The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [206]
Adorne looked contrite. ‘My dear! Did you think that I imagined he would? No. They came because no one else could suitably give them asylum. Or because they had a little advice.’ He tilted his head. ‘Have you never wondered – were you never told who contrived their disappearance from Scotland?’
There was amusement in his voice, and some irony, and a hint of weariness. She lost all the air in her lungs, and recovered it slowly. ‘Nicholas?’
He laughed. ‘It is, I imagine, a fairly safe wager. And to think I forgave him my injury! Indeed, I received his magnanimous assurance that he owed me a favour. Do you suppose that this is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gelis. ‘But, speaking even as his wife and a partisan, let me say that I hope you will balance the score. Ser Anselm, I must go. Should I see the parrot?’
‘Yes! Yes, of course,’ Adorne said. ‘And Katelijne. You will remember her as a child – and, to be sure, she is still small for her age, and troubled by weakness – but I have to admit, although she is my own niece, that there are elements in her that Margriet and I find quite extraordinary.’
‘She has no husband arranged?’ Gelis said.
Adorne smiled. ‘Talk to her, and then tell me what I should do. Perhaps she should wait for your son.’
The parrot had red and blue feathers and was in a cage, talking Greek. That was the first jolt. The second followed immediately.
Beside the cage was a stack of striped linen edged with old-fashioned reticella embroidery. Crosslegged on the floor next to that sat the girl Katelijne, paintbrush in hand, giving her undivided attention to an immense carved receptacle with a hood. Her eyes, in the kindest phrase, were over-focused, and her tongue adhered to her upper lip like a bat.
Gelis moved. The tableau dissolved. The girl jumped to her feet, hauling down her gown which had been tucked round her hips. Her eyes adjusted. She said, ‘Oh, it’s a woman, thank goodness. I thought it was my uncle. How do you like it? Their cradle.’
She did not say whose cradle it was: the arms of Boyd and the royal arms of Scotland made explanation unnecessary. It certainly, thought Gelis, was not for herself. Small and slight as a leaf, with loose brown hair and hazel eyes in a pale, earnest face, Katelijne Sersanders looked no more than fourteen years old – even less. The age Gelis had been when she found out what her sister and Nicholas were doing.
Gelis said, ‘I’m sorry. Your uncle sent me upstairs, I think, to get me out of the way. It was a bad time to call. I’m –’
‘Oh, I know who you are,’ said the girl cheerfully. ‘Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury. You are lucky. Aren’t you lucky, married to that idiot of a man? Isn’t it awful?’
‘You mean Nicholas?’ said Gelis equably.
The girl gave a peal of laughter. ‘No, the cradle. I hope you had a nice one. He couldn’t wait to get home and see the baby. Is it nice being married? Do sit down.’ She cleared a book from a stool, swept her paints to a tray, scampered her fingers down the edges of all the piled linen and deposited it in three different stacks on a shelf, was sworn at by the parrot, rolled up some sewing and brought over the brazier, swore in unison with the parrot, picked up and slapped away some music, and sat down with a thump on the predella. ‘Is it nice?’ she repeated. She had a smile that darted about, quick as a fish.
‘Being married to an idiot?’ Gelis said. She felt breathless. The parrot was cackling.
‘We all thought he was wonderful,’ said Katelijne. ‘You nearly didn’t get him back. Those poor golfers! The marijuana seeds in the wine! Staggering about with the mirror for Hearty James! The dog-races … and I can’t imagine where he learned to cheat like that at cards. Was it your jew’s trump? I hope you didn’t mind that he gave it to me. It was a wager.’
‘It wasn’t mine,’ said Gelis. ‘Did he play it?’
The girl laughed. ‘He liked the drums better. But you mustn’t think he caused mischief all the time. He learned. He built. He found out about farming. And the music – well, he probably told you.’
‘You tell me,