The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [30]
‘Yes,’ said Philippa.
‘And you think that knowing that, he will return all the sooner?’
‘It won’t be public,’ said Philippa. ‘And in other ways, I doubt if it would weigh with him. He has his own life.’
‘And you? You do not object to the stigma?’
‘You are what you are,’ Philippa said. ‘Birth can hardly change it. I want to see Lady Culter content. The rest is no business of mine.’
There followed a long pause. But before it was over she knew what the Abbess was going to say.
‘It is true, of course. Perhaps you have heard of Gavin, Sybilla’s late husband?’
Philippa nodded.
‘After Richard was born, Sybilla ended the marriage. In fact, if not by dissolution. Gavin would never divorce her. But the succession had to be secured. He made sure that there would be other children, and Sybilla recognized them in return for her privacy. Richard was born inside the marriage. The boy and the girl, Francis and his sister Eloise, were base born, of unknown mother or mothers in France, and Sybilla was there for each birth, and brought each child as her own back to Scotland. The pity was that she grew too fond, rearing them.’
‘And Marthe?’ said Philippa thinly.
The Abbess looked at her. ‘The child of your husband’s true mother, perhaps. I fear she had the happier part, being raised in her proper degree.… You are a girl of spirit.’
Thank you,’ said Philippa dimly.
‘But you would be all the better, I think, for some wine. Then, because of what you have heard, I am going to place you on oath. This matter is the concern of one person only: your husband.’
‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘But I don’t know how I’m going to tell him.’
*
Word of what was happening in Russia was slow to travel westwards to Europe. Hercules Tait learned it, in Venice, where he received a communication in educated handwriting which startled him somewhat and led him to cultivate assiduously his friend in the Council of Ten and thereafter to embark on a number of enjoyable letters.
The betting-shops were busy, as Mr Crawford would guess, about the fate of the Pope, Hercules Tait wrote. If age and disorderly living put an end to him, the French would lose a good ally. In England there was no other occupation at present but the cutting of heads, since Mary Tudor became Queen and brought back the old Catholic religion. The rebels from all the uprisings were fleeing as usual to France or to Germany or to Venice. The Queen’s rival William Courtenay was in prison again after fifteen years under duress, accused of trading cipher secrets engraved on the back of a guitar.…
The House of Commons, said Hercules Tait, had been begging the Queen not to proceed with her plan to marry Prince Philip of Spain, and had been violently rebuked by Queen Mary, saying she would consult with God on the matter and with nobody else; which greatly disturbed everybody. Even her friend Cardinal Pole had remarked that by the age she was, the Queen should content herself with the spouse who had always stood her in stead of a parent, he being God the Father. It is doubtful however, added Hercules Tait cheerfully, whether this would produce an heir which the distrustful nature of her subjects would accept.…
Carried by many strange and subterranean hands, the letters from Venice passed all summer and autumn from Italy over land and sea into Moscow. Other packets travelled the same route from different beginnings. In Brussels an anonymous banker wrote that the old Emperor Charles was better of his long sickness, had revised his will and tried on his armour, and by August had taken the field against France. To the Duke of Alva, negotiating the royal wedding with England, the Emperor had written: For the love of God see to it that my son behaves in the right manner, for otherwise I tell you I had rather never have taken the matter in hand in the first place.
From the Comté of Sevigny which belonged to Francis Crawford in France, Nicholas Applegarth wrote: The small Queen Mary of Scotland