Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [225]
You should have let me go to Catherine. ‘I see,’ said Philippa. ‘Your men walk round you when they notice you drunk, drugged or blind on the battlefield?’
‘It hasn’t happened as yet,’ he said quietly.
‘It’s a pity they don’t know how lucky they are. Do you think Catherine will notice?’ said Philippa.
He said, ‘Look … I do realize the implications. I shall not allow it to endanger other people. I shall honour my obligation to Catherine, Meanwhile I know very well my own limits. De Thermes has gout. Strozzi has jaundice. I have headaches. We are all capable of adjusting our lives to our defects.’
‘You are?’ Philippa said. ‘And you can’t adjust to bastardy?’
He said evenly, ‘Give me, perhaps, until tomorrow instead of today to achieve it.’
‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘You’ve guessed it for years.’
‘All right. I’ve guessed it for years,’ he said. ‘Philippa, that’s enough.’
‘And done nothing about it. You sit on trouble, don’t you, until it blows up in your face? You turned on Sybilla. You’ll turn on me soon, once it strikes home that someone has censured you. You are proving, aren’t you,’ said Philippa contemptuously, ‘that to be base-born makes you a fourth-rate son of a fourth-rate little country?’
She did not see how swiftly he moved. She only felt his hands on her shoulders, twisting her firmly to confront him.
And then, of course, he saw confirmed what only the fire had heretofore seen: the ceaseless cataract of her tears, pouring and pouring, without hope of concealment down her young face.
He said, ‘Oh God help me,’ in a voice so low and so tired that she barely heard it. Then dropping his hands he rose and left her.
She cried after him then. ‘Wait! Wait. Where are you going?’
He was already far from her, but he halted. He turned to her, and the silver oysters and the jewels and the medallion all showed blindingly how he was breathing, like an escaping hart bayed down by stag-hounds. He said, ‘I’ve upset you. We’re both tired. And I don’t know how I can help matters.’
He had at some time pushed his hands unseen into his hair. Threads of it spangled the dampness on his brow, and his open eyes were without light. He went on with difficulty, ‘My birth is the least of my troubles. The rest you must allow me to support by myself. I shall try to be what you wish me to be, and do what you wish me to do and if I fail, you must believe that I have tried.… Philippa, it is so late. Let me call Adam to take you home.’ And then suddenly, his voice raw with desperation, ‘Here is non hoom. Here nis but wildernesse.’
And at last, the pain was more than she could bear.
‘It’s Kate. It’s Kate, isn’t it?’ Philippa said. ‘Not Güzel. Not Mariotta and Midculter, whatever Richard may think. It’s Kate, and because of the blindness you never would tell her. You wouldn’t take Gideon’s place. But your music, your verse was for my mother. And when I showed on the steps at Lyon what I felt for you the breakdown came next, and the blindness. How I must sicken you,’ Philippa said; and put both hands over her face, and sat, choking.
There was no response. After a long while she dropped her hands, and opened her eyes.
He was standing quite still, his eyes resting on her. All the violence that had driven him from her side seemed to have left him. His hands were steady and his voice, when he spoke, was clear also, although not at all loud.
‘Music, the knife without a hilt,’ he said. ‘But for Piero, I suppose none of this would have happened. Since it has …
He hesitated for the last time, his voice dying away. Then he said, ‘Do you know, Philippa, what an unsuitable match is? It isn’t the kind I shall have with Catherine d’Albon, or even the kind you will make with young Allendale. When one