Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [109]
‘Oh no!’ the man said. ‘I have no training. I have a small experience of remedies, that is all. The sick in the infirmary are cared for by a visiting physician.’ He smiled and added, ‘We have no one sick just now.’ He was watching Gelis, whose gaze was resting on the arbour.
She said, ‘Then that is the vicomte?’
‘He is sleeping,’ the monk answered quickly. He did not offer to take her across.
‘You have been with him a long time?’ said Tobie. ‘Perhaps the lady might sit, while you tell us a little about him?’
‘Her husband is a relative? Another relative?’ the monk said. He hesitated, and then led the way past the arbour to where a low house stood on its own, its door open, with a bench set in the shade under the thatch, and some stools. Gelis sat, and Tobie followed her slowly, using his eyes.
The motionless form on the litter had not stirred. The man was lying on his back, with a thin coverlet drawn up to his chest, and his loosely clad arms resting on top of it. The hand Tobie could see was heavily veined, but its long fingers, though thin, were not wasted. The sick man’s head, turned away, was concealed by a mane of combed, silvery hair, which merged into a full, curling beard. The hair, unusually for an ailing person, was glossy, and everything about him looked cared-for and clean.
Tobie sat down saying, smiling, ‘You are to be congratulated,’ and then realised what the monk had just said.
Brother Huon returned the smile. ‘He is an easy patient. He was clean-shaven, but shaving is tiring. We stopped at the time of the seizure and then did not restart.’ He turned to Gelis, who had suddenly spoken. ‘Madame?’
Gelis repeated her question. ‘He has had visits from other family members?’
‘Recently, no. Since the old lady died, he has had fewer regular visitors. But three years ago, the Burgundian gentleman visited him. M. Anselm Adorne. I believed him to be a kinsman. Was he not?’
‘Did he claim to be? I didn’t know,’ Gelis said. ‘Did he manage to speak, then, with M. le vicomte?’
‘He saw him, certainly,’ said the monk. ‘But it was not a good day, and M. Adorne had brought with him a young man, his son, who was impatient. In a sickroom, one must be considerate.’ He smiled again. ‘The old lady was helping me then. She soon turned them away.’
‘An old lady? Here?’ Gelis said. Even to Tobie, her voice sounded artificial.
‘We have servants to clean,’ said Brother Huon. ‘Although Mistress Tasse was not a servant: she had long retired from her work before she came to settle in the Trevisana. Then she —’ He broke off. ‘But perhaps you know her? She left to nurse the child of the director of the Banco di Niccolò, and she was dead within the month, drowned in Venice before her charge was even born?’
Gelis frowned. Tobie said aside, ‘You never knew her. She died when you and Nicholas were in Scotland. A good little soul, Tasse. I met her once in Geneva. She was still working for Jaak and Esota, just as she did when Nicholas was there as a boy. Jaak de Fleury, the vicomte’s younger brother.’
Her eyes were fastened on his. Neither heard the sound that prompted Brother Huon to jump to his feet and look across at the litter. The monk said, ‘He is awake. Let me go to him.’ He crossed the grass and, bending over the recumbent figure, appeared to be addressing it. He did not immediately return.
Gelis spoke in a low voice. ‘I didn’t know you had met Thibault’s brother. Why didn’t you tell me? What else do you know about Thibault de Fleury?’
It was her right to hear. It was his own fault that he had tried to avoid this. Tobie said, ‘Only what I’ve picked up from others. He must be eighty, or more. He married twice, once when he was young, and once thirty years later; so that he ended with a daughter, Adelina de Fleury, who was two years younger than Nicholas, his grandson and her nephew. The vicomte’s second wife died soon after the birth, and Nicholas’s mother cared for