To Lie with Lions (20 page)

‘You speak,’ said Nicholas, ‘as if I meant to chain her for the rest of her life to the bed-foot. She is free to leave at any time.’

‘But without the child.’

‘Of course, without the child.’

‘So she is chained. What life is that for her, or for the boy? Or for you, for that matter? She is a good mother,’ said Moriz. ‘Don’t be stupid. Let her go, and the child. She won’t prevent you, surely, from seeing him.’ The ties of his cap flew whipping under his chin and the wind tugged at his sleeves. The mast swayed and Nicholas, shifting his grip, pulled a considering face.

‘You think so?’

‘Am I talking in the right language?’ said Moriz. ‘I am telling you: let me say to the woman that she can go, and take the boy with her.’

The light from the sails moved over their faces. ‘Perhaps you are right. So yes. Why not?’ said Nicholas.

Moriz gazed at him, full of suspicion. ‘Then I may? And obtain her promise to let you see the boy when you wish?’

‘Oh no,’ said Nicholas, glancing at him with a smile. ‘That would be too much, don’t you think? If she goes, she goes. I shouldn’t be interested in any child brought up wholly by Gelis.’

Ask him if he wants to stop
. Father Moriz prayed under his breath. So that was it. Nicholas meant what he said. Gelis could take the child if she liked and depart. The offer was genuine, but Nicholas had made it in the absolute confidence that it would not be accepted.

Father Moriz said, ‘I want you to listen to me. A child with one parent, or no parent, is better off than one reared in a household of hate. Are you telling me that you and your wife will live in accord from now on?’

‘I am telling you,’ Nicholas said, ‘that we are both very good at dissembling. The child, at least, will not suffer.’

‘But Gelis will.’

‘Then she has only to leave,’ Nicholas said. His voice had become curt.

‘But she won’t,’ Father Moriz said slowly. ‘Because she, too, is bent on this extraordinary duel. Can neither of you understand it is wicked? I shall tell her to go, with the boy. I shall compel her, if need be.’

‘Do,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although I should point out that the challenge was hers, and not mine. She may even win. She has scored quite a few points, most of them visible, were I to undress. She won’t go.’

Moriz restrained his voice with some trouble. ‘So what are we to expect for the future? A reign of fear? A sequence of impossible trials?’

‘An interlude of picardesque fougousité? I dare say,’ Nicholas said, ‘she will have some such in mind, but I shall try to match and even survive it. I’m sorry. You’ve done your best. The Patriarch would have been proud of you. It isn’t your fault that the maiden turned into the dragon and sent the unicorn off with two horns. I shall try to confine the harm to ourselves.’

‘Will you?’ said Moriz.

‘I don’t aim at Père Dieu,’ Nicholas said. His voice was easy. ‘Only a small speaking part with a gridiron. You might even discover that Gelis schemes better than I do.’

‘I know how you scheme,’ Moriz said.

‘I have a Bank to run,’ Nicholas said; and looked at him, finally.

The clouds passed and repassed. The bows crashed, like a bucket slamming into a well. The shadow of seabirds slid over the sails and snatches of talk rose from the decks, and the rattle of rings, and the clank of pails, and the bleating of animals. And the shrill sound of a young, imperious voice.

Abruptly, Nicholas released him from scrutiny. Moriz turned his eyes away, more exercised than he wanted to show. Far off, a line of green, the English coast hung in the mist. Down below, the helm creaked in the grip of the big Scandinavian shipmaster whose name had been mentioned so casually at camp, and who for some reason always disturbed him. Moriz said, with sudden annoyance, ‘Who is that person?’

Nicholas glanced down at the helmsman. ‘Michael Crackbene? Not a churchgoing man. Prefers the sea to the land. Is currently the Bank’s personal pirate, retained at a basic fee topped up by booty, plus a Yule timber of furs for his Ada. He’s the reason you’re here. It’s true that he’s friendly with Andreas, but to forgive us for what Crackbene does, we need more serious help than the Fortune Books.’

Father Moriz laid a hand on the rail and prepared to get up. He said, ‘I don’t mind your insulting my intelligence and my cloth. But there is a child down there, and innocent families where you are going. Unless you come to your senses, you are going to harm both.’ He was so angry it obliterated all his dislike of heights. He had descended crook-legged to the deck before he realised that the shipmaster’s narrow blue gaze had been examining him. He stumped off below.

