To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [102]
By sheer chance, she was putting all the arguments most calculated to be helpful. Govaerts decided to keep quiet. The lady Gelis said, ‘I see. I am sorry about your aunt. But this is not a large house. They tell me your uncle crossed with a retinue of a hundred.’
‘Some of them stayed in England with the Earl and his father,’ said the girl. ‘Some were my uncle’s. The Countess will have no more than a dozen, and some of them can stay with us. We are only next door.’
‘We?’ said the lady Gelis.
‘The Edinburgh house of the Priory,’ said the girl. She had reddened a little, but her voice remained instructive and bright. ‘When the Prioress couldn’t find satisfactory premises, M. de Fleury bought the house next to this, and presented it to them. I think,’ said Katelijne Sersanders, ‘that you will find the nuns very helpful, and the King’s own household as well.’
‘I am sure,’ said the Lady slowly. She gazed at the girl. She said, ‘I am surprised by one thing. Does the King trust M. de Fleury not to enable the Princess to cross the Border and join her husband a second time?’
Govaerts moved, and saw the girl glance at him reassuringly. She said, ‘He wouldn’t dare: he has nothing to gain by it this time. And anyway, there will be a guard on the door, you can depend on it. Also, you might disguise her, but you couldn’t easily smuggle out a small boy and a baby. Should I speak to Mistress Clémence about them?’
‘Mistress Clémence may decide to leave,’ the lady Gelis said. ‘She and Pasque. And what then?’
‘Betha Sinclair,’ said the girl. ‘And they have a wet-nurse and a maid of some kind. But Mistress Clémence won’t leave. You know she won’t. Jordan is safe.’
Shortly after that, Govaerts left. He saw the two women watch him go, but didn’t hear what they said.
‘He disapproves of me,’ Gelis said.
‘He’ll come round. He’s a little jealous. He’s loyal to M. de Fleury, but doesn’t understand him a bit,’ Kathi said. ‘It’s Robin you’ll have all the trouble with. You know he’s going to be here as a page when he’s better?’
‘So I heard. Jordan will be delighted. Trouble?’
‘He thinks he’s M. de Fleury’s grandfather,’ Kathi said. ‘M. de Fleury gets irritated. Robin’s father is good with them both. And I thought the parrot might help. To relieve the emotion.’
‘Nicholas experiencing emotion?’ Gelis said.
There was a silence. Then the girl said, ‘No. It was Robin I meant.’
By the time Nicholas came back, the lady Mary was installed in the house with the orchard in Edinburgh; and nurses, children, cooks, stewards, chamber servants, maids, attendants and the changing ranks of the Countess’s bodyguard had all been variously established, dispersed, and given their orders by Gelis. The orchard had been partly dug up, and the household, to hear Will Roger, was being run on the lines of a military establishment. ‘If you ever lose Astorre, your lady wife could take his place.’
‘I really wanted to marry Astorre,’ Nicholas said automatically. ‘Gelis was just a substitute.’
He had come back to the house in the Canongate, and had already called to see Robin next door. The boy had been jumping about with a spear in the garden, his arm all strapped up, and had wanted to join him at once. Nicholas had told him he was going away, but would see him when he came back. He didn’t want Robin with him when he was divining, or not on this trip. Archie, at least, had been relieved.
Now he had to reassure Willie, who had come into the counting-house ostensibly to speak to one of his altos, but actually to quarrel with Nicholas over the Mystery Play.
Nicholas said, ‘Willie, you have every expert I possess, plus the entire resources of the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, plus all the stuff I brought over from France. You don’t need me.’ On his desk in the next room were five sacks of dispatches and