The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  She loathed him. She had always loathed him. She understood how her grown son and her small nephew Henry hated him too. She said, her voice shaking, ‘You joke. Read that. Read that letter. Tilde de Charetty is pregnant. Your great-grandchild will be the descendant of pawnbrokers. But I’ll tell you something worse than that. Gelis van Borselen is carrying.’

  The face of Bel of Cuthilgurdy, featureless as a flour-bag, became slowly illumined. The countenance of Jordan de Ribérac expressed simple enquiry. He said, ‘And one should faint? I hardly think so. You have, as always, made a mistake, Lucia. Go away.’

  ‘A mistake!’ she said. ‘It is here, in black and white. The girl has hidden herself in a convent. The birth is due, they say – of course – in March or in April. A child!’

  ‘Anything else would have been surprising,’ her father said. ‘Mistress Cuthilgurdy, will you excuse us?’

  ‘No!’ said Lucia. Even Bel, sometimes, could help.

  But Bel was standing. ‘My hinny,’ she said. ‘A bairn still in the making is no threat to you, surely. Your father will know what to do. Calm yourself. There is no harm in childer.’

  ‘And you know Henry?’ Lucia said. It pleased her to see the other woman hesitate. Then, without replying, Bel kissed her firmly and left. The door closed.

  Her father said, ‘If you are in some female decline, you might like to think of taking the veil. It would be a relief to us all. I take it you think Gelis is bearing to Simon, and will tell Nicholas so? I doubt it. She would lose her marriage settlement as a result. I see no cause for concern.’

  ‘There would be no cause for concern,’ Lucia said, ‘if every man thought as you do. But you expect Gelis to rear a bastard of Simon’s? You expect Simon to leave a child of his in Nicholas’s hands? You are content that Nicholas, knowing nothing, should be left in his ignorance?’

  Her father sighed. Within the veined, pallid flesh, the eyes weighed her, studied her, chilled her as they had done all the years of her childhood.

  ‘Suggest it to him, and your brother is dead. Who knows who sired this coming child? It may be your brother. It may be born of the marriage, in wedlock. Only the date of its birth will confirm it. And meantime vander Poele, as its parent, will protect it. Cease to concern yourself,’ said her father kindly. ‘Go and find something to embroider. A pillow for your first grandchild. And let us pray God that it owes nothing to you.’

  ‘Simon will tell him,’ she said.

  ‘And earn the immortal enmity of the van Borselen? No. Simon will do nothing,’ her father said. ‘And you will do nothing. Or I shall see that you never leave Kilmirren again.’

  ‘You can’t!’ she said. ‘I have money now. I can go where I like!’

  He looked at her. The door had opened, on what summons she didn’t know, and two of her father’s servants stood there. ‘My daughter is sick,’ said her father. ‘Find a room for her, and send for a doctor.’

  They were, as always, gentle, but held her tightly none the less. She screamed from the doorway, ‘What if vander Poele knows?’

  Her father paused. Then he said, ‘If he does, then I imagine he would do almost anything to prevent your making it public. Think about it. I do not wish to be harsh. But you find yourself in all these difficulties only because you will not think.’

  He watched her leave. There was no one at the door when Jordan de Ribérac, lifting his bulk, moved soft-footed down the stair and walked towards the block which held the apartments of Simon his son. The rain had stopped, and there was some activity – two jousters – in the tiltyard. He heard the raucous voice of his son’s master-at-arms before he saw the fellow, encased in full armour with a lance in his fist. The figure at which he was roaring was short as an undented whistle and topped by a spray of plumes as tall as itself. Two red-faced grooms stood by with horses. De Ribérac walked past without speaking.

  Simon was in the room off the yard where the castle arms were secured. The trestle table was littered with pieces of equipment, and Simon was pacing the straw, throwing remarks at the two or three men who sat motionless, arrested while cleaning them. He looked up at his father’s shadow.

  ‘Get out,’ de Riberac said. The men left.

  Simon said, ‘This time, the girl is under the table.’

  De Ribérac gave no sign that he heard. ‘The child is wearing silver,’ he said. The articles of armour on the table, of full size, were of niellated silver as well. He sat down. ‘How did you pay for it?’