The last person to express his opinion on the voyage was the same Michael Crackbene. He did it ten minutes later, when his duty was over, and Nicholas had slid to the deck to stand with him.

Crackbene said, ‘The priest’ll wreck it. You said he wasn’t to come. He’ll stop your divining.’ His eyes were like Gelis’s: chilly.

‘I didn’t know I was going to divine,’ de Fleury said. ‘He’s just jealous. You’re going to Valhalla and he’s only going to Heaven like me.’

‘Le Grant is over-free with his talk,’ Crackbene said. ‘The priest is learning too much.’ Then he swore, for the leather cap he had been carrying had been lifted out of his hands and tossed to hang high on a yardarm.

‘You’re overweight,’ de Fleury said. ‘The priest is one of your truly great metallurgists. He is going to have to be told what to do
when we’re ready. Meantime, we want him to think we need saving.’ He threw back his head. ‘Two ducats I’ll beat you.’

Crackbene got to the cap first, but only just. It didn’t matter: it kept the ship cheerful. Later, he and de Fleury got drunk.

Over the years, Michael Crackbene had sailed both for and against vander Poele, now de Fleury. He liked working a ship at his side. Liking didn’t mean fondness: Crackbene’s only attachment was to a woman whom de Fleury didn’t know he had married, and two children de Fleury didn’t know had been born.

It was one of the reasons why Crackbene was tolerant of this infestation of wife and nurses and child. He had had experience of the van Borselen woman in Africa, and knew she was of good, active stock, capable of making a life of her own. As for children, he spoiled his own but was uninterested in others, unless they were training for sea. He had brought one such lad back with him from Africa, and had got him a good post. He meant to tell de Fleury, some time, about Filipe. He would be pleased.

You could say that de Fleury and he were the same, for all that he was a seaman and de Fleury a banker, or supposed to be. They were both attracted by the kind of crazy, high-paying jobs that no man of sense would risk his skin for. Northern waters were Crackbene’s native habitat, but he had also sailed to the Euxine and Cyprus and Africa, and had lost a few ships, and a few crews, and more than one owner. De Fleury had near-killed him once, and so had the Turks and the Gambia. But you would come back from the dead for this game.

Even John le Grant hadn’t been told the whole story at first. Some of it had been discussed in February with the lawyers at Venice. Some of it had been planned before even that. De Fleury had known he was coming back to Scotland one day. He had left orders. And then, surfacing in Dijon this summer, he had extended them.

The present voyage had been arranged at that time: Crackbene was to charter King James’s
Rose of Bremen
and pick up the padrone and party from Calais in July. When, as it turned out, the
Rose
had been reduced to chips in an battle with pirates, a smaller caravel had been leased. The Bank, of course, had no ships of its own in the north: its roundship and caravel were both in Venetian service, and its elderly galley confined to calm waters.

Wading through the English bureacracy at Calais, Crackbene had found de Fleury’s party installed in a house of the Staple with the priest and le Grant. The domestic tangle had evidently been regulated at last: the child was there, indisputably a de Fleury, and so was the wife, with her arm in a sling. Among the grooms and the archers, the
story had been the same one that he’d already picked up elsewhere: the girl had slept with St Pol, that stupid philanderer, and de Fleury had sent for her and taught her a lesson. It matched what Crackbene already guessed, including de Fleury’s attempted fight to the death with her lover. It continuously surprised him that St Pol had survived it.

Greeting Crackbene at Calais, the padrone and the lady now looked and sounded reserved, as was understandable. In a month, the scandal would all be forgotten. The girl made a lot of the child. Crackbene deduced, without too much trouble, that the wellbeing of the child was why de Fleury had troubled to continue his marriage. Also, she was a handsome young woman, worth taming. Crackbene was satisfied, with his mind on his business, to dismiss the private problems of Nicholas de Fleury.

And the business, discussed in a private room with a view of the Ruisbank Tower, had been all that Crackbene had anticipated. Face to face, freed from the importunities of his women, de Fleury had unfolded at last the detail of the Bank’s particular venture in Scotland and John le Grant, the only other participant, had listened in silence, his white-lashed eyes round as sea-anemones; his fading carrot hair twisted in spikes. From time to time he ejaculated.

‘Danzig! Ye have a caravel building in Danzig!’

‘Bristol! It was you that captured that wine-ship!’

‘Jordan de Ribérac! How in the name did ye sell off his cargoes!’ His accent, set adrift with excitement, travelled to Aberdeen from the Ruhr in three sentences.

