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By Root 2929 0

the King’s. Nicholas, who was already spending half the day with the King, apologised to Gelis, with whom he had had very little opportunity to do anything, and moved himself to a room in the Castle. He took Jordan with him, but explained beforehand about the King’s brother. ‘Don’t be shocked. He will be rude, perhaps cruel. He is disappointed and unhappy and unsure. It seemed to him once that he might be King. He might not be a bad King, but I don’t think he will be given the chance: it is better if the present King rules. Also, he has no family to depend on. His offspring are scattered—a son in France, a daughter and other sons here. He has a French wife, and a Scots one discarded. He has no one to depend on but friends, and they in turn may have other loyalties.’

‘Are we his friends?’ Jordan had said.

And Nicholas had said, ‘We are trying to work for the good of everyone.’ It was evasive, because the answer was complex, and Jordan was not old enough, yet, to be burdened with it. He had to forget it, through all the hours that followed, when he and others sat and chatted to Sandy, and entertained him, and put up—to a degree—with his tantrums. As he hoped, Jordan behaved quietly and well, and sometimes Sandy would adjust his behaviour, but usually didn’t.

The rest of the time, Nicholas made himself available to the King, in much the same way. He had brief, invaluable meetings with Whitelaw who, used to treading this tightrope for decades, largely ignored him in public. The Bishop of Dunkeld, another invalid, was capable of shrewd advice. He was on guarded terms with two of the half-uncles, but continued his long-standing, not unfriendly relationship with Buchan. Their cousin, Euphemia Graham, Prioress of Eccles, was at Court, released to her family from her temporary exile in the Priory at North Berwick, on the sea coast east of Edinburgh.

The Prioress remembered Dr Tobias with pleasure, greeted Nicholas and Jordan with suspect eloquence, and asked after the lawyer, Master Julius. Her predatory gaze kept returning to Nicholas. He remembered their discussion about St Pol’s forgotten sister Elizabeth, just before they all went off to Malloch. Eccles was almost on the English frontier. It had seemed a wise idea to empty it. He hoped no one was going to rush to send the Prioress back, and wished he hadn’t mentioned where Julius lived, although, with any luck, Kathi would regulate any encounter. For the present, Nicholas tried, but signally failed to avoid the venerable lady’s company. He wondered if Adorne had been afraid of the Bishop her brother, but decided that Adorne and Kennedy were two of a kind. The Prioress frightened him.

He was not required to arrange much in the way of festivities: this was to be a Christmas of pronounced spirituality, involving grand ceremonial, and conveying the Court from the Abbey of Holyroodhouse to the Church of the Holy Trinity, and from the kirk of St Giles back to the Castle. The community, impressed and disappointed at once, began to suspect that the mummers and singers of January were about to be banned, and the Uphaly Day guisers done down. Nicholas carried their objections to what he called the medical diwan, the rule of Tobie and Andreas which presently controlled all he and everyone else did.

The rivalry between the two doctors was long over, although they still disagreed. Primed by late, companionable sessions in their room, Nicholas had revived what Arab medicine had taught him of uroscopy. From the beginning, a glance at Tobie’s face had been enough.

‘Inopos?’

‘Pure liver-colour. You are right. The anxiety of the present situation is provoking the illness. The King is not well.’

He had not been well since Lauder. A strong man, by now, would be feeling the strain. The King’s painful, recurring sickness was tightening its grip. Nicholas said, ‘Would he retire to bed? Or is that undesirable?’

‘It is undesirable in that rumour will at once have him dying,’ Andreas said. ‘We are already hearing gossip since Dunkeld became unwell, and now Laing. If it isn’t pestilence, then