Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [111]
Gelis said, ‘He heard what we were saying?’
‘His hearing is excellent, my lady. When one power is lost, the others often become sharper. Pray come. He is waiting.’
Chapter 15
AT THE AGE OF eighty-one, towards the end of a life blighted by physical rigours and the misguided ministrations of others, Thibault, vicomte de Fleury, possessed the power still to surprise those who came, uninformed, to his bedside. Many things about him were remarkable, but the greatest of these, perhaps, was his beauty.
Lying propped on his pillows, the scent of flowers about him, he had closed his eyes against the chequered green light of his baldaquin, so that it was possible for a moment to study him. Gelis drew in her breath. But Tobie was looking at a likeness of the face of the dead Jaak de Fleury: the classical nose, the well-shaped lips, the sculptured cheek-bones and full-lidded eyes; the head and jaw mantled and softened, unlike Jaak’s, by the spread of curling grey hair. Then the deep eyes slowly opened, and the intelligence within might have recalled that of the shrewd younger brother, but the tolerant humour belonged somewhere else. The eyes were grey, and when the lips smiled, the clothed cheeks betrayed two fleeting dimples.
Tobie dragged off his cap and said, glaring, ‘He needed you.’
The monk moved. The man in the litter lifted his head, his eyes sharp, holding Tobie’s. Then he raised a finger, and looking at Huon, began to sign to him. Then he stopped, and turned his gaze back to Tobie. Tobie became very still.
The monk said, ‘He speaks to you in French.’
‘And?’ said Tobie.
‘My lord says, “My grandson needed the help of a cripple? The man who succeeded in ruining my brother?” ’ The monk translated. The man on the pillow was smiling, but with his lips only.
Tobie said, ‘You know what your brother was. Nicholas held nothing against you, because he was told you were ill. Perhaps you were. But why did you not tell him when you were better?’ He heard himself with despair. This was not why he was here. Gelis would think he was mad. He said, ‘Nicholas pays for you!’
The long fingers stirred and replied. He could not read the vicomte’s face. The monk said, ‘My lord says that his grandson merely continued what the demoiselle de Charetty began. He says that he was able, at least, to have the boy sent to Bruges when he discovered how he had been treated at Geneva.’
‘But not to Fleury?’ Tobie said.
‘His illness forbade it.’ The fingers had stilled, but the monk continued, his eyes on his master’s face. ‘He will allow me perhaps to say more. He was given to believe that his own end was near, or that, surviving, his powers of reasoning would fail. He would not have a boy saddled with that.’
‘I understand that,’ Tobie said. ‘But when it proved to be untrue … Can he not imagine what it would have meant to Nicholas, to know as much?’
The fingers moved. ‘But by then, Master Nicholas himself had performed those acts of destruction you mentioned. And the paralysis returned. What is the doctor’s interest in Nicholas?’ the fingers asked. But the eyes had moved to Gelis.
Gelis answered. ‘He loves him.’
Tobie said, ‘Once.’
‘And you?’ asked the fingers of the vicomte, his gaze steady on Gelis.
‘Once,’ she repeated as steadily. ‘I have given Nicholas a young son, your great-grandson. If Nicholas is legitimate, you would have a legitimate heir.’
The lips smiled. ‘I have no money.’
‘You have a name,’ Gelis said. ‘Nicholas has none.’
‘And you think I can help you? I cannot.