Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [196]
‘You’re enjoying it,’ Gregorio said. Once, he had worked closely with him in Scotland. He knew Will Roger. He knew what it was like. He added, ‘And I hope you got Beltrees back, after Simpson.’
Gregorio had seen it being built. Nicholas said, ‘No. The castle burned down, and he didn’t have the land, or the barony. The house was rather unpleasant, in any case. I created it for the wrong reasons, and he distorted it further. What?’
‘Nothing,’ Gregorio said. Then the conversation, as was inevitable, moved on to children.
Gregorio’s son Jaçon was aged seven, and flourishing. As might be expected, there had been no other offspring. Gregorio was not far short of fifty and Margot out of her child-bearing years. They had been blessed, to have their one well-made boy.
The same was true, of course, of Jordan de Fleury. He had no siblings. It was not intentional. It was only partly intentional. There was a limit to the number of people Nicholas felt he could protect. Or so he told himself.
Then, of course, there was the subject of Adorne’s small daughter by Phemie. ‘Does he resent her?’ Tilde asked. ‘Not just the deafness, but that she took Phemie from him? And, of course, he must have hoped for a son.’
‘No. He cares for her tenderly,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think he feels humble. Last time, you see, he chose to preserve his wife’s life and risk the life of the infant, which died. This time, the choice was not his.’
‘You sound as if you approve,’ Diniz said.
‘No. I am explaining how he thinks, not how I think,’ Nicholas said.
That night, they all drank together and it was, again, what it had been like when it was all one company. He remembered what made them laugh, and what excited them. It returned him, too, to the bright, merry level, half carefree, half watchful, that had marked all his life here. The torrent of mixed Flemish and French swept away all his Scots. Sometimes they mentioned Gelis. He had expected admiration, but was made silent, for a moment, by their obvious affection for her. When he went to bed, he slept as if felled.
The following day, he called at the palace of Louis de Gruuthuse and his wife, Gelis’s cousin, and found there, as he had hoped, the senior van Borselen, Wolfaert of Veere. With them were Wolfaert’s bastard son Paul, and his pregnant wife Catherine de Charetty, Tilde’s sister.
He had not seen her since he gave permission, in writing, for her marriage. She looked happy and fearful at once, as she should, considering the escapades from which once he had rescued her. Nicholas said, ‘I am going to take Paul aside and tell him everything. Paul, she rides like a man, and likes lapdogs.’
‘I know. She has three,’ Paul said, and kissed his wife, who had gone pale and then pink. He patted her waist. ‘And, do you see? A future race of Conservators for Scotland.’
‘The merchants of Scotland will love you all,’ said Nicholas comfortably, and gathered Catherine and kissed her properly, with all the reassurance that she could want. He thought that Marian would have been proud of her daughters.
Later, there came the serious discussion with Wolfaert and Gruuthuse, where he learned what Diniz was not in a position to tell him, and reported what he wanted these two men to know. At the end, they asked him the same question as Diniz. ‘Will you come back?’
He did not immediately answer. Gruuthuse said, ‘I am sorry. We did not mean to place you in a difficult position. You have not yet completed your business in France.’
‘It is why I hesitated,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not because of embarrassment. I have been offered a pension, and also my grandfather’s vicomté, with the house at Fleury rebuilt, and the estate and title enhanced. I have not yet given my answer.’
‘Then we need not discuss it. As you will know, we have each taken precautions, Wolfaert and I. It is done the world over. I should not presume to give you advice, Nicholas,’ Gruuthuse said. ‘But I should be