Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [113]
The sick man looked up at the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘My lord can write. It is slow. We have heard nothing of my lord’s younger daughter since she left her last convent many years ago.’
‘And where was that?’ Tobie said.
The monk flushed. ‘I say “we” from habit, but indeed, it was before my lord and I knew one another. The address was written down, but one came seeking it later, and my lord did not deny them the paper, since it was useless to us, and the demoiselle Adelina was no longer there.’
‘Who took it?’ Tobie said. ‘Were you here by then?’
‘I was, but it was my rest day. I do not know. The man was not the vicomte de Ribérac. My lord received the impression that he was a servant of the nobleman Anselm Adorne.’
Gelis rose and stood looking down. She said, ‘So you do not know where your own daughter might be.’
The large eyes remained steady, then dropped. And the fingers stirred themselves this time to answer directly. ‘Adelina desires, she has told me, to be the Bride of Christ in place of the daughter of her father. She is probably right.’
‘She might be dead?’ Gelis said. ‘You would not even know? You have no other kinsfolk, and the girl has no other friends?’
The fingers did not trouble to answer, but the vicomte cast a glance at the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘My lord’s first wife had a younger sister who also became a religious, and whom the demoiselle Adelina revered. If still alive, she would be the same age as my lord, or a little younger. We know where she might be found.’ He consulted the sick man with his eyes, and added, ‘I have the direction in a coffer, if you will allow me to bring it.’
He hesitated and went. The vicomte’s eyes followed him. Tobie said, ‘You are fortunate to inspire such devotion. And I am sorry to have tired you. We wished to learn what we could for the child’s sake, and because Nicholas, although he is all that Gelis has said, is oppressed by his situation, and can fall into error. Otherwise, you could be proud of him, and the child is without flaw.’ He did not mention the boy’s name. He prayed that the vicomte would not ask it. The vicomte asked nothing, but lay looking not at Tobie, but at Gelis.
She said, ‘That is true. He has a fine nurse, from Chouzy. Nicholas took him to see where his mother your daughter was buried: she shares a vault with Marian de Charetty, and the priest is paid to care for the tombs. Nicholas is very like you, and so is our son. I am sorry I have no likeness to show you, or anything …’ She stopped, but got no further, for the monk had come back, bearing a basket which he laid on the table and proceeded to empty, glancing at the vicomte between every phrase.
‘The direction of the sister of the lady Josine, the first wife of my lord. A penner and paper, should my lord wish to write to his grandson. And the correspondence, my lord Thibault, that still awaits your attention.’
His tone was one of mock reprimand, and the vicomte smiled, lifting his hand for the bundle of papers. Tobie glanced at them, curious to know the nature of the old man’s correspondents, and saw that the pages, in their differing inks, were filled, not with rambling reminiscences, but with cramped and closely written symbols, drawings, numbers, designs.
The monk said, ‘My lord is a mathematician, and dabbles in music. Many write, and many come to compare theories. Cardinal Bessarion has sat with us here, and many great men from the Court of Ferrara, where we exchange monks with the Duke’s great Certosa.’ He smiled, the laughter lines radiating over his wrinkled cheeks and the vicomte smiled at him in return from where he lay. Brother Huon said, ‘We have even had a visit from Father Ludovico da Bologna, the Patriarch of Antioch, whose family supply timber from Ferrara, of course, to the Arsenal. You would think, with his knowledge, that he would be ready to find faults with our forest, but he seems, so far, to have vouchsafed no complaints.’
‘You should be glad,’ Tobie said, his air serious. He was