Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [79]
The pale eyes considered him. ‘We helped to found it,’ said Sinclair. ‘But their decisions these days are their own, as of course they should be. I should be interested to know, none the less, what they said.’
Nicholas told him.
‘And you propose to accept?’ Sinclair asked.
‘No,’ said Nicholas.
There was a long silence. Phemie glanced at her cousin, and smiled. He returned the smile with an absent-minded one of his own, and reverted to Nicholas. ‘You are exceedingly wise. Yet this was presented as a serious offer?’
‘Or as a form of subtle discouragement. They have been warned, perhaps, against trading with me. In which case of course I should not do so. Directly.’
‘I see,’ said Oliver Sinclair. ‘I wonder if I have this correctly. You are asking me to conduct business for you under my name.’
‘Not for me. For Berecrofts,’ Nicholas said.
‘And if I were to agree, you might even tell me who has warned Newbattle against you? Or is that a secret?’ asked Oliver.
‘Not a very great one,’ said Nicholas. ‘But it is best that—officially at least—you don’t know.’
‘Hm. Well, then. What were the arrangements that you hoped for from Newbattle, had things turned out differently?’ Sinclair said.
He had won. He had expected to. He spoke, making sure that the commercial case that he made would serve the Sinclairs at least as well as the Berecroftses. At the end, the lord of Roslin ceased making notes and sat back. ‘So. And what does Phemie think of all that?’
Her cheeks were pink. Meshed into his neat, professional project had been opportunities for Phemie’s own extended family: the husband of Cristina her sister; the two Tom Prestons, and Marchmont Herald, who had married one of their sisters. Also Tam Cochrane, who was becoming an ally.
Phemie said, ‘I think, Nowie, that you should accept his suggestions. I also think that you should tell the Lords Three to compel this man to settle in Scotland. Chain him, if need be.’
‘My dear, your eloquence gladdens the heart. Indeed, you might almost persuade me. Nicol, I think she has almost persuaded me to help you. What do you think?’
Nicholas said, ‘I think we should both thank her, Sir Oliver.’
‘What a nice speech. Doesn’t he have a nice turn of speech?’ the other man said. ‘So I think that, yes, I might do as you ask. And by the way, my name is Nowie, dear Nicol. (A glass of something?) If we are to work together, of course you must call me Nowie.’
Crossing the bridge, rather drunk, Nicholas was stopped, not very surprisingly, by Tam Cochrane, who wanted a word in the sacristy. At the end of it: ‘Mares,’ said Cochrane, who by this time was drunker than Nicholas was.
‘What about them?’ said Nicholas, who was playing with a plumb line. He dropped it.
‘The clack was ye were buying stud stock frae Eck Scougal. Now he says they’re all going to some client in Renfrewshire. So would you like me to get you some others?’ Cochrane knew about horses.
‘Never mind. I’ve changed my mind. I’d better go,’ Nicholas said.
He supposed that, back in Edinburgh, his groom would have departed already. Up and down, up and down like the pendulum.
‘It’s a shame about the young laddie. It’s a shame about Robin,’ said Cochrane.
Chapter 8
‘Quhy has the se thé thus misluffit maid?’
SPRING CAME, TO mend the brutal geometry of space. A ship arrived in Sluys bearing a poem, of which Gelis van Borselen took sasine:
Suspendit gaudium
Pravo consilioSed desiderium
Auget dilatio
Tali remedioDe spinis hostium.
Uvas vindemio.
(Delay …
A perverse tutor
Suspends joy
But redoubles longing.
So we
From evil thorns
Shall harvest grapes.)
Below this artful translation, her husband had written: Be patient. I am not.
IT WAS THE first communication from Nicholas since the coded note about Phemie. With the poem came several pages of news, characteristically scurrilous: about people she knew; about where he was staying. She gathered that he had been accepted at Court and elsewhere without too much trouble; that Davie Simpson had failed to surface; and that he had had a non-lethal meeting