The Unicorn Hunt: The Fifth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘He came south to visit his sister at Dean. You are going there?’

  ‘Katelijne and I are good friends,’ Nicholas said. ‘And although you may have heard of a mischance, I hope Sersanders won’t hold it against me. Besides, Gregorio here is exhausted, and I have told him too much about your good claret. We may rest here tonight? I promise there will be no unpleasantness.’

  ‘I was sure of it,’ said Malcolm Fleming, and led the way in.

  Gregorio, dismounting stiffly, handed his horse over and caught Nicholas up. ‘What are you doing? You half killed his uncle!’

  ‘I know. Tutto e fritto,’ said Nicholas de Fleury, and emitted a wail, absently, in a whisper.

  The Great Hall of the Flemings was reached by a flight of stone steps and had tall windows and a fine fireplace glowing with resinous flame in the twilight. The top of the tower was in sunlight as yet: from its battlements, Gregorio imagined, one could see half lowland Scotland and the uplands of England as well, not to mention the neighbouring keeps he had glimpsed.

  In the room were no nubile daughters but two young grandsons, John and David, who made their bows and were taken away, leaving only the chaplain, who rose to be introduced. Distant laughter came from a parlour. Malcolm said, ‘My wife is absent at present, but come. My father sits by the fire, and Master Sersanders beside him.’

  The room was long and, supper being just over, the rush-strewn floor was free of trestles and empty. Against the light of the fire it could be seen that Anselm Sersanders had risen, but that the old man was still seated. The carved back of his chair, tall and black, hid all but the turban on his head. Malcolm Fleming walked forward.

  ‘Father. Here is Master Nicholas of the Banco di Niccolò. And Master Gregorio, both come to stay with us.’

  The wind-dried face that peered round the chair was that of a mature courtier, not a man of affairs. Robert, Lord Fleming, was lavishly dressed, give or take a stain or two, and the spare bones of his face were still handsome, although his shallow-set eyes had in them a look of permanent shock, or even permanent grievance. Nevertheless, he got to his feet. ‘Gentlemen, welcome,’ he said.

  ‘My lord of Fleming.’ Nicholas, bowing, was always a picture. Taught by courtesans, Gregorio recalled. One need never doubt the social competence of Nicholas de Fleury. Even when, as now, Anselm Sersanders stepped sideways, not forward.

  Sersanders said, ‘Forgive me, my lord. I do not care to meet the man who tried to murder my uncle.’

  His light-skinned face looked rather pale. It was a situation, as Gregorio had already recognised, which could explode into high farce or tragedy. Short though he was, the nephew of Anselm Adorne had much of his uncle’s grace and a great deal of his athletic ability. And whatever business brought Nicholas here, it was not going to be helped by a quarrel involving skilled swordsmanship.

  Gregorio opened his mouth. Nicholas laid a hand on his shoulder to silence him. Nicholas said, ‘We need no lawyer in this. My lord, I have to tell you that Master Anselm is right. His uncle intervened in a family quarrel and I struck and wounded him in the heat of the moment. Happily, Sir Anselm has since seen fit to forgive me, but I have not yet had a chance to explain to his nephew. I should gladly pay any compensation he asks.’

  He let his hand drop and addressed Lord Fleming directly. ‘Perhaps, if Master Anselm will not speak, my lord would act as intermediary? I should be content to do as he says.’

  Sersanders flushed. The veined eye of the elder Fleming rested on Nicholas. He said, ‘Ane hoor with a sword is mair grief than six honest chiels with their fists. Who in the name were ye fighting?’

  ‘Kilmirren, Faither,’ said Malcolm. Like his sire, he had dropped the language of diplomacy. ‘Am I not right, de Fleury? Kilmirren wasted his land, and fell into a fury when Semple let the Bank have it.’

  Fleming’s lips arched and straightened. He said, ‘I mind. A richt crop o’ weeds, the bane of his neebors, and the craws still blithe as speugs in his woods at Beltane. And they took steel tae one another?’

  ‘He took my uncle’s own sword, and lamed him with it,’ Sersanders said. ‘My uncle might have died. He limps still.’

  ‘I don’t wear a sword,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have none with me now. We were wrestling. Kilmirren fled. Sir Anselm stopped me from following. I lost my head. I shall pay whatever forfeit you wish, short of life.’

