To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [285]
Roger said, ‘I think he is dead.’
‘No,’ said a voice. The unknown doctor, kneeling beside them. He said to Clémence, ‘Go to that child. Tell them no one is to move her till I come back. The other one is all right. Do you know of a Jordan de Fleury?’
All the time, he was examining the boy on the grass. She said, ‘Lord Beltrees’s son? I am his nurse.’
The man looked up. His face was pink. He said, ‘Then what are you doing here? It is your responsibility, I presume, to protect him? Where is he? Where is his mother? Where is Katelijne Sersanders?
‘He is there,’ she said, ‘and unscathed. The two ladies are in attendance at Court. It is your responsibility, I presume, to attend the injured boy under your hand, if your oath counts for anything. I will go and see to the girl.’
She saw, as she went to do what she could, that Dr Andreas was running over the grass, his box under his arm. She was relieved. One heard of all kinds of doctors.
Chapter 39
SEVENTEEN MILES AWAY, at the top of the High Street of Edinburgh, Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren took his ease with his peers at the Castle, clothed, as he had always aspired to be, in the costliest of velvet and furs and envious of nothing he saw, neither the tapestries on the wall, nor the fireplace, nor the silver and gold on the tables of the royal chamber.
Tonight, the King had arranged a small evening distraction of cards, dice and music for the pleasure of her grace his sweet lady Margaret, and in honour of the future prince or princess whom (at last) she was carrying under her girdle. It was a select company, consisting of very little more than the five royal siblings and their favourites. With the King’s sister Margaret was the girl Katelijne Sersanders, about to be married off fast, Simon noticed, now that Nicholas had done with her.
With the Countess of Arran, that moonstruck cow Mary, was her lady of honour Gelis van Borselen.
It was the third time her former lover had contrived to join a company of which Gelis was part; of intent it had always been here, at the Castle, and under the most august of auspices. On the first occasion, he had seen her eyes widen; they had remained wide as he greeted her with exquisite courtesy, and continued to do so for the rest of the slight encounter. She had curtseyed shallowly in response to his bow, and had said little thereafter.
Afterwards the King had chaffed him about it, and Simon had laughed. ‘She is ashamed! It became an embarrassment: I had to thrust her out of my room. In any case, her eyes are elsewhere nowadays. That doublet! My lord King has never looked more comely, in spite of the length of the trimming.’
‘The fur?’ had said the King, looking down. ‘It is fashionable.’
‘For a man of thirty. For a desk-bound merchant, weak in the loins. Praxiteles, had he but clothed his great warriors, would have shown them wearing hose from Milan, of the kind with a spray of gold on the uppermost thigh … When the Duke wears them, they say, it is as if he were coated with honey. Command the lady Mary to the Feast Day next week.’
That time, the lady Gelis had seemed more assured, or at least better prepared for Simon’s tactics. She greeted him as before, with detached coolness, while as before, he showed himself sweetly solicitous. This time, when the feasting was over, the King invited his sister to the dais, and bade the lady Gelis take the cushion below him, speaking to her several times as the evening wore on, and asking to examine her rings. His doublet that night was untrimmed.
Tonight, he greeted both his sisters almost at once, and brought them beside him to play at the tables. Simon, too gleeful to be apprehensive, overheard him address several remarks, in a low voice, to the Countess’s attendant. Gelis replied smiling, but glanced once or twice at the Queen who sat at a distant table and was being plied with attentions and wine by one of the King’s chamber valets.