The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [126]
Nicholas had allowed the crew an evening on shore and, after a while, had unexpectedly followed them. Unlike Julius, Gregorio felt no wish to know about that side of his life. He himself didn’t relish abstaining but he did; and he was just as young – well, two years older than Nicholas. But he wasn’t married to Gelis van Borselen.
Then had come Scotland proper, and Leith, where Jannekin Bonkle had come on board, bursting with news, with the result that, instead of landing, they had left ship and transferred to another which took them up the Firth and then dropped sails to navigate the narrowed, wandering river that brought them here for a stay of one day. Here, to the King’s castle and burgh of Stirling.
Gregorio had known what to expect: a collection of stone and wood buildings crowning a rock, with the thatched houses of burghers and nobles and craftsmen on the descent to the river. A natural fortress, very like Edinburgh, and very likely with all the same disadvantages of climate reported by Julius.
He had packed his heaviest cloak, as Margot would have wanted. It was a kind of lucky token, the cloak. If he took it, he would be back in Bruges before winter and he could find Margot and talk. Either Nicholas would have come to his senses or he wouldn’t, in which case Gregorio would leave him. He knew quite well that Nicholas understood that as well as he did.
It was in the high winds of Stirling that the brave Bruges cloak began to lose its homely whiff of nostalgia. In the castle of Stirling, within the working offices of the kingdom, the lawyer Gregorio saw for himself how men received the returned Nicholas de Fleury: as double burgher and merchant, as investor, as a man active in business whose wellbeing – although he lacked the ducal remit of Adorne – was a matter of interest to both Scotland and Flanders.
The events of four months ago – the unseemly brawl, the wretched mishap that followed – had not been forgotten. But Nicholas de Fleury had been useful, and would be again. And, of course, his prompt action had saved the young prince in the lists. It was as well that the St Pols, father and child, had taken themselves out of the country. It meant that the Flemish banker and Scotland could settle down to some business. For one day, before anyone else got hold of him, that was what the high officers of the kingdom were doing.
And one other. A red-headed youth dressed for hunting had detached himself from his companions and stopped Nicholas on his way from the Secretary’s room. The exchange was short and Gregorio was not introduced, but the huntsman, from his flush, had been pleased. When Nicholas had produced a court bow on leaving, Gregorio copied him. He had identified the badges. This was Alexander, Duke of Albany, the King’s brother. The one who had stayed at Veere. The one who knew Gelis van Borselen.
He sighed. That time, although not wearing his cloak, he did think of Margot.
He followed that day most of the calls that Nicholas made. They ended in the warren of cabins where the canons, the chapel servants, and the musicians were lodged. There he was introduced to a passage stacked with musical instruments and fluted with glittering trumpets which proceeded to a room of no very great size, but so full of peat smoke and ale fumes and noise that he flinched on the threshold.
‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’ Nicholas said and, stepping back, took down the first instrument he could see, which was a shawm. ‘Which end do you blow?’
‘Give it to me,’ Gregorio said. It had happened once before, on the Ciaretti. His heart suddenly lifted.
He took it, while Nicholas reached for another. A trumpet. One of the royal trumpets, in silver. ‘You begin,’ he said. ‘I’ll sling the bells round my neck. Can you reach one of the drums with your feet?’
They didn’t get very far before the doorway was crowded with figures. A tall man strode forward, swearing, and, depriving Nicholas of the trumpet, proceeded to replace his toots