Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [154]
‘Probably,’ Kathi said. ‘But is he a St Pol? Tobie didn’t think so, after what you both learned at Montello. So think of it the other way round. Prove that Nicholas is illegitimate, and you will solve all his problems, or some of them. Did you send Thibault music?’
Gelis bent her neck. ‘Yes.’ It sounded curt. Then she added, ‘I had brought some from Scotland,’ and this time there was no mistaking the note in her voice.
‘The Play?’ Kathi said. ‘You gave him your copy of the music for the Nativity Play?’ She meant the play Nicholas had devised and produced, the one true, magnificent thing he had done in all his time in Scotland, for which Willie Roger had written the music. There would be other copies. But this was the one, filthy, dog-eared, annotated, which Willie, weeping, had pressed into Gelis’s hands at the end of that towering performance. And Gelis had kept it, ignorant of music as she was, divided from Nicholas as she was. And had given it now to the person whom Nicholas would most want to have it.
Kathi said, with satisfaction, ‘Now I know why he married you!’ and Gelis looked up in tears.
When Robin came home some hours later, his wife and Gelis van Borselen were still sitting talking together, this time on the same settle. Kathi looked reassuringly healthy and Gelis, rising swiftly, seemed less reserved than he had found her before, and almost happy to see him. Then Jodi came hurtling into the room, intent on finding and being reunited with his Robin, and had to be persuaded that Robin was not wholly his property and about to live in his house. In the end, Robin solved the dilemma by escorting Jodi and his mother in person back to the Bank. After all, they all lived in Spangnaerts Street. Then he returned.
‘Well? What did you think?’
As once before, Kathi was painting a cradle, this time for herself. During the short time Robin had been gone, she had dragged it out, fetched her brushes and jars, and was now attempting to put on an apron. With some added string, it was just possible. ‘You’ll strangle him,’ Robin added, patting her fondly. The Berecrofts under the apron punched in return.
‘It’s the other way round,’ Kathi said in a grumbling voice. If Robin’s son was to be born in the land of his fathers, they would have to leave for Scotland quite soon, and she hadn’t got Gelis fully untangled as yet. She said, on that subject, ‘She’s dreadfully frightened, but she isn’t trying to supplant Nicholas, just put right what he did. She agrees he needs time, and Anna can probably help him. Gelis was astonished to hear of the gold.’
‘I’m sure she was,’ Robin said, picking up a dry brush. ‘I hope she thanked you for getting the truth out of Elzbiete.’
‘She was glad I told Anna. Otherwise Nicholas might have changed his mind, and gone sailing the seas with Paúel Benecke. Don’t do that!’
‘Why not? In case my heir catapults out sneezing like Tobie?’ Robin put down the brush. ‘So what else?’
She knew why he was restless. It was a hard time for him, and he kept himself busy, as a rule. Her heart ached, but she went on evenly talking and painting. She spoke of Thibault de Fleury at Montello, adding the little that Tobie had not already described. For the sake of the old man, no one was announcing his partial recovery. But for Anna, they would never have found him. Anna, whose daughter Bonne might be marrying either a bastard or the son of a bastard. Anna had nothing to gain by introducing Nicholas to his grandfather. She had put her own interests last, in order to secure a little happiness, perhaps, for the two men.
Robin’s mind was in the same quarter. ‘And so what about this betrothal? The idea of reuniting the Bank by contracting Jodi to Bonne? Was Gelis alarmed, puzzled, pleased?’
‘She was surprised,’ Kathi said.
It would take too long to describe, even