The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [48]
He won his remaining courses, knocking out a grinning Jehan in the first. He had to work hardest against Lindsay and Liddell, who was young. He could see, watching the youth Albany, who had had the teaching of him.
The Mêlée he took no part in. It was during that – forty men striking, grunting, squelching in the mud under a greying sky – that the lad Bonkle, at his side, said, ‘Have you heard the news, Ser Anselm?’
Anselm Adorne had known John Bonkle’s double family, Scots and Flemish, since the days of Robert Bonkle, that wily old merchant burgess of Edinburgh. Sanders Bonkle, Robert’s son, was a burgess of both Bruges and Edinburgh. Edward, the boy’s natural father, had been well known to the Scots queen from Guelders, who had made him both famous and rich as Provost of the church and hospice she founded in Edinburgh. The lad himself, though a bastard, had been sent to a Scots university and learned his business at the side of his uncle in Middleberg and Bruges.
Adorne had been pleased, although he had not said so, when Jannekin Bonkle had been offered commissions by vander Poele … by Nicholas de Fleury, and finally agreed to represent him in Scotland. He knew, from Sanders his uncle, how he fared, and quite a lot of what he was doing. Now Anselm Adorne said, ‘What news?’
‘From the borders of Burgundy. The town of Liège has risen for France against the rule of the Duke, and has been attacked by the Duke’s army and gutted, the buildings burned. Hundreds are killed, or drowned in the Meuse, or dead of cold in the forests.’
Adorne was silent. Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was his master: his father had served the same family. He said, ‘I am sorry. Duke Charles has a heavy hand when he is angry.’ A cry rang out from the stand. The news was spreading. Liège was a rich trading town, a town like his own. Everyone had friends there.
‘So has the King of France,’ Jannekin said. ‘They say he secretly incited the rebellion, but when it happened, he was in the Duke’s power. He agreed to the destruction of Liège and his men also took part. Your niece is comforting her maid.’
‘De Fleury sent you to tell me?’ said Adorne. It came to him that the men who obeyed the Duke’s orders at Liège must have included the army leased him by Nicholas. Astorre was there, and Thomas, and perhaps even Tobias, their doctor. He added, ‘He must be concerned for his company. And for what it had to do.’
‘Nicholas de Fleury?’ Bonkle said. He paused. ‘He thought you should know.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Anselm Adorne; and rode into the lists for the final bout. And immediately, as he had expected, the wave of comment lessened, for the slaughter at Liège had taken place far to the south, across the Narrow Sea, four weeks ago, and the culminating match in this contest – barring the token victory of the King, barring the last charming pageant of the children – was between himself and Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren.
He wondered, admiring the grace of man and mount pacing towards him, whether Simon had come to regret the magnificent loan he had accepted, or whether it meant more to him that he should be here, a single glittering figure drawing four thousand pairs of eyes in the dwindling light, the Scottish champion. He thought the latter.
He wondered if Simon’s father de Ribérac, expecting so much of his heir, found some balm in this, his son’s one undoubted excellence, and remembered his own days of military glory, fighting in France. The old man was not here, but would learn of it. Sometimes Adorne wondered if much of Simon’s violent, impatient, disordered career was not in itself a cry to, as much as against his dominant father. He watched the other man’s face, before he closed his visor at the other end of the barrier, and saw confirmed what he had suspected: Simon would