To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [358]
‘Hamilton?’ Gelis said. Her mouth was dry. She had met James Hamilton often enough. He had married his first wife before she was born. They had tried to foist an old man on Katelina, and she had refused. But Mary, primed by Nicholas, would not refuse.
The fat man said, ‘Do you think she is the only woman in Scotland who will suffer for this? The country is swimming in debt. Stirred to dreams of grandeur, the King has spent all he has on his dress, on his jewels, on the style of his Court; on his arms and artillery, his horses, his kennels for hunting. He is buying ships and building boats he can’t pay for. When bullion comes into the country it doesn’t go to the coiners: it is converted by a splendid German goldsmith into chains and adornments for James.’
‘It made him happy,’ said Nicholas. He remained standing quite still, wearing his tolerant face. He added, ‘Go on about the civilised arts.’
She didn’t need to listen, now, for she had begun to understand. How much had been spent on the Nativity Play – this spiritual salvation, encouraged by all his friends, to which end the artists, the experts, the materials had been gathered in Edinburgh for the performance of one single day? What of the music, the instruments bought, the players brought in from Brussels and Italy, the furnishing of a new Royal Chapel? Coldingham had been closed for that reason – or perhaps because Coldingham itself was becoming too rich, too successful, too much of an asset to its country. The vicomte was saying so.
‘Also, of course, because the issue of Coldingham encouraged dissent between the King and the Pope,’ the vicomte was continuing calmly. ‘As did the rise of Patrick Graham, the amazing new Archbishop of St Andrews.’
‘And the alum from the Tyrol,’ said Tobie slowly.
‘But that’s all right now,’ Nicholas said. ‘Duke Charles is allowing the free sale of all Christian alum, and I think the Tyrol is Christian. At any rate, I owed the Duchess a favour.’
‘Why?’ said Gelis.
Nicholas said, kindly, ‘Because she helped me get Jodi from Venice. She was the woman in the boat. Did you not guess even that?’
There was a scrape and a flare. Someone had begun lighting candles. The bald head and pasty face of the doctor emerged from the dusk, and the rippling jowls of the vicomte, and the strong features of Mistress Clémence holding Jodi, her eyes moving, back and forth, from the boy Henry to the man who employed her. The man who had done this.
Tobie said, ‘You want us to believe that you have deliberately undermined and brought down a country. But even if you attempted it, you couldn’t prove that you had succeeded.’
‘Couldn’t I?’ Nicholas said. ‘Ask the Treasurer. The Exchequer audit was held in June, after I left. And, of course, things will get even worse once the debased money has started to circulate.’
‘Then the Bank has lost, too,’ Tobie said. ‘If you have bankrupted the country, what will happen to Govaerts and the Canongate bureau?’
‘But the Bank is no longer in Scotland,’ Nicholas said. ‘Govaerts has gone. The Casa di Niccolò is shut, and so is the house in the High Street. I have nothing in Scotland but a tract of land and a somewhat overfurnished castle in Beltrees, which I shall probably strip.’
‘So let me rephrase your good doctor’s question,’ said Jordan de Ribérac. ‘What has this little exercise cost you?’
‘Something, of course,’ Nicholas said. ‘But happily, I work under several names, like Egidia. I have been able to farm out the King’s loans here and there, mainly among the various agents of the Vatachino and the Medici. Poor Tommaso, naked again.’
‘And, presumably, poor Martin,’ said the fat man agreeably. ‘I have to thank you for that satisfaction, at least. Henry, do you understand what is happening?’
The boy had been fidgeting in the uncertain light. Now he came to his