Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
The food had had to be saved because the bad weather had caused a poor harvest, and grain was scarce and high-priced. In some places, there had been real suffering, but in its way it had also cut down the killing: without meal, you couldn’t provision long campaigns. It was one of the reasons why Adorne had burned his own mill. All its stores had been transported to the far bigger mill at Kirkhill, and the small one at Abercorn had been left meantime. But Adorne’s had been next to Blackness: an invitation to under-provisioned English shipping.
Nicholas had asked about Adorne, after disentangling from Gelis and Jodi, and was told that he was next door, and wouldn’t mind a quiet word before coming to join them.
He tried to read her face. ‘What about?’
There were too many people. She shook her head. ‘He’ll tell you. Why not take Father Moriz?’
His mind made several connections, all of them unpleasing. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. ‘The Peloponnesian War?’
She smiled, but there was ruefulness in it. He could guess why. Simon was here. And, of course, so was Julius.
NEXT DOOR, ADORNE had some very good wine and a lavish hand for those who appreciated it. Father Moriz, still smelling of gunpowder, closed his eyes as he sat back and drank. Nicholas nursed his, and thought as he listened. Not only Simon, there in the High Street, but Bonne. It was his fault. He had left the Abbess with money, in case of an emergency. Bonne had created the emergency. And because Sluys was blocked, she had joined the other travellers waiting for one of the rare ships to Scotland. That Simon had been among them was not an unreasonable coincidence, but it was an unlucky one. He said, ‘Just think. Julius will be able to ask them all about my mother, and tell them all about Bonne’s. And if they also think that I’ve appointed Julius to prove me legitimate, they’re not going to do nothing.’
‘Yes, they are,’ Adorne said. ‘Julius must be told to drop this campaign. And I have already been to Kilmirren House and talked to St Pol.’
Father Moriz sat up. ‘The old one?’ Nicholas said.
‘Jordan, yes. Speaking, I said, for the Council, he ought to know that his son Simon was here on sufferance, and at the slightest sign of animosity against a man such as yourself, serving the King at a time of great danger, he and his father would both be returned to Madeira. I said nothing of Julius.’
‘But you discussed it with the Council,’ said Nicholas.
‘My lord of St Pol believed so,’ said Adorne. He smiled. ‘But it is for you now to be persuasive with Julius. What do you suggest, Father?’
The big head had sunk on its chest. ‘Deportation,’ Moriz said. ‘Opiates. Paralysis of the jaw.’
‘I thought,’ said Adorne, ‘remembering Thorn, that my young Kathi, Nicholas, might be as persuasive as anyone? Then, of course, you and Father Moriz must go and see Bonne and settle her future. It may not be easy. She is not a compliant child, it would seem.’
Thorn was in Poland. Nicholas had lost his temper with Julius, and Kathi had, in her impartial way, been a help to them both. ‘I shall talk to Bonne,’ Nicholas said.
‘Yes,’ said Adorne. ‘I am afraid you will have to travel to do it. It seemed to me unsuitable that the girl, even chaperoned, should remain in a household such as Kilmirren’s. You had not yet returned. I therefore took the liberty of asking the Prioress of Haddington to take both ladies temporarily under her care. It is a Cistercian foundation, although not the one which Sister Monika evidently had in mind. It will serve, though, until you have seen the young lady.’
‘She is there now?’ Nicholas said. He sat and tried to visualise the scene in Kilmirren House: Adorne’s bland proposal to remove Bonne; the Prioress arriving with her cohorts. The old man had let the girl go; he couldn’t have stopped her. And, of course, Simon had been out, Adorne said.
‘You approve?’ Adorne said. He was smiling at Moriz.
‘More than