The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [24]
Julius kicked him under the table. The smile didn’t waver. Sersanders said, ‘What? Katelijne? She’s going to that Cistercian foundation in Haddington where all the princesses are sent. Where Whistle Willie – where Will Roger teaches.’
‘She’s being sent to a nunnery?’ Nicholas said.
Julius kicked him again. Dr Andreas said, ‘I thought you would have known that.’
‘He does,’ Julius said. ‘He needs another game of tzukanion. Or a swim, perhaps.’ He felt like the Charetty notary once again, making excuses for Nicholas.
He was saying something to that effect when a horn blew in the darkness outside. Nicholas said, ‘You were useless at excuses, and as a notary in Bruges. Anyway, you can’t use your notarial seal in Scotland without being a priest. Godscalc’s a priest. He could be a notary here, except that his handwriting is frankly appalling. That’s the horn, and Albany’s on his feet. Aren’t you going?’
‘What’s the horn for?’ Julius asked, rising because Albany did. No one answered. Everyone seemed to be leaving the house, so Julius went with them. He was relieved. Sometimes, in the company of Nicholas, the random fire became dangerous. It reminded him of a field manned by broken artillery.
Which was mad. He was trained. He could curb – he could always curb Nicholas.
The horn summoned them outside the house, but it was the whistle that led them all to the beach.
The house had been warm. Outside, the October moon lit the strand and silvered the waves as they crashed on the shore. The bonfire which burned on the sands was red and gold and enormous: in all the Lowlands, only the stackyards of Leith could have supplied it with timber.
The scores of people lolling, weaving, chorusing round the bonfire were also from Leith, Adorne’s nephew Sersanders could see. Dogs yapped and bayed, and someone was playing the pipes to the merry patter of several drums. While the lords had been indoors, decorously eating from platters, the families who belonged here had brought out their food and a barrel of ale, and were continuing, in their own cheerful mode, the pleasures of the King’s play.
Clouds of smuts, billows of heat swirled from the fire. Outside its range, the air was fresh but not piercing, although the sullen waters sounded cold. Sersanders began rather quickly to look about him for the youth Alexander, for Nicholas, and especially for Katelijne his sister.
They were with Will Roger on the other side of the fire. Sersanders saw the King’s brother, secure within the sturdy group of his household, and the young women of title were there, laughing as well. They were harnessing dogs to the porters’ ship-sleds and the young people were climbing aboard – his cousin Maarten, the Scots boy Robin, his own Katelijne. And Alexander, the heir to the throne. Older people strode about, lending a hand. He could hear the wagers being laid, and see the families leaving the fire to crowd round.
If the heir to the throne was to take part, surely the rest would be safe. His uncle Adorne, standing quietly behind, said, ‘I don’t think you could stop it. Maarten will take care of your sister. Don’t you want to join in? You used to do things like that with Nicholas.’
He had, long ago, when he was twelve and Nicholas a sophisticated sixteen, an apprentice called Claes who knew every kitchenmaid and was the source of every inventive exploit in Bruges. Sersanders had known Julius too, partly as the Charetty lawyer who could chastise them both; partly as the young man who, off duty, was not averse to some adventure himself.
Today, he had exchanged hardly a word with Julius or with Nicholas vander Poele, once Claes, apart from that silly exchange about Katelijne. The camaraderie had gone. With his uncle, too, there had been a change in the old kindly relationship. Of course, wealth and power made men cold, even cruel. It wasn’t surprising. Only he found himself thinking of the man by his surname this time. He was vander Poele: he was not a friend you