Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [358]
‘Yes,’ said Kathi. ‘Indirectly. He will come to it, later.’ She shook herself. ‘I’m sorry. I forget that he can deal with these things now.’
‘Oh, he needs us as well,’ the small woman said. ‘Especially Gelis and you. I think we’ve turned out a good man, between us.’
‘And the future?’ said Kathi. ‘Who wants him out of the way, Bel? Who sent that message to Simon?’
The colourless eyes studied her. ‘Some say it was your uncle,’ Bel said. ‘Even sober men like John and Tobie and Father Moriz were wild enough to consider it. But there’s Andro to say that it wasn’t: that he saved his life when he could have killed him, there at Heaton. And for the same reason, it wasna Andro himself.’
‘You know it wasn’t my uncle,’ said Kathi. She felt frightened.
‘So does everyone else. It was but a rumour. Like Nicol, he is envied. Your troublemaker may be someone like that: just a man who resents the Burgundians.’
‘But he had to know that Nicholas was going to York,’ Kathi said. ‘Only we knew that, all of us: the House of Niccolò, if you like. Us, and the high-ranking men who arranged it all—Avandale and Argyll and Whitelaw, and Liddell and Albany—whose entire plan depended on Nicholas coming back safely. No one else …’ Then she stopped, seeing where she had been led.
‘So it couldn’t have been Simon’s father,’ Bel said. ‘I could have told you that. When Jordan embarks on a piece of wickedness, he takes pleasure in signing it. Or if he doesn’t, I can usually tell. No: Jordan de St Pol wasn’t the author of the sad, sad thing that ended today.’
She got to her feet. ‘Lassie, we both need our beds. Tell me, is your uncle about?’
Kathi jumped up and took the small, puffy hand she was offered. ‘He’s in Linlithgow with my brother. Why?’
‘Tell him to come by and see me one day,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy. ‘And give me a wee cheep as you go. You’re a grand lassie, Mistress Katelinje Sersanders of Berecrofts.’
The door gently closed. Carrying to bed the small, dry kiss that was her wee cheep, Kathi heard, from below, the comfortable flow of men’s voices: Julius and Nicholas, disputing languidly over something. Bel had been right. While Nicholas had such friends, he was safe.
THE ELABORATE, DIFFICULT programme, object of so much anxious thought, slowly began to unfold. The semi-avuncular Earls of Buchan and Atholl and their younger brother, the near-Bishop Andrew, stole out of the Castle, and reached a satisfactory understanding, part of which involved the retiral of Scheves, and the promotion of Andrew to be Archbishop of St Andrews, with the financial help of the town. The uncles returned to the Castle (leaving behind a certain amount of unexplained luggage), and the lords Avandale, Argyll and Scheves vanished from Edinburgh.
The Duke of Albany and the Provost laid polite siege, with a small force, to the Castle of Edinburgh, accompanied by a number of cannon and some handguns, but no ammunition. Carriers of wine and provender were stopped on Castle Hill and requested by bowmen to go away. The Governor of the Castle issued a furious complaint, followed by an order to lift the siege under pain of artillery fire. The Duke of Albany and the town bravely repeated their demand that the King’s grace of Scotland be instantly released. The Governor (the Earl of Atholl) refused with equal firmness, but did not fire his guns, which was as well, since they would have flattened the town.
After a siege of over a month, in pleasant weather, the Castle found itself starving, and sent its thinnest envoy to announce its surrender. The date was Michaelmas, that time in late September when the Dozen and the Heid Court went about the business of choosing Provost, Dean and officers of the Guild of Edinburgh for the following twelvemonth. In the final, flamboyant act of his term, Wattie Bertram, in the clean doublet and sark brought by his