  ‘Short of life!’ said Lord Fleming. ‘And that’s a fine exemption ye’ve made for yourself. If you near louse a man frae his life, what for should ye no’ tyne your own?’

  ‘But gin it wasna meant?’ Malcolm said. ‘Adorne tried tae play birleyman, and got hurt for it. Here’s a man admitting the wrong, and ready to pay for it. A man, forbye, of goodwill.’

  Lord Fleming looked up. Across his face passed several unaccustomed expressions. Then he said, ‘Aye. Aye, there’s an argument. But what if the strife is renewed? What bystander’s life will be forfeit the next time? Or will ye tell me that a Decreet Arbitral will suffice?’

  Nicholas said, ‘Will you explain it, my lord?’

  The old man turned and sat with a thump. Sersanders remained to one side of the fire, his eyes fixed on Nicholas. Gregorio wondered if a Decreet Arbitral was what he thought it was, and wondered if Gelis had heard of it.

  The old man said, ‘Is it no’ plain eneugh? It’s a process for the settling o’ feuds, with due regard to an action of blood that’s been committed. That is to say, the baith o’ ye wad mutually remit and forgive all unkindnesses and injuries done tae the other in times bypast. Master de Fleury, wad ye set your name tae that?’

  ‘I should. But you would have to ask Anselm here for his part.’

  ‘Master Anselm! But ye’ve nae quarrel wi’ him, or so ye were telling me. It’s Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren your tuilzie was with, and may be with again. So I ask ye again. Wad ye subscribe?’

  ‘Simon de St Pol is abroad,’ Nicholas said. ‘It would be unfair, I think, to expect me to sign unless he did. But I shall agree without stint to any pact or redress you require in the other case. Perhaps Master Sersanders himself has a view.’

  They faced one another, Nicholas and the boy four years younger. Sersanders looked strained; Nicholas sober. Sersanders said, ‘My uncle’s wellbeing is worth more than money, but it is not, perhaps, worth another life. I accept that the attack was not personal. If my uncle has not demanded public satisfaction, then neither will I. But I want M. de Fleury to confess and to apologise for that act now, before witnesses. And I wish him to meet me, with blunted weapons, at a joust of my choosing before the end of his stay. Does my lord deem this sufficient?’

  Lord Fleming looked at his son, who gave a slight nod.

  ‘Aweel,’ said his lordship, scratching his head under his turban. ‘Another man, Maister Sersanders, wad say ye’ve missed your chance of a muckle great sack of the usual money of Scotland, but I respect ye for’t. Right enough, he’ll apologise, and ye’ve leave tae broadcast it as ye wish. And as for the joust, it is ilka man’s right to challenge another, and Master de Fleury will promise to afford ye the fullest contemption and satisfaction, with blunted points. Are we agreed? Sir Hugh there, where are you?’

  The chaplain came forward. Lord Fleming waited, erect in his chair, while the apology was made and accepted. There was a brief, unfriendly handshake. Lord Fleming looked at the banker his guest and flung himself back, poking under his bonnet again.

  ‘Then sit down!’ he said. His turban drooped by one ear. ‘Whatna foolish damned way for a visitor to chap on a man’s door! Sit down, the lot o’ ye, while Hugh here goes and sends for some liquor: my mou’s like the well o’ a glue-pig. And Malcolm! Malcolm! There’s my pate-claith fell on the rushes again …’

  After the first cup of wine, Anselm Sersanders excused himself and retired, grimly polite. Nicholas waited a while and then, obeying some suggestion of Malcolm’s, drifted off with Lord Fleming’s heir.

  He was absent for an hour. Gregorio stayed and
kept the old man company which, being a lawyer, he did not find uninteresting. Later, in the bedchamber that they shared, he addressed his fellow guest. ‘I suppose you knew Sersanders would be here. Semple told you?’

  Nicholas had stripped. The burn marks on his skin had almost gone, and his shadow on the low ceiling was as big as a tree. He looked more preoccupied than triumphant. He said, ‘He hinted. I didn’t want you to worry. God be pleased with him, Semple looks like being quite helpful.’ Sometimes he fell into Arabic unawares, Gregorio noted.

  Gregorio climbed into bed. It had been a very long day. They had, in the end, been given supper. He said, ‘And what made you so sure that Lord Fleming wouldn’t report you?’

