Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [291]
‘You are generous,’ he said. ‘And in return, I shan’t ask the question I’d put to you, if I were Nicholas.’
‘And what would that be?’ she said. ‘Why is an old besom like me so tolerant of a devil like Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren?’
‘Yes,’ said Adorne. ‘That is it.’
‘Aye.’ she said. ‘There’s a half-answer to that, which he knows. There’s a whole answer that maybe he guesses. But that’s between him and me and St Pol.’
SHE WENT TO Elcho the following week, accompanied by a doubtful Father Moriz, brought to authenticate her credentials. The Prioress, whose manners were beautiful, charmingly set the small chaplain to entertain Sister Monika in German, while she heaped praise upon Bel for opening her hospitable doors to the poor young orphan, the demoiselle Bonne.
Bonne, brown-haired, stalwart and formidably composed, sat with her hands folded throughout, saying little, but watching the nun and the priest with something close to private amusement. Sister Monika, it had been established, was to stay at the Priory over the festival. Bonne did not look sorry.
The Prioress rose to arrange for refreshments. Left alone with the girl for a moment, Bel said, ‘She’s a right talker, isn’t she? What are the other nuns like?’
The blue eyes turned upon her. ‘The same as everywhere,’ Bonne said. ‘Dull.’
‘But safe, I suppose,’ Bel remarked. ‘I mind being glad of some nuns when I got back from that trip to Africa. What did ye hunt with the Graf? Bear?’
‘Sometimes,’ Bonne said.
‘It’s more deer about here, but it’s lively, and I ken a man with some falcons. What about shooting?’
‘Shooting?’ said Bonne. Her voice was mild.
‘With a crossbow. At the butts. Have ye not done much of that? And there’s snow sports, of course, but that depends on the weather. Moriz!’
‘Yes?’ said Father Moriz, rising smartly.
‘She thinks I’m blethering. Come and tell her Yule in Stirling’s not so bad. I had one look at her shoulders, and I knew she was a lass who could kill things.’
Bonne looked for the first time uncertain. The Prioress was re-entering the room. ‘Perhaps,’ said Father Moriz testily. ‘But, my friend, it does not do to scream the fact all round the cloisters. I hope, demoiselle Bonne, that you can put up with this woman. Nations have tried in vain to subdue her, but she still insists on going her own way. You’ll have a terrible time.’
Across the room, the Prioress had turned. Sister Monika sat, looking worried. ‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Bonne. Her face, to a searching eye, had almost cleared. She said, ‘You had no need to arrange this. I am grateful.’
‘It was Lord Cortachy’s notion,’ Bel said. ‘But don’t go and tell the St Pols, or they’ll set the pigs on him.’
SETTLING INTO HER life as a spy, Katelinje Sersanders, lady of Berecrofts, launched into a busy and profitable winter among all her friends, including the ones she was spying on.
Unlike Nicholas, whose qualms she respected, she had no objection to steering her mistress out of trouble. She made no effort to attract the confidences of Jamie Boyd, and was fairly confident that his royal mother would not press secrets upon her lady-in-waiting. Those she proposed to pick up for herself, which shouldn’t be difficult. The King’s elder sister was older but not much more mature than the girl who had fallen passionately in love with Thomas Boyd, her official husband, and who had allowed Nicholas to orchestrate the escape, the exile, the return which had saved her life, if not her marriage, and brought her back to remarry in Scotland. Mary still thought of Nicholas as her friend, but had been shaken by his desertion of her brother in France. Kathi, who never had problems with interfering in Nicholas’s affairs, worked to present the idea that Nicholas, while a firm supporter of Sandy, was deeply concerned to reconcile the absent Albany with the King. This tended to be