To Lie with Lions (100 page)

A French spy was discovered, and hanged. Astorre provided the drums.

Anselm Adorne sent an invitation, which Nicholas was unable to accept.

Tobie arrived and wanted to know why he wasn’t visiting Jodi. The Duke was still thirty-nine, and Nicholas was feeling queasy as well as unfairly harassed. He said, ‘Because I think I’m going to have to arrange a coronation. Would you like to do that, and I’ll play with Jordan?’

Tobie, who was thoroughly pleased to be released from the nursery, stopped looking about him and sat back expectantly. ‘So it’s true? The Duke’s agreed to lower the price for the marriage? No King of the Romans? No future Lord of the World?’

‘It hasn’t been announced,’ Nicholas said.

‘No, but rumour has it that he’s settled for a Burgundian crown under the Empire. All his estates erected into a kingdom.
Plus
the duchies of Lorraine, Savoy and Cleves. The Grand King of the West. They say they’ve agreed on a date.’

They had. The coronation would take place in twelve days.

He had forgotten to respond. Tobie said, ‘Which allows you and Gelis to plan. Doesn’t it? You said you would end the war then. You look as if you need to end something. What is it? Last-minute qualms?’

He said something. He wished Tobie would leave, and soon he did.

The next day, he had to go to St Maximin’s for the Duke’s birthday. He called on Jodi. Gelis was there, her hair elaborate, her face tinted. She said, ‘Do we have an appointment?’

He couldn’t take it lightly. He didn’t want to think about it at all. He said, ‘The twenty-fifth of November. I shall prepare to be crowned.’

He was leaving, fast, when Kathi called to him over the courtyard. He slowed and turned. She was alone.

She said, ‘I don’t want you to avoid me.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ he said. ‘The coronation. Your birthday, of course.’

‘St Catherine’s Day. They could hardly avoid it. The Bride of Christ. Do you think Maximilian looks like Christ?’

‘Perhaps. If someone had just told him something that upset him,’ said Nicholas. ‘His birth-chart, for instance. Look, I’m expected. I’m sorry.’

‘I know. Never mind. But would you meet me some time? Before the coronation? Before I’m twenty, and responsible for my actions?’

‘Where?’ he said. He thought of the crowded streets, the packed Palace, Abbey, courtyards.

She said, Outside. I thought of the river, downstream. It would be quiet on the banks.’ She paused and said, ‘Would you mind very much if I brought him with me?’

He had already agreed. He couldn’t change his mind now. He saw her eyes as he left, but couldn’t remember where he had noticed that look before.

Chapter 47

M
ANY TIMES BEFORE
, as his suffering partners knew, Nicholas had delegated the work of the Bank to his managers. Until these last moments in Trèves, he had seldom abandoned one of his own personal projects. Now he did. The others could manage. He had no heart for it, or mind for it, either. The others could deal with the conclusion of the great conference which was to make Charles a king, but which still withheld, for the season, what he had yearned for. In the pending magnificent ceremony, for which he had come so well prepared, Charles would be crowned King of his own expanded duchy. And in return the sixteen-year-old Marie, his daughter, would be promised to the Emperor’s son.

For John and Julius, it could have been worse. The preparations were already half made. Plans were far advanced for the Cathedral. The crown, the sceptre, the cloak and banner lay already burnished and brushed, and fit to be displayed in the Church of Our Lady. The thrones were being regilded; the cathedral hangings were in the hands of the jewellers; the erection of tribunes had begun. Banners were being painted and sewn, vestments chosen. The Archishop of Mayence sent for his exceptional jewels and began to rehearse the coronation mass and anointing. The masters and choristers of all the choirs started meeting in session. The tailors made and delivered robes and cloaks, doublets and sleeves, gowns and headdresses for the nobility of both sexes.

The week before his enthronement, the future Charles, King of Burgundy, ordained and presided over a series of extravagant entertainments designed to dumbfound his hosts, and to express his gratification at the outcome of the past seven weeks. Nicholas made a token appearance. Then he left to keep his appointment with Katelijne Sersanders, and the man, the Scotsman she had chosen to marry.

It was then the third Saturday in November, and the coronation was five days away.

