Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [279]
He had known it was going to be difficult. But the hostile man who faced him upstairs, exhausted with rage and grief and pacing, over and over, the confines of his room, was something he had not expected. Before he could speak, Austin had rounded on him.
‘So much for your promises! The Cardinal Legate has not postponed the signing of the annulment. Philippa has been allowed to run off, and you have permitted your brother to go after her. Perhaps you encouraged him. Perhaps you mean to share her money. If you had told me, I could have paid you more.’
‘That bloody, interfering fool Elder,’ Richard said. ‘We tried to spare you some of this.’ He drew a long breath. ‘Sit down and get some wine inside you. Losing your head isn’t going to help.’
Austin paid no heed whatever. ‘If you had nothing to do with it, why conceal it? Why keep me locked in this house, where I could do nothing about it? Twenty-four hours a day, you said you would guard him, and Philippa as well. And they left … when?’
‘The night of the Queen’s wedding,’ said Richard. He had found wine and throwing it into as large a cup as he could find, brought it to where Austin stood, braced in a corner, breathing through shut lips rapidly. Richard said quietly, ‘Perhaps we were wrong not to tell you, but there was nothing you could have done. I searched the town myself all night and next day as well, without finding them. As for the guard … we did our best, but it was the night of the wedding.’
‘How clever,’ Austin said. He made no attempt to take the wine.
‘How clever,’ Lord Culter repeated. ‘But then, you know my brother is wily. What successes have you had in your dealings with him? Can you imagine what it feels like for me, to pledge my word to preserve a girl’s honour and have it broken for me by Francis?’
‘You should have locked him in a room, as I am locked,’ Austin said. And then added, ‘But I forget. He is too popular and too powerful for that. He can trap a girl like a bird-catcher and then desecrate her, and the Court will only applaud. Then, I suppose, he will leave her.’ He stopped, and swallowed, and said, ‘Do you even know if she is alive?’
‘Sit down, for Christ’s sake,’ Richard said, ‘and drink that.’ And pushing him at last into a chair he thrust the cup into his hand and said, ‘He hasn’t left her. They are together at Sevigny, and staying there.… Drink it, you fool!’
And as Austin, his face grey, leaned against the back of the chair Richard guided the cup to his lips and said, ‘They have been together now for long enough to make any annulment of the marriage quite impossible. Therefore it is going to stand, and nothing that anyone can do will help it. It is wrong: it is a tragedy; it is a betrayal. I agree with all that. My impulse, too, was to ride off to the Loire and whip him in his own house. But they are legally married. He has not dissolved the union as he threatened to do, so that she could only reach him outside it. And lastly, she loves him.’
Austin said, ‘He is very plausible. I believed him when he gave me his oath.’
‘Never do that,’ said Richard flatly. Then after a moment he said, ‘You know of course that you are free. Francis signed your release for the Tuesday you should have left France with Philippa. It is my fault, as I have explained, that we kept you here in ignorance since then. I don’t suppose you want to stay. If you will tell me when you want to take ship, I shall ask for a safe-conduct for you for Gravelines.’
‘I don’t know,’ Austin said. He had emptied the cup and the worst of his pallor was leaving him. ‘It would do no harm to have the safe-conduct. But I might stay a little.’ He looked up. ‘Would there be room for me at the Hôtel de l’Ange?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘But is there any need to stay longer? You will only add to the hurt. And it would do nothing but harm to interfere with them.’
‘I should like to know,’ Austin said, ‘if she is happy.’ He paused,