Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [80]
She assumed she was being told perhaps an eighth, perhaps even a quarter of the truth. Kathi, consulted, agreed, but added that Nicholas would be much comforted by the belief that he was sparing her, and Gelis must simply suffer in a good cause. It did not occur to Gelis, then, that Kathi might know more than she did.
By the end of April, there were two further letters from Nicholas, written later in March, and after he had received some of her own. It appeared that Tobie had told him something of her share in the Ghent Gate arrival, and Nicholas was frightened enough to be angry, which touched and pleased her: tit for tat. She read, with awe, his plans for Robin’s business, and learned that he had met Prosperde Camulio, but not Simpson, so far. He mentioned Adorne, and asked Gelis whether she had received a letter in code. He did not know, of course, that Adorne was in prison, or how delayed Phemie’s letter had been. He must be waiting, with more and more disquiet, for Adorne’s reply.
He would have it soon. By mid-April, when that cautiously worded enquiry reached Gelis, Kathi had left, braving the seas to take Robin and her children to Scotland, and Tobie and Clémence with them. And taking, too, the precious document, newly written by Anselm Adorne, which accepted with joy Phemie’s child, and which asked her to marry him. It brought to Gelis’s mind that other, older affirmation whose existence she had confided to Diniz. Then, there had been no question of marriage, for the child’s mother, her sister, was dying. This was different. Now she must pray that Adorne, the father, would survive.
Now, with Kathi gone, Gelis was alone with her anxieties in Bruges. But no. Of course she wasn’t alone. She had Jodi. Diniz was here, and his family. John had travelled to Sluys, as she had, to see Robin and the others depart; but, returning, had withdrawn into silence, sitting in corners with clerks, engaged in the final, dreary paperwork to do with the ending at Nancy of the mercenary company of which he had been master gunner. Outside, she had acquaintances: Bruges was full of people who had known Nicholas from boyhood. Letters came from the managers who had been friends—Gregorio in Venice, Father Moriz and Govaerts in Cologne, where they had been joined by Julius, direct from his successful visit with Tobie to Nancy. And with them (and long might she stay there) was Julius’s step-daughter Bonne.
Gelis had no right to repine, and indeed little time, for she was occupied with the closing of Robin’s affairs as well as the normal business of the Hof Charetty-Niccolò. And above all else, she set to work for the survival of Adorne of Cortachy, who was still under duress, untried, despite all that she and Wolfaert and Gruuthuse had so far been able to do. The little Duchess, temporarily freed for her inauguration, was applied to, but Gelis herself—tellingly escorted by John—had seen her only briefly, and left with no promises and a feeling of helplessness on both sides. Their protests had, however, borne some kind of fruit: the execution of Adorne’s condemned companion had been delayed, and so had the trial of the others, as well as his own. But that was also to keep matters quiet during the visit of the Imperial embassy, come to Bruges to arrange for the Duchess’s wedding. And then there had followed the actual contract of marriage, which required the Duke of Bavaria, representing the groom, to lie down with the Duchess in bed, both being fully dressed, with a naked sword lying between them.