Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [25]
‘I am sorry, Father,’ he said.
Father.
The Abbot said, ‘No, you are not yourself. You should have gone to the infirmary. I shall send for a potion. Take it once you are safely on board.’ And, turning his head: ‘Here surely is the Conservator, ready to leave.’
It wasn’t Wodman who entered. It was the Abbot’s servant, reporting a visitor. And the visitor, it being the God-awful day that it was, proved to be Archibald, Master of Berecrofts. That well-liked merchant, father of Robin, who had found out that Nicholas was here, and could tell him about Robin, and Nancy.
Archie came in very slowly, a neatly made man in his mid-thirties. He and Nicholas had been fellow traders and neighbours through all the nine years during which Nicholas had chosen to inflict himself periodically on Scotland. Nicholas had built his office and home on Berecrofts land in the burgh of the Canongate. When Nicholas left, Berecrofts had bought it back, and taken Sersanders as lodger. Nicholas thought he knew Archie well. He had never seen him so unnaturally pale.
Nicholas rose and spoke without waiting for niceties. ‘I have no recent news, Archie, but none, either, that’s worse than we know. Robin took a hackbut shot in the battle at Nancy. We were afraid he was dead. Then the message came through that he was safe, but a prisoner. John le Grant, my gunner, is with him. Julius and Tobie have now gone to Lorraine with the ransom. You know them. Julius was my lawyer, and Tobie is one of the best physicians in the world. They will bring him back to Bruges. Kathi is there, with the children. And Adorne. And my own wife, and the whole of the business to call on.’
‘I should go to him,’ said Robin’s father. He sat.
Nicholas dropped to a stool at his knee. ‘Take my ship. But you might miss him, if he’s already on his way home.’ He stopped and said, ‘I have letters for you from Kathi. For you and her brother.’
‘It would be better for Robin to come,’ Archie said. ‘To run his business from Scotland. Yare told me the news about Burgundy. I’ve not to repeat it.’
‘That the Duke is dead? It’ll be known by tomorrow,’ said Nicholas. ‘But yes, Flemish trade will take time to settle, especially in Bruges. I’d trust Kathi to decide what is best.’ He kept out of his voice everything that he was feeling and thinking. That he would trust Kathi with his life and had trusted her, before and after she had married Robin. That Kathi knew why he was here, and that his enemies were hers and Robin’s as well. David de Salmeton had a score to settle against Robin of Berecrofts and his wife Kathi.
Despite that, Kathi might—would—bring Robin home, because it was right that he should be home, in the care of his father and grandfather. So Kathi, like Gelis, was trusting him to clear the way for them all. At which he was not doing particularly well. He said, ‘What about the old man, your father?’
Archie looked vaguely up. ‘He’s frail. He’s mostly at Berecrofts these days, or in the west. I’ve said nothing to Sersanders yet, Kathi’s brother. He’s here, in the Canongate.’
‘You’d better tell him,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll come to see you both anyway.’
Their voices were flat. They were talking for talking’s sake. It was still a shock when, without warning, Archie cried out.
‘Where did it hit him? Could you not have—’
He broke off. Then he said, ‘Nicol, I’m sorry.’
The Abbot spoke, his voice kind. ‘Nicholas was struck unconscious himself, as I understand it, by the same men who felled Robin. Two of the Duke’s sons are prisoners—the Grand Bastard and his half-brother. They’ll be well looked after together in Nancy.’
Nicholas pulled himself together, and added all that he could. ‘Robin is a fine soldier, Archie. I’ve never seen a man so in his element. It was sheer bad luck he was hurt. We surprised some mercenaries hunting for booty. I saw him hit in the thigh.’ He didn’t say any more about it than that, or mention that there had been more than one shot. The boy, Kathi’s husband, was twenty.
‘Oh, my laddie,’ said Archie; and brought