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By Root 2420 0

was not much of a fight. He nearly succeeded in dragging them into the water, and indeed had the satisfaction of seeing one of them fall with a splash. He didn’t have time to discover whether he drowned, because the blows were coming too fast: on his head and face, on his belly and shoulders and back. They weren’t going to kill him with swords, evidence that armed men had attacked him. They were going to beat him to death. It went on, rather nastily, until at length he lay on the ground, unable to raise his arms any longer, and one of them knelt and raising his truncheon, brought it down deliberately across both of his shins. He heard the bone crack as he cried out. Then they stood up, breathing heavily, and looked down at him. One of them spat.

When they had said anything, they had spoken in French. Floating in and out of nothingness, dizzy with pain, Nicholas made a civilised effort. ‘At least tell me. Who was so very timid that he dared not face and kill me himself?’

Someone answered, but he could not make out what he said. A helmetful of water brought his hearing back, and some of his sight. The man repeated. ‘We were to tell you. Monseigneur feared that if he set eyes on your carcass, his natural reflex would dispatch you too soon. We had orders to deliver a complaint on behalf of his grandson. Monseigneur looks forward to completing the sentence in Scotland.’

Monseigneur. Scotland. Grandson …

Jordan de Ribérac.

Fat Father Jordan, who had not needed to follow him, for he had guessed where he would go. Fat Father Jordan, who had ordered a beating just short of death for the knave who had so inconvenienced him. For the apprentice who, this time, had inconvenienced the vicomte de Ribérac very seriously indeed.

Nicholas let his eyes close. When he opened them, intending to speak, he saw the trampled strand, the broken bushes, the blood that lay in cakes all about him, but the men-at-arms were no longer there. He lay and watched the unvarying river, until darkness fell.

After all, he had gone to Coulanges.

In Antwerp, Gelis had reached a decision. The idea had struck her some weeks before, just about the time the news arrived about this short trip that Nicholas was taking. He had Julius with him, and it was not known when he would return, or to where. He had gone, it seemed, to the Loire.

It was then the end of July. It meant at best, he could hardly be back by September. It meant, very likely, that he might not be back for some time.

She said nothing, but began to make her arrangements. When they were complete, she called in both nurses and told them her plans. She was closing the house. They were sailing immediately for Scotland.

She knew she had given them almost no time. She saw the wrinkles of distress and perplexity begin to line Pasque’s face – Pasque, with her happy dreams of the Loire finally dashed. Her compatriot’s expression gave nothing away; Mistress Clémence stood obediently throughout, showing no hint of distress or of pleasure. Merely she said, ‘Without his lordship, madame?’

‘I have decided,’ said Gelis, ‘that it is unseemly for Jodi to be brought up in a fortress. Apparently my lord is to be away for some time, in which case it will deprive us of nothing to live somewhere else. He will follow us.’

Pasque muttered under her breath. Mistress Clémence bowed her head, but somewhere in the thin-boned face Gelis thought she saw a flicker of interest. Mistress Clémence said, ‘The sieur de Fleury knows we are leaving?’

‘He will find out,’ Gelis said. ‘It is only a small change of plan. As you know, we are all to spend the winter in Scotland.’

They accepted it. There was no reason why they should not. They were merely returning earlier than the master had expected; and returning without him.

She wondered how he would like that, when his pendulum told him. She knew that he, of all people, would appreciate her yearning for freedom after the anxieties and dangers of Antwerp. She knew that he of all people knew that the dangers of Antwerp were as nothing to the dangers of Scotland, where Simon de St