Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [356]
Julius, when he liked, could be irresistible. Bel agreed, even knowing, Kathi supposed, the inquisition she might be inviting. But, in fact, it did not come. It was a thirty-mile journey, and they were weary. It was more than that. Although she had watched Julius and his insatiable curiosity at work, even here, Kathi knew he realised now that it was fruitless to try and legitimise Nicholas. She had learned of St Pol’s explicit denial from her own kitchen: You made the old man so wild he bloody disowned me. Since then, she had thought of Julius more kindly. However wrong-headed he might be, he had tried to help Nicholas, over and over. For all they kept quarrelling, he must be the oldest friend Nicholas had. And his greatest pleasure, still, was the excitement he found wherever Nicholas was.
They were within sight of the Burgh Port of Stirling after a hot, tiresome journey when, without warning, their way was blocked by a group of dark horsemen. The men who stopped them were faceless: they wore expensive weapons and armour but carried no emblems. Their own men, of course, were also armed: Julius, never backward, was already offering battle to the opposite captain, who neither answered nor shifted. At the same time, Kathi noticed, there had issued from the Burgh Port in the distance a troop of well-guarded horsemen, riding sedately. They, too, bore no distinguishing marks, and their cloaks hid the quality of their dress. As the gates closed behind them, they began to string out, moving more quickly. Of them all, only one glanced across.
Julius had seen him as well. He called out in surprise, turning aside so that one of their captors, thinking him about to escape, leaned across and seized his reins roughly. The mysterious cavalcade continued regardless. Then the man Kathi had already noticed leaned over, speaking to someone, and the next moment detached himself and trotted over. The captain threw down Julius’s reins and went to meet him. They spoke. A moment later, the soldiers detaining them saluted and went, following their fellows along the Edinburgh road. They were free.
Their rescuer approached, and pushed back his hood.
‘Nicholas?’ Julius said.
It was, of course. He was wearing his stand-by expression: one of tranquil authority. ‘Kathi? Mistress Bel? I’m sorry. They were under orders to hold everyone back. Let me take you into the town. You’re going home?’
‘We’ve come from Paisley,’ said Bel. ‘Do you have to follow your friends, or can you spare us a night? You’d be welcome.’
‘I hoped you’d ask me,’ he said. His face, the versatile face, had given way, for a moment, to something he hadn’t controlled; and you could see the same attrition, for a moment, in Bel.
Julius said, ‘You look terrible. You’ve spent the night drinking, you dog. What was all that about?’
Julius. What could you do with him?
OFTEN, IN HER dealings with Bel, Kathi had felt herself under scrutiny, and had realised very soon that this applied to any person of either sex who was connected with Nicholas. She believed she had passed the invisible test, whatever it was, and found proof, if it were needed, during the night and morning they all passed in Bel’s house in Stirling. They had come to support Bel, but the situation was made bearable, in the end, by the presence of Julius, whose few observations on the funeral were entirely prosaic, and who preferred to talk about other things. For him, Nicholas outlined, on promise of secrecy, what had clearly been a momentous meeting between the Queen and the Duke of Albany; and watching Bel’s absorbed face, Kathi was relieved that she, at least, had received a respite from the burdens of the day.
Bel had a well-ordered house, trained to deal with any contingency. Julius, content in mind and in body, lingered at table, and left it deep in strenuous argument. ‘Why not simply kill Albany?’
Nicholas,