Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [357]
‘And the less than practical reasons?’ Bel said. She had eaten nothing.
‘Because we promised him—I promised him—that we wouldn’t.’
‘He’s an idiot,’ Julius said. ‘So why not kill the King, or free him on condition he abdicates?’
‘Same reason,’ Nicholas said. ‘Civil war, bloodshed, with the weaker party bringing back England. As it is, we’ve got peace; the King ruling with Albany’s help, and a council of sorts to advise them, even if it isn’t as strong as the original one. And the Prince is still safe, in the Queen’s custody.’
‘And you’ll be at his side,’ Julius said. He had said that before. His slanting eyes gleamed with satisfaction and mischief.
Nicholas said, ‘No. You’ll be at his side. If he’s daft, he needs someone about him who’s dafter.’
Julius swung a desultory punch and Nicholas answered it, mildly. The marks of excess (Julius had been right) had receded, and Nicholas had behaved, once in Stirling, as if this were a day like any other. Indeed, he had made only one untoward reference in Kathi’s hearing, and that had been a question to Bel. He had said, ‘How is he?’
He hadn’t mentioned a name. Bel, round and taut as a tabour, had answered immediately. ‘Vindictive. Otherwise he wouldn’t have survived any of it. He pitched into the boy, into your son, in the Abbey. Gelis will tell you. Like he pitched into you, Julius tells me, in his house. You may not have enjoyed it, but it was a God’s blessing to him.’
‘I am glad to have been of service,’ Nicholas said.
Then Julius came along, and the subject was dropped. But it was the only reference. And it pertained to Fat Father Jordan.
Tobie had talked about the odd, tenuous relationship between Nicholas and Bel. Tobie had found out quite a lot about Bel, and believed that Nicholas knew at least as much. Tobie had investigated the young woman at Chouzy in France, whom Tobie and Robin had once met, and whose nom de fille was Claude d’Échaut, or Shaw. She was Bel’s daughter. There seemed no doubt about that; or that her father, also called Shaw, must have been Bel’s second husband, or lover. And then you had to remember that the wife of Fat Father Jordan, and the mother of Simon and Lucia, had been called Aleis Shaw.
Which connected it all to the St Pols, and accounted for the silence of Nicholas. Whether or not it had anything to do with his birth, he never volunteered anything about the St Pols. And it was time, whether he wished it or not, that that changed. Abbot Henry had said as much, and her uncle Adorne. If only Julius were not there, she would have broached the subject herself.
But Julius, being there, had found topics even more interesting. ‘So what about the stupid business at Lauder? I could have told you Tam Cochrane would go his own way. You should have been there. Someone said you had drawn up a blacklist of the killers. Do you want any assistance?’ Kathi looked at Bel, and Bel closed her eyes.
Nicholas said, ‘I’ll tell you if I do. At the moment, we don’t want to antagonise anyone. Anyway, we don’t really know who they are.’
‘I heard Fleming and Crawford and Alex Home,’ Julius said. ‘And Will Knollys has a finger in most things. And what about the message that told Simon you were going to York? Who sent that? It was meant to kill you. It was just luck that it drowned Simon and Henry.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it,’ said Bel, heaving herself up. ‘Kathi, hen, I’m for bed. Will you see me upstairs?’
In her chamber, Bel put Kathi into a chair, and sat down herself. She said, ‘Now, now. He’s not a frail reed, our Nicol, and he knows Julius through and through. Let them be. Julius will