The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [42]
‘No,’ said Simon. The door burst open and he sprang to his feet. His son Henry appeared in the doorway.
‘Father! He says –’
Bel de Cuthilgurdy got up. De Fleury stayed where he was.
A man appeared in the doorway. He said, ‘It hasna came. I’m sorry. The siller, or else.’
‘What?’ said Bel.
‘Never mind,’ Simon said. ‘Business. We’ll talk of this later. Nicholas –’
‘Na,’ said the man, planting himself in the doorway. ‘We’ll talk of this now. You’ve arms ye havena paid for. Ye say ye have, but the proof hasna came. I warned ye. I’ve come tae take it all back – and’ – as Simon made a threatening gesture – ‘I should tell ye that I’ve half a dozen lads wi’ me outside wha’ll not only tak’ your arms, Master Simon, but let your neighbours ken loud and clear why they’re doing it. So?’
‘I have paid for it,’ Simon said. ‘You scoundrel, you’re trying to make me pay twice over. I’ll not.’
‘Then ye’ll no fight the morn, will ye, Master Simon?’ said the man, and jerked his head backwards. Through the doorway, men could be seen entering the house. Simon started forward, his hand on his sword.
‘No,’ said de Fleury. His arm, mysteriously interposed, stopped Simon from drawing. De Fleury said, ‘It’s a mistake. A day will clear it. But you don’t want this made public. I’m not fighting tomorrow. Take my armour. I’ll get it back when you’ve sorted this out.’
‘Your armour?’ said Simon.
‘You’ll find it will fit you. It was never quite right for me. It’s by a good maker,’ said de Fleury. ‘At least, if you don’t like it, you can back down, and you’ll be no worse off.’
Simon turned. The man in the doorway said, ‘That’s sensible, sir. Indeed, I’ve got a bailie’s man there just behind ye who would endorse what I’ve said. Nae proof of payment, ye’ve nae right tae the arms.’
Bel said, ‘Simon, let them go. Settle it quietly later on. Nicholas will let ye see what he has, to be sure. If it’s not to your taste, then don’t take it.’
‘You can’t wear his armour!’ said Henry. ‘A workman’s armour! Ours is silver!’
Simon turned. ‘Yours will still be silver,’ he said. From red he had become rather pale. He spoke to the younger man stiffly. ‘It is a mistake, of course. I shall have it put right by tomorrow. In any case, I have friends who, I believe, could accommodate me. But if not, be sure I shall remember your very good offer.’
De Fleury said, ‘You need only come and see it. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. Or if it is unsuitable in other ways.’
He left, considerately, before the armour was actually carried out of the house. Simon bade him farewell in a distracted way and vanished indoors. The boy Henry, biting his lip, had said nothing at all.
Bel followed Nicholas de Fleury to the stairs. There she stopped. She said, ‘That was good-hearted.’
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘But as Godscalc mentioned in Bruges, I am a fine young man, when it comes over me. Is the child beyond hope?’
‘I see no one here beyond hope,’ said the dame. ‘Child or man.’
Chapter 6
REPRESENTATIVES OF great powers visiting the smaller duchies and kingdoms took pains, as a rule, to advise their train upon matters of conduct. As a niece of Anselm Adorne, Katelijne Sersanders knew that not all towns on earth possessed sufficient burghers of wealth to sustain a permanent jousting society; that not all princes could afford the expense of a tournament. Bruges had a rich middle class: Scotland, as yet, merely a mercantile community of moderate power. But of men of first rank, it had blood as blue and fighters as good as any the White Bear had seen. So Adorne would have told her, had there been need.
As it was, she sat without scoffing at noon on the Eve of St Nicholas, wrapped in her thickest cloak against the wind that scoured down upon her from the face of the Castle, and the smoke that swirled equally round her from the braziers and bonfires round the tiltground.
To one side, grafted on to the lower ledges of rock was the long pavilion, its canvas snapping and belching, which contained, packed like cards, the Princesses