To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [22]
He saw the monkeys, the dromedaries, the peacocks. He visited the aviary gallery and met Master Bertrand, who wished to show him a cage full of parrots. Some of them mimicked the human voice in langue d’oc, which was different from Greek. In Amboise, they said, all the parrots shouted Péronne; being sequestered by Louis for having been taught to insult him. Poor France.
He was introduced to the wife of Master Bertrand who was black and slender and Moorish. Her name was Cresselle and she spoke Mandingua. He said one word in automatic response and when she looked at him in shock, turned blindly away.
No one had heard. He found himself at the edge of the moat which, instead of water, held a grunting, stinking group of wild boars. This time, Nicholas turned so abruptly that he had to sway to avoid a man who had just walked quietly down from the drawbridge. From his features he was a Jew, a race which King René tolerated more than most rulers, but his scarlet robe and cap carried no emblem.
‘M. Pierre,’ said the Queen, who was nearer than Nicholas had realised. ‘I hoped you would be here. This is Ser Nicholas de Fleury of Venice and Bruges, the guest of monseigneur.’
‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘The boars startled me.’
The man smiled. ‘You mistake. I am not their keeper, but merely a doctor of medicine. Although I do not feel as violently about them as you do. You have always disliked them?’
‘M. de Fleury has had enough of animals,’ said the Queen. ‘And I must go back. You will allow M. de Hurion and Le Prieur to show you where the play is to be staged? Truly, it would interest you.’
‘Perhaps I too might accompany M. de Fleury,’ said the Jew baptised Pierre. ‘The tortures of St Vincent are certainly not to be missed. You may find it hard to choose what you wish to see first: Paradise or the gridiron?’
‘How reassuring,’ said Nicholas, ‘unlike St Vincent, to be given a choice. The gridiron, of course.’
The Queen gave a faint smile and turned to leave. He bowed and saw that she had stopped, as if by impulse, to add something in private. ‘Forgive us if we seem preoccupied. You have seen the King in his sorrow. The prince his grandson is only seventeen. And whatever may happen in England, the King of France has a power which my lord has no means to resist. We cannot even protect our friends.’
‘Your friends understand that,’ Nicholas said. He kept his breathing quite even.
‘Do they?’ she said. ‘Do they understand that if York regains the throne of England, if my lord can be accused of sympathising with Brittany, or entertaining thoughts of turning to Burgundy, Anjou will be taken from him?’
‘Whether monseigneur your husband is guilty of them or not,’ Nicholas said, ‘he will be accused of either or both of these things, should King Louis decide to evict him. Or I should not be here, endangering both you and myself.’
They looked at one another. ‘What you say is true,’ said the Queen. ‘And indeed, Provence is beautiful. The grape is better here, and the Loire is sand, and not salt. But Provence is beautiful.’ She turned to leave. There had been tears in her eyes.
‘You have seen the gridiron, M. de Fleury,’ said the herald Ardent Désir with bitterness. ‘Come now and see God and His angels.’
The play was to take place in the Cattle Market. The immense elevated frame of the royal stand was already there, its new-shorn wood protected by sheets of tarred canvas. As they arrived, a youth in leather apron and leggings hurried forward calling ‘M. Le Prieur!’ The flapped cap on his head enclosed a fresh face of painful anxiety.
‘Eve,’ indicated M. Le Prieur. ‘Also Isachor, Architriclin and Tubal the Paralytic. The son of a smith. His father has just given us five thousand nails.’
‘How …?’ Nicholas said. He had noticed a man with two hutches of rabbits. The alcohol stirred in his veins. Despite himself, happiness, recently rediscovered, suddenly