all these put together. These are things, my son, I should expect you to know. Or at the very least—descending to your own simple affairs—where else would de Fleury be at this moment, or anyone else of military age, but fighting on the Borders? The large English invasion didn’t come—it is promised, they say, for next year—but the Duke of Gloucester’s northern army is busy. There have been frontier attacks on both sides. Henry is in the thick of it, on the West March, a trained militiaman, with his troop of fine horse. You can join him in Annan: father and son, defending the Border. After all, that is why you are here, is it not? To fight the English?’
The bastard. The fat, cunning old bastard. Henry had begged Simon to come. Henry had led him to think that the old man was going soft in the head, and was falling under the influence of Claes. Simon had come—of course he had come, to get rid of both the old brute and Claes. And the old man, suspecting it, had been mocking him.
He didn’t know what to say. He said, experimentally, ‘I heard about Henry. Indeed, I promised to introduce him to the lady Bonne.’
The old man smiled at the girl. ‘Henry is a charmer, just like his father. But not, I am afraid, a friend of de Fleury.’
‘Neither am I,’ said the girl. She caught herself. ‘That is, I should not be ungracious. He pays for my keep, since my mother seems to have been related. But I do not know him. We have hardly spoken. He has his own family.’
‘Then you must visit them!’ said Jordan de St Pol. ‘His wife, his son, his household are all in the