Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [304]
The big question. What had the Douglases said, as they poured over the Border to join their exiled Earl? What had the Earl himself said, and that other exile, Jamie Boyd’s grandfather? What did Holland suggest, or Jardine of Applegarth, who had fled with him? What did Sandy believe, who hadn’t been in Scotland or near it for three years?
How long was the army being paid for?
Nicholas said, ‘My lord Duke, the opposition to the King is underground, and confined to certain areas at present. It needs to be fostered. There is enough to smooth the path, as it were, of a new champion, but not enough to maintain him without help just at first. In six months’ time, the helping force could be dismissed and the kingdom hold successfully under its new King. Of that I am sure.’
‘Six months!’ Sandy exclaimed.
‘That is not what we hear,’ Gloucester said.
Nicholas said, ‘Perhaps, my lord, you have been speaking to the wrong people. The power in all this lies in the hands of the merchants.’
‘Yours?’ said the Earl of Northumberland. It was his function to say what the Duke preferred not to say.
‘With the burghers and their officers, where the money is. Not with me, as my lord of Albany will confirm. If it were so, I should not be here. I should not wish to change kings, or dilute my profit.’
Percy grunted. Gloucester flashed him a glance and turned, smiling, to Sandy. He said, ‘I like your man. He is not subservient. He is honest. I think he will be our good friend. We hope that, now that we know one another, he will further bear out all you have told us of him. Were we to cross the Border, what opposition might we find, in what castles? And what loyalties can we count on? You know of all his grace’s good friends.’
His voice was still charming. He had just come from Carlisle. He had just attacked the West March and burned towns a few miles from Albany’s Lochmaben Castle: he must have a good idea now of Darnley’s strength in the west. Nicholas therefore didn’t lie, or not much, about that. He said, for the rest, what Avandale and Argyll and Whitelaw had recommended that he should say, adjusted to what Tam Cochrane and John le Grant and a few others reckoned, and further adjusted in the light of some beliefs of his own.
He expected, and received, a number of questions.
‘So few in Berwick?’
‘The King has to pay for these himself,’ Nicholas said. ‘He feels deeply about Berwick. He would pour public gold into its defence if he could, but Parliament would allow no more than I have said.’
‘That’s true. I’ve told you,’ Sandy said. Earl Harry glanced at him.
‘And Cessford and Ormiston? Why so many?’
He explained. It all confirmed his conviction, as their questions continued, that the English army was not going to divide: that they were going to fling all their strength in one direction, provided he told them nothing to alarm them. He knew, as if he had been told, that whatever happened, they were going to make sure of Berwick. Outside the windows, somewhere, a horn blew.
The Lieutenant-General said, ‘Ah. You came to us at the right moment, M. de Fleury, and I am only sorry that I must cut our interview short. Tomorrow we march. Where we march and how well we do will be owed, in large measure, to you and to his highness of Scotland, who thought to bring you here. You wish, if I have read you correctly, to return to Scotland, and await this new future?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Nicholas said.
‘They do not know of this visit, and therefore you may be able to send us more news?’
‘I shall do my best, my lord Duke,’ Nicholas said.
‘Then God be with you,’ said the Duke, getting up. Sandy jumped from his chair, and Earl Harry and Nicholas rose, side by side. Gloucester said, ‘You have come at some cost to yourself in time and in trouble. I would have you know that we are not niggardly. My chamberlain will see you in the morning, and an escort will await you to take you safely back to the Borders. Meanwhile, you have all my gratitude.’
‘My lord,’ said Nicholas, beginning to move.
‘No. We must go, my lord