*

Until now, the glorious weather had held. Watered by the light rains of September, the countryside had burst into a second flowering. Cherries ripened, trees blossomed; the vines above the Moselle, picked into October, were thick-perfumed and heavy with juice. Even yet, it was warm; although the mornings in Trèves were veiled by a softening mist which lingered until an hour or two before midday, blotting out the low hills about it, so that even the further bank of the broad river vanished.

Now it was mid-afternoon, and the sun was yellow and mild as Nicholas made his unhurried way out of the flagging city. The Imperial boats, with their banners, lay bright and clear in midstream, while the jetties were crowded with barges, and the arm of the toll-crane whined and palpitated. Upriver, the water combed through the nine massy piers of the bridge, thirteen centuries old, and flowed on past the pale city walls, winding north-east between vineyards and far-off afforested hills to where, eighty miles off, it would enter the Rhine at Coblenz.

Nicholas turned along the right bank, the gentle breeze fresh in his face. No one looked at him twice: no one heeded a man strolling at leisure, dressed in an anonymous pourpoint and cap, with a satchel over his shoulder. Soon he had left the bustle behind.

The river curved. There was no long view of either bank. On the opposite side, a low red slabby escarpment cut off the sky, with sunlit trees at its foot like gold fountains. There were trees on his side as well: some bright as embers, some laden with heraldic red and white berries, some with broad yellow flags. A baldaquin of living
gros point
, better than Hercules, or Alexander, or Jason.

There were fields beside him now, with cows, sheep. A fisherman. A hamlet, with the single piping voice of a child, talking, talking. Then silence again; the quack of a duck; the metallic chirp of a finch, and the soft hush at his side of deep water. He didn’t look for her, because he knew she would watch for his coming. She had wished this for him: this solitary passage, robbed from the hubbub. Then she called, and he heard her.

She had found a vine arbour outside a small, crooked tavern. The fruiting was over: the leaves arching over the wooden table were yellow and large, half concealing sprigs of deflated black grapes. She had been seated facing him, opposite Archie, whose light hair he could glimpse. She jumped up. Like himself, she wore simple clothes: a plain cloak, with her brown hair scattered unbound over it. Not to be unbound, of course, for very much longer: protocol was strict about that. Her face, roused to colour by the fresh air, wore an expression he might have called resolute; then she ran forward saying,
‘You came.’ Berecrofts rose and emerged from the arbour as well.

It wasn’t Berecrofts.

It was Berecrofts; but it wasn’t Archie. It was Robin.

To show nothing would have been the second greatest feat, perhaps, of all his thirty-two years of play-acting. To respond with immediate cheerfulness, as he did, was the greatest.

He said, ‘Kathi! I understand, of course. All those weeks on the
Svipa
. Father Moriz has issued an ultimatum. Come and be kissed.’

She came and, holding his arms, lifted her cheek. Not an Icelandic kiss, this time. He already knew, from their faces, that there was no question of an enforced marriage, or he would never have joked. He turned to Robin. Robin, who was half his own age.

He had matured, both in appearance and manner. That had already become obvious. He had the compact build and fresh skin of his father, and the steady gaze which was all his own. He was well born and landed; not only the son of a merchant. And two years ago, at the time of the Florentine ball game, Robin of Berecrofts had been placed under his own hand, to be trained as a gentleman, as a squire, as a knight. Most of Robin’s skills were inherited, but the rest had been learned from Nicholas de Fleury of Beltrees. He had given Kathi her husband.

Robin said, ‘You didn’t come to see us. We thought you were shocked.’ He was smiling, but his eyes held a shadow.

Nicholas said, ‘I think only the truth will serve here. I didn’t see you at that window with Kathi. I saw your father.’

‘And now?’ Robin said. ‘I know I am young.’

‘Are you young?’ Nicholas said. ‘You never seemed so.’

‘I can look after her, you see,’ said the boy.

And then, suddenly, Nicholas was swept by proper feeling; for this was true. Death had always been close to Kathi, fetterless sprite that she was. She had faced it, and was stoical. But now she had an anchor, a shield. A resolute person who was both of those things, but also high-spirited, and courageous, and quick. So, of course, was Archie his father. But Archie was his own age.

