To Lie with Lions (32 page)

‘I burned it,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he said. He wore one of his clown’s faces, full of disappointment. ‘You should have kept it for when Simon comes home. Simon needs it.’

‘Certainly,’ Gelis said, ‘you do not.’

‘No,’ he said. He pushed himself thoughtfully off the door. ‘But one must keep up the average. The Marquis of Ferrara had sixty-six bastards, they say:

‘De ce côté-ci du Pô

Tous sont fils de Niccolò
.

‘I aim,’ Nicholas said, ‘for both sides of the Alps.’

‘Why not?’ Gelis said. ‘You may have made a better start than you know. I have no complaints, and no questions. Go and see the Countess and make her even happier.’

He went to see the Countess, since that was why he was here, but first he visited Jodi, who had been smartly switched into a fresh tunic, he deduced, to receive his unheralded parent. Both Jodi and Mistress Clémence, for different reasons, looked rather pink.

Mistress Clémence was a choice of Gelis’s with which Nicholas had no fault to find – but then, he had always had a respect for his wife’s managerial powers. Whether employed by Gelis, by himself, or now within their joint ménage, Clémence of Coulanges had successfully steered her correct way through the changing relationships, while keeping her main task firmly before her: the wellbeing and training of Jordan.

He took her advice, within limits. When it was brought home to him now that Jodi was one of three children, and that he must give some attention to the others, he accepted that it was necessary for Jodi as well as for the Countess’s brood, and acted accordingly. He had grown up among child apprentices, serving-maids’ children, the children of his own employer who became later his wife. He had carried Tilde about on his back, who now had her own child, named Marian. As he sat, obtaining strange sounds from the whistle, he thought, not for the first time, of Margot’s coming child, so long deferred because of the taint in her family. He had been prepared to
find the same thing in Jordan. He supposed Margot felt as he had. Sometimes, in the stream of such thoughts, he wondered why he was doing what he was doing; but not for very long. Soon, he got up and went to see the King’s sister.

The first-born of a young king and queen, Mary was the weakest of the five surviving orphans, having neither the ambitious intensity of the King, nor the wilful vigour of Sandy, nor the stupid belligerence of John of Mar, which showed itself more forgivably in the vivid, spoiled wildness of Margaret. Mary, with her wired headdress, her stiffened gown, her pallid skin, had been born frightened. Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, had offered her refuge after the death of her strong Flemish mother, and after the spectres of all those deadly contracts which would have married her to men who spoke another language, in parts of the world she had never known. It had happened to all her aunts. It would happen to her.

And instead, Fate had married her to Tom, whom she knew; who was Scots and well born and virile. She knew that, because her maids of honour told her everything. She would have an experienced lover. A glorious lover. Girls – women – married women – were dying of envy.

And so it had turned out. And now they had taken him from her.

She did not quite say all this to M. de Fleury, but when he kissed her hand she held it tightly, and made him sit close by her chair, to show kindness to him as he had shown it to her all those years ago, receiving her secretly in his house, though with respect, and agreeing to help her escape with her Tom. Before the dear children were born, whom it seemed he had befriended. Her dear fatherless children whom M. de Fleury was now going to help. Because now he was here, surely he would reunite her with her Tom?

She had sent her maids from the room. Nicholas, his hand trapped by hers, let her talk. The years of marriage, of intimacy, of childbirth had dispelled the shyness of their early encounters. Gradually, as she spoke, he realised that – as Gelis had said – she knew from her siblings all that had happened at the Castle, and his share in it. And she knew of course why it had been done. She did not even feel contempt for the Queen: she was uninterested. But it gave Nicholas, in her eyes, a physical kinship. He understood desire, her desire for her husband.

He listened, and occasionally spoke. Chiefly, she wanted to be heard. When she finished she wept, and he drew away his hand and found her a kerchief. Then she said, ‘Now you must help me.’

It wasn’t difficult. His shoulder had been cried on often enough by girls who couldn’t read the signs; who didn’t know when to let some
lover go. The only difference was that in this case, the lover himself had not made the first move as yet. He said, ‘My lady. The King your brother is not threatening your life.’

‘But he has sentenced my husband to death,’ said the Countess.

