Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
Gemini (4 page)
Meanwhile, those at home who had expelled Nicholas as a congenital ‘wrecker’ recover their economic and emotional balance, and, impelled to understand him better, turn to trace the mysteries of his birth and early history. The Scottish St Pols who deny his paternity are sequestered in Portugal. Now the maternal de Fleury ancestry comes into focus: the loving and terrified mother Sophie, who bore a dead son and then many months later a live one rejected as a bastard; the uncle Jaak de Fleury, who took the boy into his household at age seven as a menial dependent and subjected him to brutalizing contempt; the young ‘aunt’, Adelina, who came also to the cruel and sensual Jaak in childhood, to be in her turn abused and abandoned. And the grandfather, Thibault de Fleury, long rumored imbecile, whom Gelis and Tobie discover still exercising, despite paralysis and disease, those supreme gifts for mathematics and music, for witty puzzles and detached analysis, which Nicholas has inherited.
Nicholas meets his grandfather spirit to spirit, in an exchange of letter-puzzles, only once before Thibault dies. The dangerous bond between Nicholas and another de Fleury, however, twists slowly and fatally into sight as the long and frustrating journey of Nicholas and Anna into the East and back parallels the increasing illumination of the searching, speculating families at home. The adored wife of Julius, the formidable Countess Anna with the numeracy to run a business and a desire—cold, calculated, yet ultimately intense—to seduce Nicholas, is actually his grandfather’s child, his fellow sufferer in the abusive grasp of Jaak de Fleury, Adelina herself.
The obsessed woman plans to unravel not just Nicholas’s commercial and political world, but his marriage and the whole structure of his adult life, freezing the two of them in a tableau designed to end in the outlawry of incest before she brings about his death. But Nicholas, master of the interlocking wheels of plot, has in fact recognized the shattered and vengeful Adelina within the stylish Anna, and worked to draw her safely east, away from his imperilled family. Adelina’s final attempt to destroy Nicholas becomes the means of reconciling Gelis and Nicholas to full marital partnership, leaving the rash and unrepentant Adelina to die in circumstances left somewhat mysterious.
The caprice and repetition of domestic plot, Adelina’s plan to ruin Nicholas as Gelis had also attempted to do, is more than matched by the caprice of princes and the sickening replication of political immaturity which wastes both soldiers and civilians in military adventurism. Nicholas had learned the horrors of war in the sieges of Trebizond and Famagusta. Now, unable to stem the caprices of Charles the Bold, he watches the phantom kingdom of Burgundy disappear from the European stage in the death of its Duke and the wreck of its army in the siege of Nancy. At book’s end he is restored to both his private and his business families, and they to him.
But the fading of a potential public life in the East, or in the now leaderless land of his mother, makes him look to the land of the man he believes is his father, and to the questions remaining for him, and Lady Dunnett, to answer in this last volume of the series: as an adult how does one choose a country and foster it, and what is the meaning of ‘patriotism’ in such a context? If Nicholas is as he now believes the survivor of twin sons born to Sophie de Fleury and Simon de St Pol, what will this mean for the lives of his own so different sons, Henry de St Pol and Jordan de Fleury, as all come together in Scotland? And how will the answers to these questions illuminate the meaning of those shafts of insight and foresight hinting at a link between this fifteenth-century story and the sixteenth-century story of Francis Crawford of Lymond?
Judith Wilt
Boston, 1999
Sum in-till hunting has thar hale delyte
And uthersum ane nother appetit
That gladlie gois and in-to romanis reidis
Of halynes and of armes the deidis
.
Sum lykis wele to heir of menstraly
And sum the talk of honest company
,
And uthersum thar langing for to les
Gois to the riall sporting of the ches
,
Of the quhilk quha prentis wele in mynd
The circumstance, the figur and the kynd
,
And followis it, he sall of werteu be
.
The chapter-head verse in this novel is from
The Buke of the Chess
, a Middle Scots version by a 15th c. Edinburgh notary of the
Ludus Scaccorum
of Jacobus de Cessolis. The original work was also the basis for William Caxton’s
Game and Playe of the Chesse
. This text, edited by Catherine van Buuren, is published by The Scottish Text Society, 27 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD.
