Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
It was later, when Julius came back, that the Prioress asked after Dr Tobias. Such a learned gentleman, from such an eminent Milanese family.
Nicholas welcomed her interest, and began to expatiate on Tobie’s wonderful family, whom Tobie happened to loathe. Julius’s mind was already otherwise employed. ‘Tobie here? When was this?’
‘Well, surely’ the Prioress said. ‘Six or seven years ago, when he came to talk to poor Sister Ysabeau about the de Fleury family?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Julius,’ Nicholas said. ‘She was remotely related to your Adelina, and Tobie had begun to ask questions. I’m sorry. Look, we ought perhaps to go.’ Adelina had been Julius’s wife, and a subject he did not like to discuss. With any luck, he would leave it.
‘She knew about Adelina?’ Julius said. ‘What else did she know? Did she know about the St Pols?’ The old woman was looking at each of them, dwelling a little on Julius. Julius had the kind of classical face that everyone dwelled on. It went with a diploma in obstinacy.
Nicholas said, ‘She was deaf. She was a sister of Thibault de Fleury’s first wife, and that was all Tobie asked her about. She wouldn’t know the St Pols.’
‘Well, of course she would,’ said the Prioress, surprised. ‘If she didn’t come across them in recent years, she certainly knew them during her first stay. Elizabeth Semple was a nun here, after serving her noviciate in North Berwick. They used the Scottish form of the name. A French affectation, to change it back to St Pol.’
‘Sister Ysabeau stayed here twice?’ Nicholas said. It was against his better judgement. He immediately wished that he hadn’t.
‘As a young woman, and then again to end her days here. She had been fond of Elizabeth. I had no sympathy for the young person myself. She had taken her final vows, unlike poor Phemie, of whom we were speaking, but was of a light disposition: small wonder her brothers came to repudiate her. Her death, to be strict, was not undeserved. And of course, it had, had it not, an unforeseen consequence? Sister Ysabeau made the acquaintance of Elizabeth’s brothers, and continued the friendship in France. Hence Elizabeth’s nephew Simon came to meet Sophie de Fleury.’
Damn.
The Prioress said, ‘But I have been indiscreet. Please forgive me. That marriage, I know, must be most painful for you, Monseigneur de Fleury. It is not as if I could add to what is already public knowledge. Let me merely say that bastardy is no stigma in a noble career such as yours.’
There was a gleam in her eye, recalling suddenly an earlier dialogue. Mention collaboration, will you? Not to me.
Julius clearly wished to interrogate further, but Nicholas excused himself. It was obvious, and Julius later confirmed, that there was no more to learn of that marriage. And the rest of it, so deftly touched on, he didn’t want to dig up.
She had all the guile, the old bitch, of her forebears. Riding off, Julius was as gloomy as he was. Then they joined Willie Roger and Jordan, and cheered up.
MALLOCH’S ESTATE, AS had been reported, was not far away. Nicholas had never been there, but Willie Roger’s infallible instinct for stout lungs and cavernous sinuses had led him ten years ago to discover the exceptional voices of Conn and his two motherless children, and recruit them for the religious play he and Nicholas had created in Edinburgh. For a short time, the children and Jordan had all stayed at the Priory at Haddington, but Nicholas had seen John and Muriella only intermittently since, and never at home. Muriella was three or four years older than Jordan, but younger than her brother. The girl might prefer to come north, but the boy was of an age to want to stay with his father and fight.
It was none of his business, or that of Julius. They were here only to remove Bonne and her chaperone to a place of greater safety. Nicholas stood, with Julius, at the gate of the modest keep which bore the same name as its owner, and watched Willie Roger slap the porter on the shoulder and in due course stride forward when Malloch appeared, large and smiling and fair as the Angel of