The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [106]
Why? Gelis had never said, and Margot could not ask her.
She could attempt, though, to guess. Chance having made them lovers in Africa, perhaps Nicholas or Gelis – or both – had resented the inevitable bondage of marriage. But then, by all accounts, the illicit union had continued on their return; both had seemed desirous of marriage. And yet that again was contradictory. To plan such a betrayal, Gelis could neither have loved Nicholas de Fleury nor pitied him, for all she had allowed him every liberty, over and over, and must have brought herself to respond.
But physical passion and hatred could live together. She might have been jealous of Umar, except that Umar was married. She might have resented the life of the mind which Nicholas had pursued, except that she, too, was not unread or unintelligent. Perhaps the other wives of Nicholas, his other mistresses haunted her. Or maybe it was something quite different. Perhaps, in their idyll in Africa, Gelis had truly plumbed the nature of Nicholas; had identified what other men had suspected: something that was not humane, or cheerful, or generous. She had seen perhaps that his famous stoicism was something to fear, as you would fear a wolf tormented by children. A wolf she had chosen to challenge.
Once, after she had left Gregorio to come here, Margot had asked about Katelina, the sister who had married Simon de St Pol and died in Cyprus. Gelis had turned the subject. Simon believed, Margot knew, that Nicholas was responsible for his wife’s death. If Gelis believed that as well, it could account for something of this. What was transparent, however, was that Gelis had no interest in the man she had picked to father her child. He was a cipher. He had been chosen to cause Nicholas the utmost – what? Anguish? But that would presuppose affection for Gelis. Anger? Offended pride must feature in all this, of course. And outrage, because she had defiled the legitimate line of his house. His first-born would be a bastard.
Yet Nicholas had offered to make it a de Fleury, and rear it.
Margot did not believe that, although Gregorio did. That was why she had come here in the first instance – because she did not believe that a man like Nicholas would tamely accept Simon’s child as his own. Nor would it matter if it were not Simon’s child, but a substitute, a poor changeling brought in to deceive him. Sooner or later, Nicholas was going to retaliate, and Margot meant to be here. Not to stand between husband and wife. Not to protect this distant fair girl, oppressed and silent, whom she hardly saw and whose private torment she could only guess at. But for the child, if there was to be a child.
A solitary woman, she could offer small help, except for what comfort her presence might bring. She did not expect the girl’s confidence, and did not receive it. But the weeks had been made to pass, and she had been tolerated, and thus was present, now the moment had come. The moment when Nicholas de Fleury would enter these rooms and, after nearly eight months, speak again with his wife.
She might have known that he would not honour the bidding. He came, indeed, the day after his arrival, but at first light, when the lamps still burned in the yard, and the grooms were breaking the ice in the troughs and the smell of warm bread and smoke lingered under the eaves. The gates were already open, but he dismounted and stood, in the way only Nicholas stood, while the porter trod through the crackling slush to announce him. Instead of tomorrow, he had come through the night.
Indoors, the line of light under his wife’s door went out. Gelis had heard the voices and crossed to her window to look. Margot continued to stand watching from hers. There was little to see. He was alone and anonymous, his harness and cloak outwardly undistinctive, his face an obscure patch between hat-brim and scarves. Then the porter returned with the guest-house master,