To Lie with Lions (33 page)

There was a virtue in simplicity. Here, the beauty lay in the strictness of the lines and the delicacy of the colour, complementing each other, so that the proportion of the whole was deeply pleasing: an imposing ninety feet from the bright cup of the apse to the rood tower behind him. The back of his own house could be viewed from the tower; he had climbed up there once to verify how much an outsider might see. Now he had less need to trouble; it was generally known that the King’s guest-gifts were made in Wilhelm’s private furnace, and accounted for the strong chests and the charcoal sheds and the smoke. It had amused him to accommodate Gelis, all unknowing, in the nuns’ house which had also, in its time, been a mint. But time enough, of course, for all that.

Gaude splendens vas virtutem
 … In pictures the Nativity was the Third Joy, and the Adoration of the Magi the Fourth. Nicholas had met John le Grant through a Magi procession in Florence, organised for Cosimo de’ Medici. He had met Cosimo’s small grandson, who had also had a whistle, and who had died. John le Grant was wary of children but had proved his worth on that mining expedition in the Tyrol, and would do so again very soon. Nicholas gave some thought to his plans.

Ut ad votum consequaris quicquid virgo postularis
, the basses were singing, while the tenors slipped back and forth. The harmonies, the dissonances were breathtaking; he ignored them. To obtain what he wanted in fullest measure was his intention as well. Riches were not all, although they were enjoyable in church as elsewhere: the cloth of gold and massed cups on the altar; the curtains of pleasance; the silk brocades and the fringes that trembled over the statues of the Blessed Virgin and of St Margaret – but riches were not always enough.

So the foundress had discovered perhaps: Mary of Guelders, in her magnificent tomb in the centre of the sacristy. She had outlived her young husband by only two years, leaving to this brood of unruly children a heritage of high expectations and uncertain skills. Of course, they had been brought up by Betha Sinclair, by Whitelaw, by all the loyal, good nursemaids like Mariota; brought up in comfort. They would hardly miss their mother the Queen. Sometimes, when he found them too simple, Nicholas wished that their parents had survived, and that he had been enabled to try his wits against a grown King and his consort.

At other times he recognised the dangers of over-confidence. Whitelaw and Argyll were subtle and experienced men; so were Sinclair and Hamilton. He had pitched himself against a team as strong as any he would find in Burgundy or in Venice. Only Louis of France could give him a more dangerous match. Louis and the fat
man, Jordan de Ribérac, who had sent Wodman to spy, but had not come himself, perhaps to discourage Simon from coming. Jordan despised his son, but preserved him from his own follies. Jordan didn’t want hot-tempered Simon in Scotland. Of course, one day Simon would come, if only to vent his spite against Gelis.
Gaude mater miserorum
. One could look forward to that.

The singing was running, dividing, weaving and leaping like the interleaved arches that lined the aisle in which he sat. The building was so high that the voices floated, unimpeded by finial or crocket, or echoing them in their own florid patterns and knots. Bishop Kennedy must have shared some of the planning: the masons from St Salvator’s were everywhere. The architect was a cousin of Jamie Liddell’s, and had even Cochrane’s approval.

It was as well Kennedy was out of the way, now the Bishop his nephew was making so many ludicrous blunders. The unfortunate man would be in Rome by now, with poor Jan Adorne. There was no shortage of dispatches from Rome: Julius appeared to be mortared into the bricks until Christmas, although Gregorio was returning to Venice, having dispatched all he could discover about the rich and worthy Anna von Hanseyck. The idea of Julius in love was something which, regrettably, sent all his friends into paroxysms. Tobie would have been amused, had he been here. Godscalc would have worried. Well, Godscalc didn’t need to worry about anything or anyone any more.

The noise was making it harder to think. Leaning back, staring at the immense sweep of the vaulting overhead, studded with bosses, Nicholas was increasingly bothered by the strands of sound soaring over his head. He tried to envisage the text and the pictures. Christ disputing among doctors. A doubtful pleasure, to those who remembered the same Dr Tobias, or knew Dr Andreas or Master Scheves. But of course, that evaded the issue. The equivalent doctors were not of that sort, they were the thinkers of Paris and Orléans and Bologna and Louvain. Of al-Azhar and the Sankore Mosque. Humbly, he had disputed with them. Joy was what he had found. And had lost.

