Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [283]
Today, but for her mourning, the Queen would have dressed for the Burgundian in the steepled headdress and sumptuous gown which had just been returned from overseas, where her portrait was being painted for the Trinity altar-piece. It annoyed her that the Provost’s picture had been completed first. Of course, Bonkle had travelled to sit for the artist, whereas her own likeness and that of the King must depend upon drawings. Because their children were young, and God’s will for their family was unknown, it had been decided to depict the King’s continuing dynasty in the form of a kneeling young man, with what might be termed Stewart attributes. It could represent any child who survived. If all of them died, it could, at a pinch, represent the next incumbent, her good-brother Sandy, who had certainly won through to his prime. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t be giving this audience to Nicholas de Fleury.
The Burgundian was really enormously tall, although he knelt at once, and then slid into the seat that was proffered him. His eyes were steady and large, and he had the engaging habit of resting them for longer than most people did on the faces of those with whom he was speaking. She wondered if he did that with the French King, and in the countries of the East where, she had heard, it was a crime to meet the eyes of the lord. He had something Northern about him that was reassuring. She liked his shipmaster, Crackbene, for the same reason. It was good: it made transactions easier; it did not mean that they were your equal.
She said, ‘We are obliged to you for coming. You understand that we are about to discuss nothing that is not fully known to our serene lord, the King. We merely spare him the sorrow of referring to his beloved brother, Duke Alexander of Albany, in the context of recent changes in France.’
‘I understand, my lady,’ said the Burgundian. He used the language of Scotland, as she had done.
She glanced at her hereditary seneschal, who nodded. Sir Robert Colville, from Ayrshire, was a business-man as well as a courtier: all her advisers were. She respected that. Arranging this beforehand, they had agreed that she should do this herself. She said, ‘You know the King’s brother. You have shown yourself to be his friend and ours. What do you think he will do?’
‘Frankly?’ he said. He didn’t glance at Colville.
She said, ‘That is why you are here.’
Then he looked down, as if collecting his thoughts before he addressed her again. Once more, looking up, he ignored Colville. ‘He has several choices, your grace. His situation we know. He is in France because he opposed your sovereign lord’s friendship with England and tried to break it, even inviting French forces to help him. They did not, but offered him shelter, and a well-born wife, who has now given him a son. My own reading, from my conversations in France, is that this was not something that King Louis especially sought, and that he would have been reasonably pleased had our King sent to invite his brother back, with forgiveness and honour. Failing this, France is sufficiently content to hold the Duke and his family at the moment, as other rulers keep by them the dissident heirs to foreign thrones. There may be no immediate occasion to use them, but they act as a control, and a threat.’
She was not sure what to say. She waited, and let her seneschal intervene.
‘And the Duke’s view of that?’ Colville said. ‘Or did he not recognise the true situation?’
The Burgundian looked at him. He said, ‘That, as ever, is the difficulty, sir.’
‘You talked to him about it?’
‘Both then and before, at Dunbar. His hopes were unrealistic. He saw himself as a national leader, breaking the perfidious friendship with England. His Scottish friends encouraged him to think so.’
Colville glanced at the Queen