Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [412]
The King said, ‘We shall have a replacement made. Two. My lord of Cortachy shall not go to his tomb without our recognition. Does that please you?’
He said something, and made all the standard gestures, and went. Nowie Sinclair walked a few steps with him outside. ‘Are you as ill as you look?’
‘No. I’m tired,’ Nicholas said. ‘Was there something?’
‘I rather think not,’ Nowie said. ‘Perhaps in a day or two, when you feel better. I share your grief over that splendid man, Cortachy. And the small maid, of course. And the quarrel, as I understand it, within your own family. But such things occur to us all. We are foolish to take them too seriously.’
Nicholas stopped. He said, ‘I am sure that, whatever it is, I can deal with it now, as well as I shall in a day or two. So?’
They were on the slopes leading down from David’s Tower. The old lodge of the King’s Guard was not far away. It was cold. Nowie said. ‘Very well. Was Will Knollys with the troop that came to your rescue in North Berwick? Or any of his bailies and their men?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. He should have remembered that Nowie never wasted anyone’s time, especially his own. He found it hard to be interested.
‘He was supposed to be,’ said Nowie Sinclair. ‘Huntly wouldn’t like that. Nor would a few other people. You couldn’t say, of course, that the Order of St John was supporting England: all that was long ago. But it is getting greedy. Over-demanding about rents and tithes. Extortionate, even. People are talking about taking the law into their own hands, and recovering what they’ve paid over the odds.’
‘He would get it back,’ Nicholas said.
‘Maybe,’ Nowie said. ‘But it would cost him time and trouble. Especially if it weren’t just money.’ He produced the slow smile that people compared to a squeezed loaf of bread. He said, ‘Of course, you shouldn’t take part. It’s people like the Johnstones of Linlithgow, and friends of the Prestons and the Cochranes and the Russells who have the grievances. Heriot of Longniddry, and Gullane of Newbattle. Even one or two clients of Adorne’s nephew.’
Nicholas looked at him. ‘When?’
The squeezed slice widened. ‘Oh, about the time of the funeral might be appropriate. Don’t you think? The Lord Preceptor has quite an amount of property close to Linlithgow.’ He patted Nicholas on the arm with his manicured fingernails. ‘I’ll tell you afterwards. It might help you to make up your mind.’
‘About what?’ Nicholas said. As often happened after seeing Nowie, he felt slightly better. Slightly.
‘But, of course, the weather is depressing,’ Nowie said, as if he were producing an answer. ‘You must take absolutely everything into account.’
ON THE DAY of his funeral, the endeclocken tolled for Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, in the church of St Michael’s, Linlithgow, as they would, a month hence, in his own church of the Jerusalemkerk, Bruges. As he had asked long ago, his body was wrapped in fifty-two ells of fine linen, to be gifted eventually to the poor; and among his bequests was one of a fine painted window for the monastery of the Charterhouse in St Johnstoun of Perth, that had held the heart of the first royal James, and had once assisted Maarten, his son. His other sons, the canons of Lille, the absent recipients of the prebends of Aberdeen, were not there; but his friends were, and the great and powerful friends of Phemie, the companion with whom he might have ended his days.
The King rode in procession from Edinburgh, and brought with him Mary his sister, the noble and mighty Princess who had once sheltered in Adorne’s great mansion of the Hôtel Jerusalem, and had borne her first children there. Her son James was not present, nor was her brother Alexander of Albany; but the lady Margaret attended, withdrawn and silent as she had been for that other ceremony, for the burial of Margaret of Berecrofts, whose mother had once been her handmaiden. The sovereign lady the Queen had also come from Stirling for both, and had brought James, her son.
The church, hung with cloths, pinned with the arms of Adorne and his family, was a place