To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [346]
There were fields beside him now, with cows, sheep. A fisherman. A hamlet, with the single piping voice of a child, talking, talking. Then silence again; the quack of a duck; the metallic chirp of a finch, and the soft hush at his side of deep water. He didn’t look for her, because he knew she would watch for his coming. She had wished this for him: this solitary passage, robbed from the hubbub. Then she called, and he heard her.
She had found a vine arbour outside a small, crooked tavern. The fruiting was over: the leaves arching over the wooden table were yellow and large, half concealing sprigs of deflated black grapes. She had been seated facing him, opposite Archie, whose light hair he could glimpse. She jumped up. Like himself, she wore simple clothes: a plain cloak, with her brown hair scattered unbound over it. Not to be unbound, of course, for very much longer: protocol was strict about that. Her face, roused to colour by the fresh air, wore an expression he might have called resolute; then she ran forward saying, ‘You came.’ Berecrofts rose and emerged from the arbour as well.
It wasn’t Berecrofts.
It was Berecrofts; but it wasn’t Archie. It was Robin.
To show nothing would have been the second greatest feat, perhaps, of all his thirty-two years of play-acting. To respond with immediate cheerfulness, as he did, was the greatest.
He said, ‘Kathi! I understand, of course. All those weeks on the Svipa. Father Moriz has issued an ultimatum. Come and be kissed.’
She came and, holding his arms, lifted her cheek. Not an Icelandic kiss, this time. He already knew, from their faces, that there was no question of an enforced marriage, or he would never have joked. He turned to Robin. Robin, who was half his own age.
He had matured, both in appearance and manner. That had already become obvious. He had the compact build and fresh skin of his father, and the steady gaze which was all his own. He was well born and landed; not only the son of a merchant. And two years ago, at the time of the Florentine ball game, Robin of Berecrofts had been placed under his own hand, to be trained as a gentleman, as a squire, as a knight. Most of Robin’s skills were inherited, but the rest had been learned from Nicholas de Fleury of Beltrees. He had given Kathi her husband.
Robin said, ‘You didn’t come to see us. We thought you were shocked.’ He was smiling, but his eyes held a shadow.
Nicholas said, ‘I think only the truth will serve here. I didn’t see you at that window with Kathi. I saw your father.’
‘And now?’ Robin said. ‘I know I am young.’
‘Are you young?’ Nicholas said. ‘You never seemed so.’
‘I can look after her, you see,’ said the boy.
And then, suddenly, Nicholas was swept by proper feeling; for this was true. Death had always been close to Kathi, fetterless sprite that she was. She had faced it, and was stoical. But now she had an anchor, a shield. A resolute person who was both of those things, but also high-spirited, and courageous, and quick. So, of course, was Archie his father. But Archie was his own age.
Nicholas saw that he had no right to think of himself, and Kathi in relation to himself. She was matched with Robin. The bravery she had shown in Egypt and in Iceland, had been equalled by Robin on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle; at the Markarfljót. He owed Robin his life. That moment of wordless reunion with Kathi, never spoken of since, had been vouchsafed him by Robin, whose face, triumphant, content, he could visualise now, printed against the cold snow, under the flamboyant skies of Hlídarendi. Kathi had fought to bring Nicholas his son; Robin had not only loved Jodi but, protecting him, had suffered hurts and humiliation in silence.
And for little reward. After Diniz, after Felix, Nicholas had distanced himself, of intent, from all the impressionable young who wished, eager, affectionate, to enter his life.
No longer. No longer for this one, at least. The boy waited, his eyes steady and clear as a shepherd’s. Nicholas laughed with