  Simon pushed aside a sword and perched on the table. The hair that looked artificial in Lucia was fine-spun gold when framing her brother’s face – his angelic face, with its arched brow and lethargic blue eyes. Simon said, ‘Out of my share of the profits from Africa. There is enough left for my next meal. I am told you’ve dismissed my farm manager. Another economy?’

  ‘I have engaged a replacement. You will meet him tomorrow. I have news. The woman Gelis van Borselen is to give birth in March or in April.’ Deliberately, he had given no warning.

  Simon responded in character. His gaze lost its focus and shifted. His lips parted; a touch of red appeared on each jaw. Then his eyes returned, full of slow wonder. ‘Holy Mary!’ he said in a whisper.

  ‘It was not, unfortunately, the Annunciation,’ said Jordan de Ribérac. ‘All that can be said is that the child is not yours.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Simon said. The flush had deepened. His voice gained in strength. ‘How do you know? If it’s mine, it’s due long before. In February. In the middle of February. She’s lying.’

  ‘It is not yours,’ repeated de Ribérac. ‘It is not yours, even if it were to emerge upon stroke of bell forty weeks past its begetting, with the name Kilmirren stamped on its forehead. The mother is a van Borselen. As you did not advertise your carnal connection, so you will not advertise its unfortunate outcome.’

  ‘But …’ said Simon gently. He got off the table.

  ‘There are no buts. I have told you. She has not confessed to vander Poele: I am told he suspects nothing. Bruges believes the child to be born of the marriage. She has retreated, I am told, to a convent.’

  ‘To hide! She must know it is mine!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the vicomte de Ribérac wearily, ‘she is not yet sure herself who the father is or, you might think, the nuns would already have found a way to resolve her difficulty. The date of her accouchement, yes, would clarify matters, but shall we ever hear it? The sisters are remarkably skilled in deception.’

  ‘It will look like me,’ Simon said. ‘Her child. Our child. And then be damned to all your precautions.’

  ‘It may even sound like you,’ said his father. ‘In which case, you are right, I do not know why I am troubling to preserve you or your livelihood. Meanwhile, have I made myself clear? You have your heir. You have your legitimate, your undisputed son, Henry. This child is not yours. And you will do nothing, at any time in the future, to claim that it is.’

  ‘Or?’ said Simon.

  ‘Or you will find yourself in isolation, without money, in a place far less pleasant than this. I mean it,’ said his father. ‘You do not doubt that I could do it?’

  ‘Then you will have to do the same to Lucia,’ said Simon viciously.

  ‘So I have told her,’ his father said.

  He waited, but Simon, it seemed, had thought of nothing more to say. Jordan de Ribérac rose and left. Outside, he saw a glint of silver and heard his grandson’s shrill voice. He remembered the tournament.

  He knew how Simon’s mind worked. He could not keep Simon at Kilmirren for ever. He had given him leave to attend. But that was when all his enquiries had indicated that vander Poele was not aware that Gelis van Borselen had deceived him.

  Now it was not enough to think so: the vicomte de Ribérac had to be sure. He began to consider how to do so.

  The tournament of the Unicorn which, although properly run, was not a candidate for the heraldic record-books, took place in the first week in December and on the
first day of the Christmas festivities, when anyone bearing the name of Nicholas could expect a certain amount of vulgar attention.

  Since Haddington, Nicholas de Fleury had himself been the source of most of the more strenuous activities in Edinburgh. The stands, staging and devices for such entertainments, as well as the tents and pavilions, were in the hands of the carpenters, masons, tent-makers, painters, carriers and purveyors who usually moved the Court from place to place with its plate, its clothes, its furniture and occasionally the glass for its windows.

  None of this was on the scale of the Dukes of Burgundy, who required seventy-two carts to remove their possessions from one of their five splendid palaces to another, but there was a routine; and de Fleury knew by now all the Court officials and merchants involved, and most of the labourers. Half of them, it seemed to him, were working on his own house as well.

