Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [114]
‘We are,’ said the monk, without hurry. ‘And now, in order that my lord may not weary you while he writes, perhaps the lady would enter our house with the doctor, and take a glass of wine, and gratify my poor ears with a discourse on the doctor’s revered uncle, Giammatteo Ferrari da Grado, that great physician?’
Despite its subject, the discourse was pleasant enough, and the wine good. He and Gelis had no chance to confer, but he thought needed none. At the end, they found themselves once more out at the arbour, where a packet had been placed, sealed, on the table by the pillow on which the vicomte now lay back. It was thick: thick enough to contain a letter of several pages, and perhaps some enclosures. For the first time, now, Thibault de Fleury looked frail.
Tobie said, ‘It has been too much. Take some wine. Attempt no more letters.’
‘I do not intend to. It is done,’ the vicomte said through his fingers. On the missive he had closed was a seal, and Nicholas’s name, written in his grandfather’s hand. The same hand lifted the missive and held it to Gelis, who took it. The fingers put a last question. ‘You can find him?’
‘I think so.’ Her eyes were on the paper she held. Then with her other hand, she felt for the purse that hung at her girdle and, hardly requiring to search, drew from it a much shorter paper bearing no seal, but closely covered with swift, confident writing, of the kind used at the desks of the Curia. She said, ‘It is not the same handwriting as yours, for he had himself specially taught. But it might tell you something.’
Tobie stared at her, and at the document, which the old man received and, unfolding, started to read. He made the sound which Tobie now knew for laughter and looked up, his eyes bright, at the girl. Tobie said, ‘From Nicholas?’ It was hardly creased. It was addressed to Gregorio and unsigned. The courier’s mark showed that it had travelled through Danzig.
Gelis said, ‘He sends anonymous reports, not to me. I hope you will not repeat the contents, which are serious. His choice of language is not.’
The fingers stirred. ‘No. I know the end of that quotation, but hope that you do not.’ He read it through to the end, and then again, and then folded it and returned it with care. ‘I should like to keep it, but it is better with you. Perhaps one day —’ The fingers stopped, and the monk looked at them both.
Gelis said, ‘Nicholas is a long way away. Perhaps one day, he will come.’
His lids had closed. They took their leave, saying only what was commonplace, and walked down to the Prior’s house with the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘He bears it all with such patience. Is there anything more that can be done?’
‘For his health, no,’ Tobie said. ‘Were he anywhere else in the world, he could have no better treatment: peace and beauty and loving attention, and the mental stimulation of his peers.’
‘He misses music,’ the monk said. ‘The order enjoins silence, and is sparing in its use of liturgy. I sing to him, when I can, and when the wind blows from the south. And he reads his music, and imagines it. When you have passed years of paralysis, much of your world is in your mind.’
‘I shall send you music,’ Gelis said. ‘I am going to see the Prior now, to make sure that you have all the help and comforts you need. And meanwhile, I want you to have this.’ It was the reliquary brooch from her cloak. The monk protested but eventually took it, his face shining. Then they parted from him, and Gelis went to the Prior.
Tobie was drinking milk in the dairy when they sent to tell him the Lady was leaving. Breaking off his illicit talk, he emerged to take his own leave of the Prior, who was flushed, as Brother Huon had been, and accompanied them as far as the gate. There their escort was waiting, the better for bread and ale sent out to them by the monks. They set off to return to Treviso, riding in silence.
There was everything and nothing to say. The visit had failed to clear the doubts about Nicholas’s birth, but had rather confirmed them: his father could