The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [205]
Simon looked up. He came across to her and held both her hands. He said, ‘Forget Henry. Promises to children mean nothing. Gelis: Katelina tried to please, but you cannot doubt which of you is more gifted. You are wasted on Nicholas. Come to Scotland, to me.’
She thought. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘When I have been to Alexandria.’
Gelis van Borselen was aware, since she had not been invited to Alexandria, that to arrive there would take some ingenuity, and that there was therefore a great deal to do. But before she embarked on her preparations, there was one visit she felt compelled to make time for.
Margriet van der Banck, arranging the Hôtel Jerusalem for royalty, was pleased to see her, but unable to speak more than two consecutive words without breaking off to admonish, encourage, direct or sometimes chastise the flock of helpers who – hammering, sweeping, painting; climbing stairs with stools and chests and hangings; or staggering towards the kitchens with boxes of platters and pans – were turning the residence of Anselm Adorne into a place fit for the Scottish traitor Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, and his wife, the King’s sister.
The distraction of Dame Margriet was in fact a convenience: it prevented any but sporadic references to the little baby, and Dame Margriet’s gift to the little baby, and the absence of the little baby’s father. In any case, Dame Margriet did not dwell on the baby’s father, who – Gelis remembered – had been ungrateful enough to wound Anselm in some scuffle in Scotland. Anselm was back now, of course, from his second trip – so successful! The young King so charming, so generous! – and was preparing for the difficult meetings he was to arrange for the spring and the summer: meetings which would decide once and for all the trading arrangements between Scotland and Flanders. Who else could do it but Anselm?
Anselm Adorne himself, discovered in his office guiltily attempting to work in the face of the tempest of renovation below, cleared a seat for her and said, ‘I have no doubt that you have come, like the rest of Bruges, to see the parrot. It is on the floor above, with my niece Katelijne. How are you, Gelis?’
‘Chastened,’ she said. ‘I thought, after the way Nicholas treated you, that you ought to know that he was going abroad. He is, but not until next spring. I am sorry.’
He touched her hand. ‘Nicholas and I are not enemies. Oh, I know what happened in Scotland. He did what he did in desperation, not out of cold blood. I won’t deny’ – he smiled – ‘that he is a stimulating opponent. He had a scheme for a stud farm which would have ruined Metteneye and myself if I hadn’t guessed what his object was. But I should never wish him ill, Gelis. He is a rare individual. Cherish him.’
‘Do you need to tell me? I married him,’ she said; and gave him a smile. ‘I must go. You are busy. It cannot be welcome, this visit. You have leave of the Duke to entertain the Princess and her husband?’
‘What do you suppose?’ said her host. ‘So long as the visit is private, and the Duke is not involved. The problem will arise, I imagine, when it is a question of baptising the infant. Ah! You did not know that the lady Mary is about to bear her first child?’
‘No,’ Gelis said. Wolfaert had said nothing of that – fearing, perhaps, that she might be moved out of pity to offer her services. That, then, was why the homeless pair had been forced to end their hapless wandering; to seek a place for the birth worthy of the Princess’s – rank, and where the child would receive public acknowledgement. She said, ‘Does King James know of this? Will he not regard you as shielding a traitor?’
‘I have consulted King James,’ said Adorne mildly. ‘His first reaction was just as you say. But he is fond of his sister, and she will not leave Thomas Boyd. And few others in Flanders could take her. One would not wish such a dilemma, for example, upon Wolfaert.’
She felt herself flush. She said, ‘Wolfaert