The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [58]
He was sitting up, now. ‘You mean she played ball with you?’
‘I mean she knows what Henry did, but hasn’t told. So does Simon. And my uncle, of course.’
‘And the King?’ he said. There was no urgency in the question. He was well enough for that.
‘Believed your story implicitly. He’s rounded up all the Horse Market vagrants and released them after a thrashing. The better class of citizen would like to put you up for a civic award. What does Berecrofts think?’
‘The same. That I resent being robbed, and am prepared to pay to be spoiled. So spoil me.’
‘Pay me,’ said Katelijne.
He considered her. He said, ‘Open that casket, and take out the two largest objects inside.’
The two largest objects were a pack of playing cards and a jew’s trump.
He said, ‘I am now going to teach you a very coarse game. If you win, you get the trump. If you lose, you have to walk on your hands back to the priory.’
‘On my horse’s back?’ she said, bargaining.
‘Providing you dress as you were in the water.’
‘And that’s only worth a trump?’
‘I could improve the offer. What would you do for a guittern?’
‘I’ll settle,’ she said, ‘for the trump.’
It was the twang of the little instrument, and the raised voices, that brought Berecrofts to the door half an hour later. The girl left, the right way up, with her servants. Later still, when the harm had been assessed and Andreas, returned from the sickbed, required an explanation, Archie had been defensive. ‘All he wanted was news. He made her talk. She only stayed half an hour. Well, it brought him to life at least, didn’t it?’
That much was true, and although it brought him a fever as well, he emerged his own man, primed and ready for all that had to be done, and done quickly. When next Katelijne arrived, this time with Will Roger as escort, de Fleury was in no want of news but, leaving his laden desk readily, engaged in an arrow-shower of chatter and badinage which this time was patently effortless. Katelijne, rising to combat, spoke faster and faster: it was the musician who slowed in the end, spent with laughter.
It was not a long ride to Emmanuel. Will Roger said, ‘So what do you think?’
Two weeks before, de Fleury had dismissed Andreas his doctor. It was because of Andreas they had come. Katelijne said, ‘Sometimes the nuns speak and think very slowly. Then I feel the way I think he is feeling.’
Will Roger grunted. Although he made no concessions, she knew that she was watched; and that he had drawn some conclusions. He would agree, no doubt, with her parents. He said, ‘He should let his business alone for a while.’
‘You would. He wouldn’t,’ Katelijne said. ‘He’s cramming everything in. I think he does intend to get back to his wife by the spring. I think the Ghost is coming to take him.’
‘So anxious a father? You’d think he’d apply for reassurance to Andreas,’ Roger said. ‘Or is that why …?’
‘That’s why there is no Dr Andreas. Dr Andreas offered to study his stars.’
‘And got sent away. Why? I would have listened. He hasn’t offered to study my stars,’ said Will Roger.
‘You haven’t got any stars. You were born in a whistle. You couldn’t give me an A.’
‘Yes I could,’ said Will Roger, and made his tuning-fork chime. It began to snow while they were alternately singing and racing each other, but they hardly noticed, they were so entertained.
Christmas came. Simon of Kilmirren, returned to acceptance, spent the height of the season at Court with a much qualified wardrobe, and passed the rest of his time at Kilmirren, drilling Henry. Bel of Cuthilgurdy, being of a nature which (grimly) never imposed itself uninvited, filled her comfortable house with comfortable friends, and generated some moderate happiness. Lucia, passing between homesteads, took care to see neither Bel nor her brother.
The boy Henry did not appear at Court at all, having been beaten by Simon, the other boys claimed, and his armour sold off. The borrowed armour of Simon, the more reliable story ran, had been returned to de Fleury with an apology