The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [82]
“Catherine?” Nicholas said. He sat as still as a cat at a mousehole. “Don’t be afraid. Your woman is here, and Father Godscalc. I should have waited, but I have to go soon, and I had to see you. Tell me what’s happened.”
One of her women was there, looking frightened and even plainer than usual. Godscalc? That was the chaplain her mother had hired, to join the army somewhere in Italy. She saw a big man with a tonsure and black, untidy hair, but hardly remembered him. She heeled her way up the mattress and sat with the sheet wrapped like gloves round her collarbones. She could hear her own shortened breathing. She stared in exasperation at Nicholas. Claes.
A gentleman would have called, by arrangement, with bridal gifts. Or contrived (dazzled) to see her at some superior function. Or challenged Pagano to fight him. Or climbed a rope and attempted to abduct her. Nicholas sat planked on her bed in his old clothes, like a busy cook who had run down a kitchenmaid. And had brought the family priest with him.
Catherine said, “I remember Father Godscalc. He was in Italy when you killed my brother Felix.”
He had his back to the light, and didn’t stir. He said, “We heard you had married.”
“Did you?” she said. “Well, you heard right. You can’t break it, either. Pagano got all the papers. Twice. We married in Florence, and then in Messina. Not some hole-in-the-corner affair in a borrowed chapel.”
“But not with the blessing of your family, either.” It was the priest’s voice. He was not even Flemish. He had nothing to do with it. She stared at him. She said, “The family signed the papers. You don’t know them.”
“Who?” said Nicholas.
“My godfather. My uncle. Thibault de Fleury. You saw his brother dead, too,” Catherine said.
The maid suddenly whined and Catherine turned on her. “Do you think he’s going to kill you? Don’t be afraid. He gets other people to do it. He couldn’t even ravish you unless you were old.” She turned back. “I expect my lord Pagano at any moment. He fights men who insult his wife.”
Nicholas made no comment on that at all. He said, “Does your mother know?”
Naturally, it would be all he could think of. She said, “Now she will. Pagano wrote her from Florence.”
He said, “Pagano did?” but she saw no point in repeating herself. He said, “You left no word for your mother before Florence?”
She made her tone insolent. “No. She would have stopped me, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas. The flow of questions had stuck. He sat bent like a man with the stomach ache, his arms folded, his eyes on the floor. Then he took a quick breath and looked at her afresh, with no sign of annoyance or anger. He said, “Look. Never mind all that, it doesn’t matter now. We’re here just to be sure of one thing. That you’re with Doria by your own wish and of your own free will, and that you’re happy. Will you tell us that, Catherine?”
She recognised, with pleasure, the opportunity he had given her. She dropped one hand on her lap, and gave him a disdainful smile. The sheet, gracefully maintained at her breast, exposed one naked shoulder and a fall of fine russet hair. She said, “How could you imagine my happiness? My marriage is perfect. My husband is better born than anyone you have even met. And don’t think you can spoil it, for he thought of everything. He waited till I was a woman. He gave me a dog.”
Nicholas looked at her. It was his stupid look, straight from a fight in the dyeyard. He said, “I knew that was the mistake.”
The priest said, “Take it steadily.”
Nicholas acknowledged it, if at all, with an unhurried fall of his eyelids. Then he began again in his most ordinary voice. “I’d like to talk to your husband. I shall wait as long as I can. But whether I do or not, I shall be writing home, Catherine. What shall