Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [286]
She had found, in a heap of straw, some hens’ eggs and was carrying them, brown and smooth, in her palms. One forgot that she was the daughter of a gentleman farmer. It would suit her, this life on Sevigny. Then she turned sober, friendly brown eyes upon him and said, ‘The headaches have gone. It is no credit to the Loire, or my company.’
It was highly improbable. ‘Are you sure?’ Adam said.
She flushed. And Lymond’s voice behind him said, ‘Do you think I would mislead her?’
By that time, Adam had flushed also. ‘No. I don’t think you could mislead her,’ he said. ‘You think as one person, so far as I can see. But you will have to remember that there is a world awaiting you, when you emerge from your tower. We shall do our best to spin it meantime the way it should go, but it is not easy. There have been Calvinist demonstrations in Paris and Chartres; d’Andelot and his wife have been arrested along with others. Your brother took part in one of the processions. He might very well find himself in difficulties.’
It was one of the rare occasions when, outside an impersonal topic, he saw the eyes of Francis and Philippa meet, and cling. Then Lymond said, his eyes still on hers, ‘He is of age.’ Then answering, it would seem, some further change in her gaze he said, ‘I did not mean the onus to fall on your shoulders. Perhaps my mother could be persuaded to leave, and he to escort her home on the grounds of frailty?’
‘Not while Philippa is here,’ Adam said.
Then Lymond said, ‘I have told you the only solution. The world has turned. We are two families now: two trees; two separate plantings. Tell them that. And god shall wype awaye all teares from theyr eyes. And there shalbe no more deeth, nether sorow, nether cryinge, nether shall ther be eny more payne, for the olde thinges are gone. And so, too, will be supper, unless we hurry. Come, poor Adam, and eat. You have delivered messages enough.’
He could not enjoy the meal although, as before, it was well cooked and presented. The house, he had already realized, ran like a machine, as it had done for many years under Applegarth’s care. There had been nothing demanded of Philippa which need intrude on this relationship. Nor, except for the books, had there been any change that he could see in the château. It had always been exquisitely furnished but impersonal, and until now Lymond had visited it only rarely. But to this home neither he nor Philippa, it was clear, had brought the detachment of mind which had made of the house at Vorobiovo a casket of brilliant treasures, constructed, chosen, commissioned by Gûzel and Lymond alike to create a setting for their guests’ entertainment.
One remembered there, too, the social skills, the fluent ease of host and hostess which obliterated for all practical purposes their personal relationship, so that you did not remember till afterwards that here was a clever and powerful courtesan, and here was the man who possessed her.
This was the same man. It was, one had to believe, the sheer strength of the invisible union which made the bond between man and woman this time such a towering and tangible thing.
Towards the end of the evening, weary himself with the strain of the day, and his journey, Adam saw a tiredness of a different kind begin to touch the hollows of Philippa’s face and then, less obviously, betray itself in Francis. Once, visited for a term by a pair newly-betrothed, he had learned to understand the signs. The need, as for a spring in the desert, was for peace in each other’s company. He said good night then, as soon as he could, and went upstairs to his chamber.
He was a man, unlike Strozzi, for whom prying was out of the question. It was with no other intention therefore than to admit the night air to his anxieties that he pulled aside the heavy hangings and, opening the latch of his window, stepped out in his shirt among the flower pots on his small balcony.
Below him was the wing of the château