Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [416]
Help can take many forms. She was beginning to forgive him when the door banged open and John and Tobie strode in. Tobie said, ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m allowed to kiss her. I’m married to her,’ said Nicholas fretfully. ‘Come in, now you’re in. What is it?’
He was acting. The next moment, miraculously, he was not acting, for they brought news which, on that day, should not have seemed so irredeemably comical. Further, as a scion of the Knights of St John, John le Grant should not have so revelled in telling it, in full legal vernacular.
It was a case of spontaneous spulzies, attributable to gentry who should have known better. The Order’s Preceptory at Torphichen had been overrun (would you credit it?) and three more of their places attacked. Abstracted to the Preceptor’s prejudice had been beasts (yowes, tupps and stirks), and farm graith, and oats and hay by the chalder, and fine stores of coal and peats and cheese and malt, down to a barrel of tar. By violent intrusion into the Order’s own houses, the callants had made off, in clear wrangous spoliation, with iron chimneys and noppis beds with their cloots and their arras, a Flanders kist and a great shrine, for shame. They actually claimed the villainous haul was their due, owing to the Order’s retention of deceptorious overpayments. The Order! Deceptorious anything! Surely not!’
‘Torphichen, Lochcotes, Fauldhouse and Liston,’ repeated John, reverting to normal speech, his pale eyes shining in the reddened skin and foxy hair. ‘And you haven’t heard the best of it yet.’
‘Tell me,’ said Nicholas. He had kept his arm around Gelis, and she could feel all the high spirits suddenly surging back.
John had become unexpectedly sober. He stood looking down at the two of them, and the expression on his face was almost reverent. He said, ‘Listen. When the Johnstones and the rest got into Torphichen, they found this crate with the mark of David Simpson. Knowing him dead, they broke the thing open. It was gold, Nicol. Your African gold. Davie lied. He didn’t spend it all on Beltrees. He stored it with the last person we’d think of, his unfriend the Preceptor. He knew Knollys would take it, for if anything happened to Davie, Knollys could keep it himself.’
Tobie wore a satisfied smirk. Gelis looked at Nicholas, who sat gazing at John. ‘So why hadn’t he used it? Oh, I suppose he couldn’t flood the market with illicit gold: he’d have to find some way to get it out piecemeal. Do I understand that Knollys wasn’t there while all this was happening?’
‘No. He was at the Mass, didn’t you see him? And he came back to his Edinburgh house after that. Gibbie Johnstone thought he’d better get me, knowing we knew Davie Simpson. So I went, and I took it away.’
‘You did?’ Nicholas said. He looked worried. ‘Then I suppose I’d better start dividing it up. Gelis and I have just decided that we are staying in Scotland. I dare say Tobie will want to get back to his printing-presses, and Pavia, and yourself to the fighting, wherever it is?’
Tobie flushed. His short mouth set, and his nostrils curled like small beans. He said, ‘Is this a way of saying you don’t want us? We can move out of that house.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Nicholas with interest, ‘but it’s an idea. Where would you move to?’
John said, ‘Calm down, Tobie. He’s back to normal. You can’t trust a word that he says. Well, thank God. We all thought you’d gone daft. If you’re staying, then we are.’
‘You mean,’ said Tobie, ‘he was sane before, and now he’s gone daft again. All right. We have talked about the future, as John says, and we all felt the same, Moriz included. We’re staying. Provided—’ He stopped.
‘Provided?’ said Nicholas.
‘Provided you don’t do this sort of thing ever again. Keeping all that about Julius to yourself. And Adelina and the rest. Is there anything else we don’t know?’ Tobie said.
‘A fair amount, by the sound of it,’ Nicholas said. His eyes, no longer bloodshot,