Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [191]
Dole, the capital of Franche-Comté, was in a worse case than Dijon: it had been virtually burned to the ground. He found an inn and methodically bought something to eat, and ate it. Then, rather slowly, he rode the few miles south-west to Damparis.
It was still there: the lodge, the courtyard, and the fine, turreted house in which Marian de Charetty had died so long ago. Marian, the brisk Flemish widow who had taken him into her business as Claes the apprentice, and then had given him the standing he needed by marrying him. She had been alone when she fell ill, travelling south; and had stopped here, at the home of friends of her sister. He had not known. She had sent him to Trebizond, and he had come home triumphant, to lay at her feet all he had earned, in recompense for her trust and her love. And found she had died.
He had set out then, a boy of twenty, to find this place, and speak to the kind people who had cared for her. He had learned enough to be sure that her death had been tragic but natural, and that she was buried in Dijon, beside her sister and his mother, in the crypt that served their linked families. His life had touched those of the owners of Damparis again, when Jodi had stayed in the neighbourhood, and Nicholas had taken him to his grandmother’s tomb. Then Enguerrand and Yvonnet de Damparis had opened their house to the child and his nurses, and had made them all welcome. His last enquiries had been made a year later. More recently, Gelis had come, he had been told; but he did not know when.
It did not take long, now, to learn that the two he was seeking were dead. The porter was graphic. The old seigneur and his lady—ah, the amiable couple they were, known and esteemed by all. How it would have broken their hearts to see what had happened to Dole! Their nephew’s widow had been hard put to it, as it was, to prevent the whole house from being entered and ransacked, but her workers had helped her, and even these foreign rascals could see that it would serve them better to make friends rather than enemies in Damparis. And yes, the demoiselle was still here, and always glad to see visitors, for the big house was lonely, and she was a lady who enjoyed cheerful company …
He had not given his own name, but saw, as soon as he was shown in, that it would have made no difference. This was a talkative women of sixty, childless, widowed, and largely ignorant of the minor details of the family she had married into. She wanted to hear all about the countries he had visited as a trading friend of the dear Monseigneur Enguerrand, and delivered, in return, a detailed account of all the terrible days of the French attack, and of what had been taken, and what had been burned. Only then did she cast her mind back to happier days, and the generosity of her husband’s uncle and aunt. Yes, she remembered the tale of the poor Flemish lady who died. A lady of many friends, to be sure: two of them at least had come to visit her, and express their gratitude for what the sire Enguerrand and the lady Yvonnet had done. The poor lady. The poor child.
‘Monsieur?’
Nicholas had looked up. ‘I beg your pardon. You mentioned a child?’
‘Indeed. A daughter, they said, brought too soon into the world because of her sickness, and soon to leave it as she did. The pity!’
‘I am sorry. You are saying that an infant, a daughter was born, but did not survive?’
‘So I heard. And the lady herself was dead and buried soon after, with the child in her arms, and something her husband had sent her laid with them both. Is it not touching?’ the widow cried.
She could recall nothing more. What she had told him, she had told Adelina—Julius’s late, inquisitive wife. Gelis had tested it, since. Even then, he didn’t wish to believe it: he had to try and find out for himself. But now, slowly, he was close to accepting that it must be true. Marian had not wanted him to know that he might have