Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [368]
ON A MONDAY in early December, the Parliament of Scotland met in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the first time since March. The monarch led the procession of state from the Abbey of Holyrood, filling the winding defile with banners and singing and incense, silks and velvets and furs and fine, gentle gems. It was reminiscent of the wedding cavalcade of the Queen, except that the King rode with his brother; and Avandale, Scheves and Argyll were now missing. So also, it transpired, were the small lairds who normally made up the tally. The assembly, when it finally settled, numbered only fifty-eight. It was sufficient, however, to appoint the committee which was to consider the new offices proposed for the right high and mighty Prince Alexander, Duke of Albany. The committee sat down to its deliberations, which they were to complete for the Three Estates in ten days.
The Queen in Stirling, sadly debarred from these events by ill health, was well enough by the Saturday to attempt a recuperative sail with her eldest son and her suite. It took her to the Governor’s jetty at Blackness, where she was met by that gallant poet and jouster Sir Jock Ross of Hawkhead, once a favourite of her late father. Within the hour, she had arrived at her own Palace of Linlithgow. It was the seventh day of December, the eve of the fifty-eighth anniversary of the birth of her Keeper, Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy; which occasion his sovereign lady had chosen to mark with a feast.
Considering what this had entailed, Lord Cortachy and Saunders his nephew looked as marvellous calm as two pax-boards to the many guests from Linlithgow who counted them friends. Of course, when you got up to the hall, everything would be of the best. With Seaulme directing, the wagons from Stirling would have been stripped in a trice, and the linen, the staff, the provisions all punctually dealt with—none of your beans with their pods on, or windy meat here. Even the Master Cook would have to keep his mouth clean, or dip his hand in the swearing-box. There! What did I tell you? Wax lights. And the Queen’s own patterned hangings. And linen napkins, all new-chopped from the roll.
Of course, his lordship’s own house in Bruges was a palace with its own kirk, and his cousins were doges in Genoa. That was why the Genoese Bishop was here, on top of Nowie Sinclair and Will Knollys and a few others you wouldn’t expect in the same room—as well, of course, as all the ones you would. Kathi, the spunky wee niece, chatting with Jock Ross and the comfy widow that once had Cuthilgurdy. The bald Italian doctor, him that was a dab hand at itch of the purse; and the unchancy one, Andreas from Vesalia, that some people thought dabbled in magic.
Julius, the lawyer from Bologna who looked so rich and grand, but could keep you roaring over a wine-cask. The Scandinavian shipmaster, Crackbene, with the fine armful of a wife, jabbering away at the Queen in her tongue. Big Nicol’s clever lady, as good as a man in the warehouse, and the laddie their son, a well-mannered wee loon, standing listening to the young Prince. And the Prince glancing at Big Nicol, who had not been the same since Will Roger lost his head—or, to be sure, had it half cawed off him—at Lauder. Yon was a shame. The two of them on the fiddle and drums, late at night, fleeing with Danzig beer, and making up verse about every bastard at court, so dirty and daft you could shite yourself. Those were the days.
‘Poor Uncle,’ said Kathi. ‘Doom threatens the nation, and he has to give a party for himself. We thought you wouldn’t come.’ It sounded challenging. She added quickly, ‘Not for personal reasons. I know you advised against this.’
‘I was probably wrong,’ Nicholas said. ‘And your uncle deserves to be honoured.’
Her uncle deserved to be honoured, and so she hadn’t protested; but she understood Nicholas’s unease. The truth was that the supper was more than it seemed. It was an excuse