The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [32]
‘You like everybody,’ said Will Roger. She was right. It was anger. He said, ‘Mistress Phemie, what about you?’
The round, copper eyes had become canopied. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Why is he here?’
Her charge had been listening. The lady Margaret made her red hair flounce with impatience. ‘You’ve just heard. About sailing to Africa. About taking Christ to the black men. Ask him yourself.’
He was touring the room with the Prioress. He was meeting even the cooks. He was talking to Emmelot, who came from Liège, as he would find out to his cost. When he reached the King’s fiery-haired little sister, the lady Margaret didn’t ask about black men. She said, ‘You haven’t taught me or Sandy to swim.’
His doublet velvet was cut in two heights. He said, ‘No, your grace, it’s too cold. I’ll teach you both football instead. Mistress Katelijne, I want my ballocks knife back.’
‘Where?’ said Katelijne, producing it point first in a considering way. Girls with brothers, Will Roger had noticed, were seldom easily flustered.
‘After dark, in the dairy? No? Thank you.’ He received the knife from her and turned. ‘And Master Roger. I thought you wore green. Viva Savoia.’
‘It was only a loan,’ said Will Roger. ‘You’re not very inventive yourself. The same scent, even. I enjoyed the story of Barbaria in Afric. It would curdle milk.’
‘That was the scent,’ de Fleury said. ‘I hear you’re teaching music to everybody: pigs, bell-ringers, ploughmen. Crackbene here wants to learn. And who is the good maidservant Ada, whom, they tell me, you are training to sing to the pots?’
Roger considered the question. The good maidservant Ada was here; he could see her at the back of the room. She had got the baby out, and the wherewithal to feed it, and was applying one to the other with gusto. The child had a large round yellow head and so had Ada. She also had a remarkable chest-voice.
De Fleury, following his gaze, drew a melodious breath. It was, one had to admit, an impressive picture. Roger said, ‘You’re in luck: she usually has a head either side. The lady Mary sent her over, I’m told. Warm your bed in a trice, if you’re staying.’
The breath emerged all at once as a snort. ‘Why not?’ said the other. ‘I’ve been asked to stop overnight. With my former shipmaster: you know him? Crackbene, do you want your bed warmed? No, leave the subject: we’ve been summoned to Dame Elizabeth’s parlour. What shall we talk about there?’
‘Well, sir,’ someone said. ‘What about your precious wife, Gelis van Borselen?’
De Fleury wheeled. Dame Betha, adroitly risen, fell into step alongside him. She said, ‘The lady de Fleury? I hear delightful news, Master Nicholas.’
The Fleming walked on. ‘You know my wife Gelis?’ he said.
She was passably young, for the mother of three and a widow. She was nosy. She said, ‘Do I ken my own wean? Your lady served the King’s sister Mary; I reared her. The Countess of Arran, that is.’
‘And the Earl your father tutored the King. What finer mentors,’ said Nicholas de Fleury, ‘could any man desire for his wife!’ He quickened his pace into the parlour.
If he thought the topic closed, he was wrong. The Prioress sat, and waved de Fleury to a place at her side. Dame Betha leaned over. ‘Prioress, here is the husband of Gelis, and you and I have something to tell him.’ She had small, well-shaped teeth of various colours, and a shrewd eye which she turned on Will Roger.
The musician looked at the ceiling. Warm your bed in a trice. He should have kept his mouth shut, or horn in it.
The Prioress said, ‘Family news perhaps deserves better privacy.’
‘But such exciting news,’ urged Dame Betha. Short and bright-eyed and muscular, she wore the alert look of an excellent badger-hound. Roger assumed the badger had noticed it.
‘Well. I have to congratulate you, M. de Fleury,’ said the Prioress, giving way. ‘The blessed outcome is, of course, in God’s hands, but the news came today, and bears a date in early October. You will rejoice to know that your marriage is fruitful. In March or April next