To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [132]
He laughed. ‘I want you to think I want you to think I am going away after Yule.’ He was smiling directly at her, without the dimples.
‘But you are going to take Jordan to see Bel.’
‘After the Play. Yes. Otherwise you might think you know what I am going to do. And you don’t, Gelis,’ he said. ‘But if you want to play on, then so be it.’
‘Of course I want to play on. I am practising Comedy,’ Gelis retorted.
He smiled a little and rose, collecting his satchel. It was so smooth. Suddenly, it was all much too smooth for her temper. She said, ‘What a callous fool you are, Nicholas. Have you ever given this a thought until now? What would your Jordan have done if I had listened to you on Mount Sinai? What if you and I still die together? What then?’
‘Bel could go and live in Veere. Wolfaert would love it,’ he said.
It still sounded smooth, but it was not: he had gone rather white. It might mean little. It might mean that he had nothing like the defences that she had imagined. And, unexpectedly, he didn’t stop, but went on, as if under compulsion.
‘I thought of Jordan as much as you did that day. I made the same choices that you did, over and over. If you forget that: if you forget why we are together at all, then we should have walked over.’
She rose slowly, her gaze locked in his. Her view of him shimmered. She heard him take a single short breath; and then he turned and walked to the door.
She stood, watching him leave. He was on his way, she knew, to a score of different places, ending at Holyrood. In the doorway he met and spoke to someone, clearing his throat. The other voice was that of the Sersanders girl, Kathi. By the time the exchange ended, Gelis was ready for her, but for the tremor that could not be stilled in her hands.
From pique or from tact, Katelijne Sersanders had gradually stopped coming to the house in the High Street as the enterprise matured, and with it Gelis’s involvement. She had also abandoned Willie Roger. Nicholas, wholly immersed, had not particularly noticed her abstinence: just now, as Gelis had heard, he had paused chiefly to ask after her aunt, who was within six weeks of her delivery. Almost immediately, he went on his way, and Kathi knocked and came in.
‘Chess?’ Gelis said brightly. ‘I was eavesdropping.’
The girl shook back her hood. Her hair was short, like Gelis’s own, though caught up and pinned to look longer. It was easy to forget that this large-eyed child had travelled as she had through the Egyptian wilderness, and was just eighteen, and interfering, and marriageable.
Katelijne Sersanders said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you, but Archie of Berecrofts wants you to come to supper tomorrow, and his housekeeper has sent a bundle for Robin, and there’s a treat for the parrot, but he has to sing for it first. The chess is just a sort of joke.’
‘You are going to tell me that Nicholas plays,’ Gelis said. Speaking his name was an effort.
‘I expect he does,’ Katelijne said. Her voice remained, as ever, perfectly sensible. It occurred to Gelis what a good nun she would make. She listened to Kathi explaining the joke about chess. It concerned an English translation of a book by Jacobus de Cessoles, in which everyone from the Duchess Margaret in Ghent down seemed to be taking a hand.
‘The French is so difficult? What is it called?’ Gelis said. She relieved the girl of her bundles and brought across a platter of sweetmeats. The plate shook and she lost one.
‘The Game and Playe of the Chesse. No, the translator’s forgotten his English. He’s in Cologne, hence the appeal to the Banco di Niccolò. Master Julius tried to help by sending a verse or two to M. de Fleury, and M. de Fleury just made it worse. That is, you couldn’t print it. You couldn’t even repeat it.’
‘You couldn’t?’ said Gelis teasingly. She had almost recovered. She realised suddenly that Kathi knew