To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [300]
The marriage was not quickly achieved, for there were kinsmen to summon, ceremonies to be arranged, contracts to be drawn up. They were signed in the great hall of the castle, below the Hanseyck coat of arms, with his new step-daughter grave at his side. Then his wife led him into the banquet and they sat upon the great chairs together: Julius de Bologna of the Banco di Niccolò and Anna von Hanseyck, his bride.
He had written to Nicholas. The Cologne agent had sent his separate, studied account. Nicholas, receiving both, read them in silence, and then dispatched his congratulations, with a gift.
By that time, Nicholas himself had begun to prepare for his April departure. He worked with a progressive sense of achievement accompanied, characteristically, by a precarious and growing elation. He had succeeded. He was going to succeed. He began to recover, unremarked, the unwarranted soaring of spirits which had propelled him, in his volatile boyhood, into so much trouble at home.
Chapter 41
THE SNOW WAS not, in the first place, the fatal factor, nor was the sudden, peremptory freeze: Nicholas held the belief that he no longer found extremes of climate exciting. In any case, on that particular day, he was fully occupied in his house in the High Street, chatting to Mistress Clémence and Jordan; discussing with Gelis the routine appointments of family life.
The organisational talents of Gelis were inclined to rile Govaerts; Nicholas had adroitly identified a distinct sphere of power for each which left him under the jurisdiction of neither. In these sessions, he generally found something amusing to argue about; her views could be mordantly shrewd. In theory, it kept alive and continued the family relationship that now contained them. He did not find it easy.
He was not especially receptive, accordingly, when Kathi Sersanders skipped into the room, followed by a crimson-faced porter. The Nor’ Loch was bearing. Might Jodi take part in the revels?
He perceived, of course, all the goodwill behind the suggestion, but thought it preposterous and said so. He was taken aback when Mistress Clémence, of all persons, disagreed.
‘The child is growing up in captivity. He requires some stimulation. If he is with another family, and muffled, Lord Beltrees, I for one would expect him to be safe.’
‘Archie has all these nephews and nieces,’ Kathi urged. ‘And it would show Robin that you trust him.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Nicholas. Simon was in Kilmirren, but he had agents. So had Martin.
‘Go yourself. You can skate. Take the lady Gelis. So long as you keep away from the Berecrofts and Jodi, you can watch them.’
‘I have been taught to skate,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘If I am seen there alone, it will convince any watcher that the boy is safe at home with the house guard and Pasque.’
‘Well, perhaps,’ Nicholas said. ‘But you must not go alone.’
*
All the rest of the year, the Nor’ Loch lay in its hollow below the steep ridge of the High Street and mirrored the Castle in its flat reedy expanse. Turned to ice, it now reflected the red of the sunset and the torches streaming downhill towards it, while braziers winked on its surface and candlelight began to glow inside booths. The ice, rubbed by skates and pitted with boot- and hoof-studs, unrolled like a half-frosted painting beneath the busy feet of the crowd, and from the Lang Gait to the Castle, the whitened banks threw back a scribble of noise: the excited screaming, the snatches of drumming and whistling, the yapping and barking of dogs, tinny in the sparkling air.
Tobie said, ‘I thought only Netherlanders made sport on ice. Where did you learn?’
‘In the Netherlands,’ said Mistress Clémence.
Her face beneath the white cap and hood was benign, and her skirts were correctly shortened to take account of the skates. She was taller than he was. Tackled privately, he had protested at the whole idea of escorting her, until Kathi’s elevated eyebrows had reminded him that the safety of Jodi was in question. He watched, out of the corner of his eye, a group