Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [395]
Anselm Adorne, seeing that, laid down his bow and said, ‘No.’
Nicholas was within earshot, as he had been for the last ten minutes. He also laid down his weapon, and turned to look at the other. Then, because it was such an obvious decision, he gave a large smile that came of its own accord, from sweet relief, and said, ‘Shall I get Prospero? He’s good with announcements.’
He was good with that announcement: it stopped the trouble at once. By then, everyone knew that Adorne had resolved to surrender. Nicholas had not seen St Pol, but knew that he had consented. Naturally. He himself had discussed it briefly with Crackbene, who had been remarkably taciturn, and would be even more so, he supposed, when the Prioress gave him his note. Then Nicholas had gone to his son. There wasn’t much time, but he had seated himself on the floor, by the window at which Jordan had been kneeling, and said, ‘They are going to injure the nuns and perhaps burn down the Priory, so Lord Cortachy and I are going to do as they ask, and let them take us away. They don’t want us to go to Whitekirk tomorrow, and they think we are plotting against the Duke of Albany’s life. Once they find that we are not really a threat, they’ll let us go free. In the meantime, you will behave as you usually do, obeying your mother except on the occasions when you have to tell her she’s wrong. You’ll have plenty of help; you aren’t being burdened for life; and if you ever want to go somewhere else, then do that: no one is indispensable.’
‘You are,’ said Jordan. ‘And you’re going somewhere else.’
Nicholas said, ‘My mother went somewhere once, without telling me, and didn’t come back. I understood later that it wasn’t because she didn’t want me, or like me. She didn’t want to go, but thought it was better for me if she did.’
‘Is this better for me?’ Jordan said.
‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. ‘If I don’t go, everyone here could be hurt. If I survived, I would feel I had killed them. You might come to feel the same. Anyway, it’s only prison. Parrots don’t mind them at all. Come and teach me a new word now and then.’
THEY WALKED OUT in procession, he and Adorne; with the Bishop, robed, striding before them. They paced over the snow, shoulder to shoulder, and the torchlight illumined the velvets and furs they would have worn as the King’s envoys at Whitekirk, and roused the gems flashing in their gauntlets and hats, and the golden links of the Order they both wore, with the white and gold Unicorn himself, trapped and chained, swaying below. Adorne was smiling a little, but Nicholas was wearing the mask that obliterated all else, and beneath it could have been either remote or most violently aware.
Now, the precinct was less full, as most of the attackers were assembling outside the walls. At the gates stood the party awaiting the prisoners: a small band of horse led by Purves, and flanked by foot-soldiers with torches. To one side stood a groom between two riderless horses. No, not a groom, but a youth: James, second Lord Boyd, regarding the approaching procession with a stern—indeed, a proprietorial—air.
Far behind, standing with the rest at the door of the Priory, Crackbene let his breath go. Young Boyd had been right. Purves had settled for taking the King’s envoys prisoner, to prevent the meeting, and protect the future of Albany.
It might, up to that point, have been true. Adorne thought that it was, and smiled at Jamie, who almost smiled back. Nicholas, attuned to every change in the flickering darkness, was the first to sense the heads turn on the other side of the gate, and then to hear the rumour of sound they had heard—the faint percussion of a very large body of cavalry travelling fast from the west; from the direction of Edinburgh. A force