The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [35]
Nicholas rose, his gaze on the other, and Godscalc could make nothing of the look on his face. Then he put down his cup and without thanks, or farewell, or courtesy, turned and walked out of the door.
On the way from the courtyard he passed, with hardly a glance, the figure of a short, well-dressed woman wearing a face-veil and large coloured earrings. Father Godscalc, following quickly, did not see her at all.
Chapter 6
BECAUSE SHE WAS in the courtyard that day against orders, Catherine de Charetty had her first little tiff with her fiancé. She enjoyed it. She was far from tired of being fondled, but it made a change to be scolded a little. She remembered her father scolding her, and the extravagant presents he brought to her afterwards.
She had come to Florence against orders as well. That is, she had announced she was leaving Pisa, and so he had been forced to bring her. She had come to realise how disappointed he was that she was still too young to marry, and sometimes it made him restless, so that he went out without her to find company. She knew from her mother’s friends that men, unlike women, got into trouble when they left home. They drank too much, and gambled their money away. It made her weep, now and then, to think about it. Pagano noticed it, and after that he stayed at home more. To begin with, when she and her Flemish nurse went out shopping, she suspected that Pagano was having a visitor. But when, once, she remarked on the smell, he merely produced with a flourish the source of it, and she had been ashamed as well as delighted. The scent had been mixed specially for her, and the apothecary had come that very day to deliver it. There was no one in the world like Pagano, even if he still could take her nowhere unless she was heavily veiled; and if there were princes in Florence, she hadn’t met them yet.
Of course, she hadn’t met her stepfather Nicholas either, even though he didn’t leave Florence right away, as Pagano thought he would. By asking frequently, she learned that not only Godscalc, but her mother’s doctor and notary were in Florence with him. She understood very well, of course, that she would be sent home immediately if any one of them saw her before she was married. But she was hurt that Pagano would not trust her even with the name of the place they were staying at. Then, coming back from some trip, she had seen Nicholas coming down the steps into her very own courtyard, and the priest Godscalc striding down after.
Nicholas was terribly different. She had forgotten how plainly and cheaply other men dressed compared with Pagano. The scar showed more distinctly than she remembered and he seemed preoccupied and solemn and unattractively powerful. A tear ran down the back of her throat and she sniffed, because he was part of her home, and she hadn’t been home for a long time. But he looked, as Pagano had said, like a man who would send her back in a hair shirt and a chastity belt. It didn’t sound at all comfortable. The old, funny Nicholas with the dimples would have joined in the game of deceiving her mother. But this Nicholas was her mother’s husband. And slept in her bed.
She had watched him leave with the priest, and had climbed the steps and entered her house in resentful mood. Then, when Pagano had shown his annoyance, she had enjoyed making him piqued in return. For what was he doing, talking to Nicholas?
The answer was dull enough. Nicholas had called unexpectedly to buy some of Pagano’s cargo. Nicholas might, it turned out, be staying in Florence through Christmas, but that would be nothing to them. She and Pagano would hold a festival of their own, with Pagano’s particular friends. And so long as she wore her veil, he would take her out visiting. He had other friends who would be happy to see her. There would be music and miming. There would be pageants and balls. So long as she went