Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [341]
There was another chair. She slowly sat, and after a moment he resumed his own, with a smoothness that she could see was deliberate. I have recovered. And, behind that, I can ride. I can leave. I am sorry.
She supposed then that the shutters had closed; and that she no longer had the chance to tell him anything else. Instead, he said suddenly, ‘What does Jodi think?’ He had used the little name, to keep the old man out of the conversation.
She had not lost the chance. She didn’t know whether to take it. Her throat aching, she answered his question. ‘Robin explained that soldiers die, and Jodi is thinking about it. We all have to do that, about different losses.’
As she had learned to read him, so he read her. She said only that, and saw his face change. He said, ‘Something else has happened? Something at Lauder? Tobie?’
She spoke quickly then, as he would have done. ‘Tobie is downstairs. John and Moriz are at home. No.’ And as he stared at her, she said, ‘There was trouble over the guns. Big Tam lost his head, and Leithie stood up for him. Anyone who got in the way was liable to be attacked. The army was defying the King. Men were frightened.’
‘Gelis?’ he said. ‘Tam Cochrane and Leithie Preston are dead? And who else?’
‘And Will Roger,’ she said. ‘He loved the King. You risked your life in York. He did the same, going to war. You happened to survive, and he didn’t.’
All her concern was for him. The only measure she had of Roger’s importance was the measure Nicholas gave it. She should not have been surprised when he looked at her and said, ‘What have I to do with it? The world has lost him.’ Then he said, ‘Tobie is here?’
‘I’ll call him,’ she said.
It was the correct decision. The least sentimental of men (as he said himself), Tobie delivered an accurate account of the day’s events with speed and belligerence and then proceeded, encouraged by Nicholas, to seek and identify the truth of what had led to the hangings. For, of course, Tam Cochrane had not been killed solely because he had blindly obeyed the King’s desire to send his guns to defend Berwick. He was killed because his particular skills and abilities were essential to and penetrated every aspect of Scottish affairs, including the shipping of the necessary materials for war and for peace. And from that had stemmed the reciprocal exports, of salmon and timber, whose success had aroused jealousy against all its agents, including Leithie Preston who, like others, had so notoriously traded with England.
And there was much more, of course, to dislike about large, rich men who came from your neighbourhood and whose father you had known. Mint masters were casters, and casters were gunsmiths, and gunsmiths, like Will Goldsmith the Halfpenny Man, employed Big Tam Cochrane to build their stone cunzie houses and import the skills and tools and even the metal they needed to mint their bloody black money, which had ruined the kingdom; in return for which, they supplied guns. Gibbie Fish of Berwick used to work with Tam Cochrane. No wonder Tam Cochrane wanted to hang on to Berwick.
Gelis said, ‘So Tam was always going to die, so many wanted rid of him. But why Will?’ Nicholas had become rather white but Tobie, in the heat of the argument, had ceased even to sneeze.
Tobie said, ‘He was English, wasn’t he? He had St Leonard’s Hospital once; he was given Traquair, until the King transferred it to Buchan. The King was fond of him: he might have restored him all that. But most of all, Will was blamed for the King’s dream of a great chapel of music, to be financed out of Coldingham Priory, and hence wrecking the sinecures of the Home family. Not every Home is for Albany and England, but none of them want to lose Coldingham.’
‘So he was always going to die, too,’ Nicholas said. ‘Does Kathi know?’
Gelis knew that she did. Tobie had slipped away to break the news to her and to Robin. Kathi had brushed aside Tobie’s sympathy, speaking of Roger. ‘What do I matter? The world has lost him.’ She had asked who would go and tell Nicholas.
Now Tobie