Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [183]
Nicholas lay, feeling foolish. Because he also felt rather ill, he eventually spoke. ‘Tell him that his father was not killed by my agency. Tell him that, when I found my company in Rhodes, I had already promised King James that we should serve him, or nobody. If I’d told the Queen that, my men would never have left Rhodes alive. And there is one last thing. I had no idea that you and Diniz would be on board that ship for Cyprus. This was never intended.’
She said, ‘So why are you keeping us?’ He couldn’t tell whether she believed any of it or not.
He said, ‘I am keeping Diniz, since he is here, for his own good. I am not keeping you. That is the fault, I gather, of my – of Jordan de Ribérac.’
It was not a slip he would ever have normally made, and she struck immediately, with such speed that he saw her stance had not changed by a fraction. ‘Of your grandfather, you nearly said. You still pretend to believe he’s your grandfather?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. His eyes were worn out with the ache in his head.
‘But you do. That is what I can’t forgive,’ she said with sudden vehemence. ‘You knew what you were doing. It wasn’t by chance. You truly thought and think Simon is your father, and devised the foulest revenge, using me.’ Her voice rose. ‘Using me. Using me.’
‘That’s enough!’ Tobie said briskly. To reduce emotion was, after all, part of his job; and he was good at it. Nicholas heard him through a light haze, which made it remarkably difficult to assemble his own thoughts. He suspected that, after all, Tobie had doctored that drink. Up to the very last moment, his wits failed to warn him what was going to happen.
The girl said, ‘Using me!’ in a scream, and Tobie took charge. He said, ‘That’s enough. Stop! Forget what he did. However dreadful it was, no one is suffering. Simon doesn’t know Henry isn’t his son. The boy will be reared as a nobleman. Nicholas is making no claims on the child or on you. Why pursue such a feud? Look what it’s doing to Diniz!’
Nicholas heard that, all right. He said, ‘Jesus Christ!’ It came out muffled; rather like a short sneeze. Katelina said nothing at all.
Then she said, ‘You know. Who else has – has vander Poele told?’
A sense of disaster, clearly, had come too late to Tobie. He said, ‘Nicholas –’ in an uncertain way. Then, slowly, he pulled himself together. He said, ‘I’m a fool. I’m a fool. Demoiselle, I should never have mentioned it. Nicholas didn’t tell anyone. He wouldn’t. We found out by accident. He had a fever, and rambled. We guessed, and we were – distressed, and he swore us to silence.’
‘He told you and who else?’ Katelina van Borselen said. Her voice, descended in pitch and in volume, was now unnaturally steady.
‘Myself and a priest called Father Godscalc. We gathered – I had better tell you what we gathered. That Nicholas got you with child, and then married Marian de Charetty, as you married Simon. And that Simon believes this son of yours to be his own.’ He paused. He said, ‘Your secret will be kept by us and by Nicholas. You must know he doesn’t take this thing lightly.’
Nicholas said, ‘She knows nothing. We’ve been apart since it happened.’ His head swam, and his heart knocked his breath about. The speech he always ought to have made; the meeting they should have had long ago – both were upon him now; and, half-drugged and in public, he must find the right words now or never. He tried to speak clearly and simply. ‘Given the chance, I should have said to her that I had no idea she was with child. She didn’t tell me. She could not, after all, bear the child of an apprentice. Later, I understood that.’
To Katelina, it must have seemed nearly as difficult. She looked at Tobie, then straight at the bed. It was the first time Nicholas had seen her look at him properly. Katelina said, ‘I was in Brittany.’ Her voice had altered again. ‘You knew I couldn’t reach you in time. You knew Simon wanted to marry me. You knew that, to save myself, I would marry Simon. And you knew I didn’t know the connection between Simon and you.’
He said, ‘Katelina. How could I know