Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [57]
Would she? Married at fifteen, Lucia de St Pol was still young; not much more than a decade older than he was. But through Nicholas, it would seem, she had lost the partner in a long, happy marriage, and also lost, in another way, her delightful son Diniz.
Brought from Cyprus to part him from Nicholas, Diniz would continue, surely, to be kept out of reach. The boy might rebel; but he had his mother’s business to run. And a scandal, it would surely be put to him, would harm Nicholas as much as himself. Jordan was clever.
Which left Gelis van Borselen, who would be eighteen or nineteen and a woman, instead of the short, strident child who had been jealous of Katelina her sister. Wilful Katelina, who had given herself out of pique to an apprentice, and died as a result, broken and starved in Famagusta.
Godscalc said, ‘Nicholas, we have arrived.’
The residence, now he saw it, was surprisingly like his own estate house in Kouklia: a walled yard approached by an archway and surrounded on all sides by buildings, of which the principal was a long red-tiled house of two storeys. Downhill, the town hummed like a beehive, and the hammer-blows and cries of the shipyards sounded distant and festive as firecrackers.
The double doors of the archway were already open. The porter, bowing, ushered them through to the yard where they dismounted, leaving their escort. Led by a steward, the chamberlain mounted the steps to the doors of Tristão’s home, Godscalc and Nicholas following. At the top was a long, open balcony, and within, another door which gave access, it proved, to an anteroom, and then to a further, larger chamber within which the steward hurried alone. Nicholas could hear his voice, and a woman’s. Then he returned and nodded, and stood aside as the Palace official entered, and then signalled that the gentlemen from the Ciaretti should follow him.
Godscalc said, ‘After you. Remember? You are beginning an entirely new contract.’
It was to be expected that Simon’s sister would have his yellow hair and blue eyes, but not that she would be tall, as tall, Nicholas conjectured, surprised, as Diniz her son, who was not of course here. The only other person here was a maid, who had also risen, a piece of sewing in her hands. Simon’s sister came forward.
In fact, her hair was not the butter-yellow of Simon’s, but something nearer to the colour of oats, and her brows and lashes were brown. Her facial bones, too, although marked, lacked the symmetry that made Simon’s face beautiful, and all his conquests so easy.
Watching her give her hand to the Governor’s chamberlain, Nicholas thought he saw none the less a hint of the same jouster’s freedom of carriage; and ran an assessing eye, before he could stop himself, over the black, high-seamed day gown of mourning which affirmed, clearly enough, the shape and proportions of the body beneath it. There, he had no need to guess, all Lucia’s real excellence lay.
Then he realised how he knew, and it was like being slammed in the stomach. Of course, this wasn’t Lucia.
He waited. His breath came back, parcel by parcel, although the pain remained in his throat. The chamberlain introduced him. ‘My lord, you know, of course, the lady Gelis van Borselen.’
‘I believe,’ she said, ‘he thought I was my hostess. The lady Lucia, I am sorry to say, is unwell. And Father Godscalc? Now I know the mission you speak of is serious.’ Her blue eyes, unwinking, stared into those of the priest.
You could see, if you knew him, that Godscalc’s colour had risen. He said, ‘We are not here to speak of our mission. They tell me your father died on the way here. You have lost both parents now to the grave, as well as a sister. We who knew them, mourn with you.