To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [27]
‘You were an Archer of the King’s Scottish Guard?’
‘That’s no secret. Eight years under Pat Flockhart. Jordan Semple had gone by that time – him that’s now Jordan de St Pol, vicomte de Ribérac. We all thought we’d nothing to do but rise to be a commander like him, and suck up to the King and get land and titles and a post at the Court, but we didna have the genius the vicomte was born with, it would seem. I got out of it seven years ago, none the richer, although I do serve King Louis here and there, when he has need of me. And I give a hand to the good vicomte de Ribérac, whiles in France, whiles in Scotland. Your friend and mine. Him that gave you the scar on your face.’
It was interesting that he knew that. It was easy too to forget that Jordan de Ribérac had once been a soldier in France; a celebrated leader of armies; the confidant of kings. The fat, indolent man who had tried to buy his son Jodi from him.
‘And which of them has sent for me to Ham?’ Nicholas said. ‘The King, or M. de Ribérac?’
‘Oh, the King,’ said the Archer. ‘He seems to think you could be useful. And whether or not, he could always exchange you for your son.’ He grinned. ‘I ought to congratulate you. We thought we could lift him at Dijon, but I’ve never seen a lad better guarded.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nicholas. ‘And M. de Ribérac? Shall I see him as well?’
‘Ye could hardly overlook him,’ said the Archer. ‘Forbye, did ye kill his daughter in Scotland?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Nicholas said. ‘I thought you were there at the time.’
‘Master Simon certainly thought that you did. M. de Ribérac’s son. He’s been sent away with his boy Henry – packed off for safety to his places in Portugal. You’re not afraid?’ said Andro Wodman, wiping his platter. ‘The King is a hard man, and ye ken the vicomte. He kills what he catches.’
‘So do I,’ Nicholas said. He stretched back in the settle and studied the Archer. ‘You admire him.’
‘I admire a clever man,’ Wodman said. ‘And a cunning man. And a man who pays me what I’m worth. If you are not afraid of him, then you ought to be. Let me tell you: you’ll never leave Ham until Louis is sure of a hostage. They’ll make you send for the child.’
‘What makes you think that I won’t?’ Nicholas said. It amused him, the way it stopped Wodman talking.
Little more was said, either then or during the rest of the journey. This was a disciple of Jordan’s: Nicholas had no wish to court him. Only, occasionally, he caught the man’s face turned to his, full of puzzlement.
At Ham, he was handed over to the Constable’s men and taken at once to a chamber in one of the towers where he was locked in. His servants were removed, despite his one, chilly protest. In fact he had been prepared for it. No one explained or apologised. Strangers brought him a meal. His window, too high to need locks, showed him a courtyard noisy with the aftermath of a hunting-expedition; it was known that even in war, Louis moved nowhere without his dogs, his huntsmen, his birds. And this was not war. It was a long, mutually agreed lull during which peace talks between the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy could continue for as long as both sides awaited the outcome of the struggle in England.
Across the Narrow Sea to the north, it might already be decided whether Lancaster was to keep the throne, or York was to recover it. Over there was Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René; first cousin of Louis; wife of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. The triumph of Lancaster would be the triumph also of Louis of France, and the end of Burgundy’s hopes of pushing over the Somme into France. The armies of Lancastrian England would soon prevent that.
If Lancaster won. If, having landed in England, Edward of York was unable to maintain his initial successes, and was imprisoned or killed. As René waited in Anjou, so Louis waited here, in his castle in Picardy. It was not surprising that, at a juncture so momentous, the King’s minor designs should