Nicholas said, ‘My lady, he has sentenced your husband to death, but he has not tried to force him to return to face his sentence. He has not used his friendship with Burgundy or his new friendship with England to compel the Earl to come back, because his concern all along has been for you. So long as the King’s beloved sister is in Scotland, he will not hound her husband.’

‘But he won’t let Tom return,’ the Countess said. ‘He won’t forgive him.’

‘He won’t forgive him just now,’ Nicholas said. ‘The King is fond of you, my lady. He is hurt that you came back for love of Tom Boyd, not for him. That is why he is angry. His anger may take some time to fade. But once it does, is there not a chance he may reconsider? Young James will grow, and the baby. The King will learn to love them. One day, God willing, he will have his own children and will no longer see the Earl as a threat to his throne.’

Her face showed simple astonishment. ‘A threat to the throne! Tom wishes only to return to his lands, and live as he has always done!’

‘I am sure that he does,’ Nicholas said. ‘But your brother is King, and has his country to think of. Just now, with the Earl sheltered in England, the ruler of Scotland must be prudent. England is friendly now, but what if she fell out with your brother, and decided to launch some token attack with your husband as leader? I cannot know,’ Nicholas said, ‘if your grace has some ambition to be Queen: I do not think so. But I have to tell you that it would be more likely that your husband would die, and that you, if you had joined him, could not be spared execution. You and your children.’

‘Tom would never –’ she began.

‘I am sure not. But if you returned now to your husband, your brother would have to think of that chance. He would be angry once more: you could no longer rely on his love. England would be required to ask you to leave. Burgundy would not accept you again. France would return you immediately to Scotland. So would Denmark. Where are your children going to be reared? Where will you die? In what country will your tomb lie?’

She stared at him. She said, ‘I wish I were dead.’

Nicholas touched her hand. He said, ‘You are at home, in your own land, with your sister and brothers about you. Your children will speak their own tongue. Wait. Have patience. Let the King’s anger
die. Wait until his new alliances are made, his way clear. Then you may plead again for your husband’s return. Is it so much to ask?’

He waited. After a long time, she spoke. ‘And if he doesn’t forgive?’

He said, ‘By that time you will know what you want, and what your husband wants. But to join him may be to kill him. You may have to think of his future more than your own. You may have to free him.’

He waited again. She said, ‘How could we part?’ Then she said, ‘If I were free, they would send me away. They would send me away like Isabella, and Margaret and Eleanor.’

He said, ‘There are not so many lords fit for you here, it is true. Some are old, or much-married, although kind enough.’

‘I would marry anyone,’ she said. ‘If I couldn’t have Tom, I would marry anyone, so long as I could stay at home.’

There was no one to hear it. It didn’t matter: it had been said. He felt some pity, and let her see it. He said, ‘Will you understand and forgive, then, if I do not help you? While you are here, your husband has hope. And the King may relent.’

‘You are very kind,’ Mary said. ‘I am afraid I am not very clever. Tom is clever.’

‘He knows he can rely on you,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are his bulwark.’

He had said nothing of Anselm Adorne.

He left almost at once, sweeping up his cloak down below, and brushing aside Katelijne Sersanders unseeing, so that she stood looking after him. He was already striding downhill when his way was barred.

His eyes blind, his mind wheeling, he was in no mood for that. He had his sword half from its sheath when he was set upon. He fought and then abruptly relaxed. The man before him was Roger, and the rest were the men of his choir: nine of them.

‘Christ!’ said the musician. ‘Have they fired you from Martha and cracked you? You nearly broke my damned tooth.’

‘No one would have noticed,’ Nicholas said. ‘You play as if they’re all broken. Gumflute music. Gumpipe music. Gumkrumm …’

There was another scuffle, slightly less vicious this time, during which he took a lot of blows and recovered his self-possession. At the end, panting, they all turned him about and marched him downhill, away from his own house and the nuns’ and Adorne’s. Willie Roger said, ‘You’re coming to the Trinity with us.’

‘Why?’ said Nicholas.

‘A mature falsetto,’ said Roger approvingly. ‘I have this bathing-tub –’

He broke off in order to let the renewed struggle run its course which it duly did, ending near the top of Halkerston’s Wynd with four men shackling Nicholas by the arms and another hitched in immobilising fashion on his back. Halkerston’s Wynd led to the church of the Trinity. Will Roger said, – or we could roll you down. Yes or no?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas, and staggered to a resigned standstill. When Roger disapproved of something or somebody, he was apt to do this. He hadn’t liked the sport at the Castle: Nicholas knew that well enough. He added, ‘But I haven’t much time.’