  His role was to enhance the spectacle: to produce ideas within the capacity of the operators and the limits of the short time available and, tactfully, to supervise them. At the same time, necessarily, he continued to invent, direct and process the enterprises which were his reason for coming to Scotland. For a short period the tempo of his life, always impressive, accelerated to an extreme. To Julius, there were days when he seemed to be physically present everywhere from the monastery of the Abbot of Holyrood at the foot of the Canongate to the King’s lodgings in the Castle at the top, and most of the houses between. The rest of his time he might be found beside the West Port in the grassy space at the foot of the Castle Rock where the lists were to be set up.

  It was where Anselm Adorne found him, the day before the Eve of St Nicholas, standing below the flagpoles and talking forcefully, a sausage in one outflung hand and a stick in the other. His voice sounded menacing, but the faces around him were grinning. Adorne called, ‘Don’t you ever take a rest? I could share that sausage with you, if you had another.’ De Fleury turned, smiling, and beckoned him over and pointed.

  Adorne dismounted, and left his sweating horse for his groom to walk while he found his way to the tent where the brazier was, and sat on a box beside a half-unpacked basket of food. He poked into it.

  It was true that he was hungry, having just spent an hour with Sersanders running at a makeshift tilt in the burgh common. In his day, Anselm Adorne had been a man of international reputation in the jousting field: he had taken the helm of one of the best of Duke Philip’s bastards, and had broken lance with Jacques de Lalaing, fair as Paris, pious as Aeneas, wise as Ulysses, brave as Hector and dead these fifteen years past.

  Before James, King of Scotland, and his brothers were born, Jacques de Lalaing, together with Simon his uncle and another, had challenged three Scottish knights to a contest à outrance in Stirling, and had prevailed, although the fight had been stopped. All Scotland knew that, and tomorrow would look to see what Burgundy had sent them this time.

  The answer was himself, who was the age that Simon de Lalaing had been on that day. Himself and his kinsman Jehan Metteneye, whose family for generations had also carried off the prize in the White Bear Society, jousting in Bruges. And Sersanders his nephew, who was young and had no wife and no children.

  But, of course, this was not a tournament to the death. It was a blunt-weaponed exercise, put together in haste and economy, to enable the young King and his younger brothers to shine.

  They would not have to face Anselm Adorne. All that would concern him and his countryman Metteneye would be the contests of honour where they would be pitched, there was no doubt, against the best Scotland could offer. The very best being Simon de St Pol the Younger of Kilmirren, who had been born just a year after himself.

  Then young de Fleury came into the tent and said, ‘There’s wine: look, help yourself,’ and, sitting with a thud, poured for himself from a great vessel of water. For work, he had left aside the lynx, the wildcat, the sable that had opened the King’s youthful eyes, and wore leather over plain serge. Black serge, cut finely like velvet, with a cap thrust to the back of his head.

  Now that the African sun had been bleached from his skin, the sharpened bones were dramatically visible. The childhood softness had gone. With what had taken its place, he would have no difficulty in obtaining any woman he wished, Adorne guessed. You would not expect such a man to take his relief, as others did, from the common pool of commercial service. It was a pity. He had thought, once, of mentioning it; but not now.

  Instead he said, ‘A change from the Feast of St Nicholas as held by James, King of Cyprus, according to what you told us last night. Another James. Our young host was enchanted.’ He paused. ‘You must have known James of Cyprus quite well. What would you say of him?’

  ‘Apart from the fact that he purloined one of my wives? Resourceful,’ said the other. ‘Except in matters of marriage and progeny. I should not encourage an unmarried monarch to make his acquaintance. I, of course, am immune. You know I have entered the fatherhood stakes?’

  It was, indeed, why he had come, but not to be treated like this. Adorne said, ‘You did me the honour to marry the lady your first wife in my chapel.’

  ‘And, as you see, matrimony developed into a habit. Vehement medicine. Was there something you wanted to ask me?’

  It was hard to form a reply. Young men changed. This was not the new-married boy who long ago had aroused his compassion. Adorne said, ‘I wondered when you planned to go home. We could travel together. Unless you mean to join your wife before Christmas.’

  ‘Do you recommend it?’ said de Fleury. ‘The doctors demur, but I am open to argument. I thought of waiting until after Twelfth Night.’

