The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [47]
Archie said, ‘I think they’re both daft. Mind you, the suit’s safe on St Pol. Very few here can touch him, and even if you thought you could dent it you wouldn’t.’
‘Even for the honour of Burgundy?’ Julius said. ‘I think you’ll find Anselm Adorne has other views.’ He felt suddenly extraordinarily cheerful. He said, ‘You must agree, having Nicholas about does make things brisk.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ said Archie of Berecrofts quite thoughtfully. He was looking at the King’s sisters who, like the King, appeared less than enraptured by Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren. It reminded Julius of a further pleasure in store. The lady Mary, whose favourite attendant had been Gelis van Borselen, had asked that Gelis van Borselen’s new husband should be presented to her after the tournament. The face of Nicholas, receiving the summons, had been the picture of flattered delight. Julius, seldom deceived, felt quite excited.
By the time the lists opened, everyone within earshot of Julius knew the origin of Kilmirren’s borrowed armour, if not the circumstances of its borrowing. Anselm Adorne heard the story from Sersanders his nephew, just before they rode into the field. In fact he delayed his entry a little, because of it. He had known Nicholas for a long time, nearly as long as Julius. And Nicholas never did or said anything without a reason.
The tournament was well arranged, for a local affair, calling for no more than a token attendance from those knights and gentles within reach of Edinburgh. There were two men from England, and one from the island of Orkney. The preliminary bouts, on horse and later on foot, were hard fought, with snapped lances in the muddy turf and nose-blood seeping down bevelled swords, and swollen flesh squeezed, red and blue, between bone and armour.
The King’s own guard took part, but their ardour couldn’t match the hard professionalism of the Knights of St John, behind which could be discerned a hint of contempt. Adorne himself was opposed to the Preceptor himself, stout Will Knollys, and tried to spin out the fight until Knollys could give in with honour. One of Maarten’s brothers was destined for the Order; all the Adorne family supported their hospice in Bruges; Father John of Kinloch used to live there. But one did not wish to draw too much attention to that.
He drew to the side and watched, while his page fetched him a fresh lance and a drink. The men Nicholas had brought with him from Bruges had done well. He recognised none of them. The old Charetty company, to be sure, was away fighting for Duke Charles. He liked the ruddy, forthright look of young Archie, the boy Robin’s father, who was well matched against Sersanders his nephew.
Adorne reflected, as he watched, on the shrewdness which had brought the Berecrofts family from their ancestral home in the west to the profitable estate they occupied on the edge of the Forth, and now the even more profitable sites they held in the Canongate and in Leith upon which, for a price, men like Nicholas were allowed to build houses. Some men made their fortunes in towns and then chose to establish themselves and their families in baronial mansions. He himself had investments outside Bruges, but he was, to the soul, a man of that town. A man of the town and the Duke’s, and God forfend he should ever have to divide the two loyalties. He watched his nephew, his thoughts for the moment elsewhere.
Berecrofts was struck from his horse. The combat on foot was quite long: they were both short men, he and Sersanders, of equal reach and equable tempers. As Adorne expected, Sersanders won. He smiled, riding heated back to the tent.
The display continued. Dusk came early in December: already the shadow of the Rock was crawling over the tilting-ground although the sun glowed yellow beyond, and the wind was only beginning to bite. Adorne moved. It was not wise to allow himself to become cold because