Finally he sat back, alight but indignant. ‘All you mentioned in Artois was putting a man of your own into Denmark, and getting a new specialist lawyer from Berwick.’

‘We have both,’ de Fleury said. ‘The first thing you need, capturing ships, is a letter of marque, and the next thing is a bloody good lawyer. If you mean to meddle with fishing rights, you need the Archangel Gabriel. Who did you say we have, Mick?’

‘Tom Yare the agent. He knows about ships, he knows about fish, he knows about customs. And our man in Copenhagen is Eric Mowat of Orkney. Recommended by Lord Sinclair: he’s related.’

‘I know him. They’re all related,’ said John le Grant. ‘He’ll speak the language and keep his mouth shut. I thought I was coming to build for the King. What are you capturing ships for?’

‘Mick can’t help it: they give themselves up,’ said de Fleury. ‘You’ll still build for the King. There’s a small yard already at Leith, and Mick will tell you where else. You’ll need a foundry for your guns and your gear – Lamb can help you. But these are small ships:
fifty tons, and doggers and balingers. We don’t want to be seen to have large ones.’

‘Because of the Baltic merchants?’ le Grant said.

‘And the Vatachino,’ Crackbene said. ‘Their man Martin has been all over Scotland this month.’

There was a silence. The Vatachino, merchants, brokers and ship-owners, were the Bank’s nearest rivals. And of their three principal factors, Martin had been in the Middle Sea recently with Anselm Adorne.

De Fleury said, ‘When is Adorne coming to Scotland? Does anyone know?’

Crackbene said, ‘Not for two months or perhaps even three, rumour says. He wants to bring away the Earl and Countess of Arran at the same time.’

‘But Scotland has refused to pardon Tom Boyd?’ de Fleury said.

‘That is so,’ Crackbene said. ‘They said they’d hang him. You didn’t see him to talk to?’

‘You speak of my soul-mate Tom Boyd?’ de Fleury said. ‘Of course I saw him. He was fighting for Burgundy: Astorre was giving him tips. I have strongly advised him to take his sweet wife and find shelter in England. As far as I know, he’s going to do it.’

‘That’s dangerous,’ John le Grant said.

‘I know. Do you think they’ll make him the next King of Scotland? It’s not going to make Adorne very popular either. Do we still think he’s helping to lead the Vatachino?’

‘I thought we were sure,’ Crackbene said. ‘He’s been looking for a ship.’

‘Has he?’ said de Fleury.

‘Are you surprised?’ said John le Grant. ‘He took shares once before in a voyage. You should remember that, if anyone does.’

‘I remember,’ said de Fleury. ‘So what kind of ship? And what master?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Crackbene said. ‘Martin isn’t a shipmaster and their second man, David, is in Cyprus while Egidius, rumour says, is in Rome. Adorne will have to hire. He’s got time. The sailing season doesn’t open until the New Year. You can get your own little ships built before then, and start on the drainage and mining. And the alum has come. And Govaerts is fairly itching to get you into a cellar,’

‘What it is to be loved,’ de Fleury said. ‘You realise what we are going to do?’

‘I’m trying not to realise it,’ said John le Grant. ‘Gregorio
sanctioned this
?’

De Fleury smiled. Crackbene said, ‘The bits he knew about.’

Later, embarked on their ship, Nicholas had cause, like Crackbene, to remember that meeting. Much depended on Crackbene; but though he drank with him after the wager, it was not to excess. Not on board ship. Not with Gelis there, and the child. Although he had not spoken to Gelis since that first day, when she had looked so shocked to find him beside her, with the child in his arms. She, too, had thought it advisable to treat the new proximity with caution; to remain apart in space and in time, only their thoughts touching, circulating. He knew Moriz had seen her again. He knew he would have told her to leave.

Now, gazing alone out to sea, he was thinking of nothing worth mentioning when the shadow moved, catching his eye by its very familiarity, for it had crossed his path before under hotter suns than this; darkening dust, darkening stone, darkening the colour and spray of a fountain. Gelis had come from her chamber and stood lifting her face to the sun, the white wool cloud of her robe like a galabiyya. He turned and looked at her.

She looked better. Instead of braiding her hair, she had left it to toss beneath the wide band at her brow. It had grown, in a year, and the ends were bleached by the sun of the wilderness. She said, ‘Jodi has learned to say,
Gel, gel, gel
. Are you his camel?’