Gaude virgo mater pura, certa manens et secura
. The last verse. Translated: secure, this mother had lost nothing by dying. He stared at her image. Behind it, jewelled baguettes, the apse windows had dulled; the light now came from the vast windows and the clerestory behind and above him. The silvered organ pipes glittered and the voice of the organ intervened. You could hear the organ in St Donatien from Colard Mansion’s room. In Venice, it was the clangour of bells which made the head ache, especially in Carnival-time.
Non cessabunt
, sang the voices.
Non cessabunt, nec descrescent sed dur abunt
et florescent per aeterno saecula
 … Will not cease nor diminish, but will last and flourish through all eternity.

One word more.

The echoes of the final chord settled about him. He did not immediately move: he was calculating something. When Anselm Adorne got up and walked over, Nicholas stood. He saw that Moriz and the organist had walked in the opposite direction, and were enclosed within the group of singers, as if mourning in silence. He turned his gaze back to Adorne, standing before him.

Adorne said, ‘You must have been as moved as I was. I have never heard anything finer. The only version I know is from England. We had it sung at the Dry Tree. I know you are musical. When you come back to Bruges, you must let me enrol you there.’ He paused. The knot of singers was still closely entwined. He said, ‘Margriet came to see you.’

The Dry Tree, however vaguely religious, was really a club for aristocrats and their friends. Tommaso Portinari was a member. They had helped with the music for the Duke of Burgundy’s marriage. Nicholas said, ‘Thank you. Yes. I am sorry she is unwell. Tell her that I think the lady Mary will decide of her own will to stay.’

‘I see,’ said Adorne. He stirred. ‘Here is Master Roger coming to hear our opinion. Perhaps you don’t know but, preparing this work, he and his singers have had almost no sleep for a week. It was for you. He wished you to perceive a work of perfection.’

‘I feared as much,’ Nicholas said.

Adorne looked at him. ‘It is not perhaps the impertinence it appears. It is a pity to wear out one’s life solely in resistance to others, and never to pause to create something worthwhile of one’s own. Especially someone as gifted as yourself. Roger has offered you music. Give him what he asks in return.’

He sounded earnest. Then he smiled and turned aside to stop and embrace Will Roger as he arrived. Nicholas heard their voices without listening to them. The door had opened behind him, letting in the mid-afternoon light. The singers had put out the lamp and, leaving the lectern, were beginning to drift forward. Adorne made a final remark and, gripping Roger briefly by the shoulder, smiled again at Nicholas and quietly withdrew.

Will Roger turned to Nicholas and gazed at him. He said, ‘Your eyes are dry.’ His own were sunken and very bright.

Nicholas said, ‘It was passable. Why should I tell you it was magnificent? You know you can do anything, now you’ve done that.’

Roger showed no sign of having heard him. He said again, ‘Your eyes are dry.’

It made Nicholas angry, having no answer. He gave the only answer he had. ‘I didn’t ask for it. You told me it wouldn’t touch me.’

Roger continued to stare at him. His face, from being tired, had become heavy. ‘You couldn’t,’ he said. ‘Could you?’

Some of his prebendaries, speeding towards them, heard the change of tone and slowed down. Exhausted, ecstatic, the others were transported still.

Nicholas said nothing. Will Roger suddenly said, ‘You bastard! You blocked it. Did you? You blocked it with something.’

He had blocked it. He might as well admit it. ‘I had a lot to think about. It wasn’t my idea,’ Nicholas said. Now the others were slowly gathering round. On their faces the elation of the performance was starting to ebb, leaving starkness behind.

Roger said, ‘You didn’t hear
anything?
Not even the end?’

Gaude virgo mater pura …

Nicholas said, ‘The sound came through. I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.’

Whistle Willie said, ‘If the sound came through, your mind heard it. Sing it.’ All the singers were close. There was a rustle. Roger said in an angry aside, ‘You don’t know,’ and turned back to Nicholas. ‘Sing it. Any part.’

It was ludicrous. He was poised to make some joking remark; to convey soothing excuses; to leave.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deny, for his own peace of mind, what he had just been given. He let Whistle Willie’s fierce gaze remain locked in his own, and unwillingly opened the evil, infallible bank of his memory.

