To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [233]
‘Well?’ Nicholas said. He was taking Robin, because he wouldn’t inflict on Robin the mortal wound of leaving him behind. He was taking Gelis and the child and his nurses. He did not need to concern himself with Kathi, for she had already left Scotland, and before that she had been ill, and under the jealous guardianship of the Prioress. Halfway through April, word had come that Sersanders had found a ship to take him from Bessastadir straight home to Bruges. A few days later, she had got herself a passage to Flanders, and the Priory had reluctantly released her. She had only been waiting to hear from her brother.
Willie Roger said, ‘You are all together. You’ll all be together in Flanders. It’s bad. You need to get rid of Iceland.’
‘What?’ Nicholas said.
‘Or you’ll let it blunt you, like Africa. I thought we’d write plays together,’ said Willie.
‘You did. Well, get in some better beer, and I might. What makes you think I don’t want to?’ said Nicholas. Luckily, Roger never knew when he was lying. He didn’t want music. He was plagued enough by the sounds in his head. Gunnar, chanting from inside his burial mound. The voice of Thorfinn on the wind: a better sailor than any of us. Old loyalties, old battles, old dreams.
He pushed Willie along to the steps. ‘Get off, or they’ll rescind all your sinecures. I’m not going to Flanders to mourn over Iceland. I’m going to fight for Duke Charles, and tell King Louis how lucky he is, and persuade Henne Memling he’s got a picture all wrong, and arrange a welcome for Julius.’
Gelis had heard him. ‘Julius is coming to Bruges?’
‘I hope so,’ said Nicholas. ‘Bringing with him the widowed Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck, part-owner of the vessel on which we now stand. Iceland is forgotten. Why should a man visit Iceland, unless to sift through the shades of the underworld, looking for his next incarnation?’
‘You’re drunk,’ Willie said.
‘I am. But not as drunk,’ Nicholas said, ‘as I’m going to be.’
Chapter 31
IN THE FIRST days of May, Margriet van der Banck, dame de Cortachy, loved and loving wife of Anselm Adorne, died in her home at the Hôtel Jerusalem, Bruges, in a chamber filled with her children. Her oldest son, Jan, summoned from Genoa, was by turns desolate and furious, blaming his lady mother for succumbing at all, and especially for being so thoughtless as to die before his arrival. Even the very grand funeral was already over, and the guests and kinsfolk departed, with the exception of the nuns, friends of his sisters, who were staying to look after the children and order the household; and Jan’s two Sersanders cousins with whom he had never seen eye to eye.
The house was stinking with incense. On the day of his arrival, he went to pay his respects in the crypt and found himself in the company of two weeping servants and someone from the Dry Tree praying in front of the altar. He entered, with some trepidation, upon his first meeting alone with his father, who seemed worn and pale; but the initial constraint melted before the warmth of the Baron’s welcome. They embraced each other, and Jan wept. Later, his father was ready to hear a little about Jan’s shameful treatment at the hands of the Curia, and the preposterous position he had been placed in, vis à vis the Bishop of St Andrews in Rome. He noticed after a while that his father’s attention was slackening and, breaking off, advised him kindly to rest.
It surprised Jan next day to find his father had left the house for the first time, it was said, for many weeks; and that he was remaining abroad, evidently with the intention of dining at the home of a friend. Dr Andreas was also elsewhere. Jan left his brothers and sisters and, changed into a rather fine gown, went to call on a few friends himself.
The town of Antwerp was flat. To Gelis van Borselen, brought up in the low lands of her name-country, it should have appeared reassuringly familiar: a relief from the spiny ridges of Edinburgh, the funnelled views, the shrill winds. Instead, she found