At the end of this series, I should like to pay tribute once more to the many libraries which have made this work possible, and especially to the librarians of the National Library of Scotland and the London Library. Similarly, of the generous editorial directors who have given me their time and their counsel, I owe special thanks to Robert Gottlieb and Susan Ralston in New York, and Susan Watt and Richenda Todd in London. And lastly, the friendship and support of Anne McDermid and Vivienne Schuster of Curtis Brown have been invaluable in steering this ship into port.
First rewle thi-self and of thi-self be lord
,
Syne rewll thi folk and so it sall accord
.
For euery man desyris naturally
To leir and knaw and heir of novelté
F
ROM VENICE TO
Caffa, from Antwerp to the Gold Coast of Africa, merchants anchored their ships and unloaded their cannon and flipped open their ledgers as if in twenty years nothing had changed, and nothing was about to change now. As if old men did not die, or younger ones grow up, eventually. There was no fool in Europe, these days, who treated trade as a joke. All that sort were long sobered, or dead. Or were temporarily unavailable like Nicholas de Fleury, who had removed himself to the kingdom of Scotland, far to the north of the real world of pretty women, and international intrigue, and the benefits of social and financial success.
North of the real world, it was noticed quite soon that Nicholas the Burgundian was back. The first to suffer was the bailie of Berwick, who had a house of three floors and good eyesight, so that he personally observed this big Flemish ship plunging up from the south and bucking round into the mouth of the river. He held his breath until the manoeuvre was finished, for the
Karel of Veere
was the first merchantman to reach Scotland this season, and he had serious need of its news. When the harbour-bell clanged through the gale, Thomas Yare closed his shutters and sent a clerk pelting down to the wharf with an invitation to the
Karel’s
seamaster. Then he had a word with his wife, and strode down through the garden to the red-painted warehouse, where his business room was.
Thomas Yare, an active Scot of burnished acuity, wished to entertain Mick Crackbene of the
Karel
before anyone else. Thomas Yare was bailie and chamberlain of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the River Tweed was the frontier with England, which meant that one did not bellow sensitive news, even now, in times of miraculous peace. Tom Yare
was a native of these parts but, until recently, had earned most of his living in Edinburgh. That was because, until recently, the English owned Berwick. Berwick had switched sides between England and Scotland thirteen times since it was founded. Half its footloose population were spies, and the other half smugglers.
So Yare wanted the big Scandinavian’s news for himself. He would get it. They had an understanding. Trade news was worth money. At whatever port they arrived, no matter how high the bribe, Crackbene’s men never talked. Unless, of course, first primed by Crackbene. Crackbene or one of the merchants he carried. You never knew who that might be.
There were two with Crackbene today. Pouring ale in his office, Tom Yare heard the footsteps and doubled the number of tankards. When the door thundered back on its hinges and the red-faced master marched in, Yare winced, waved the pitcher in welcome, and then set it down to go forward, hand outstretched. Behind Crackbene was another robust figure of door-cracking capacity: Andro Wodman, the Scots-Flemish consul with his blue jowl and fighting-man’s shoulders and twice-broken nose, all of which Yare duly greeted. And behind Wodman approached another of the same breed, heaven help us: so big his furzy brown head and soaked hat barely got past the lintel.
Tom Yare dropped his welcoming hand and also released, very slightly, his business gentleman’s smooth-polished jaw as he set eyes on a man he hadn’t seen for four years.
Nicholas de Fleury of Bruges.
Ser
Nicholas, do you mind: former banker, former dyemaster, former owner of armies, stepping over nice as a hen and unpeeling a soaked sailing-cloak to stand gazing down (Tom Yare straightened) with that bloody disarming smile and two dimples. They knew one another. The Burgundian had once made the bailie a very fine profit in cod.
The first emotion felt by Tom Yare, and most others, upon meeting Nicol de Fleury, was an urge to be friendly. The next, based on experience, was a heady mixture of horror and glee.
De Fleury said, ‘Are you going to be sick?’
Tom Yare, his face warming, recovered. ‘Damn you. Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I wish I had,’ said de Fleury. ‘You might have managed something better than ale.
Ale?
Business bad, Tom? Wish you had firm news from somewhere?’ It brought back immediately all that fascinated Yare about Nicol de Fleury, and all that he distrusted as well.
