Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [70]
‘No. I shall, or I shall find someone. Leave it to me.’
The man had been whiter than white, but still intent on mustering his thoughts. ‘At least, not Kathi. She has enough. She ought to go away as it is. I have told her already. If they turn on me, they may turn on her next. And Robin should be with his family. If he can travel?’
‘He could sail,’ Tobie said. ‘But they wouldn’t go.’
‘They will, if I make them,’ said Adorne.
NOW, TELLING KATHI, Tobie awaited her answer. He could see her weighing it up. She knew Adorne, and his pride. She knew when to override it. She also knew Robin. She had children, in a town full of danger. And there was something else which Adorne had not asked of her. There was Phemie and her child about to be born. Adorne’s child, Kathi’s cousin.
After what seemed like a long time, she said, ‘I think we should leave, if he really wants it. Does he?’
‘Yes, Kathi, he does. He has a hard way before him, and it will be easier if he treads it alone.’ He thought, saying the words, that it was what Nicholas in Scotland had also chosen. Then he said, ‘Gelis will be here, with all the van Borselen power to help him. Gruuthuse will move heaven and earth. Andreas will be back, as a friend and a doctor. And he has his family.’ He ceased speaking. Adorne’s family. His older family. But not, of course, his eldest son Jan, who was employed in Rome by the brother of that Chancellor Hugonet who was now dead, executed in Ghent. Who remained obdurately at Rome.
Human nature, that was all. One had to understand it, and tolerate it, and try to forgive it. Tobie said, ‘It may be a son. He deserves one.’
Chapter 7
And quhen this lord and his folk was on sleipe,
The oistis man that suld the stabillis kepe
Staw in quhar at this lordis horsis stud
And put his hand to tak awaye thar fud.
THE SAME SPRING dutifully visited Scotland, and winced from the spectacle of Nicholas de Fleury, exporter, who no longer envied Tam Cochrane, being fully extended unsupervised in a theatre of his own choice, with a cast of thousands and an unimaginable profusion of Secrets. Those who believed they knew him were filled with foreboding. The few who did know him (including two women) carried in silence an anxiety bordering on pain, since it was they who had released upon Scotland this masterless man; they who were trusting him, in order to prove that he now had a master—himself.
To an unbiased observer, there was no evidence as yet, either way. In fact, below the surface of his intense and soul-satisfying preoccupation, Nicholas was quite aware that monsters lurked. That in Bruges, Anselm Adorne would have received Phemie’s letter, and must be preparing an answer. That Gelis and Jodi were there and not here, where he wanted them; and that the parting might be a long one. He was conscious of the absence of news from and about Robin in Nancy. In Scotland, he knew, because he visited Roslin, how Phemie was faring. He also knew, because he suffered him daily, how Henry was nursing the venom that one day would erupt, and would force Fat Father Jordan into action. He knew, although he had not yet met him, that David Simpson had opened his campaign, because of the presents.
These had begun to descend on him in March, just after he had leased a house in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, and another in Leith, with a warehouse for his gathering cargo. Henry had been sardonically happy to be free of the monastery, although Wodman had objected, especially when introduced to the spacious, timber house near the head of the Bow, with its service buildings and stable behind, in the terraced ground that plunged down to the Cowgate. It was on the opposite side of the road from Kilmirren House, Henry’s home, and a shade further away from the Castle.
The altercation between Wodman and Nicholas delighted Henry, coming upon it as he dutifully entered the house, fresh from guard duty one day, and negligently unstrapped his armour, his eyes dancing, his golden hair lit by the sun.
‘Dear Uncle. Poor