  ‘He’s afraid of the King,’ the other man said. With his bedgown around him, he had begun to set out writing materials by the candle, the brazier at his side. He added, ‘Get some sleep. It’s another thirty miles to Dean Castle and the other Sersanders.’

  ‘Holy Mary.’ Recovering manfully: ‘But you’re not the King,’ Gregorio objected. ‘Or not yet. Look, if you’re sending a message, I’ll write it.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘Thank you. Not being the King, I can write my own letters.’

  ‘If,’ said Gregorio, his eyes already closed, ‘if Simon had really been here, would you have signed their Decreet Arbitral? Taken their oath to forgive and remit?’

  ‘If they made it a condition,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘And having sworn, you would keep it?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Nicholas.

  *

  For all its recent massive extensions, the double castle of Dean, home of the Boyds by the burn of Kilmarnock, had no chamber devoted to music, and those musicians who played in the hall kept their instruments in the gallery closet, where Katelijne Sersanders soon found them. Today, engaged in a furious duet with Mistress Phemie Dunbar, Katelijne still kept an eye on the window and could see, as soon as it climbed the rise, the retinue outfitted in black which announced that difficult man Nicol de Fleury.

  She said, ‘Leave this to me,’ and getting up made her descent as quickly as had the child Henry, alarmed by the sight of his grandfather.

  Leave this to me, considering the age of the speaker, were words that might have alarmed or annoyed most grown women. Phemie Dunbar simply put her music away, rose, and went to inform her cousin Betha that the rich Fleming had come. Betha, in turn, went to apprise the lady Mary.

  Katelijne, running out to the courtyard, saw that de Fleury had already reined in his horse, awaiting her. The lawyer, Gregorio, was behind him. She said, ‘I told Anselm not to kill you. He didn’t.’

  ‘A Gradual Alleluia,’ de Fleury remarked. He was attired today in black damask, and his hat was as big as a mushroom, its upturned brim pleated with silk. ‘You aren’t afraid that I might have killed him?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Katelijne. ‘I told you. He’s had the very best teachers. And you wouldn’t have come if you had.’

  ‘I am regretting it already,’ he said. ‘I have a conditional reprieve in return for an abject apology and a promise to face your extremely competent brother in the lists. With blunted points.’

  She said, ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘But I am still capable of appreciating the comforts of life, for a while. The lady Mary, I’m told, will receive us?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Dame Betha and Phemie are here. And Hearty James, the Lady’s half-uncle. And you’ve just missed Tony Cavalli. Do you know about Tony Cavalli, adviser to the Duke of the Tyrol? You ought to,’ she said.

  ‘If I ought to, I am sure you will tell me,’ de Fleury replied. The words sounded condescending – the lawyer smiled – but she knew when he was not speaking casually. She wondered what scheme he had devised for deflecting the Lady’s profound interest in his wife. He was not being protected by Hospitallers now. Whatever he did, he was going to have to answer some of her questions.

  Inside, she watched his face as the chamberlain led him up the stairs and through the passages of the castle. Hung with carpets and lamps, cluttered with cushions, the hoary stronghold of the Boyds was being transformed by its mistress into an unwieldy bower of love against the return of her lord, Thomas Boyd, first Earl of Arran.

  Sharing her house, studying the sallow, inarticulate girl only three years her elder, Katelijne had divined that some kinds of hunger could inhabit the unlikeliest forms. The Princess Mary, threatened with marriage abroad, had found herself instead with a young, lusty Scots husband, almost immediately snatched from her pillow. Perhaps she was even a virgin. Certainly she longed for her husband with all the fervour of Robert, her kingly forefather, who had sired, in his day, twenty-one legitimate children. Katelijne felt that for Mary, twenty-one would hardly suffice.

  Confronted with this theory, Phemie, who had never married, smiled but did not reply. Betha, foster-mother of royalty, had said, ‘If you wed, you will bear. That is only fair to your man. To wed in order to bear is another matter.’

  ‘Or to wed for the joy of it?’ Katelijne said.

  Betha Sinclair had looked at her then. ‘Very few have the chance of that. Or few of our standing,’ she said. ‘But joy comes with custom, often enough, if you give it a chance. You heard Cavalli. Sigismond of the Tyrol roves abroad and his wife Eleanor makes her own life at Innsbruck. But when he comes back she receives him, and he her; and although she has none but a dead child, and he has brought thirty women to bear, he and she are fond with one another.’

  ‘You are telling me something?’ said Katelijne.

