The Unicorn Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

here,’ Lucia said.
    Her father’s head turned. Even Simon forgot his grievance and looked at her. The vicomte said, ‘Who is where? Be explicit.’
    ‘Nicholas vander Poele is in Scotland,’ his daughter said spitefully. ‘He’s been here for weeks. The King’s sister got news at Dean Castle.’
    ‘Here?’ said de Ribérac.
    One word was enough. In that tone, it always had been enough. She said, her voice high, ‘Not in these parts. On the east coast. At Edinburgh. He has a bodyguard of armed men, but no wife.’
    ‘Indeed? And why should that be?’ her father remarked. ‘Rich, newly wed, with a palatial banking house, a busy fleet, a small army, why should vander Poele choose to travel to Edinburgh by himself? Or no, with some strength, we are told. Simon, what do you think?’
    ‘He can’t have found out about Gelis and me?’ Simon said.
    ‘You sound less than pleased. I thought that was all you desired, that Nicholas should appreciate your singular – or was it your multiple coup?’
    ‘Yes. Yes it is. But,’ said Simon, ‘I wanted to tell him myself.’
    ‘Then in that case,’ said the vicomte de Ribérac, ‘let us take time, my dear impetuous boy, to find out what vander Poele may know, and what he may suspect, and of what he is ignorant, so that we may act as befits our best interests. You will remain at Kilmirren. I shall launch some enquiries. I may even, in time, visit Edinburgh.’
    ‘If he knows –’ Simon began.
    His father regarded him with calm. ‘If I meet him, and he knows, I should beware of his temper?’
    Simon said, ‘No. If he knows, don’t tell him too much. I want to tell him myself.’
    ‘I have that point, I think,’ said his father.

Chapter 2
    O N THE EAST COAST , naturally enough, everyone knew where Nicholas vander Poele was, except his acquaintance the Burgundian Envoy, who on that same afternoon in October 1468 was methodically sailing into the river-haven at Leith, the port of the King’s great town of Edinburgh. As with the owner of Kilmirren Castle, Anselm Adorne arrived before he was expected.
    The sail from Flanders had been achieved without incident, which had saddened the children – the young people – hoping for pirates. The autumn sun, resting on the broad waters of the Firth of Forth estuary, was acceptably warm for a region so barbarically northern, and the view to the south was famous from drawing and plan, and familiar even to Adorne, who had never seen it before.
    The town of Edinburgh stood on its ridge, with the Castle Rock at the top and the houses of its inhabitants outlined on the inferior slope. Behind the Rock was a range of green treeless hills. Other outcrops, more abrupt, reared themselves between the shore and the town.
    Close at hand was the mouth of the river Leith, timber-shored on each side, with some coasting vessels and a quantity of fishing-boats within a breakwater made of rough stobs and boulders. To left and right of the river stood a smoky collection of thatched cabins, kailyards, wood and stone warehouses, and a number of tallish houses of a more ambitious sort, with kilns and bakehouses and wooden sheds round about them.
    Among them was a single church spire, a well-head in a puddle, and a circular wall with an assortment of new stone and timber buildings inside. The King’s Wark, Anselm Adorne had been told. A royal enclave, in which the King’s ordnance could be stored, and where the Court could stay when travelling. For this was the haven of Edinburgh. This was the greatest port in the kingdom.
    The greatest port in the kingdom. Anselm Adorne thought of Sluys, the harbour of Bruges, with its well-equipped quays, its scores of tall masts, the fine buildings where princes might stay. He thought of the celebration when the Venetian galleys arrived: the flags, the music, the fireworks. Then he dismissed it all firmly from his mind. Sluys was one of the richest ports in the world, along with Venice and Genoa and