Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [92]
‘Gelis more than any of us,’ Kathi had said. ‘I’m glad you told him.’
Now it was almost the first thing he spoke of when they entered the small, empty room. Even before he found a seat for her, he drew her round and said, facing her, ‘You are tired. I shan’t keep you. I just wanted to ask if there was anything more I could do or say now that would help.’
‘About Robin? You saw him come alive today,’ Kathi said. ‘That’s enough for the moment.’
He still stood. ‘And about your uncle. I’m so sorry. I would have stayed in Bruges if I’d known.’
‘I know. But you were here, for Phemie.’
‘She did need someone,’ he said. ‘Most of all, she wanted to hear from your uncle. But now? Do I tell her he’s in prison? I think I have to. She would hear.’
‘Do you want me to see her and judge?’ Kathi said. ‘You don’t need to be careful. I do have room for someone other than Robin, and she was a very good friend.’
Nicholas said, ‘I didn’t want to ask, but it would mean a lot. You might want to see her alone. You might want to take her the letter. Or your brother, once you have told him.’
‘Saunders?’ she said. ‘I think Saunders might need some time. This is not the way he wants to think of his uncle. But I can deal with all that, I think.’
‘Can you? Or shall I?’
‘Goodness, no. This will be an Adorne affair in his eyes. I could always manage Saunders. Well, nearly always. So,’ said Kathi with finality, ‘I think you and I should see Phemie together. Then she can be sure, if anything happens, that at least she has one Adorne to rely on, as well as you.’ She paused: ‘Are you standing because you’ve ridden too far, or because you want to get away fast?’
Then he pulled a face, and seated her on the only chair while he found a cushioned coffer for himself. There he rested back on the tapestried wall, as he had when he was a prisoner in her uncle’s house, and she had visited him. She said, ‘We are all tired,’ and he answered, ‘I know. But meeting you is like being rewound.’
They had known each other ever since she was fourteen. Their minds had always been close. She felt an ache because it was so much simpler to talk to someone whose eyes—over-large and sleepless and direct—were on the same level as her own, and whose whole, co-ordinated body was an extra instrument of subtle communication. His physical presence was one of the instantly memorable things about Nicholas. In another man of his background, the unusual height, the powerful shoulders and limbs, might have seemed uncouth or unwieldy, but through his adventurous life, he had been moulded to grace by many hands. Against that, the broad-blocked face, with its large eyes and repertoire of expressions, had nothing classical about it, or even remarkable, unless it were the two deep dimples, absent now, and the scar given him as a boy by Jordan de St Pol.
You would say, at first glance, a comely man; then an ugly one. Then you might change your mind yet again. The ambiguity was what had first attracted the attention of David Simpson, and no doubt Gelis van Borselen, who had also known him as a child. Gelis had passed through a fire of her own making in order to earn the right to live at his side. Now she would face anything for him. Yet, in all that, there was no rivalry between Gelis and herself. She, Kathi, had Robin. What bound Kathi to Nicholas was quite a different bond. And, today, perhaps also a lifeline.
Nicholas said, as if he had followed her thinking: ‘I’ve spoken to Tobie about Robin. He requires permanent care. But he will have to learn to think for himself.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘We smother him. But he will need us less, soon.’ She hesitated, and then said what she wanted to say. ‘I have told Robin that he is free, if he finds it too much. Tobie says you can’t tell yet whether he’ll manage, because he’s so young. He has to find a method of living, but at the moment he’s tired, and his wounds are not fully healed. It will all take a while.’ She stopped again. ‘He has asked me if