Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [280]
‘I am sorry,’ said Anna. It sounded helpless. She looked again at her husband.
‘She will have to hear the truth,’ Julius said. The hall had emptied: the cavalcade outside was forming.
Manoli, his face stolid, appeared in front of her with one of the ducal grooms. ‘Demoiselle. The Duchess is preparing to leave.’
‘What truth?’ Gelis said.
Anna said, ‘You must go if the Duchess is waiting. Nicholas died in a fire, leaving Moscow. His body was found. We left before him, but have been travelling slowly, for my sake. The news reached us at Bremen.’
‘Then it is wrong,’ Gelis said. ‘I know, because he has been divining. He was alive at least up to last night.’
‘I wish that were so,’ Anna said. ‘But go. You are with the Duchess, and all the seats are required for her ladies.’
‘I am sure the Duchess would make an exception,’ Julius said. He spoke to the groom, who looked surprised, hesitated, and then bowed and went off.
Gelis said, ‘I shall try to help, but I must stay with the Duchess. I can see that Anna needs care. Let her rest, and once we are in Ghent, you can tell me everything.’
Anna said, ‘We must talk before then. If only, if only you had been with us … I can’t say more, not when you have just been bereaved. But the Duchess will free you. And did I see Mistress Clémence? Is Jodi here?’
There was something wrong, it was clear: her face was drawn, the blue eyes heavy and shadowed. Before Gelis could speak, the groom returned swiftly. There was a seat on the last wagon, if the Gräfin would allow him to take her there. They parted in haste. Only Julius called, ‘So we shall see you in Ghent?’
And Gelis waved, walking away.
There were advantages in being a van Borselen. Such was the disposition of the cortège that there was no question, that morning, of communication between the vehicles of the van and the tail. And at the very first stop, the power of the governors of Holland produced a speedy, small carriage which could convey the lovely invalid Gräfin direct to her destination, while her solicitous husband might ride at her side. He thanked the Duchess for her kindness, but there was no opportunity for Gelis to speak to him. It pained her to exclude him in such a way, and to deny herself all the questions she wanted to ask. But his loyalty had to be to Anna, and Gelis did not want to put it to the test.
That night, preparing for bed, Clémence slipped on her bedgown and, finding Gelis in a quiet part of the chamber, drew up a seat close beside her and set to combing her own soft, dark hair ready for plaiting. She spread a lock over her palm and gazed at it. ‘That is natural. What did you think of the Gräfin’s?’
‘That it was cleverly treated, considering the time she has been travelling. Or did I deceive myself? Did I think I saw dye because I was looking for it?’
‘No. You saw it,’ said Clémence. ‘I wonder if your husband saw it when they travelled together. She must have had to improvise dyes. And, of course, he is an expert in those.’
It had never struck her. He was, of course. In Egypt, he had dyed his own thick brown hair and bright beard. Gelis said, ‘They still insist that Nicholas is dead.’
‘They believe it,’ Tobie’s wife said. Her eyes followed her fingers, working down the long strands. ‘I sat beside the Gräfin on the journey. She was reluctant to talk, but Master Julius insisted that she tell me how she came by her affliction. I was to convey it, if I thought fit, to you.’ She lifted her eyes.
‘She blamed Nicholas?’ Gelis said. She understood Clémence now.
‘It was a wound from a knife. The Gräfin presented it, to begin with, as an accident, but her husband, riding beside us, contradicted her in a childish way, exclaiming that your husband had tried to seduce her, and she had been injured when trying to defend herself.’
‘Really?’ said Gelis.
‘Indeed. In a public place, with strangers listening. The Gräfin tried to say it was nonsense, but some of those around her were deeply impressed. Others toyed with the theory that she had turned the knife on herself out of shame.