Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [237]
Claes. She had wished to call him Nicholas, and he had shown her that the wish did her no credit. Now, when she had even more cause to slaughter her pride, she found herself resisting. She remembered what Claes the man and the lover were like, and he bore no badges of servitude, and many of joy. In his own right, he was Nicholas.
From there, she was moved for the first time to wonder what he would make of the child. He had no reason to expect this would happen. She had convinced him otherwise. He had said, and she believed him, that he had no wish for marriage. He had dismissed, with finality, the alternative. But if there was a child coming?
If its coming were interrupted, what would he feel? But to dispose of it was her right, as it had been her decision to risk conceiving it. If she bore it in secret for fostering, would he want to know? He might not. Or he might, if told, take the child. Even proclaim, for the child’s sake, who its mother was.
What was his own rearing? She knew so little about him. He had had his mother, she thought, for a few years. Then he had gone to some distant relative, who had been harsh. No. A man brought up like that wouldn’t see his child given away. He would have, then, to be made to believe that it was not his. Unless …
Unless. The second month passed, and her eyes became large and profound, and her cheekbones sharpened a little. Sometimes she was late for her morning duties, but she never missed one. She met many men, but none she liked. She took no lovers, but kept thinking of the one she had had.
In the second week of June, when she knew she must do something, Jordan de Ribérac returned. This time, the Dowager was closeted with her astrologer and her companion on duty was absent. But for the page at the door, Katelina sat alone in the outer chamber. The fat man, with sketchy formality, sat down beside her.
The eyes again stripped her naked, from fichu to high waist and below. And this time, there was something to see. Jordan de Ribérac said, “Well, demoiselle. Where is your husband now?”
Katelina said, “You think I should have one? Are you proposing yourself again, M. de Ribérac?”
He smiled. He said, “The number of suitors is not so great, is it? The Duke, I am sure, would make an accommodation, but he cannot marry you, and the state of his leg, I am told, is truly distressing. As for the others, you know the situation, I’m sure, as well as I do. You hear the news from home?’
The tone of his voice urged her to say that she had. Instinct kept her to the truth. She said, “No. Letters seem to have been lost.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I see. Then perhaps I can give you first news of these promising friends of yours. My son. Let us begin with my son. Simon, it appears, is on the verge of a most advantageous alliance with a lady called Muriella, the daughter of John Reid, the Staple merchant. Will she be fecund? I wonder. Simon is not fond of children. But you must, I am afraid, dismiss the charming illusion that once we shared. My sweet Simon will not run to your call.
“Who else? The Gruuthuse family, I am told, have begun actively pressing young Guildolf to make his final choice. He is young. But he would, I think have swallowed his rebuff and come to you, except that he and his parents are in Bruges and you have abandoned him to come here. Poor Guildolf.”
Jordan de Ribérac sighed. “And there is really no one else, is there? You disliked your parents’ other two candidates, so that you won’t be sorry to hear that they have each made a contract with the girl of their choice. I know of no one else who has been able to pierce the magic circle of your maiden reserve. Unless, of course, you count the young workman Claes.”
Katelina said, “Hardly.”
“Hardly?” said the fat man. “After you and your sister took such trouble to lift him – twice? – out of our canals? An act of mercy I commend,