Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [137]
It was not dark but light, and a matter for joy.
Nicholas said softly, ‘My dear?’
And she said, ‘Yes. You are the second to know. And I want to tell Tobie.’
Then he gave her his hands, and brought her to stand, small and still slight, against him, within his embrace. ‘He must be so proud of you. You must be so happy.’ And when she made a choked sound, he added, practically, ‘And if it is a girl, you must call it Honoria.’
Then she snorted, and wiped her eyes, and stretched up to receive his salute, to be swept aside by the small, solid person of Margaret, dragging Jodi to see her second cousin Euphemia. Nicholas held Kathi steady, while gazing with her at the retreating children. He said, ‘There goes a very happy big-sister-to-be. I like your progeny, Kathi.’
‘So do I. Isn’t it lucky?’ she said.
Down below, rejoining the riotous crowd of their friends, the first thing Nicholas noticed was Robin’s gaze, bright and defiant and proud, fixed on him from afar. He must, then, have sent Kathi to break their news to him quietly, tonight. The best gift, the greatest pledge of friendship he could have devised.
A better time to acknowledge it would be found. But now Nicholas went across swiftly, and knelt, and, unobserved in the uproar, said to Robin what could not wait to be said, so that Robin flushed, and lay back, and laughed with brilliant eyes. Then Nicholas rose, and set out to make his birthday one that everyone there would remember, including himself.
DR TOBIAS BEVENTINI, who now knew and approved of the reason, watched him do it. The guard-geese, which had been bought with considerable trouble, furnished the central motif of the celebration, if not of the table; and Tobie, given over to contentment, enjoyed creating ever more extravagant explanations of their duties and skills. Eventually, watching the birthday guests depart amid a bobbing crowd of servants and torchbearers, with the geese screeching and hissing amongst them, Tobie linked arms with his wife and turned back to where Robin was lying, half-asleep, with Kathi moving softly about him.
The children had gone, with their nurses. Clémence, once Jodi’s nurse, was now Tobie’s.
Clémence and he had no children. They did not discuss it. It was something much desired by them both, but if it did not happen, then Tobie’s life, for him, was still complete; and he thought it the same for Clémence. He wondered sometimes whether Nicholas would now extend the family begun abruptly so long ago, but began to think, as the months passed, that either deliberately or by chance, that door had been closed. He thought he understood. There was the threat posed by Simpson, of course. There was also the age of the children now living. Jodi would soon be nine years old. Henry was already grown, and on his way as a man. And in Germany there was someone else: a young maiden called Bonne, who was supposed to be the step-daughter of Julius, and who was being reared, by her own choice, in a convent. She might never emerge. Tobie hoped that she wouldn’t. He hoped that Nicholas might be allowed, now, to proceed with his life without Bonne, without Julius, without Simon de St Pol. Without more children, if that was what he wanted. Nicholas was his own gift to the world. He needed no replication, as Robin did. Or, as someone had said, the family he had was sufficient.
The day, with all that it signified, came to a close. The day closed; the year turned; and the geese screamed, but no one heeded them, yet.
Chapter 16
First of the chekker sall be mencioun made,
And syne efter of the proper moving
Of euery man in ordour to his king.
IN THRALL TO their purpose—that the kingdom of Scotland should be made and kindly wrought, as if it were a pair of gloves—the statesmen took note, or failed to take note, of the news that now came, filtered by distance, from the outside