Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett

Guard, which James of Scotland did not.
    The faces, then, beneath the matched feathered bonnets, not quite new, and the livery tunics over the handsome half-armour, were of men largely of middle years, and from families all over Scotland: fair Campbells with their close-set blue eyes; handsome Erskines from Stirling. Stewart kinsmen: men from the Lennox, related to Darnley and Avandale and the King. The captain, Guthrie, whom Nicholas remembered as a noble administrator, and far from being a veteran of the field. Little George Bell, once of the King’s chamber, whom he also remembered. And one member who was more than handsome: whose beauty of feature would have made him remarkable, even had he not broken the rule and turned his eyes as Nicholas walked up with Albany. Turned, for an instant, his long-lashed, magnificent eyes.
    Nicholas slowed, but did not stop. He had thought of nothing else all through the night, but he didn’t stop, and his schooled face remained faintly smiling. He could do nothing now. He had the King to handle, in whatever mood he might find him today.
    T HE K ING, TO begin with, was upset. He had planned to go hunting, and instead the man he generally obeyed had come to invite him to get up because his kinsman Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was dead, and there were urgent matters to discuss. He had actually risen, and got three of his councillors into the room, because he already knew how important it was, from all the rumours he had tried to ignore. Also, Master Whitelaw wore his thoughtful face, which, as a boy, the King had ignored at his peril.
    Master Whitelaw, Royal Secretary, had served James’s father and, for long years of dire educational hardship, had been tutor to the young James himself. He was the sort of man who often spoke inadvertently in Latin. Colin Campbell, of course, often spoke inadvertently in Gaelic, but the King’s sisters thought the Master of his Household exotic, with his wild Highland clansmen and his ice-cold legal mind. The third councillor who entered James’s chamber was, of course, his own kinsman Drew Stewart of Avandale, who used the family patois in private, and who had been Chancellor to James’s father as well as to himself. Sometimes it seemed to James that he had been conceived in a masculinewomb instead of a feminine one, and that he was still in it. Sometimes he rebelled.
    Now they were telling him of the various possible consequences of the Duke’s death, and how they might affect Scotland’s political relations with France, and her trade relations with Flanders, and the management of the present welcome truce with England. He had his own ideas about all of that, and they listened to them, as they always did (as they ought to do), and praised their acuity, and discussed them. The consensus was that before planning further, more exact detail was needed, and that this might be got from a Burgundian who had just arrived back in Scotland. Did his grace recall Nicholas de Fleury?
    At first he resented being reminded of Nicol de Fleury, who had behaved like a friend, or rather a discerning subject, and then had disappeared. Indeed, to his recollection, his advice had often been faulty.
    Drew said, ‘I am afraid that is true, and he knows it. I should take it as a sign of humility that he has returned at all. I gather he does not intend to stay long.’
    ‘I see,’ the King had said. ‘Then, in that case, we shall see him. Briefly.’
    B ACK IN A VANDALE’S office: ‘That might have been worse,’ Argyll said. ‘He had two new hounds to try out. Has de Fleury been sent for? Are we still agreed that we shall use him, whateffer? And that he should not be told what doesn’t concern him?’
    ‘I think so,’ said Avandale. ‘If he moves in too fast, we get rid of him.’ There was little more to say. They had made their decision the previous night, after their private interrogation of Nicol de Fleury on the matter of the Duke of Burgundy’s death. The