To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [246]
‘Don’t you agree the lady Charlotte is gross? On the other hand, you can couple with her for three months and more without penalty. I’ll show you how to unlock her chamber. Was your mother a whore?’
‘What? No!’ said Robin.
‘Paul’s was. Paul is my lord Wolfaert’s bastard,’ said Henry, waving to Paul at the other end of the table. ‘He has others, of course, but he usually pays seamen to claim them. He once had four girls in a night. I once had two end to end. What about you?’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Robin; but the boy had turned away, and the man next to him was staring, so that he began talking to him rather wildly about Scotland. It came to him, sickeningly, that this boy was Nicholas de Fleury’s nephew by marriage, and the first cousin of Jodi.
The next time the dulcet voice spoke into his ear, it was to mention monseigneur. ‘But who,’ Henry said, ‘can claim these days to be conceived in lawful bed? I can, of course. Your master does not even know who his father might be – his mother, poor bawd, was open to all passing traffic. And it is hardly to be expected that Catherine over there didn’t pick up the trick – wave! See, she is smiling! – with lusty young Claes in the same house. Then he abandoned her – you do know? – for the boys in a Trebizond bath-house, leaving her to earn her keep in the bed of a murderer. Catherine and Paul, the bawd and the bastard! A marriage, wouldn’t you say, made in heaven?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Robin said. ‘You are wrong. And even if you were not, Lord Beltrees is your own uncle.’
The change in the seraphic blue eyes turned him cold. Then, after an interval, the boy spoke, less guardedly than before. ‘Claes,’ he said. ‘The ape is called Claes, or maybe Lord Billygoat. His wife might enjoy thuggish handling, but Claes vander Poele shares none of my blood, and his son is the son of an animal.’
‘Henry?’ said the lord Wolfaert’s voice. It was impatient, not shocked. He had heard the tone, not the sense of the outburst.
Henry turned his bright head, his face pale. ‘My lord, forgive me,’ he said. ‘But I cannot bear to hear light words of my mother, even though she is dead, and I know my lord of Beltrees is happily married. If you will excuse me, I shall go to my room.’ A tear had caught in his lashes.
‘Of course,’ said the seigneur of Veere slowly. He watched the boy leave, and then returned his heavy gaze upon Robin. The table was silent.
Robin got to his feet. He said, ‘I am sorry, my lord. The young man was mistaken. But if you will excuse me, it might be better if I go to my room also.’
‘You are excused,’ Wolfaert said; and turned to his neighbour.
Robin did not go to his room. Instead, he followed the noise to the nursery, and dragged Pasque out of the room. ‘We must go home.’
It was like holding a chicken. ‘What? What? Are you crazy? We have hardly arrived!’
He tried to explain. But even if he had known her vernacular, her desire to remain would have thrown back a legion of Goths. ‘So you and some spoiled child have quarrelled! You are the guest! Go to the lord, and apologise, and make your peace! Or if you cannot admit you are wrong, then go home. We do not need you,’ said Pasque.
‘You do!’ said Robin. ‘Pasque, he could hurt us.’
‘Hurt old Pasque? A silly boy of eleven? Go along,’ said the woman. ‘Find the boy. Make it up. I am busy.’
He saw, soon enough, that it was hopeless to argue, and that he was unlikely to make an ally of Pasque, or the bodyguard. He had no case to make, other than an account of a conversation, which the boy would deny, and a feeling of extreme foreboding. The boy was only eleven, and parroting the language of elders – but even so, what had happened was not accidental. Robin had been placed in disfavour, and it would take little more to persuade the lord of Veere to send him home. Robin did