To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [104]
‘Tilde’s baby!’ said Margriet, flushing again with happy remembrance. ‘And Gregorio and Margot, whose child will come just before mine! All to grow up together, companions to your Jordan! Are we not blessed?’ She broke off. ‘You knew about Margot?’
His smile returned. ‘Yes, of course. We are blessed, as you say. But you are still anxious about something? Or my lord your husband has a message?’
She sat up. She should have made things plain at once. ‘No, no. Anselm has no idea I am here. Anselm thinks he can do everything; asks no help; takes no advice. All the time he was away …’ She bit her lip and stopped. She said, ‘Everything that was correct, we all did. Two births, two christenings, with the great from every land in attendance. My home was not my home for eighteen months. My own children stayed away; Jan was put out of temper … We did our best.’
‘No saint could have done more,’ the young man said. ‘No one knew, I think, that the whole burden would fall upon you.’ He sounded reserved.
‘I did,’ Margriet said. ‘I knew as soon as –’ She broke off again. ‘But Anselm was thinking only of us, and of Jan. The sacred relics he would bring back; the thanks he would receive from the Duke and King James; the goodwill of the Pope – that was for us, for his family.’ She had a kerchief somewhere and started to hunt for it in her layers of clothing.
Claes said, ‘The Princess will remember all that. She is only suffering because the King will not let her join her husband.’
‘She wouldn’t see me!’ Margriet said. ‘I called to see the babies, and your Gelis, and Mary would not come from her chamber! And when I told Anselm, he said he had known all along. He knew the King wouldn’t let Tom return. He knew the King would imprison her. And yet he got her to come.’
There was a silence. She blew her nose. Claes said, ‘Demoiselle? Wasn’t that, too, for the family? It would have been bad for you and for your husband if you had left the Countess in England.’
He was a man. Even so. Margriet van der Banck looked up and rammed down her fist with the kerchief. She said, ‘Have you seen that poor girl? She thinks of nothing, wants nothing but her Tom. And so do her poor fatherless children. What is Anselm’s future or mine compared with that? This is not our country! We could go back to Bruges tomorrow!’
Alonse came in with the milk, looked at her, and left after laying it down. Claes said, ‘You think I can help?’
Her mouth was dry. She picked up the beaker and gulped from it. She said, ‘The Countess will see you. Gelis says she never stops asking for you. Tom said it was your advice to stay together, a family in England, and they would have done that if Anselm hadn’t overruled them. You helped Mary get away once.’
‘I see,’ he said. He seemed to be thinking. He said, ‘I can go and see her, of course. I shall do that. But simply because I helped her before, the house is guarded. It would be almost impossible to get her away. And even if that weren’t so, I might find it harder than you or Ser Anselm to suffer the consequences. I have Gelis and the baby to think of.’
‘Of course,’ she said. Put like that, it was plain. Her throat was painful, and she cleared it. She said, ‘It’s just that I’d like Mary to know that we wouldn’t hurt her, and did what we thought best. Anselm is so … He sometimes can’t see beyond his own family. And the King is grateful enough, but sore that Mary has not come to stay of her own accord, and cooler than Anselm expected. If you could tell the King that we did all we could. Not,’ said Margriet, in a sudden burst of recollection, ‘that I could ever take to Thomas Boyd or his father.’
‘That should earn you the King’s pardon for almost anything,’ said Claes with a faint smile. The lids had dropped over his eyes. He said, ‘I’m not sure that the King would welcome interference, but I shall do what I can. I’ll see the Princess,