Nicholas saw that he had no right to think of himself, and Kathi in relation to himself. She was matched with Robin. The bravery she had shown in Egypt and in Iceland, had been equalled by Robin on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle; at the Markarfljót. He owed Robin his life. That moment of wordless reunion with Kathi, never spoken of since, had been vouchsafed him by Robin, whose face, triumphant, content, he could visualise now, printed against the cold
snow, under the flamboyant skies of Hlídarendi. Kathi had fought to bring Nicholas his son; Robin had not only loved Jodi but, protecting him, had suffered hurts and humiliation in silence.

And for little reward. After Diniz, after Felix, Nicholas had distanced himself, of intent, from all the impressionable young who wished, eager, affectionate, to enter his life.

No longer. No longer for this one, at least. The boy waited, his eyes steady and clear as a shepherd’s. Nicholas laughed with sudden pleasure and, walking over, gripped Robin by the shoulders, as he might a drinking-companion, and turned him round into his arm. He said, ‘I am so glad about this.’

The boy’s face melted. ‘Now you have both of us,’ Robin said.

Smiling, Nicholas shook him and let his arm fall, moving on. The water lapped. A leaf of gold kid eddied drunkenly down to the grass; his eyes followed it. Sunk beside it was the satchel he had brought. Nicholas lifted it with meticulous care. He said to Kathi, ‘I have brought you a present.’

She recognised the pouch as soon as he placed it before her, and studied it as it lay on the table. Then she opened it slowly, and drew out Glímu-Sveinn’s chessmen.

She said, ‘No.’ Her eyes were wet. The boy looked from her face to that of Nicholas.

Nicholas said, ‘They were given to me in Iceland for a service in which we all shared. I should like her to remember.’

‘Take them, Kathi,’ Robin said. And she took them.

They called for wine then, and he made them talk and then laugh, while they drank it. They were to be married quite soon. The story of Paúel Benecke and Tommaso’s picture was the success of the afternoon. By the time they walked back, the sun was yellow and low, warm as amber; and a barge, overtaking them, flitted upstream like a dragonfly, with a light at its muzzle and two fine silver wings on each side.

They had talked of the white bear. They had said nothing of death, or divining, or music, or the greatest spectacle in the world, which was God’s own work, or the devil’s. They had said nothing of Zacco. He wondered if they knew of Uzum’s two great defeats. He wondered if they knew that Zacco’s son had been born, six weeks after his death. He hoped they did not know – but they probably did – that he and Gelis would come to the end of their particular road on the day that Duke Charles was crowned.

There was no reason for them to be concerned with any of these things, for they had each other. He wondered how Nostradamus had known.

*

At the gates of the Archbishop’s Palace he was met by the Chancellor’s secretary, saying, ‘Where have you been? You must come at once.’

He thought of arson, armed conflict, serious breaches of etiquette at the Duke of Burgundy’s conspicuous celebration. Even when he reached his own room and found Hugonet pacing his chamber, he felt only impatience. Then Hugonet said, ‘Are you not being paid well enough? I need your help. A matter is developing which must be dealt with, and before the Duke hears. I have to go to St Maximin. You must talk to the Emperor’s men. You must do what you can, and I shall come back and continue tomorrow.’

‘What is it?’ said Nicholas. He paused. ‘The Emperor wishes to change the date of the coronation?’ He had ordered his life, so he thought. He had ordered part of it, at least; and was about, given time, to marshal the other. He realised he was incapable of waiting very much longer.

Hugonet said, ‘He wishes to withdraw the crown. He wishes to countermand the coronation. He must not be allowed to.’

The dreadful campaign began. For two days, furious ministers met, and the secret of the potential disaster was confined to the reverberating walls of the Emperor’s chambers. Outside, the Duke’s gracious festival ended, and his guests thronged back, refreshed, to wrestle with the astonishing, the profligate, the ruinous preparations for his crowning. Astorre and John and Julius were among them. Nicholas, closeted with Hugonet’s officers, was sworn to secrecy, and the Duke’s state of divine exaltation was unimpaired.

It could not continue for long. On the third day, the Lord of the World summoned the Burgundian Chancellor and delivered his final decision. It was just before midnight. Afterwards, Hugonet called upon Nicholas. When he had gone, Nicholas sent for his partners.

They came, blinking, in bedgowns. Nicholas sat, fully dressed, drinking water. He said, ‘Sit down. Prepare for a shock. The coronation is cancelled.’