Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [296]
Towards the end, my lady the Duchess condescended to partner her step-daughter in a promenade dance, of the kind where musicians play, and well-born ladies exhibit their grace and their skill, when the tables are cleared, by visiting the four quarters of the room, two by two, in a swaying sinuous column. Gelis, leaning, pacing, curtseying with Clémence’s precise hand in her own, was touched to see that no one found cause to ridicule the two fateful figures leading the dance: the young girl in her wreath of jewelled flowers glancing up lovingly at the towering English princess beside her, made taller still by the wedding coronet with its jewelled white roses on her pale, pleated hair. The Duchess was thirty, a year younger than Gelis. Ghent had always loved England; sometimes too well. In this town had been born John of Gaunt, whose blood ran in the royal houses of Portugal, England and Scotland; as well as in the veins of Duke Charles and his Duchess. Margaret of York had borne no children to her husband in the separate lives that they led, but had served the Duke and Burgundy, and had cherished his child as her own since Marie was eleven.
The dance ended, to hearty applause. Tumblers rushed in. The Duchess signalled to her ladies that she wished to retire, but one lady did not follow her. Gelis van Borselen, lifting her skirts to sweep from the room, was stopped on the threshold by the man who had passed his time watching her. David de Salmeton bathed her in one of his glorious smiles. ‘Don’t go. She won’t miss you. I’m not about to create a scene here, my dear Gelis, I give you my word. But it would please me to talk. And unless you listen, you will never know, will you, what I am going to do?’
There were other people in the service rooms and the gallery. Soon, the great exodus would begin, and pages and porters and grooms, private house-servants and stewards would see to the cloaks and the mounts of their masters and mistresses. The Duchess and the guests of honour, who had arrived on caparisoned horseback, were to return on chairs of state within wagons. A chain of others would follow, conveying her attendants back to the Castle of Ten Walle through the deep cold and fog, between the glimmering lamps. Gelis saw that Clémence had left the Duchess and was standing, hands peacefully folded, watching her.
The man standing beside Gelis said, ‘Your guard dog? Then perhaps you may feel you can risk a few words. I have to congratulate you on your looks and, of course, on your business acumen. One could have anticipated that the Vatachino would fail, but it took genius to usurp your own husband’s company. They will miss you when you have gone.’
‘I am going somewhere?’ Gelis said. Below the perfect damask, the sturdy contours of his shoulders and arms were owed to muscle, not padding, and the wrists that turned the delicate fingers were supple and hard. He might look effeminate, but he had the fiat back and poise of a swordsman.
‘Of course,’ said David de Salmeton. ‘Your future is arranged. Best of all, your husband can share it, due to this mystifying ability, inherent in animals and simpletons, I am told, to trace a person by instinct.’
Gelis gazed at him. She said, ‘Do you have much luck in general, with your planning? You told Bel: you know as well as I do that my husband is dead. I don’t wear black, because our marriage was over. I hadn’t seen him for years. Report says he was killed outside Moscow, escaping after some spectacular crime involving rape. Who is going to trace me by instinct?’
‘He is with Adorne in Bruges,’ said David de Salmeton, sighing. ‘And your struggle