‘I have plenty,’ said Roger.

It sounded grim. Since, however, the many spectators were grinning, so Nicholas smiled in return equally broadly. He said, out of the side of the smile, ‘Clacquedent, they’ll call you. I’ll have your embouchure for orderly garters. Tuscan drawn-work. Punto tirato. Molar merletti. And I’ll wear your tongue in my hat. In the Name of the One, why the Trinity?’

They had let him go, and they were all walking normally. Roger said, ‘Because it has an organ.’

It was too late by then to make another protest. The mellow sun shone on the loch; the moorfowl croaked; the Castle brooded against the bright sky. He walked on, and tried not to show how angry he was.

It was a sumptuous church, the one founded eleven years ago here at the lochside by the King’s mother Mary of Guelders for her own weal, and the weal of her people. It was even complete enough to be used; at least to the extent of an apse and three bays of its choir, owing to the zeal of its Provost, Edward Bonkle his neighbour. Bonkle was not there when they reached it; but the doors were flung wide by the Sacristan and the Master himself, twinkling; welcoming. They walked under the hood of the porch and entered the spaces within.

Silent; cool as a forest the pillars receded, seemingly empty, leading the eye to the east, where a single lamp hung above a group of gowned men round a lectern. As he distinguished them, they were briskly joined by two boys, and then by the priests who had admitted him. Roger’s friends followed after. Murmuring, smiling, they composed themselves surrounding the stand: a loose half-circle of underlit faces, reflective and brilliant as carollers in the snow.

Someone stretched to the lectern and furled back a skin of what lay there. It hung, speckled and supple, holding the light for a moment like honey. The speckles on it were music. And seated to the side of
the sacristy door, almost concealed by the pipes of the organ was his metallurgical priest, Father Moriz.

Nicholas turned.

‘Oh no,’ said Roger.

They looked at one another. Nicholas said, ‘This has nothing to do with you.’ No one listening would have understood what he meant. He knew what he meant, and he thought Roger did.

Roger said, ‘Then it won’t touch you. Nicol? Your Passion, and my Chapel. This is what my Chapel will be like, when I have the money for it. Today, they are singing for nothing. This performance is for you. You and him.’

He indicated the near side of the church. Nicholas stretched back his head, expecting to be shown Father Moriz; but the man quietly sitting in one of the stalls was Anselm Adorne. A man who studied his enemies.

Ludere, non ledere
. He was no longer an apprentice. He nodded to Adorne, but didn’t join him. There were stone benches lining the aisles, and he seated himself on one of those, and watched Roger walk to the circle of singers and take his place in the centre. The Master nodded. Moriz bent to the bellows. The organist lifted his hands. Nicholas reclined, embracing one knee, and studied the floor.

The tiles were glazed. They glimmered green and yellow and brown, double-netted like fish where the window-leads caught them. When the first rumbling sound shook from the organ you would have expected them to heave up in shock, to writhe and to glint, but they didn’t. The coloured designs on the windows hugged the shafts of the piers like embroidery on an Angevin doublet, in and out of the pleats, teasing up to the floriate collar of the capitals, which promptly exploded in clamour. The stone pealed. The capitals became the surrogate mouths of the organ. He removed his eyes from the capitals and gazed at the tiles all through the noise of the organ, and the echoing silence, and the lifting of the first human voices.

Gaude, flore virginali honoreque speciali
, the two trebles sang. He knew the text, but had never heard the music before. It was to be a motet, not a Mass. The Seven Joys of the Mother of God. It shouldn’t take long. His neck ached with looking down. He looked up.

He approved of the roof. It was simpler than at Roslin, where Sinclair had barred the aisles with carved timbers. Sinclair, whose daughter was sitting by Anselm Adorne’s wife Margriet, struggling to carry her child. No one blamed Adorne. An aristocrat with a dozen children might still demand more; and none would blame him.
Gaude sponsa cara Dei
, sang the altos, weaving, blending as all the five parts came into play.