  Adorne said, ‘Dr Andreas would advise you. He has to stay, but he is experienced in matters of childbirth. You know he studied with Seheves in Louvain?’

  ‘The same subjects?’ said Nicholas de Fleury. It sounded casual. But he also had studied at Louvain, and it was not.

  Adorne said, ‘Yes. He has skills: I am not sure whether I believe in them. He had something to say, recently, about Jordan de Ribérac.’

  ‘Most people have,’ de Fleury said. He leaned over and refilled Adorne’s cup.

  ‘No. He spoke of descendants. He said he could see only one son of Simon’s. And he said the name of the child was not Henry.’

  De Fleury looked up. Then he put the cup carefully down and surveyed it. ‘Poor Henry,’ he said. ‘Do you think someone ill-disposed is going to finish him off at the tournament? Who? It won’t be me, I assure you. I am reconciled to the St Pols. In fact, on his invitation, I’m on my way to visit Simon at present. He has come to Edinburgh, and has taken up residence.’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Adorne. He felt profoundly uneasy. He rose. ‘I’ve been keeping you. I shall, of course, be meeting him myself in the field. What should I suggest? That you encourage him to eat and drink unwisely between now and tomorrow?’

  De Fleury got up as well. He said, ‘I’m better than your Dr Andreas. I predict that you will win your course, and that the King and the prince will win theirs. You know I’ve put up the prize?’

  ‘Do I want it?’ said Adorne. He made his voice light. There was no point in pursuing what would not be caught.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. A unicorn’s horn I brought back from Africa. Genuine,’ de Fleury said. ‘And a sure guard against poison. Or perhaps we should let Simon win it?’

  ‘Nicholas?’ Adorne said. His hand on the tent-flap, he turned.

  De Fleury, already half changed, looked up.

  Before that look, there was nothing to say. Adorne said, ‘The sausage was excellent.’

  Kilmirren House was on Castle Hill, at the place where the upper end of the High Street began to climb the increasing slope to the Castle itself. The quickest way there from the tilting-ground was through the broad space of the Horse Market and up the steep dog-leg path to the High Street. And on the other side of that street was Simon’s house. Jordan’s house. The Edinburgh house of the St Pol of Kilmirren.

  The Horse Market
was, of course, always thronged. A wide, muddy space lined with houses, today it was full of heralds, competitors, workmen, horse-copers, drinkers and merchant friends and merchant competitors. To the left rose the black basalt rock of the Castle. On the right, among the private houses, the taverns, and the chapels was the house of St John and the opulent monastery of the Franciscans, whose buildings covered the rise which led towards the Port to the common. Tomorrow, after the joust, the Eve of St Nicholas Feast would be held in the monastery and he, Nicholas de Fleury, would be there. But there was a great deal to do before that.

  He stopped and talked to perhaps twenty people on his way to the Bow. More, it might be. To Logan of Restalrig about his warehouse. To Gilbert of Edmonston about carts to meet the Ghost coming in. To a locksmith about keys; to a Broughton man about plants. To a courier.

  To a fletcher about arrows, and a stone-mason about copings for chimneys. To a man from Blackness and another from Linlithgow. To a bailie, a tanner, a master gunner; to the unicorn-maker.

  He was halfway there.

  To a brewer, to a candle-maker, to the secretary of the Abbot of Holyrood. To a man from Tranent, and a fish-curer. To a man who sold parchment and a man from the King’s chamber with news of a dog.

  He was at the top of the Bow.

  To a notary; to a man who made mattocks; to the priest of St Giles whom he had to turn downhill to meet. Talking, taking his leave, Nicholas de Fleury was watching the street. Most of the houses were known to him now. There was a handsome one opposite, with a red roof and mottoes. He crossed the road to walk uphill again. It was no distance now to his destination, his destiny.

  His safe, crowded mind became blank.

  There was a Ewe had three lambs; and one of them was black. The one was hanged, the other drowned; the third was lost, and never found.

  Space. Half-heard echoes. And only one thought remaining, as always.

  February.

  He continued to walk, although he did not remember talking to anyone. He knocked at the door of Simon’s house and was admitted, and the servant, smiling broadly, flung open a parlour door for him to walk through. He moved forward and stood in the doorway.