Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [61]
That was something her father had not forgotten to mention. She understood that she was still in his town house at Bruges and not yet dispatched to Zeeland or Brussels because he was displeased with her, and hoped, while Simon was still in Flanders, that she would repent and repair matters between them. Oddly, she was in two minds about that. For a man gently reared, Simon’s behaviour in the garden had been crass (she told herself). He was spoiled with easy conquests – but who wouldn’t be, with such looks? She had been … She had been aware of his power herself.
If, as was rumoured, the girl found in Metteneye’s cellar had been his property, then at least he had handled the matter with style. And as for the business at Sluys – the Charetty’s rollicking labourer had by all accounts been the first to draw blood, and deserved whatever had happened thereafter.
She had noted the faint reserve with which men spoke of Simon. He was well over thirty. He had a long record of dalliance and only a short one of practical stewardship. She recalled, certainly, that she had met his unwelcome attentions on their last meeting with an insult which had sent him off in a temper. Afterwards, she wished she had managed it better. But it was marriage … marriage she had to engineer, not what threatened to swamp her that night.
Now, if she wished it, she had a second chance. Now, for example, he could not so well afford to reduce his circle of well-wishers. If she met him tonight, she would be amiable.
She had nothing to lose. She had no desire to enter a convent. She had served the Queen of Scotland without gaining a husband. The Duchess of Burgundy lived at Nieppe apart from her husband and surrounded by handsome Portuguese. Simon’s sister had married one of them. But there was no guarantee that the Duchess’s entourage would bring her a husband: it was just as likely to bring her the Duke.
She wondered if in that event her father would be shocked, and realised that he was probably hoping against hope that such a thing would happen. He had no heirs apart from Gelis and herself. He had borrowed heavily, she knew, to raise even the small dowry which would have gone with her hand to the objectionable – the abominable Scottish lord she had rejected. She had costly gowns. She had family jewels of some value, and some even rarer, presented by the princesses she had served. She had been allowed to keep these. They enhanced her value.
She wished she were a widow; independent; in control of her life and her intelligence.
She looked about. Soon, according to custom, the Controller’s trumpeters would announce the principal guests, and a procession would form which would lead them to the banqueting-room. The commander of the Flanders galleys would, one assumed, accompany the Controller. The Dauphin Louis, they said, had also consented to be present.
She had met him once in Brussels, a sharp-featured man in his thirties. She had been about to leave on her three-year exile to Scotland. He had just fled to Burgundy to escape the court of his father in France. One day he would be king of that country. He was welcome to it. Meanwhile …
Ah. Dyers did not, then, ostracise the antagonists of other dyers. There, on the other side of the hall, was Simon of Kilmirren.
Steering her father discreetly from group to group, Katelina van Borselen made her way across Controller Bladelin’s crowded hall to where gleamed the remarkable hair of Simon of Kilmirren under a leafy concoction of taffeta. Trailing leaves feathered his oversleeves, and his jacket was buttoned with acorns. He had his back to her.
His stance was unwontedly stiff, as if in the presence