Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [178]
‘I know,’ Gelis said. ‘Bel of Cuthilgurdy helped the Princess Joanna. Bel is teaching Euphemia now.’
Nicholas was silent.
Gelis said, ‘It’s common knowledge, Nicholas, that two of the six Scottish Princesses were sent to the French Court over thirty years ago, and stayed there while the French King arranged husbands for them. Bishop Spens, who was an Archdeacon, escorted them. One of the Princesses was Eleanor, who left after three years to marry Sigismond of the Tyrol. The other was Joanna, whom no one wanted because she was deaf. She came back eventually to marry James Douglas of Dalkeith. One of the matrons of honour who served Eleanor and Joanna in their French household was Bel.’
‘And that is commonly known?’ Nicholas said. He kept her hand, to reassure her, and saw that her colour had risen. She pulled a face, as he might have done.
She said, ‘No. But Bel speaks with her fingers, as Tobie does. They have been teaching the nuns. Bel, and Tobie, and Lord Erskine’s wife, who is the Princess Joanna’s daughter.’
Nicholas smoothed her fingers, watching them. She said, ‘I don’t mean to pry. Just to tell you what is known, and what others may guess.’
He looked up. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And as I said before, there is nothing you need be afraid of in all this. There are no dire secrets, just small matters of loyalty and, perhaps, pride. But I’m glad to know, for Bel’s sake, what is being said. And doubly glad that the child can be helped. Adorne will be so thankful.’
He broke off. He said, ‘We should be so thankful.’
It was true.
The gold had gone. It was better gone. It had caused little but death and mistrust and bitterness, and he could secure for himself all it offered. He had his brain, and his two hands and his health, to provide for the future. He had a strong son—two strong sons—and Gelis. He was free.
SANDY RETURNED, AND Nicholas set to work on him. It was like dealing with Jodi. Liddell was easier: Nicholas respected his loyalty, which had to struggle all the time against his better judgement. That said, he could be an idiot like Sandy at times. That was why Sandy liked him.
And it was unfair, too, to describe this operation in terms of the upbringing of Jodi, although there were parallels. Sandy had had nurses from birth, as Jodi had. The caring families, the Sinclairs, the Prestons, gave their nurslings all the continuity that they could not expect from their parents, and the children responded with love. The great René of Anjou had erected a statue to his nurse. The absences of Jodi’s mother and father had been no more or less than the separations Sandy had experienced.
But, of course, the time for nurses came to an end. Royal princes lived in separate establishments, both as youngsters and later. Louis of France had no idea what his son looked like, they said, it was so long since he had sent him away. The boy was locked up in Amboise, to prevent his being exploited against his own father, as Louis had been. And many of Sandy’s first personal relationships had been shattered by death. His widowed mother had died while he was in Flanders, and the following year, aged only ten, he had lost Charles, his adored older cousin in Veere, and then Bishop Kennedy, his near-uncle. A proud boy, speaking a different tongue, he had found himself a prisoner at the English Court, and thrown into the equivocal companionship of Gloucester. From there, he had come back to Scotland to compete for attention with an older brother who was King, and a younger who rampaged at will. He had been given a Sinclair wife because it was necessary, and had resented it, and had been allowed to annul it in the hope of something better. It was no wonder that he was hard to control, or that his own children, legitimate or otherwise, were not much in his mind. He took more interest in his sister’s son, young Jamie Boyd.
And yet he was not out of reach, or uncivilised. Sometimes, Nicholas