Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [317]
‘I’d swear the labourers don’t. I don’t know about the master mason. And I don’t understand. If they’re on the English side, why the disguise?’
‘To conceal their treachery,’ said his father. ‘De Fleury isn’t supposed to be a double spy. You watch, he and Wodman are not going back to the castle. Unless we stop them, the mason’ll try to slip them over the river. Then they’d reappear at the Scots Court as if they had returned by themselves, and no one in Scotland would suspect that they were still collaborating with Albany.’
‘Except the person who warned you,’ Henry said. ‘Whoever it is, why didn’t he come forward and help us?’
‘Do you want a guess?’ his father said. ‘Because it’s a man who wants de Fleury out of the way, but, knowing the King, doesn’t want to be seen bringing him down. Someone close to the King. On the Council, even.’
‘Or the other Burgundian?’ Henry said. ‘You thought Adorne was joining de Fleury. Perhaps he’s doing the opposite. Perhaps, all this time, he’s been laying plans to get rid of him, without taking the blame.’
‘Does it matter?’ said Simon. ‘We don’t need any help now. We can capture or kill them, and no one will blame us. On this side of the river. On the English side.’
Henry didn’t reply. Of course his father, like the unknown writer, would risk the King’s personal displeasure, but he could hardly be punished for it. Grandfather Jordan ought to be pleased. This time, the St Pols weren’t pursuing a private vendetta: they were legitimately protecting the realm.
It came to Henry, suddenly, that he knew who had sent that mysterious message; had set them the task that had brought them both here. It was his grandfather. His grandfather was testing them both.
A cloud lifted, and for the first time he felt calm, and confident, and glad to be here. He settled down by his father, and prepared to show his grandfather what he could do.
It wasn’t simple. De Fleury and his companion were never alone. There was no way of taking them, and no safe way of killing them either, without being at once hunted down. Then as time wore on, the sky clouded, and the work on the bridge came to a halt.
‘They’re going back to the hamlet! Mary Mother, we’ll lose them!’
‘No,’ said Henry, whose blue eyes were sharp. ‘De Fleury and Wodman are staying. It’s happened. We’ve got them, as soon as they’re alone.’
Once, he had stood over Nicholas de Fleury; and had been invited to kill him. Except for an interruption, he would have done so. Some men knew when their time had come. Some men, without fathers or grandfathers, knew when their lives were no longer worth living. Henry, on the other hand, was a St Pol; and true to his line.
SAWING WOOD IN the rain, Wodman was arguing in a murmur. The builders had gone. He and Nicholas were alone on the bank. Unfortunately, they were not entirely alone. At either end of the bridge paced its usual two duty sentries, returned now that the structure was vacant. To protect the pair of craftsmen still present, two more archers had come, perched on top of the carpenter’s wagon of mallets and mattocks and timber and felt, and presently helping to unload it. When the wagon left they remained, sitting on a bit of tarred cloth, continuing a shouted conversation with the men on the bridge and the builders. One of them had a flask. They were there simply as a normal precaution, and it meant that there were only four Englishmen to dispose of instead of a squad. It was ungrateful, really ungrateful to complain. After thought, they had let the wagon go back. If it didn’t, someone would come enquiring. They got on, cantankerously, with building the shelter.
Wodman, busily working and talking at once, was running through a number of excellent schemes. The common theme was that they should invisibly murder the pair on the ground, and purloin their bows to shoot the men on the bridge. Nicholas objected to this, on the premise that the bridge could be seen from upriver. Wodman pointed out that at the rate the river was rising, everyone