To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [231]
He saw the boy placed in his bed, and the nurse followed him out of the room. She said, ‘He is very young to take on rough seas.’
He smiled. ‘I’m not proposing to go back to Iceland, Mistress Clémence. I hope you have no objection to a summer in the Low Countries, while I look after some business. My wife will be with us, and my step-daughters will be near, among others. He can have a pony, if you think he is ready for one. But there is time to plan: we shall be here for another three weeks at least.’
‘He is a good boy,’ she said.
‘I can see that. And you have been a good friend to him. Thank you.’
She went back into the room. Limping, to the head of the stairs, he thought again how skilful she was at not asking questions. He hoped she didn’t really know how he was feeling. And now he had to go and see Gelis.
He took out a lion, tossed it, and clapped it on the back of his hand. A sound made him look up. Mistress Clémence, bearing a lamp, had emerged from the boy’s door again and was looking at him with curiosity. He said, ‘Face or pellet?’
‘Face,’ she said at once.
It was face. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I have to stay sober.’
Gelis was reading. Gelis was wearing a night-robe he had cause to recognise, and had unbound her hair, so that it fell over the silk, wheat on ivory. Her skin was flushed from the warmth of the brazier, and the lamp on its stand at her side glowed on the cushions, the carvings, her thin-fingered hand on the vellum. She wore several costly and beautiful rings. The lamp-oil was scented.
‘You should try halibut-oil,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or fulmar. Very easy to repel people with fulmar. Were you expecting Simon or someone?’
Her eyes were jökull colour, and patient. ‘This is how I always retire. You wouldn’t know.’
‘And that is true,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have just told Mistress Clémence that we shall be leaving for Flanders by the end of April. I have to see to the business and settle Astorre.’
‘I hope you asked her if the arrangement would suit her?’ Gelis said. ‘She is an excellent woman.’
‘I did, and she has agreed. You have no option,’ said Nicholas, taking a seat uninvited. ‘Apart from anything else, I hear that the good vicomte de Ribérac has set free his impetuous son. Simon could be back in Scotland by May.’
The artifical surprise covered, he thought, a real one. She said, ‘I thought you didn’t mind if we resumed our affair?’
The doublet irked his bruised skin: he pulled open some of the buttons and relaxed, clasping the cords of his shirt to his chest. ‘I thought he wanted to kill you,’ he said. ‘But you may have more recent advice. In any case, I’d prefer to be present. In the same country, that is. Otherwise people would watch you too closely.’
‘So he and I have to wait until winter?’ she said. ‘That seems a little unfair, after last night. Who was she?’
‘The connection of a frequenting man. No one you know. It was all done, as I said, for your benefit. May we move on to some planning?’
‘You are lying. Why?’ she said.
In fact, he was not. He stared at her until he thought her colour changed. Then he said, ‘Why was that so important? It doesn’t trouble me when you lie. You detest Simon, and if you aren’t frightened of him, you ought to be. You made him look like an idiot.’
‘But you’ll protect me when we come back in the autumn. Don’t you know,’ Gelis said, ‘how hatred and love come together? It might be dangerous.’
‘I know,’ he said. It was a general affirmation. It amused him to see that it made her first flush, and then become very pale. Then he turned the talk to the humdrum matters of their exit from Scotland and he saw her engage her intelligence. She understood the importance of Burgundy to their future. The supreme importance, if the Duke were to obtain the sovereignty that he wished, and the Emperor were to support him. Then bankers would come into their own.
At the end he stood with an effort. ‘Thank you. I must go to bed.’
‘You are short of sleep.’ She rose also. ‘How do you know you can afford a new house in Bruges? Beltrees must have