The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [111]
Know your enemy. Know what she will do, and what she will not. Nicholas turned. ‘Persuade them,’ he said.
‘No!’ said Margot, and spun Gelis round by the arm. ‘Tell them what they want to know. Or I shall tell Nicholas everything. And the van Borselen family. I shall break every promise I made you.’
Gelis looked at her. The captain paused, half out of the room. Gelis sighed. Then she said, ‘What a fuss over nothing! What sort of persuasion do you think they would use? And the moment it began to be painful, someone would blurt out the truth. I don’t know why people always will hurry things.’
Involuntarily, Nicholas laughed. He said, ‘Neither do I. But I think that, by any standards, the time has come to concede. Where is the child, Gelis?’
‘Oh, well,’ she said. She turned to the captain. ‘Two hours away. Write it down. I don’t want to be blamed if you lose the way.’ And, calmly, she gave an address.
Margot released her and sat down.
‘You need some food,’ Nicholas said. He walked out and called down the stairs. The captain passed him, running below with the paper. Outdoor noises penetrated almost at once: shouting and the jingle of harness. From inside, below him, there continued a hubbub of voices and crying. No one came to his summons.
Nicholas swore under his breath, but without very much violence. Instead of calling again, he walked down the stairs and into the heart of the uproar. After a while, he got them to listen. No one had been hurt, and they agreed, after a while, that young women in childbirth had peculiar ideas, and that these were of less importance than the expensive new roof they required for their hospice.
While he was there, he had food sent upstairs, and some ale. He didn’t go upstairs himself, but joined the Abbess in her private parlour, and allowed himself the luxury, all the time she was talking, of one fine glass of wine.
The Abbess said, ‘If you won’t eat, you should sleep. We’ll see the Lady comes to no harm. I shall wake you when the party comes back with the child.’
The chamber he was given was small, and contained only a bed. Gelis was a courtyard away and one floor above him, but he had left men on guard. He expected Margot would sleep. Obviously Gelis would not, nor would he. Not now.
They had to shake him awake. Eventually, he rolled off the bed, and then sat on the edge, slowly dressing. ‘I’m sorry,’ the captain was saying. ‘I’m sorry, we got to the house but they’d gone. It seems like another troop came and took over, and rode away with the babe, none knows where. That’s wicked, sir. Or do you think the mother planned it again?’
‘I expect so,’ he said. ‘And if she’s wise, she probably doesn’t know the real destination herself. Well, I can’t wait. We’ll have to leave it. You’ve done well. I think you’ll find they have some meat and ale here they won’t grudge you, and then a barn where you can sleep for a bit. I’m going back.’
‘I’ll give you a man, sir?’ said the captain. ‘Or more, if the Lady’s going with you?’
He said, ‘No. I’ll go alone. It’s only four hours to Bruges.’ He would have daylight for most if not all of it. The captain, naturally, did not persist.
His horse was already saddled when he went indoors for the last time and ascended the stairs. Margot intercepted him before he could go further. She said painfully, ‘Gelis tricked you. I didn’t know. She let it go so far before she gave in.’ She broke off. She said, ‘Sometimes I think I can’t forgive her. Or you.’
‘No one was hurt,’ Nicholas said. He touched her, and she flinched. ‘The screams were part of the play-acting too.’
‘Simon was hurt,’ she said. ‘You say Lucia is dead, and Henry in some sort of trouble. What kind of play-acting is that? I think you should leave your wife with her child, and give up what you are doing in Scotland.’
He dropped his hand. ‘Do you?’ he said.
‘You can’t want this marriage. Open war, with a child in the middle? And it is escalating. You incite one another.’
‘I expect Gregorio would agree with you,’ Nicholas said. ‘Would you like to come back