Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [84]
He noticed, with mixed feelings, that Henry’s horse was not the usual kind, bred to stand the shock of the joust, but was the one that Eck had trained for Nicholas himself, and kept after he’d gone. He wondered whether, in such a short time, Henry could have mastered its management, and concluded, again with mixed feelings, that he probably had. He had seen how Henry could ride: straight-backed and austere as a knight, or low in the seat like a Tartar, horse and rider a single, flexible unit, moving as one. Even for someone riding from birth, he was good.
Simpson said, ‘Take your eyes off him, my dear, or people will wonder why you have invited him into your house. Indeed, I wonder myself.’
Wodman had spurred on to the field. Nicholas said, ‘Well, it was either Henry or you. I’d rather know where to find my assassin. Although I can’t understand your timidity at all. I shivered last year when Gelis reported your threat; and now I find you are leaving the job to a boy.’
‘I am leaving the attempts to the boy,’ Simpson said. His vivid, dark features glowed, and he drew his open hand in the air to explain himself. ‘You don’t really think, Nicol, that I expected him to succeed? No. These are the Vespers. The genuine event will occur when your wife and son join you. I pin my hopes, my dear Nicol, on your marriage. She will come, sooner or later, if only to see what you are doing.’
‘I expect she will,’ Nicholas said. On the field, they were lining up for a mêlée. ‘But will you be there?’
‘I plan to be,’ Simpson said. ‘And if by any chance I am not, you would not survive to profit from it. I have my protectors. I should add also, perhaps, that I do not keep objects of great worth at Beltrees … Shall we watch?’
Once, when Henry was seven, Nicholas had watched him take part in a children’s mêlée, which had ended in a near-fatal quarrel. John of Mar had been involved. Old Berecrofts had been sitting beside Nicholas then, gazing with pride upon Robin, his graceful young grandson.
This contest was nothing like so elaborate: just a field full of young horsemen banging at each other with clubs. A flourish of trumpets began it, and another, crossly repeated, signalled that the happy contestants were now supposed to disengage. It was patent that Henry had learned to manage his horse, which had been trained for Persian riding and responded to aides of great subtlety. The effect was spectacular, although the horse, used to ball games, was nervous. Nicholas could see Wodman speaking to Henry as they all trotted off.
Simpson said suddenly, ‘Why … Good day, my lord. We are honoured.’
He was looking past Nicholas, towards someone whose settling weight made the bench shake.
‘Such, I fear, was not my intention,’ said Jordan de St Pol’s indolent voice. ‘But in the open air, I can bear company I should perhaps find intolerable under a roof. I came to speak to Claes here.’
Nicholas turned, not very fast. Where two spectators had been, the fat man now sat at his elbow, engulfed in a voluminous gown, his wide hat shading his eyes. The lower face, seen more clearly in sunlight, was firm and clear as an apple: without blemish and almost without wrinkles. Seventy years had marked a line between his thick brows and one on either side of his mouth, that was all. Fat had smoothed out the rest. Fat, or the freedom from care that went with freedom from conscience. They had not met since they had reached their adjustment over Henry.
Nicholas said, ‘And then you are going to take part in the jousting?’
‘No more than you are, my cautious Claes,’ Kilmirren said. ‘Or our mutual friend here, Love’s Lover. Have you seen his bodyguards? There, and there. And, of course, Claes, you have your own: stout Sersanders over there, who would come running at once, but might not be in time. Indeed, if David and I did not dislike each other