  ‘Of course. Marry whom you like and respect, but do not expect to choose whom you will marry. You owe as much to your family. And think a long time before you decide not to marry at all. It may suit Phemie, but for most women a partnership of the soul alone is not enough.’

  Katelijne didn’t reply. It was a litany much repeated in the last year. She knew the situation in Flanders: the Duke of Burgundy’s unpredictable temper; the fears of the Flemish towns under him. She knew that, at present, her family were uncertain where best to marry her. That was partly why she and her brother were here.

  They might have to depend on their links with this land in the future. It was one of the reasons why her uncle had hoped that M. de Fleury would not come back to Scotland. Katelijne wondered what was so menacing about the fair Gelis van Borselen, and whether any improvement was to be hoped for. A properly impassioned young wife would surely keep M. de Fleury at home. She even questioned Master Gregorio discreetly, as they walked up the stairs.

  ‘After the Queen’s fleet arrives? I hope he’ll go back,’ Gregorio said. ‘I’ve advised it. Alexandria is safe now: he should go there. But you like it here? The air suits you better in the west?’

  ‘I haven’t breathed any of it yet: it’s been busier than Haddington Priory. The Countess asked my lady her sister to lend Dame Betha and Phemie and me to help her prepare the state rooms for her husband. Then we have to ride back to Leith for the Royal Danish Arrival. Phemie and I have to sing a new laud, but we can’t tell the notes from the beer stains. I’m making a flute on a lathe. The private rooms are up here. You remember Hearty James, the King’s uncle?’

  ‘Who?’ said Master Gregorio.

  ‘James Stewart of Auchterhouse, the half-royal uncle. He visited Veere. His sister married Wolfaert van Borselen.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘I knew you’d be pleased. Hearty James. He got drunk with the rest at Linlithgow. You know. When they pilfered the crates from the Ghost. Was the compensation worth while?’

  ‘It was adequate,’ Gregorio said.

  ‘I’m sure. Half the furnishings ended up here. Oh, look!’ Katelijne said. She waited while the lawyer stood and gazed up at the roof, his cap-lappets laid back like dogs’ ears. It had pleased her to discover that he recognised when she was teasing him, and didn’t mind. He was a shy man, not a stiff one, she saw.

  They were looking at a tall ladder, upon which stood the King’s uncle, han
ging a mirror. At its foot stood his half-niece and M. de Fleury, with Dame Betha and Phemie behind them. Phemie was weeping.

  The lady Mary said, ‘To the left. To the left. That is where you say we should have it?’ A pearl had burst from her sleeve, leaving a poke of pink taffeta, and the tips of her fingers were black.

  ‘That is where the Duchess would have it,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘With the little desk there, and the picture-cloth looped to the right. Gregorio, what do you think?’

  Gregorio sneezed. His eyes, like those of Phemie, were watering. He said, ‘Forgive me. There is a remarkable scent …’

  ‘It’s the mirror,’ said Katelijne. ‘Didn’t you know? Or no, of course, all these things came on the Ghost. The paste reliefs on the mirror are scented. We hope my lord Thomas likes musk. And that is a book-cushion. And that is a firescreen, with inlaid wood tinti e ombrati, stained and shaded. Scorched, that is, in hot salt.’

  ‘Sand,’ corrected Dame Betha, who was protecting a large covered bell on a standpost.

  ‘For fine veneers,’ Katelijne conceded. ‘For thick skins, there is nothing like salt. You need a globb nail.’

  The royal uncle and M. de Fleury, who were the same age and equally unused to technical jargon, exchanged glances. Mistress Phemie said, through her tears, ‘I have a lozen one. Can you reach it?’

  ‘Give it me,’ said Master Gregorio, and tossed the headed nail upwards, lappets flying. The royal uncle snatched, the ladder lurched, and the nail fell on top of the quilted object, which emitted a screech. The mirror shuddered.

  ‘Steady,’ said M. de Fleury. He looked at the nail thoughtfully.

  The King’s uncle said, ‘I need to rest the mirror on something. No – Christ – don’t climb beside me. Get me the nail. What did I do with the hammer?’

  ‘In your belt,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘What’s under the quilt?’ He had picked up the nail and, walking over, was lifting the book-cushion.

  ‘Your parrot,’ said Dame Betha calmly. She raised the cotton cover, removing her hand rather suddenly as a large red-and-blue object lunged at it from within.