It was a tenor part that came to the surface, from the later verses, when the weight of the music had first begun to break through. That he could recall it, with all its fluid turns and rapid ornaments, signified nothing; his musical memory was like that. He could hear the other four parts in his mind as he began to reproduce, sotto voce, the one he had chosen. It required concentration. He sang as if he and Willie Roger were face to face and alone, since that was how he felt. It was some moments before he realised that the other parts were not in his head, but were being taken up, one by one, by the other singers. Taghaza, Taghaza. The texture floated, complete: a ghostly furnishing below the high vaults.

When the verse ended, they were all gathered close and Roger, who had never moved his gaze from his face, lifted his choir-master’s hand. ‘Do you remember the rest?’

He did remember. This time he summoned his voice, properly
placed on the reservoirs of its air; and the others did likewise. The interweaving now was not faint but firm and rushing and brilliant: glass and paint and silver and stone. It swirled through the spaces and quickened. The fierce
Amen
, when it came, struck the roof and dissolved in a curtain of echoes. The organ pealed and pealed and pealed, and the singers stood, flushed.

Unobserved in the shadows, Father Moriz stole to the door and addressed the man who, arrested, had stopped there to listen.

‘Master Roger will get his Play now. Perfect as that was perfect, whatever it costs.’ He mopped his face, which was moist. ‘I am disturbed. I may have been wrong.’

‘No,’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘No. Your instincts were right. There is the proof.’ His lashes were wet; he made no effort to dry them.

The priest said, ‘There is also the root of my concern. To divert a brook is one thing; to divert a river is quite another. You will still compete against Nicholas?’

‘I must,’ Adorne said. ‘And with my whole heart. My house depends on me.’

‘Good,’ said the priest. ‘And for his sake, I might hope that you’d win, were I not paid by the Bank, and bound to try to outguess you, as he will. I should leave the church now, and so should you. It will permit them to float to some inn and get drunk. The Most High, I feel sure, will absolve them.’

Chapter 15

G
REGORIO OF ASTI
left Rome in October in order to await the birth of Margot’s first child in Venice. He was aware that Julius, daily expecting to welcome his Gräfin, was disappointed by his departure; but his wife, his darling, vivid and firm as a nut in the hedgerow, naturally came first.

Her pregnancy had been untroubled from the start. They were not foolish enough to view this as an omen. Margot’s bloodline bred aberrations. Because of it, she and her first husband had had no children, and after he died, she and Gregorio had lived without marriage or children because of it. The turning point had been Gelis’s son. Aghast for Nicholas, revolted by Gelis’s tale of betrayal, Gregorio had given no thought to the coming child of that betrayal. It had been Margot, no less upset, who had steeled herself to go to Gelis and offer to share her self-imposed exile and stay to look after the child when it was born. Later, sickened by what Nicholas had been made to endure, Margot had changed her allegiance, and helped to bring together father and son.

It had been, for her, a series of long and difficult trials. She had learned that a bond with a child will overcome anything. She had learned from the steadfastness of Nicholas, who had shown no doubts about accepting his son, however malformed. She had realised with horror that Nicholas, knowing her history, had assumed that the care of his invisible child had required her special acquaintance with deformity. And that Gelis had allowed him to think it, even when the child had been born without fault.

Margot had found it hard to forgive Gelis van Borselen, but now she was ready for children, Gregorio’s children. And if they were less than perfect, they would be born into a love which would compensate. Gregorio felt as she did. He had already sent for old Tasse.

In Rome, alight with Pope fever, the thick insect-ridden heat of the
summer moved hardly observed into autumn as the stately delegations followed their harbingers into the city and every bank struggled over its ledgers to keep afloat in the torrents of ducats, the snowfalls of bills of exchange that arrived with their masters.

Handsomely quartered in the Canale del Ponte close to Hadrian’s Bridge, the financial sector of Rome was inhabited by astute men of many nations who knew each other well. Success in a new papal era depended on a supernatural adroitness in identifying new trends; in finding a path through the smokescreen of hints and rumours and misinformation that swirled daily through the community; and above all in plucking what information could be had from the incoming embassies, from the highest officials to the lowest page-boy or groom.