Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [281]
It was Austin who persisted. ‘But did she seem happy?’ he said. ‘Is she well?’
‘The wench? Ah, the young maid from Hexham. They never spoke to one another,’ said Piero Strozzi thoughtfully.
Sybilla lost patience. ‘Signor Strozzi, we are attempting, with some difficulty, to distinguish the condition of a young girl of whom we are particularly fond. Did Philippa seem well? Who never spoke to one another?’
Piero Strozzi looked surprised. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘Ce beau chevalier and his mignonne. They talked, each of them to me, but almost never to one another. It is true, of course, when I am there, there is no need for others to converse, but some of one’s friends are not commonly backward.’
‘And their health?’ Sybilla said. ‘We were told they were both very tired.’
Strozzi shrugged. ‘How can one tell? It has changed him, as I have said. He has no wish to hear of the great matters of court, and if I mention the war, I am taken aside and shown horses. You know, I dare say, the intuition one may sometimes acquire, that one is not wanted?’
For the first time, the tension in Lady Culter’s face relaxed a little. ‘I do,’ she said.
‘Well, this I did not have,’ said Piero Strozzi simply. ‘And yet I knew I was not wanted. There is something formidable in that household of Sevigny.’
Obeying the dictates, perhaps, of just such another presentiment he did not stay much beyond that. Only, just as he was taking his leave and after Austin had left, alone, to go to his room, Sybilla said, ‘I wish you would explain something you said. That there was something formidable in that household of Sevigny?’
‘Ah,’ said Piero Strozzi. ‘It does not lend itself truly to words. But you know, perhaps, you, Lord Culter and you, Blacklock, the alla sanguigna, the blue-red shimmer of a sword when it is drawn from the flesh? That is what it was like: the alla sanguigna, burning behind all the politenesses. Since also we are here together in small numbers, I may say something else.’
‘Yes?’ said Richard quietly.
‘Assai sa, chi nulla sa, se tacer’ sa. He knows enough, who knows nothing, and who can keep quiet. It is not a matter which concerns the world,’ Piero Strozzi said, ‘but I am a curious man, and I notice that much as these two are together, they never touch. There is no embrace. There is no twining of the fingers even. So I ask questions, and I watch, which is difficult, for in that household they are very discreet. But this I must tell you.
‘M. le comte and madame la comtesse sleep apart. Their rooms are in different wings. And they do not move from one room to another. Whatever they may wish you to think, Madame, your son and Mistress Philippa are not living as man and wife.’
Chapter 2
Un Capitole ne voudra point qu’il regne
Sa grande charge ne pourra maintenir.
The day following Piero Strozzi’s visit to the Hôtel de l’Ange, Marthe returned to her husband.
Jerott received no kind of warning. Preparing, with the others, to leave with Strozzi and de Guise to join the army then mustering at Chalons, he was turning out of a back courtyard of the Hôtel du Séjour, his eyes on the lists in his hand, when a familiar voice spoke directly in front of him.
‘Whoredom, said Sir Thomas More, is better than wedlock—in a priest. Have you as yet reached any conclusion on the subject, Master Blyth?’
It was Marthe, sweet-sour and golden, in a gown of some Oriental fabric he did not recognize, and a line he had not seen before between her brows.
He killed, with an effort that could be seen, the impulse to grip her; to fling himself on her; to press out under his kisses the sight of that mocking mouth. Instead: ‘About monastic life and the priesthood?’ he said. ‘Being still in a state of wedlock,