To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [294]
Tobie didn’t stay long. He was used to children, but not necessarily devoted to them. He had seen all he needed to know about this one. And he didn’t wish to tarnish the golden event of the day, which had clearly been already provided by Nicholas. On the way out, Mistress Clémence surprisingly suggested a turn in the herb-garden and, taking a cloak, led him outside to a bench. They were immediately surrounded by chaffinches, to whom she absent-mindedly sprinkled some crumbs from her apron. Through a casement he could hear Pasque squawking and the child chortling with laughter.
He said, ‘He is a credit to you, Mistress Clémence. A charming, vigorous child.’
‘A normal-enough child,’ she said. She could have been any age. She looked older than she probably was, with her hair strained out of sight and her lean, erect figure. Her ankles were good. She had a nose that would make two of his snout. He had met a lot of nurses like her.
He said, ‘I was speaking to the demoiselle Kathi about the accidents, and the attack on yourself. I hope they will cease now. I wanted to tell you that I met your kinsfolk at Chouzy.’
‘The sieur de Fleury mentioned it,’ said the nurse. ‘I am glad they were able to send for you. Broken bones badly set can lame an active young man.’
‘You have known him long?’ Tobie said.
‘For twenty months,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘I was appointed, with Pasque, by the child’s mother. Both parents appear satisfied with my services and I have no other plans at the moment. About the wagon.’
‘The accident?’ Tobie said.
She said, ‘I have told Lord Beltrees that I agree that the descent of the wagon was deliberate. The boy Henry is spoiled, and was perhaps excessively punished. The family were moved to retaliate.’
‘The boy Henry’s bones were not broken,’ Tobie said. ‘He was not excessively punished.’
‘You were there?’
‘I was in the camp where it happened. He betrayed the men who had befriended him. But for your master, he would have been hanged.’
There was a silence. ‘I see,’ said the woman at last. ‘I am glad. I had conceived the sieur de Fleury to be a moderate man, generally managing well under some stress. I had hoped I was not wrong.’
Generally. Tobie looked at her. ‘You are not wrong,’ he said. ‘But if you ever have doubts, send for me.’
She was curious, which was fair enough. She knew of more than one lapse, and was uneasy about her small charge, which was commendable. She knew enough about Gelis and Nicholas to wonder what was going to happen. He shared the feeling, but had no intention of telling her so. He felt on the whole reassured.
The winter fled past, bringing extraordinary snippets of news, some amusing, some not. Two deaths occurred. Bessarion, Cardinal Patriarch of Constantinople departed life in December at Ravenna, ill and broken and too weak to return to his haven at Rome. He had achieved more than any one man in reconciling the two Christian Churches, but died unfulfilled.
The second death, mourned by suffering princes, was that of Giammatteo Ferrari da Grado, the famous physician and uncle of Tobie. Having wasted more time than he thought reasonable at his sickbed, Tobie declined to go to his funeral. His money was willed to other nephews, and his books were partitioned between them and the hospital of Pavia. His printing presses Tobie had already appropriated.
In November, a flotilla of ships conveyed Catherine Corner from Venice to Cyprus, there to take up her long-deferred position as Queen to James de Lusignan, known to his familiars as Zacco. Catherine was visibly delighted from the very first sight of her husband. The King, observers noted, was speechless. It was left to that accomplished courtier David de Salmeton, whose trading company had paid for the wedding, to articulate the King’s indisputable rapture.
The usual truce for the winter was completed between the armies of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and Louis, King of France, and the Duke filled in the time by sending an envoy to England to discuss a combined April attack on King Louis, together with