Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [306]
‘No,’ said Sandy.
Nicholas looked at him. ‘But you haven’t mentioned that there are limits to what you would do. You haven’t told them what your private plans are. You speak of your friends, but there are others in Scotland who know you, and who think that this is the way you have chosen to come back. You have induced the King of England to waste men and gold on a useless invasion. You will stay with them until they are trapped, and then turn to your brother—not as a supplicant, but as a man who can claim the reward he has earned. I imagine there is nothing the King would not give you, save the throne, and you would have that in all but name.’
The other man sat. He said, ‘Did they tell you to say this?’
Nicholas said, ‘The King does not know I am here. No one told me to say what I have said. It is obvious.’
The pale eyes stared directly at him. Sandy Albany said, ‘He killed my brother. James killed my brother. He’ll kill me.’
Nicholas said, using almost Albany’s words: ‘Did they tell you that? It isn’t true. It was the opposite. John tried to kill the King, and had to be put under restraint. The fits got worse. He died in my own doctor’s house—you remember Dr Tobias? I am sorry. I am sorry, Sandy, but John took his own life.’
‘No one told me,’ said the other man slowly.
‘For his sake, James didn’t announce it. But it happened. I was in Tobie’s house the day your brother died. He had every possible care. He was ill, and you are not. Come home. Your life would be safe.’
Albany said, ‘They would never restore what I had.’ Then he said, ‘Would they put it in writing?’
Nicholas said, ‘Write it yourself. List what you want. I’ll take it to them. I’ll see you get a reply.’
There was a table, where a clerk had been working. Nicholas sat, and found paper, and wrote, at Sandy’s dictation, in the neat, swift hand he had paid Colard to teach him, when first he had realised that he was leaving the coarse world of the dyevats for a world of fine clothes and fine manners, where your hands were always clean. Sandy signed it.
They talked for a while after that, of people and places. He didn’t push Albany to make a decision: he had placed the choices before him, and a warning as well. He couldn’t do more. Sandy must know Edward’s character. He could not be as naïve as he seemed about Gloucester. They parted company, at last, and Nicholas found his escort outside, and was taken back to his room. The document was where once he had carried Phemie’s letter, inside his shirt.
They locked him in overnight. It was what he expected, but it might imply, this time, more than a normal precaution. He knew a lot about buildings. Monastic property in public use was riddled with spy holes. It had been a risk he had had to take, and force Sandy to take. He was here to win Sandy over, or to discredit him. He would learn where he stood in the morning. They would never let him depart if they knew of that invoice for treachery.
He wondered where Wodman was. He had glimpsed him once or twice, reassuringly, at different stages of his journey, but knew, arriving in York, that he was on his own now. If he were allowed to leave, Andro must find him and be told what had happened. Then they would separate. That was the arrangement. If anything went wrong, one of them ought to get through; and if he himself didn’t survive, at least Gloucester would think twice, now, about an invasion. That they might kill the Prince was also possible. It was something that Nicholas had made himself face, and accept. It didn’t help that he was running the same risk himself.
He didn’t sleep, but never required much rest in any case. It was not quite dawn when the quiet was blurred over by the sound of the distant rousing of many thousands of men. Whatever its destination, this immense army was now leaving York. Very soon after that, his door was unlocked, and he was told to dress and present