To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [295]
Katelijne Sersanders his niece continued dutifully to be seen in the marriage market. Willie Roger was derisive. ‘John Bonkle! My God! Why not his uncles, his father? I’d get the Trinity to rehearse in for free! Liddell. Napier. Muir. David Arnot and Conn Malloch – now those I’d approve of, if you didn’t mind living in Fife or the Borders. At least you’d be able to sing duets with them.’
‘That, I believe, is not the whole purpose and object of matrimony,’ Kathi had said. ‘What do you think of Ben Bailzie?’
‘I saw him hanging about you. Do you really want to know?’ Roger said. ‘You’d be better off with me.’
‘I know I should,’ Kathi said. ‘Let’s run away. Where shall we run to?’
‘Oh Kathi, Kathi,’ said Roger. ‘I wish that you meant it. But since you don’t, I’ll make you another proposal. You write down the names of your followers and I’ll set them to music. Suitable music, with suitable lyrics.’
‘Starting at once,’ Kathi said. ‘Willie? May I say something?’
‘No,’ said Roger.
‘Then I will. I don’t mind giving half measure to some people, but you would mind more than they do. Music is better.’
The one person who didn’t call on her was Nicholas, and when they met it was by accident, when she was in her brother’s house in the High Street, and Lord Beltrees was unexpectedly announced. Sersanders jumped up and welcomed him smiling: in Iceland, he had altered his opinion of Nicholas. Nicholas saw Kathi was there, and came forward.
They had met briefly when she came back to Haddington, on the day after his disastrous return. Then, she had hidden her pity, as he had concealed whatever he felt behind a routine display of good acting. Now, she thought, his behaviour appeared natural. He even seemed delighted to see her.
She said, ‘I’m not going to say Ey. Jà, ha, ho! perhaps. And how is Wound Man?’
‘Neglected,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. I can’t sit on anything green.’
‘Well, there’s a red cushion,’ said Sersanders, who always lost some of his solemnity when Nicholas was about. ‘She’s been husband-hunting. We’ve just had another list, full of Dorias.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t pick a Genoese,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not with what’s about to happen in Caffa and Chios. Is Mar bothering you?’
The King’s brother was fourteen. ‘He isn’t bothering me to marry him,’ Kathi said. ‘He’s fallen out with the King and wants to make a statement, in which I was to be a comma. I told him to wait until he could punctuate.’
‘Kathi!’ said her brother.
‘Well, tell me if he gets into colons. I’ve got something to show you both.’ It was an embroidered bag, which Nicholas laid on the table. ‘Open it.’
The cloth of the satchel was wadmol, and she recognised the embroidery. Kathi opened it, and drew out one by one what she found wrapped inside. They were chessmen, so old that the whalebone had yellowed and there were cracks in the knights’ shields and the queens’ tunics and pigtails. There were runes cut very small in the base.
‘From Constantinople,’ Nicholas said. ‘Handed down through the centuries to Glímu-Sveinn, who has sent them to me. He has recovered. Crackbene has just come back from Iceland, with news of them all.’
‘You sent him?’ said Kathi.
‘There were things that they needed. And, of course, there was always the chance of picking up a little sulphur or some more fish. It isn’t as bad as it might have been,’ Nicholas said. ‘The lava left them most of