‘Mick prefers ale,’ the Conservator observed, shaking wet from his bonnet. ‘Nobody knew you were coming, Nicholas, with your luxurious Persian tastes. How are you, Tom?’
‘Dumbfoun’ered,’ said Yare with unusual honesty. He opened the
door, called an order, and shut it swiftly again. ‘Have ye spoken to anyone yet?’
Crackbene’s evil smile broadened. The consul, Wodman, said, ‘What about?’
De Fleury sat down on a coffer, which groaned. ‘Can’t you guess? He wants to know if the siege of Nancy is over. It is.’
‘That’s old news,’ Wodman said cheerfully. ‘He’s bound to know that.’
Tom Yare didn’t waste time being exasperated. He said, ‘There hasn’t been a ship from the south since Epiphany. You’re the first.’
‘It’s a good ship, the
Karel
,’ said the Scandinavian shipmaster proudly. It was purgatory.
‘But you must have had dispatches by road,’ Wodman said. ‘Wardens’ runners. Envoys. Lawyers on business. Wenches with well-informed clients. After all, that’s England, over the river.’
‘I remember,’ said Yare. Men behaved like this, safely landed from sea. Nicol de Fleury behaved like this far too often. Tom Yare was a solid, fit man, but lodged between de Fleury and Crackbene he felt small and thumbed, like a rosary bead. He continued in his soft, deliberate voice, defying the burr in his speech that Margaret always said she found sweet. ‘The roads [rhodes] have been closed, and the place is jumping with rumours. Wheat prices are surging already. The word [wuhd] is that there was a disaster at Nancy, and the richest prince in the West is a corpse, with an unmarried lass as his heiress. True [tehoo] or not?’
Someone tapped on the door. Wine came in, and was poured. No one spoke. When the door closed: ‘The Duke of Burgundy is officially dead,’ de Fleury said, saluting the ceiling and drinking. ‘I was there. That isn’t a bad little Osey.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tom Yare. Then he listened to what he was given: the unemotional account of a disaster.
The Grand Prince of the West had been discovered dumped dead in a ditch after a mindless battle with Swiss and Lorrainers. The news had taken a long time to spread. Before de Fleury left Flanders, he had had an audience with the widowed Dowager Duchess, and discussed the future with men of commitment like Gruuthuse, Hugonet and Adorne. For, of course, France would try to reclaim her borders, and the heiress would marry someone who might not suit Flanders at all. So there were implications.
They discussed them. Wodman contributed: he had once been a soldier in France. By the end, Yare had grasped that de Fleury had actually taken part in the fight and been wounded. Most of his companions were dead. Some were captives about to be ransomed, among them two Scots: the gunner John, and that decent young merchant, Robin of Berecrofts, who had also been injured.
Yare said, ‘Was Robin hurt bad?’ It was the business-man in him that spoke. The noble Anselm Adorne of Bruges bought and sold through his kindred in Scotland, and Robin had wed Adorne’s niece. A trading empire was involved.
De Fleury said, ‘I don’t know. He was shot. It looked serious enough at the time.’
Yare said, ‘You’ll want to tell his eme and his father in Edinburgh. What else have ye in mind while you’re there?’
He was entitled to know. Four years ago, without explanation, the Burgundian had closed all his ventures in Scotland and gone, abandoning the stripling Court which had befriended him. Now he was back, with a trading-ship which belonged to his wife. All the years de Fleury was absent, his wife Gelis had successfully run a good business, as you would expect of a van Borselen of Veere. She had an eight-year-old son by her husband. Tom Yare’s own sharp-witted wife admired her acumen, but not what she had heard of her casual marriage. Yare thought de Fleury (in this respect only) a fool. Yare also admired Gelis van Borselen, who was still at home in Bruges and, it seemed, abandoned again. He had met other husbands like this. Men who could sail, but not navigate.
De Fleury hadn’t mentioned his wife, except in the context of business. Nor did he now. He said, ‘I thought I’d see what was happening. I suppose I’d better report what I’ve told you. Then I’ll probably pick up a cargo and leave.’
Yare said, ‘They’ll want you to stay.’
‘They?’ said de Fleury.
‘The King. The Council. The merchants. It depends whom you plan to see first.’ He let a pause develop unhindered.
