Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [230]
*
The sensation of being watched from above had already attacked Danny Hislop as he conducted his astonishing companion along the rue de Marie-Egyptienne to the house of the astrologer Michel Nostradamus.
He had promised Jerott’s wife, having traced her here, not to tell anyone else where she was. He had not promised to refrain from bringing anyone.
He had promised Lymond’s wife, for whom he had a deep and inconvenient admiration, to enable Lymond’s mother to talk to Marthe, and to be present himself, if humanly possible, throughout the meeting. And that, he couldn’t deny, he was looking forward to.
The stigma of bastardy, to Daniel Hislop, was of no particular moment. The person and intellect of Lymond’s sister by this date were engaging all his spare attention. And the prospect of watching the Crawford family at grips with itself was something that, blissfully, he wanted very much for his birthday.
His attitude to Sybilla, naturally, was that of a kindly colleague willing to perform any small service for Philippa. He had heard enough of Lady Culter to form his own opinion: haute à la main et un peu superbe, like her bloody son. The ease with which she attracted large numbers of diverse guests to her chair at Lucullus’s eye-opening reception had been interesting. She had the family charm, it was clear, and did not often stop talking. In fact, on the present short journey, it had been extraordinarily difficult to slide in the questions he wanted to ask, because of a continual kind of placid effervescence which did not halt, even on Marthe’s doorstep.
‘How exciting!’ said Sybilla happily. ‘I declare, I can smell the Occult from here: or is it a sniff from the medical side? Hot goat dung for sciatica, Dioscorides always held, but I always felt you would acquire sciatica waiting about for it. Have you met Nostradamus?’
‘No,’ Danny said. He had given their names to the porter and they were inside the hall. ‘He was out when I called on Mistress Marthe.’
‘Neither have I,’ Sybilla said. She gave up her cloak. ‘I saw his picture, of course, in his Prophecies. I suppose he might have been kissed in the woods like Apollo, when he was very much younger.’
Darting a glance to either side, Danny Hislop had a sudden feeling that the whites of his eyes were beginning to show.
‘Suppose we go upstairs?’ said Sybilla comfortably. ‘I think the steward is waiting to take us. That is, if you really want to hear us talk about our intimate family affairs in your presence. Otherwise I am sure they will make you very welcome elsewhere.’
She was like her bloody son. And he wasn’t, after all, going to get away with it … Or was he?’
Upstairs, a door had opened. A moment later, Marthe’s voice, coolly welcoming, floated down the turnpike. ‘Lady Culter? Please allow Mr Hislop to join us. A third opinion—don’t you feel—can often solve many problems?’
‘She’s perfectly right,’ Sybilla said. ‘Durant les grandes chaleurs, on recherche les ombres des grandes arbres.’ The blue, innocent eyes dwelled fondly on Danny’s spare form, and Danny’s resemblance to a magnificent tree faded, marginally.
Sound sense, at this point took over. Danny halted. ‘Lady Culter,’ he said. ‘I deserve it. I beg your pardon. I shall stay downstairs.’
‘No,’ Sybilla said slowly. She was looking, not at him, but upstairs where Jerott’s errant wife stood waiting. Marthe was dressed, Danny saw, not in her usual gown but in a loose velvet robe not unlike a man’s night-gear and her yellow hair, capless, was knotted just clear of her shoulders. She had never looked more like her brother.
Lady Culter brought her gaze back to Danny, and smiled at him. ‘No,’ she repeated lightly. ‘I wasn’t fair. I required to be rapped on the knuckles. If Mistress Marthe has no objection, I have none to your joining us.’ And turning, she climbed up and entered Marthe’s parlour.
With something astonishingly approaching reluctance, Daniel Hislop followed her, and sat down when so invited and heard Marthe say to the woman she had never met, ‘I assume you asked Mr Hislop to bring you. I shall be