To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [75]
She thought of it again when her brother had finally gone and she sat alone, making tentative noises that split into three, and thinking of Gelis van Borselen seated somewhere like this, but with a broken arm contrived by her husband, and in the full cognisance of the small, clever scheme in which she had been compelled to take part. And perhaps learning as well about that tumultuous room in the Castle of Edinburgh, and aching also to be male, and free, and part of that joyous, private, vital assembly, the key to so much.
If Gelis had music. If, like Anselm, she had not, the handicap was truly unfair. Katelijne Sersanders stared into space, filled with compassion and exasperation combined, and then laughed at her own naïveté and jumped up. For of course, unlike the Sersanders family, Gelis had no need of music. She knew what she had.
Part II
Autumn, 1471
JOYOUS ENTRY AND FARCE
Chapter 10
IN LATER TIMES, men were to say that spring came in August that year, along with Nicholas de Fleury.
It sounded wistful. It was not really true. No land such as this, with its powerful neighbours, its loosely knit far-flung communities, its small towns battling towards civic development could afford to be seduced into lunacy: Scotland was not Rome or Milan. The truth was a mixture, as it usually is.
On the one hand, the chameleon M. de Fleury might initiate the younger members of the Court into the game of Florentine football: a public disaster. On the other, he might provide useful advice to those travelling to England that autumn, to treat on matters left in contention through the Lancastrian wars. Matters such as piracy, and the family Boyd, and Coldingham Priory on the Scots side of Berwick, historically a dependant of the cathedral priory of Durham until liberated (to the delight of King James) by the family Hume. The Humes, the monks, the King were all aware that the revenues of Coldingham Priory were rich. So was the Pope. For four years, nothing decisive had happened. Resolution needed a miracle.
It was M. de Fleury who pointed out that, this time, the delegates might expect some concessions. A reconciliation between France and Burgundy, brought together by Scotland, was the last thing that King Edward wanted. They did obtain some concessions at Alnwick, and the miracle occurred. When the belated news of Pope Paul’s death closed the meeting, the returning Scots sped to consult the Burgundian, a man who had spent part of last winter in his own accommodating bureau in Rome. The value of his past loans and his present counsel almost paid for the cost of rebuilding the site of the football match.
Equally, the news of the election of Sixtus took precedence over the plans for the Mystery Play the King had demanded for Christmas. The King and his Council, which had been progressing rather well in the direction of independent ecclesiastical appointments, retired to replan the future, and Will Roger took Nicholas off to his room in the Castle to rehearse.
While Nicholas sang, Roger picked up his cittern and composed (in a different key) an extempore requiem for Pope Paul in the futile hope of pushing the singer off pitch. He talked as he played. ‘Poor Bishop Patrick, he’ll never trust melons again. He was relying on Paul to forgive him all his annates and those who annated against him. Look at the music, you fool. We’re troping. You’ve missed out the tropes.’
‘I saw your bloody tropes,’ Nicholas said. ‘And they stink; you couldn’t sell them to Judas. Poor Bishop Patrick? What about poor Jan Adorne’s promised post, gone for a melon? The Baron Cortachy will weep into his money bags. And before you try to cover it up, I know you got some of the Boyd land. I’m going to win it off you at cards. I’m tired of this. Where’s the drum?’
They wrangled,