The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [148]
Her face, full of anger, hung above him. Full of contempt, full of horror. She put out her finger and traced the scar on his cheek, and it stung as if opened all over again. He said, “Don’t let Jordan mark him. Don’t make the boy bear the burden.”
The face above him changed: not in expression but in contour. Instead of long brown hair, there was a tanned, shining cranium. Instead of the fierce dislike of a woman it was the disgust of a man with pale eyes and a short nose and brief, tightened lips. The hand that withdrew from his scar was that of Tobie.
Nicholas, returned to the world, lay under the echoes of his own voice and looked up at the uncurtained bedposts of his chamber in the Florentine fondaco in Trebizond. By his side, straightening now, was the bald-headed man who had tended him already twice, but had never greeted his recovery with such an expression. By the window stood the priest, Godscalc. His face, also, told that something had happened.
And of course it had. He had been speaking, out of some dream. He remembered the urgency of it; the need to persuade her…
He remembered what the dream was about, and saw what he had done. He was too tired to move, but he kept his eyes open, and on Tobie’s. Only a fool, only a weakling, claims pity.
Tobie spoke. “Your grandfather scarred you?”
So it was to begin. “Yes,” said Nicholas. His voice was quite adequate.
“And he was ruined. All your foes were ruined or killed except Simon. You spared him. We commended you for it. Spared him!”
Tobie’s eyes, when he stared, became round and pale with the pupil shrunk like a hawk’s in the middle. Nicholas held them, saying nothing. Tobie said, “Unknown to Simon, his heir Henry is his wife’s child by you?”
“No,” said Nicholas. It was useless, but he said it.
“Despising you, he will unwittingly cherish your son. Your son will have all you wanted, and his wife is your mistress.”
“No,” said Nicholas. He waited. He said, “Katelina has kept to her marriage vows. And so have I.”
Godscalc’s voice spoke from the window. “The dates, Tobie. The child was conceived before either marriage.”
“So you forced the girl?” Tobie said. “How did you even meet, you an apprentice and she one of the van Borselen family? You waylaid and raped her?”
“No. Yes,” Nicholas said. His eyes, stretched open, stung with steam. No, of course, sweat. No one came with a towel. He said, “I didn’t know she and Simon would marry. If you tell him…this story…he will probably kill her. And the child.”
“Perhaps she has told him now,” Tobie said.
Godscalc said, “Clearly Nicholas thinks not.”
Tobie said, “Then I shall. My God, you claim this man is your father? Simon fought you in the open. And you did this. No one knew, but it didn’t matter. No one but you, I suppose, and the child’s mother. What does she think of your revenge? Now you’ve used her. Now you’ve repaid him, obscenely, by smearing his bloodline with incest?”
The word was spoken. It passed through him, swirling the mud of his body. He kept his eyes open, and his lips shut. Tobie said, “Unless your wife knows as well?”
“Come,” said Godscalc. His voice sounded abrupt. “Let’s keep our senses. I am quite sure the demoiselle knows nothing and will never hear anything. Tobie, nothing can be said about this. It would harm only the innocent. The child and its mother. Marian de Charetty. The Borselen family. Think what Catherine and her sister will feel. And how Pagano Doria will…gloat.”
Between one word and the next, he had changed his mind about something. Nicholas returned the priest’s gaze, which was harsh, and sought for the reason. Tobie said, “And this is the voice of the Church?”
“It’s the voice of sense,” Godscalc said. “Nicholas will pay for what he has done. I can assure you of that. Meantime, he has made Simon a happy man. Indeed,