Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [420]
‘But wasn’t he a liability too?’ Nicholas said. He kept his voice quiet.
Wodman said, ‘I warned him not to try and attract the old man, or he would be either thrown out or killed. Most of the work filtered through me. With my looks, I was considered reliable.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Nicholas said. He tried, as he always had done, to look at what had happened objectively, as if it had occurred to someone else. That it had been a forced marriage was known at the time; and so was Simon’s dislike of his wife: far older than he was; kept long unmarried by some doubt or timidity no one had plumbed. Sophie’s second child had arrived when he had long been out of the country, and the dates of birth had never been properly proved. There was only one certainty: that Simon had not been near his wife between the two births. Eager for any excuse to end the marriage, Simon would find, to his delight, that he suddenly had his father’s full agreement. His father had belatedly found that the taint he abhorred existed in Simon’s wife’s family, and was now harboured, no doubt, in the child. He intimidated Sophie. He menaced the life of her son. He threatened to ruin Jaak’s business, and the reputation and business of Thibault, unless the child was brought up as a bastard, and did not bear the name of St Pol. He continued to threaten her until, alone, without any hope of help from her invalid father, she became afraid that she would make some mistake, and so offend her oppressor that her son would die. She thought it better to remove herself from her son’s life.
That had been the hardest part to accept. Once, Nicholas had said something of it to Jordan, but nothing to anyone else. It went too deep. As his understanding had grown with the years, so had the torment. He had lost many mothers, many times. The mother who left without warning because he disappointed her; because she never cared for him; because he was wicked. The mother who took her own life—died—because he had failed her. The mother who took her own life—committed her soul to eternal misery—for his sake. Because she was afraid that, scared and hounded, she would do or say something that would harm him.
And, finally, the mother who loved him; who sacrificed herself for him; and yet could not trust him to help her; could not talk to him; could not envisage that he, even at seven, was staunch, determined, agile: a small bulwark, maybe, but there, only for her.
Marian de Charetty had seen all those things, no more than three years after that, and had trusted him. It was why he had loved her. It was the source of the greatest pain, that he stood between Marian and his mother, with all his mortgaged love, and no one to help him apportion it.
Wodman went on explaining. It fitted with what he already knew. The consequences of Sophie’s death could be imagined. When she died, Jordan de St Pol was out of the country. Thibault’s keepers knew nothing suspicious about Jaak. When St Pol returned, he found the child, apparently contented, performing menial work in the home of the same Jaak de Fleury, abuser of children. It confirmed all St Pol’s fears. It made it intolerable when, as the child grew, it became apparent that, however deprived, however unprepossessing, it was endowed with all the intelligence that his own son Simon lacked; and the power to attract affection, and happiness. After that had come the bitter scarring; the cynical whim of throwing Simon and Nicholas together, base coin and silver, to see what would happen. For by then, Monseigneur had also realised that the joyous lusts of the artisan Claes were not of the same cadre as Jaak’s. All the girls in Flanders seemed able to prove it.
One listened, and breathed. ‘And so he hit on the idea of setting