Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [355]
The Queen’s friend was still flat on the floor, but not asleep. ‘Which country?’ said Nicholas de Fleury.
Colin Argyll unfolded, quick as a polecat. He said, ‘The one you are fit for, to be sure. Go where you please. Foghnaidh salann salach air im roineagach.’
They were glaring at one another. It must have been quite an insult. Avandale sighed, but not audibly. He said, ‘MacChalein has had a few bottles, Nicol.’
‘I know,’ said de Fleury. ‘Otherwise he would never have invited me to his bed.’
‘Will you accept?’ Avandale said. He was entertained. Colin’s fair face was purple.
‘Why yes!’ Nicholas said. ‘I don’t mind a bit of roineachd.’ But before he finished the word, Colin was on him, and they fought with some intensity, for a bit, until they fell apart, satisfied.
Chapter 46
This king askit at his brother gif he
Wald tak his stait and as a king to be.
Plesit he was and held him weile content
The kingis stait that he mycht represent.
THE FUNERAL AT Paisley Abbey was unlike that of Lord Hamilton, and when it was over, children did not compete in dangerous races with sledges. Of such a pair, one had now come to his grave, and the other, tall and grey-eyed and solemn, had today been cursed by the dead youth’s grandfather and told to get out of the church: ‘They brought you here to gloat!’ But young Jordan had stood without moving, and so had Gelis his mother behind him, while the Abbot hastened forward with others of sense and compassion: Robin’s grandfather; neighbour Semple of Elliotstoun; the lord of Torphichen; the young men of the Guard who had come to carry Henry’s coffin. In the end Andro Wodman, helped by his stick, had taken the fat man by the arm and turned him away, while Bel went first to Jordan, and then to Kilmirren.
Julius, standing by Kathi, had wanted to help, but she had kept him back, to stay beside Gelis. Since Nicholas wasn’t here, Gelis should be supported. Kathi had also brought her own daughter Margaret, but not for Gelis’s sake. Young as she was, Margaret was a stout friend to Jordan, even though he had left their house now, to prepare for his higher studies elsewhere. Once he had gone, Margaret would miss him, Kathi knew.
The ceremony ended. Afterwards, no one wished to stay there for long. The neighbours and the men of the Guard were offered hospitality, as was proper, but Kathi made her excuses and left, and Julius left with her. Gelis and Jordan had already departed to spend the night with Tam Cochrane’s kinsmen, and she had allowed Margaret to go with them. Kathi wondered how sorely Gelis was remembering her last visit to Beltrees, when Robin had been the bait, and David Simpson had died in Nicholas’s place. Someone still wanted to kill Nicholas, and had caused the tragedy they were mourning today. But if today had been perceived by anyone as a lure, it had failed, for Nicholas wasn’t here. It struck Kathi to wonder whether Gelis had come in part for that reason: to observe anything or anyone out of the way. But what brought her of course was more than that. Henry had been her sister’s son, and her sister had been married to Simon.
Bel of Cuthilgurdy had also left. She had wept at the funeral: something rare for that small, composed woman; and when Kathi had gone to speak to her, she discovered that Bel was not returning to Kilmirren. It did not surprise her. After three weeks as the self-appointed mainstay of that obese, stricken, bitter old man, she was exhausted. Now that Andro was here for Monseigneur, she said, she felt free to go back to her home. Stirling was a short ride away: she would sleep in her own bed tonight.
Kathi, returning to her other children and Robin in Edinburgh, had been more than ready to alter her journey and come with Bel instead, but Bel, after hesitating, had refused. Then, Kathi didn’t try to insist. But when Julius set out with her presently, and they came across Bel’s small cavalcade on the road, Julius asserted himself. Of course Bel should