Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [363]
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’ve been hunting all morning and trying to lose at a board game. What has happened?’ He was beyond being worried. He knew, in any case, that nothing was wrong with his friends. With an abbot as collaborator, there was little to stop a man of ingenuity from infiltrating from the Canongate into Edinburgh now and then. Otherwise he would be looking rather more harassed.
The Abbot said, ‘Sir Oliver Sinclair has sent to ask you to visit. Sandy would allow it. It’s Roslin, not the Edinburgh house.’
‘Freedom!’ said Nicholas.
‘No. Just a day away from James and Sandy. Well, freedom,’ the Abbot agreed.
Chapter 47
This brother seid: I am in sic a dreid
Off zone scharpe swerd that hingis be zone threid,
That all blythnes in erd is reft fra me.
I will na mair of sic a dignité!
THE MASONS’ PART of the hamlet at Roslin was empty, but the rest of the cabins were full and busy. The Sinclairs created plenty of work, and they had just finished the fair of SS Simon and Jude, which did well, despite Jude’s being a hopeless-cause man, without much to say, you would think, to a Sinclair. Nicholas returned a few amiable greetings but continued down to the castle, passing on his left the memorable collegiate kirk, dedicated much more suitably to St Matthew, farmer of taxes.
So the Sinclairs were rich and cheese-paring. But they also fought at the battle of Bannockburn, and signed the Declaration of Independence, and one of them had been chosen to carry the heart of Robert the Bruce to the Holy Land. The first Sinclair to cross to England from St Clairsur-Epte had fought at the Battle of Hastings under William the Conqueror, who was his cousin, and descended from the same Orkney Jarl.
The selfsame blood had run in Phemie. You could understand why the Sinclairs had had no objection to Phemie’s courtship by the well-born knight and judge and councillor from Burgundy. To aid the king they served, they were prepared to plunder men from any culture and any country: gunners and doctors, teachers and churchmen, builders and miners and carpenters, moneyers and metal-casters. Clever agents and administrators like Sersanders and, he supposed, himself. And if they married and settled down, so much the better. Nicholas crossed the bridge and was cordially received by the chamberlain and taken to Sir Oliver Sinclair’s big chamber. Nowie rose. So did the three men sitting with him. One was Anselm Adorne. One was the young nephew Henry, whom Nicholas had last met in Orkney. And the last was Prosper Schiaffino de Camulio de’ Medici of Genoa, the newly made Bishop of Caithness, the part of north Scotland that stretched from the Pentland Firth to the Dornoch Firth, and from the west sea to the east. Caithness, of which Nowie’s younger brother was Earl, Justiciar, chamberlain and sheriff. Naturally.
They had last met when Camulio was Papal Legate, here in Edinburgh at Blackfriars five years ago. Since then, the Legate had been in prison, had lost his Procurator David Simpson (who had probably helped to put him there), and had been ranging Europe on curial business on a route which had just failed to cross that of Nicholas three years ago in Bruges. He had, however, met the former Franciscan friar, Ludovico da Bologna. So had Nicholas, Camulio understood. What a character!
He looked just the same, with over-rich clothes and over-smooth skin, and a sly, busy look to him that always made Nicholas feel cheerful. Adorne, behind him, looked suspiciously grave. Nicholas said, ‘Where is the Patriarch now?’ He had heard nothing since he had seen him in Cologne with Moriz.
The Bishop sat, and so did everyone else. His robe was pure silk and his crucifix was quite glorious. He said, ‘I wish I knew. The Emperor and His Holiness had each prepared urgent tasks for him, but he failed to appear.’
‘He was ill?’ Nicholas said, a little sharply
‘Not so far as anyone knows. Unless it is a sickness—perhaps it is—to send word that you may no longer fulfil the demands of your masters, for