To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [136]
Instead of seedlings and moisture the wind distributed words, and sighs following words – Ave Gloriosa! Swirling about the small hills: Craiglockhart and Blackford and Braids, music fell like ash on their slopes; and the voices of children – pleni sunt caeli gloria tua – were borne by the stout vanes of seabirds winging from Cramond to Bass. Watching them, men saw that the underclouds carried thumbprints of light, and sudden colours, and once a spray of crackling sparks, as if someone had grated down a half-pound of thunder and lightning, and tossed it for joy.
Dr Andreas said, ‘Of course you are tired, but your baby is not! He is angry; he is straining to meet you; you must give him your strength. Brace yourself. Push!’
Towards the end, there was nothing but music: noble; expansive. The light blazed, and the Star, and the poetry ceased, giving way to the voices, at first transparent and low. The music thickened, beginning its climb. The secret trumpets suddenly burst into sound from the roof-tops, and the four organs began their low thunder.
Dr Andreas said quietly, ‘Take your time. Rest. The boy will wait. The Bride of God suffered as you are suffering, and also had joy.’
Anselm Adorne said, ‘I do not want this child. Save her.’
On the stage, in the stands, nothing moved except a veil touched by the wind, or the threads of a child’s hair, or the sudden spark of a jewel. The sound reached its apogee, vibrating through earth, flesh and bone, physical and spiritual at once; plangent, tender, triumphant. Emmanuel!
The paean stopped. The silence clamoured and raged, beating about in distraction like a soul torn from its casing and lost. Then it deadened and the people stirred, and moved, and made their opinion known.
In the house of Anselm Adorne, a woman was screaming.
Jordan screamed. At first, Nicholas did not hear him, such was the uproar about him. His fingertips ached. He saw that the Queen was weeping, her face concealed in her kerchief; that all the men and women he could see had tears on their cheeks. On the stage, everyone was looking at him, and he tried to break from his stiffness and smile, but it was difficult. He felt Willie Roger’s hand at his neck. The composer’s face, contorted, produced no words at all. Nicholas smiled at him too. Then he heard Jodi crying, and looked for him.
Gelis was there, attempting to comfort her struggling son. She was white. The child pulled himself free and stood apart, his eyes clenched, his mouth open, shrieking. She said, ‘He won’t say what is wrong.’
‘Jodi?’ Nicholas said.
The child opened his eyes, his chest heaving. Nicholas knelt and, stretching out his cramped hands, closed them fast about the boy’s doubled fists.
‘Scream,’ he said. ‘Scream for me, too.’
Gelis exclaimed. Clémence of Coulanges touched her, and spoke with a smile. ‘It is nothing. When you are a child, you think that something wonderful will go on for ever. And that was something wonderful, was it not?’
No one had left. Like Jordan, they remained in their hundreds, close to the stage, as if by adhering to it, the experience would somehow continue. Jodi’s screaming had died, replaced by ordinary sobbing. Nicholas looked round, and Mistress Clémence drew out a kerchief and knelt. Presently, with a glance for permission, she lifted the boy into her arms, and did not chide when he laid his cheek to her neck and cuddled close. Nicholas watched, and then turned the same smile to Gelis, who did not smile back. Then the royal party arrived.
He was used to it. Even at this extraordinary moment, he found the right tone, the right expression, the right words to deal with the chaotic mixture of raw sensibilities and royal formality. It was the same, after that, with everyone else who surged round him, securing him as in a clamp to the place where it had happened, although it was over. He became aware in due course that, although he had not escaped, at least he was mobile: that a phalanx of companions