Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [111]
He said, ‘But I was meant to—’
‘You were meant to prove that you could hold to a straight line on your own. You have sustained it so far. I’m prepared to trust you the rest of the way. So are the others. Nicholas, Nicholas, don’t.’
This was how, stemming his grief, she had held Jodi all through his childhood, wishing that he were Nicholas. Now it was Nicholas.
Presently, when the positions had courteously got themselves reversed, he said, his voice still disconnected, ‘I meant this to be different. I haven’t even told you yet what I feel about seeing you.’
‘Perhaps later,’ Gelis said. ‘You did say that Clémence was with you? She must be running out of small talk by now. Unless she’s found Jodi?’
She had found Jodi. Exploring, Jodi’s father and mother discovered the two of them, deep in a game. Then Jodi looked up and saw Nicholas, and the game flew to the floor.
Much later, Clémence asked, with some briskness, if anyone would mind if she removed Jordan to her own house for the night, as there was something Dr Tobie was waiting to show him. Jodi said No, and then Yes. Gelis kissed Clémence, even before she kissed Jodi goodbye.
Mailie came to say that my lady must be tired, and she had made up the bed.
Nicholas discovered that he also was tired. He said, ‘I have an idea. I go to bed first, and you follow.’
‘It doesn’t sound very seductive,’ Gelis said.
‘They do it in harems,’ Nicholas said helpfully. ‘Anyway, you followed me here.’
She said, ‘What made you think I was coming to you?’ They were upstairs by now. He noticed that Gelis’s coffers had been unpacked, and some of his own belongings moved to the room next to the marital bedchamber. Clémence had been busy.
He said, ‘Well, for one thing, no one has claimed you. Which is just as well, because now you can’t go.’
‘I can’t?’ she said. He was thankful to see that she was shaking as well. He shut the door of the bedchamber.
‘No. It’s a convention. It’s like not leaving before the end of a dinner, unless you can plead you’ve a nose bleed.’ He was suddenly shattered. ‘Of course …’
‘No. I don’t have a nose bleed,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone white.’
‘That’s because—’ He broke off. ‘Do you suppose we could just get there together?’
Where?’
‘On the bed. Anywhere. Oh God,’ said Nicholas, ‘there isn’t time to undress.’
She was laughing, and so was he; and then there was no room even for laughter, because they were as one at last: joined in lust but also in love; knit together in love, but also in constancy.
Part II
And be thow nocht, as nocht sone sall thow be;
Forget thi-self and in ensample se
The lyoun, king of bestis, as thou sayis
Sum tyme is fude to megis and to fleis.
Chapter 12
Welcum he was, and thar he baid all nicht
HAPPINESS, THAT MOST childish of states, is infectious. Furthermore, in its innocence, it will not be hidden, even when tempered with sorrow.
In the weeks that followed, none of his friends required to be told what had happened to Nicholas. Most, like Kathi, were thankful. Others took longer to welcome it.
A growing son, available once more to his father, expects his father’s attention. Nicholas, rather desperately, did what he could, but it was Mistress Clémence who swept Jodi off and embroiled him and his minders in the raucous young community of the Canongate, from whose expeditions of fishing or fowling he returned ragged, filthy and triumphant. Occasionally, he would be sent to exhibit some bedraggled capture to Robin, but never stayed long. Robin, like Jodi’s father, was a deity whose services tended, as now, to be moderated or withdrawn without warning. Usually, someone else was to blame.
At eight, Jodi himself was too young to detect the same reaction in Robin. As he welcomed Jodi, so the bedridden young man greeted Gelis when, friendly and practical, she came to call as she had done in Bruges. She went alone, and so did Nicholas, and neither appeared before